The medical controversy over former President George W. Bush’s stent provides a good example of why President Obama’s health care law is a threat not only to your pocketbook, but your health.
On Tuesday, August 6, Bush underwent a procedure “to have a stent placed in an artery after a blockage was discovered in an annual physical examination,” according to NBC News.
“[T]he blockage was discovered at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas on Monday and at the recommendation of his doctors, he agreed to go ahead with the procedure which was successful.”
Stent placement is common, being performed between 700,000 to a million times a year in the U.S., but it is also invasive. And the medical community discourages invasive procedures unless they are absolutely necessary. That’s how the controversy began.
Many medical experts noted that Bush has been very active, participating in frequent mountain bike events, and apparently was not complaining of any chest pains. Some doctors (here) have concluded that the invasive procedure wasn’t necessary.
Others have stepped up to defend Bush’s doctors (here), pointing out that critics didn’t have access to all of Bush’s medical records.
We have neither the information nor the expertise to say who is right in this case, which is actually a point in a much bigger issue: ObamaCare.
Team Obama has claimed for years that the country needs to practice “smarter medicine.” So ObamaCare creates a process to (let’s say) “encourage” doctors to follow “proven” therapies, the best that medical science can provide—or at least what some committee in Washington agrees is the best.
Doctors who follow the standards get paid more, those who don’t get paid less.
It sounds good, but there are lots of times when the experts can’t agree among themselves, even those with close intimate knowledge of the patient and medical history. How in the world will a group of doctors and bureaucrats in Washington know what’s best for an individual patient a thousand miles away?
The answer is they won’t. So the average person needing the standard treatment probably will do fine. The problem is that most of us aren’t average. And smarter care determined in Washington may look like dumber, and even harmful, care to a doctor actually treating the patient.
August 20, 2013