Obama's Doctor Knocks ObamaCare

[GoesTo11]

Article from Forbes, via Yahoo Finance.

http://finance.yahoo.com/insurance/article/107216/obamas-doctor-knocks-obamacare.html;_ylt=A0wNc9PkbT5Kg9wAlQxO7sMF?mod=insurance-health

David Scheiner, an internist based in the Chicago< neighborhood of Hyde Park, has a diverse practice of lower-income adults from the nearby housing projects mixed with famous patients like U.S. Sen. Carol Mosely Braun, the late writer Studs Terkel and, most notably, President Barack Obama.

Scheiner, 71, was Obama's doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House; he vouched for the then-candidate's "excellent health" in a letter last year. He's still an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but he worries about whether the health care legislation currently making its way through Congress will actually do any good, particularly for doctors like himself who practice general medicine. "I'm not sure he really understands what we face in primary care," Scheiner says.

===

Then, to show that the whole headline is an attempt to mislead, we find out that Obama's doctor really wants compensation for the highest paid doctors cut way back, and to have medicare for all.

[robinlynne]

1. How does that make the headline misleading? The article is right on. SINGLE PAYER

healthcare is the answer.

[billyoc]

3. It's unflattering to Obama, ergo, it must be misleading.

:eyes:

[GoesTo11]

7. Generally, ObamaCare is used by opponents of reform

and is meant to imply too much government intervention. This doctor supports intervention. We don't often hear supporters of single payer referring to watered down plans as ObamaCare. For example, the doctor quoted in this article didn't use the term ObamaCare.

[billyoc]

9. Don't "we"?

[robinlynne]

14. exactly. As far as I know around 70% of the public supports single-payer. And we are all

against the government plan because it continues to simply throw money at big corporations.

[sandnsea]

17. No. About 70% supports a public option

or some means of government guaranteed health coverage, along side private insurance. About 48% support single payer and about 48% oppose.

[sandnsea]

6. There's 5 "Obamacare" articles there

They all are against the plans in Congress that they are labeling "Obamacare", in one form or another. This particular article has his doctor opposing "Obamacare", when the truth is the doctor supports single payer. It's the complete opposite of the rest of the articles but they're counting on their readers just reading the headlines and drawing the conclusion that everybody is against the public option.

Sometimes you've got to be objective and read things from the target that the publication is trying to reach. Then you see how your language helps them block progress.

[MADem]

2. Former doctor, actually. His present doctor is likely a USN senior officer who ain't sayin' shit.

And the point you made is pretty stark below the headline!!!

What should the president be focused on? Scheiner thinks that a good health reform would be "Medicare for all," a single-payer system where the government would cover everyone and pay for it by cutting out waste in the system. "A neurosurgeon gets paid $20,000 for cutting into the neck of my patient. Have him get paid $1 million a year instead of $2 million or $3 million. He won't starve," Scheiner says.

Scheiner thinks that Obama's "public plan" reform doesn't go far enough. He supports the idea of that option for people who don't like or can't afford their HMO. But he worries that it will be watered down or not happen at all. "It's nonsense that the private insurance companies need to be protected," he says. "Why? Because they've done such a good job?"

He thinks that Americans have been scared into believing that they will lose the coverage they already have if a public plan is created. And he worries that nobody cares about the 50 million uninsured. "I have people who have lost their jobs and come to me and I give them drug samples," he says.

Scheiner says he thinks that Obama probably sees the virtues of a single-payer system but has decided it would be politically impossible to create one.

Reid Cherlin, an assistant White House press secretary who covers health issues, wrote in an e-mailed statement, "The President has been clear that while a single-payer system may work in some countries, it makes the most sense for us to build on what works in the system we have and to fix what's broken.....

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. Er, USN medical is "socialized." nt

[MADem]

10. I wish that were so, but it's not. The sad truth is, the more senior you are,

the better the odds that you'll get "extraordinary" care. If you're a member of Congress getting treated at Bethesda, you'll get that private room, make no mistake! If you're an E-3, you won't.

