Or mine. Since we have blown through our deductible, we are getting in all of our doctor's appointments before the end of the year.
So, I went to see my doctor for an annual check-up.
She asked me all sorts of questions. There was nothing wrong with the questions, but they were things that she knew, we have talked about lots of times over the past decade and should have been in my file.
I was puzzled. She apologized and said, "I am sorry for all of these questions. I have to re-write your file for our new, um, system."
I said, "Because of Obamacare?"
She said, "No, um, maybe."
She then explained that there is much more coding that she has to do. She has to spend lots of time justifying the tests that she recommends and the prescriptions she prescribes to patients. She is a wonderful doctor and enjoys spending as much time as she can with patients.
Well, she can't do that anymore. She has to spend more of her valuable time justifying herself to the government.
It is true, that some people abuse the system and that is wrong. But, she doesn't. She is a good doctor and she is still forced to give all of this extra paperwork to the government.
There was an ad during the 2012 election. It showed a person in a paper gown in a doctor's office with her doctor. Then, a creepy, large, plastic-headed Uncle Sam character slowly rises from below the table to stand between the patient and doctor.
I couldn't get that ad out of my mind the entire time.
I told my doctor about our woes with our high deductible plan. She said that she agrees with the idea of universal healthcare.
Darn, I really liked her.
But, what she doesn't understand, I believe, is the level at which the cost for healthcare being free for some people is being shifted (unfairly and unsustainably) to the middle class.
Good doctors are being slammed with lots of extra work that keeps them from patients. This is another consequence of Obamacare, people.
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