Irony of ironies. The president’s closest living relative, other than his sister, is Dr. Milton R. Wolf. He’s Obama’s second cousin, a physican, a conservative and a blogger.
Cousin Barack will not like his opinion of ObamaCare:
Our nation laid to rest this week Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha whose death was the result of a surgical error at a government-run hospital. In the same week of this ill-fated surgery, Canadian Premier Danny Williams escaped the clutches of his nation’s socialized medicine system to seek heart surgery in the United States.
These episodes, while anecdotal, underscore the distinction between free-market and government-run health care. And we need look no further than our own country to see both. Fourteen years into my medical career, I have worked and trained in both the free-market and government run sectors of our health care system. I’ve been in the trenches. I’ve seen lives saved. And lost.
Entering a Veteran’s Administration Hospital is a rite of passage for most medical students. It’s a different world. Gurneys in hallways, crowded multiple occupancy patient rooms, waiting lists, nursing shortages, paperwork … these are the norm. Gone are the niceties of most hospitals and, too often, so is the compassion.
There was a running joke during my training days that all the code blue’s of the VA occurred at 7 AM which was the worst possible time for a frantic medical student already trying desperately to finish an endless list of tasks before morning rounds. Why 7 AM? Because an unattended patient — an American war veteran — died quietly sometime earlier in the night and 7 AM is when the poor tech assigned to the morning blood draws would come across the remains. “Cold codes” we called them. These were exercises in futility whose only purpose was to allow a system to pretend that what had just happened hadn’t.
Our veterans deserve better. My patients deserve better. And so do you. There’s a reason why veterans with means will avoid the VA system just as seniors with means will avoid Medicare. The free-market medical care is simply better. So instead of expanding the government-run portions of our health care system, we should be doing exactly the opposite. We should embrace free-market reforms that will abolish junk lawsuits, rein in government insurance commissioners and allow patients to become empowered consumers.
President Barack Obama may be my cousin, but I consider standing in opposition to ObamaCare to be a call to duty. And while it is this assault on America’s health care that has forced me from the sideline to join the fight, I recognize that health care is but one arena where our liberties are under assault by this administration and others.
Nice to see that socialism doesn’t run very deep in the Obama gene pool.
Check out the good doctor’s website.
Source: Wolf Files
