Many people fear that ObamaCare will necessitate rationing, to curb consumption and cap costs. But an even better bending of the cost curve would be to eliminate care altogether.
As it is obvious there’ll be less turf, turf battles have begun. The September 23 issue of the professional trade journal Dynamic Chiropractic’s front page story describes the Texas Medical Association’s strong-arm lobbying of the state legislature to make it illegal for chiropractic physicians to engage in diagnosis. The rationale: diagnosis constitutes the practice of medicine, thus should be the exclusive province of M.D.s. This follows the logic of the Texas Medical Association’s slow-play lawsuit against the Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners, alleging that their use of electromyography and manipulation under anesthesia is beyond the permitted scope of chiropractic because these procedures require diagnosis, and diagnosis, by definition, is a medical act.
If you don’t use chiropractic care or don’t live in Texas, why should you care?
Should this insanity prevail and set precedent, no chiropractor, podiatrist, acupuncturist, dentist, optometrist, psychologist, child-psychologist or any other health professional could practice without being owned and employed by or provided patients post-diagnosis by an M.D. – thus creating a single portal for all health care, wiping out hundreds of thousands of independent practices, eliminating these kinds of care altogether or miniaturizing its costs by making these doctors wage slaves. It makes government-run health care much easier to actually operate, as many categories of providers go away; a single category remains.
The specific fight between M.D.s and D.C.s is not new and might arguably not be newsworthy in and of itself, especially with its battleground in a single state. But in the new context of Obamacare, this shouldn’t stay buried in professional journals or local Texas news. It should be looked at and discussed by mainstream national news media, because of the forest that might be borne by this acorn.
It fits Obamacare’s theft of choice for patients-consumers, and facilitates the concentration of power. Wipe out insurers and create single-payer, government run health care as the only option – as Obama has stated as his true intention, then make all M.D.s dependent on and controlled by that government entity, and place all other health practitioners under the control of the M.D.s. Now the government can bend that cost curve because it completely controls supply and demand, can dictate price, and never be troubled by all these pesky independent practitioners. Just as the goal is five, maybe six big banks and no others, this scheme leads to a handful of hospital-medical corporate conglomerates and nothing else.
Such entities become quasi-government operations, just like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the USPS, Amtrak. The goal is to make every citizen entirely dependent on the government for virtually everything. All this messy, chaotic, impossible to control capitalism will be replaced with a simple, neat vertical structure easily managed by king and czars.
DeGaulle once complained of France: “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” It is obvious Obama feels the same way about America. How can one man be expected to govern a country with such independent people and so many small, independent businesses. What is de-centralized must be centralized. Any and all independence must be sacrificed for the greater, common good.
Dan Kennedy is a serial entrepreneur, adviser to business owners, sought-after speaker and author of 14 books. His latest, “Make ‘Em Laugh & Take Their Money: A Few Thoughts on Using Humor as a Speaker or Writer or Sales Professional for Purposes of Persuasion [1],” contains a selection of his BMI essays. More information about Dan can be found at www.NoBSBooks.com [2], and a free collection of his business resources including newsletters and webinars at www.DanKennedy.com [3].
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