However, that said, everyone gets a decent standard of care...pretty much. There are always exceptions and the inevitable horror stories.

And USN care is restricted to an "elite" group--those who serve in uniform or who are members of Congress. Staffers on the Federal health plan don't get to go to Walter Reed or Bethesda--Senators and Congressmen do. Heck, Strom Thurmond LIVED (no I am not kidding, he LIVED) at Walter Reed for the last few years of his life. He was trundled out to vote, and then trundled back home.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

19. Sad.

[MADem]

20. Truth is, though, the lowest ranking sucker gets, on average, better care, than

people paying a grand or more a month for private insurance get.

AND...if you lose a leg or an arm, it's BIONIC MAN/WOMAN time! The very best, the very latest, state of the art, computerized stuff! The BEST rehab, too!

But .... that's not something any of us wish for, now, is it?

Truth: There will always be elites. There are elites in America, there were elites in Commie Russia, there are elites in Iran, in Cuba, in places that play the "We are all the same" game. We aren't all the same. Sadly, it is human nature for some humans to think they're more important than the rest of us. Others eschew that attitude totally. That's a big difference, right there.

It's an odd trait, that "dominance" thing. Death, of course, is the great equalizer. At that point, we ARE all the same!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

21. Thanks for confirming #10.

:hi:

[Demit]

8. Love Scheiner's quote about the neurosurgeon...

'"A neurosurgeon gets paid $20,000 for cutting into the neck of my patient. Have him get paid $1 million a year instead of $2 million or $3 million. He won't starve," Scheiner says. ..."It's nonsense that the private insurance companies need to be protected," he says. "Why? Because they've done such a good job?"

He thinks that Americans have been scared into believing that they will lose the coverage they already have if a public plan is created. ...'



We need proponents in the media like Dr. Scheiner who talk straight talk like this, to counteract the scaremongers.

[sandnsea]

4. The new demonization. Hillarycare=Obamacare

Never mind that the headline pretends that the doctor is against that horrific socialized "Obamacare", when he's actually not for what's on the table and that Obama hasn't proposed any specific health care plan at all.

[robinlynne]

15. There is NOTHING socilialized about Obama's plan. wish there were.

[sandnsea]

16. But Forbes Readers Don't

The article is one of several in Forbes. It's not written for you, it's written as one of many attacks on "Obamacare". They don't care that the headline misleads their readers, and they aren't even thinking about pro-single payer people at all.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. That headline is not misleading

You seem to be trying to mislead if you are confusing what this Doctor and I support and what the President supports.
Please explain what you think is misleading about that headline, in detail. Thanks in advance!

[GoesTo11]

13. This will take a bit, but consider the source.

Certainly, what the doctor supports is not the same as what Obama is proposing. The article correctly reports that. If you were not a DU-er, but rather a typical reader of either Forbes Magazine or Yahoo Finance, you would see the ObamaCare in the headline and interpret that phrase as basically any kind of reform at all, rather than as the exact amount of reform Obama is proposing and no more. If you google the term "ObamaCare" it never has a meaning of being less radical than something else. Almost all of the references are on right wing media outlets (American Spectator, Wall St. Jounral, Washington Times, Weekly Standard), and they all use phrases about, for example, "President Barack Obama's government-run monstrosity". Given the source and the intended audience, the source is trying to mislead its intendeded audience. It is trying to tell its audience that Obama's own doctor doesn't even support his radical plan. A more objective headline would be "Obama's doctor thinks his plan doesn't go far enough." That would be consistent with how you read it and it would lead a casual reader to the correct interpretation.

[sandnsea]

18. Consider the Forbes Sources of the article n/t

[Kansas Wyatt]

12. Why can't people who know Obama from his days prior to being President....

Communicate with him to let him know that he is fucking up big time, when he goes along and rolls over for Corporate Democrats and Corporate America?

For Christ's sake... Is Obama even the slightest bit curious about how people, he's known and trusted in the past, feel about the kind of job he is doing?