Health Care presser lies, Pt. 11: Doctors want your tonsils for profit
The American College of Surgeons issued a statement calling President Obama’s comments about doctors taking out tonsils during the health care press conference “ill informed and dangerous.”
Here’s what the president said:
Right now, doctors a lot of times are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule that’s out there. So if they’re looking and you come in and you’ve got a bad sore throat or your child has a bad sore throat or has repeated sore throats, the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, “You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid’s tonsils out.”
Now, that may be the right thing to do, but I’d rather have that doctor making those decisions just based on whether you really need your kid’s tonsils out or whether it might make more sense just to change — maybe they have allergies. Maybe they have something else that would make a difference.
The college of surgeons responded with this:
President Obama’s unfortunate remarks during his July 22 press conference in which he suggested that a physician’s decision to remove a child’s tonsils – or any other procedure – is based on making “a lot more money,” was ill-informed and dangerous. We were dismayed at this characterization.
Over the past year, the American College of Surgeons has been actively engaged in health care reform discussions. We have participated in good faith with the Administration and Congressional leaders and have come to the table with open minds and an attitude that we are `all in this together’ to fix this hugely complex problem.
As surgeons, we have the enormous privilege of caring for patients everyday, whether it’s counseling a woman on her options as she faces breast cancer, saving a person’s life as they emerge from a terrible car crash, or restoring a person’s mobility by replacing an age-worn hip. But like many Americans, we are deeply concerned that the current system is not sustainable. Certainly from a surgical perspective, we are already seeing serious shortage issues that are hindering patient access to care. Our efforts in health care reform are focused on fixing these problems as well as addressing the long term but equally important issues of quality improvement, patient safety and value exchange.
Sources:
The Washington Post, July 22, 2009
Transcript of Obama Prime-Time News Conference
American College of Surgeons, July 24, 2009
American College of Surgeons Responds to President Obama’s Comments on Health Care Reform
