OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA
(Submitted to the Wall Street Journal, but not published.)



June 12, 2009

President Barach H. Obama
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC  20500

Regarding: Nationalized Health Care

Dear Mr. Obama,

I have watched with misgiving the rapidity of your efforts to change the present healthcare system to one that is totally managed by government departments. I am a retired physician who experienced the positive doctor-patient relationship in delivering sound and strong medical care by which mutual responsibility was most important in the desired results of healing or at least relieving suffering.

News reporting has announced your intent of central management that is to deliver single-payer medical coverage to all citizens and aliens. The major issue is the cost to the projected one source of delivery, the government. Even the most modest estimates of such expenditure places the costs so high that even with huge tax increases, rationing of care will become necessary. The most feared result will become the demands of what will and what will not be reimbursed, which essentially announces to doctors what medical decisions must be made to qualify for payment. Such a result negates the appropriate treatment judged by a physician with nine to thirteen years of medical education and training. The reduced results will necessarily negate the quality of care and nullify centuries of experience and continual upgrading of medical delivery by relying only on “guidelines” designed by bureaucrats and non-professional employees.

It is clear that your philosophical understanding leads you to believe that “government should provide;” however, your projected plan cannot function as you announce in spite of your belief. If you decide to proceed regardless of reality, then rationality, integrity, and experience are useless.

I implore you to listen to us with experience and observe what actually works rather than relying on imagination of what you want to achieve.

Sincerely,

David L. Wood, M.D.