10 things I hate about WaPo op-eds
Tuesday, September 8 2009
The Washington Post ran an op-ed by Arthur M. Feldman, MD, titled “10 Things I Hate About Health Care Reform” in Sunday’s ‘Outlook’ section. As a former Post subscriber, I know their editorial board and Outlook in particular have a strong preference for contrarianism for its own sake, facts be damned. This is especially true if they can indulge their other great pasttime, naive credentialism. Dr. Feldman is no Charlotte Allen, but he’s definitely quite a catch for the WaPo.
Here’s the obligatory “good faith” statement:
On a basic level, I’m with the president: Our health-care system needs to be changed so that all of my patients, and all citizens, have access to the care they need.
What the right hand giveth, the left taketh away:
But I don’t agree with how he wants to fix things. Most of my colleagues and I strongly oppose the health-care reform bills that Congress will take up again this week.
I wonder who he means by “colleagues”. Most doctors’ groups have endorsed President Obama’s reform proposals. Anyway, what follows a list of ten things. That he doesn’t like. About health care reform. Number one:
1. Private insurance companies escape real regulation.
Under the bills in Congress, insurance companies will be forced to accept any persons wishing to buy their policies, won’t be allowed to kick them out of their plans, and have to offer the plans at reasonable rates. Contra Dr. Feldman, this is real regulation. I might agree with him that it’s not enough, but Dr. Feldman is delusional if he thinks insurance companies are getting a “free pass”. Ask the insurance companies: they’re fighting tooth-and-nail against reform, including back-door funding to a lot of groups protesting at town hall meetings. The bitter irony here is that Dr. Feldman probably didn’t get paid a cent by the insurance industry, but he’s doing more for them than any hundred astro-turf protesters. Then Dr. Feldman gets to number two:
2. We urgently need tort reform, but it’s nowhere to be seen.
We can only wonder why Dr. Feldman made us wait so long for this one; doesn’t the Hippocratic Oath require “tort reform” to be the first (if not only) thing physicians have in the way of policy ideas?
The copy drones at the Post helpfully sub’d the piece, “One doctor’s orders for how to really fix our system”, but there’s no real plan here. There’s not even that much in the way of constructive suggestions. The entire op-ed, in fact, boils down to Dr. Feldman guarding his turf: it’s all about how we can make the health care system better… for doctors.
Let’s take a wild leap and say you think health care should be about helping sick people. You can tell Dr. Feldman (and, by extension, the Washington Post) what you think of his ideas by joining the Post‘s online ‘chat’ with Dr. Feldman at 2 pm today. It’s not a real chat, in the sense of a conversation with give and take, but at least you have the chance to ‘submit’ questions and comments that Dr. Feldman can choose to respond to (or not). If you do send in a comment, you might add that and his response (if any) to the comments here.
