The Commission for Reproductive Health Service Standards (CRHSS) understands all too well the evil that is Obamacare. Not because it has caused millions to lose their health insurance plans driving costs up by as much as 400%. Not because many say it is an unjust tax. Not because it usurps the American philosophy of government ‘by the people and for the people’ placing State’s rights over individual liberty. Not even because Obamacare forces your health premiums to directly fund abortion and abortion-causing drugs. CRHSS understands the evil that is Obamacare because, like abortion, it represents a deeply troubling evil called ‘Population Medicine.’
The purpose of medicine has always been to heal and maintain the health of the individual. A sick patient yields to a doctor believing that the doctor will use his knowledge and skill for the patient’s good. The doctor must take responsibility to protect the patient because to do otherwise would violate the sacred trust between the healer and the healed.
To this day, the patient makes the decisions about his/her healthcare. The patient, defines what ‘good health’ means. With the growth of technology and rising costs, health insurance was introduced. But the good of the patient remained primary. With Obamacare, the government has replaced the individual as the primary healthcare decision-maker. Now, government decides what good health is and what services will be funded. Not you. This is exactly what happened with ‘Women’s Health’ and the ‘right to access abortion’ in a 1973 government decision. All individual women were lumped together into a population block and were decreed the ‘right to access’ a particular procedure which ignored the good of the individual woman and her unique circumstances while at the same time stripping the pre-born child of personhood with all God-given rights to life ignored.
How will population medicine impact you? Let’s use Mary as an example. Mary is a 75 year old woman with two kids and five young grandchildren. Mary has cancer of the ovary. Today, her doctor recommends surgery costing $10,000. She is cured, and after recovery lives happily for another 20 years.
Fast forward to 2016. Obamacare is in full force. Government population statistics demonstrate that the average healthy 75 year old woman is expected to live to 78. Mary is diagnosed with cancer of the ovary. Without treatment she will likely die in three years. Her doctor knows surgery will cost more than allowed and could push his practice over budget. Over budget means a financial penalty and a poor public review. “Sorry, Mary, there’s nothing we can do.”
Obamacare is not healthcare precisely because it replaces the individual’s health needs with government health objectives. It places a dollar value on your life and denies care if the cost exceeds your value. In the name of ‘healthcare for all’ it destroys healthcare for each one us.
By participating in population medicine, doctors and patients alike give tacit approval to the dehumanization of friends, neighbors, family, and others.
Now is the time to testify for the dignity of each human by rejecting the inhumanity of population medicine, both as clinicians and patients.