Op-Ed: Obama's Broken Health Care Promises

Op-Ed

"The American people deserve the facts about the new health care law and how it will affect their families. In too many important ways the new law has not lived up to the president's promises."

President Obama repeatedly promised the American public, "If you like your current health care coverage, you can keep it."

According to a new Obama administration regulation, a majority of Americans with employer-based coverage will not be able to keep their current health care plans.

This one example on a long list of broken health care promises.

Since the bill became law, I deliver a weekly doctor's second opinion about the law from the Senate floor. This is to ensure that Wyoming residents fully understand how the president's new law will impact their care and coverage.

The more Americans learn about the law, the less they like it. Despite a multimillion-dollar public relations offensive by the White House, a recent Rasmussen poll showed that 58 percent of Americans want Congress to repeal the law.

The American people realize that the law does not live up to the president's repeated promises.

The president promised that the law will bring the cost of medical care down and reduce the deficit. The Congressional Budget Office disagrees, saying it erases savings. The actuary at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services says the new law will increase health spending.

The president promised the law will strengthen Medicare. It actually cuts Medicare by half a trillion dollars. To make matters worse, this money is not being used to strengthen Medicare but to start a whole new government program for other people.

The president promised the new law will create jobs. We continue to learn about companies that are cutting their payrolls in order to deal with the massive new tax increases included in this law.
President Obama also promised that the federal government would not ration care. However, he recently nominated someone to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services who has repeatedly acknowledged that the government will have to ration care.

For the past 15 years, the nominee, Dr. Donald Berwick, has been an outspoken supporter and consultant for the British National Health Care System. Dr. Berwick has said, "I am romantic about NHS; I love it. All I need to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country."
In 2009, Dr. Berwick also said: "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care -- the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open." He also said, "Any health care funding plan that is just must redistribute wealth."

Dr. Berwick's embrace of rationing and admiration of the British government-run health care system should alarm America's seniors. After all, the British health care system has one of the worst cancer survival rates of any developed country.

In August 2008, a British medical journal called "The Lancet Oncology" reported that in every category Americans survive cancer at higher rates than patients in other developed countries. American cancer patients have a higher survival rate for every major form of cancer than patients in Canada and Britain. American women have a 35 percent better chance of surviving colon cancer than British women. American men have an 80 percent better survival rate for prostate cancer.

It is not that our doctors are better -- it is that the treatment in America is more timely and accessible.
In Britain, the NHS controls which treatments and drugs doctors are allowed to discuss with their patients. Even if doctors know there are life-saving drugs or procedures that will help patients, if the NHS hasn't approved the cost, they are not allowed to discuss it with their patients.
This isn't a standard that most folks in Wyoming and other communities across our country find romantic.

As someone who practiced medicine in Wyoming for over 25 years, I believe Wyoming patients deserve the most effective and timely treatment. Health care decisions should be made by patients and their doctors, not government bureaucrats whose statements and academic work clearly embrace health care rationing.

The American people deserve the facts about the new health care law and how it will affect their families. In too many important ways the new law has not lived up to the president's promises. It is time to consider alternatives that will improve care and lower costs.

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