Q: Much of the debate around health care reform has centered on whether the government or the individual will control health care decisions. Is that a valid argument?
Most medical decisions are between clinicians and their patients, and will continue to be that way as the federal health reform law is implemented. Medicare bureaucrats aren’t going to decide who should take insulin shots. That will still be something for individual doctors and patients to determine together. Mainly, this fuss about the government taking over medical decision-making comes down to partisan fear-mongering. Few things are more politically powerful than scaring voters.
Q: Is health care reform likely to change the way doctors treat their patients?
I am not suggesting that doctors and their patients will have unrestricted abilities to decide whatever they want together. That hasn’t been true in medical care for quite some time now. At least since the growth of managed care in the 1990s… (Read more and view comments at News&Observer)
