The voter drive among medical professions

The Ohio State College of Medicine's Department of Family and Community Medicine and the medical center’s Anti-Racism Action Plan Policy and Advocacy Action Group are partnering with VoteHealth2020 for a workshop on raising voter awareness to increase participation in the election. This is naive and manipulative.

The Trump Administration has probably been the most proactive in assisting minorities, and has actually accomplished something in areas long neglected (but incessantly talked about) by other administrations in the areas of employment opportunity, prison reform, and education. Because Trump is an outsider to both parties, when the businessman accustomed to achieving looked around and said--"this hasn't been working for 50 years, let's do something, let's fast track something, let's get rid of the dead wood of socialist promises," he's been called a racist.

Will an event planned by an entity called an Anti-Racism Action Plan Policy and Advocacy Action Group even welcome Trump supporters? Will they want more Trump supporters to vote? Are there any conservatives or Republicans in this group, or is diversity just another word for skin color? I wanted to know.

So I looked up the VoteHealth2020 board composition, for ethnicity, education, experience in medicine, political sensitivities and how it could relate to the voting public. Based on the photos and surnames, and a brief bio of each one, I'd say 9 members of the team are Asian Indian, [the wealthiest and most educated minority group in the U.S]. The one black female was born in Ghana, one other female appears to be Japanese ancestry, and one white male might be of Spanish ethnicity. In popular jargon, these are POC, people of color, because they are certainly not African American or that jumble of nationalities we refer to as Hispanic. Only one person on the board has a little gray in his fashionable stubble.

The publicity/marketing for this group does point out that Americans have a lower voter turn out than Western Europe and that doctors have an even lower turn out than other privileged, wealthy Americans. Yet, they don't seem to know our American history--even that of the last 2 decades. Blacks had an incredible turnout for the 2008 and 2012 elections--higher than whites in 2008, and much higher in 2012. And almost double that of Asian Americans, the people organizing the "get out the vote" group.

The Pew Research Center found that the economy (84% of respondents), terrorism (80%) and foreign policy (75%) were the top three issues on voters’ minds in 2016. That's why Trump won. Now in 2020, because of Covid19, health care has moved up, especially for Democrats who also think Trump is an important issue, but in 2016, it didn't even make the list.

Will the medical profession vote for Biden and will it be more likely to convince minorities to change their life style to reduce the problems of smoking, alcohol/drug abuse, domestic abuse, sexual promiscuity and obesity? Just like other groups, life style changes will improve many health problems. If I would lose 30 pounds, I'm sure my exercise routine would benefit. How will the doctors' or patients' voting record change their health? It won't. But they might be able to keep Trump out of the White House and get more federal money for their profession.

Physicians speak out

A physician speaks out about quarantining the healthy. The destruction of the first amendment freedoms while keeping marijuana shops and abortion clinics open. Liquor stores are essential but your business isn't? Dr. Jeff Barke of California:

https://heavy.com/news/2020/05/dr-jeff-barke-video/?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmU6YYGfyUk What is happening to doctors. Learn what's going on. Dr. Yvette Lozano of Texas.

The feldshars of the USSR

The old Soviet Union had a solution for our shrinking supply of doctors which is coming our way.  Feldshars with a few years of medical training.  When I was in graduate school in the 1960s I translated articles from a newspaper, Medisinskii Rabotnik for a professor of sociology.  They sent feldshars to the rural areas and left the doctors in the cities to enjoy ballet and symphony and stores with something on the shelves.  The government controlled the number, selection, salaries and the region where they were assigned.  How many of these physician-lite people do you think will want to come (or be assigned) to your small community?

This morning I had a doctor’s appointment with a specialist.  Not only was the computer system with all patient records down, but the back up (in Chicago) was down. They needed to rely on my recall.  Beginning in January they will be forced to get rid of all their paper files.  None of this EMR/EHR has ever been tested to see if it will save money or improve care, or protect our privacy.  It’s a boondoggle for government bureaucracy and a boon for the IT companies.  In the last 2 years, my regular doctor has been looking at the screen of his lap top instead of me, and saying they have a new software update he’s learning to use.

Obama is driving doctors out of private practice. How does that help the poor? The doctor I saw this morning has 5500 patients in private practice.  Many are low income.  Where will they go—someplace with long lines.  Where the rest of us will be. 

We had the best medical care in the world, and he wanted it taken down.

Be sure to watch the video with this piece.

http://www.ky3.com/news/ky3-springfield-mo-doctor-dr-shelby-deckard-private-practice-closing-20121119,0,3622284.story

http://www.amednews.com/article/20130408/business/130409961/6/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=20130408

Do I detect some redundancy?

Or is it a religious or caste thing?

"The Central Ohio American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and the Association of Indian Physicians of Ohio will hold a fundraising gala on Saturday, October 15 at 6 p.m. at the Easton Hilton Hotel to benefit the opening of the India Gateway."

California Medical Association denounces Obama’s inflammatory rhetoric

A very small percentage of doctors belong to the AMA, but most doctors do maintain memberships in statewide organizations or board certification groups. President Obama, in attempting to get sympathy and support for his massive take over of health care, has gone from insuring the uninsured (including a huge number of illegals and middle class who chose not to buy insurance), to saving money (old people cost too much), to insulting the insurance companies which currently insure adequately the majority of Americans, to demonizing doctors.

Truly, this man is gathering an enemies list but not from your neighbors' e-mails. He’s creating enemies out of former supporters. This loss of support has nothing to do with racism, as his true believer sycophant followers claim, but his own “acting stupidly” and speaking out about what he believes on the role of government expansion. He’ll soon be as popular with liberals as the gaffe-prone Biden. He has become his own worst enemy at these town hall meetings saying things off teleprompter we didn‘t hear during the election months and months of “hope and change.”

“CMA is deeply concerned about two examples of medical treatment recently used by President Obama to make his case for health reform.

“In the first example, he stated that surgeons make $30,000 to $50,000 to amputate a foot of a diabetic. This assertion is false. Medicare pays surgeons $589 to $767 for a foot amputation. Medi-Cal pays $420 for the same. Hospital and other associated costs may add up to the greater amount, but it is incorrect and misleading to suggest the surgeon’s costs are responsible for that figure.

“We share the President’s belief that we need to put greater resources towards primary and preventive care in order to keep people healthier and help address the nation’s rising health care costs. However, preventive care will never obviate the need for qualified physicians and surgeons to take corrective action to improve or save people’s lives.

“In the second example, the President suggested that physicians take out children’s tonsils to make more money. This implication is inaccurate and offensive.

“Doctors treat patients based on the health needs of the patient, not the financial incentives. When science suggests over utilization may be occurring, the medical profession has responded with improved guidelines to more fully inform physicians of the risks and benefits of any treatment or procedure.

“The California Medical Association is committed to reforming our health system to increase access to quality care and reduce rising health care costs. To achieve health reform, the American people must be able to trust our elected officials and the statements they make regarding health care.

“Patients trust their doctors. That trust is critical to an effective and successful doctor-patient relationship. We urge the President to stick to the facts and avoid the kind of misleading and inflammatory rhetoric that would erode that trust and derail our efforts to increase access to quality care and control rising health care costs.”

Dr. GnanaDev, the CMA President, is a trauma surgeon and chief of the medical staff at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, San Bernardino County’s public hospital