FixHealthCarePolicy

Surgeons Push Back on President Obama’s Comments

The American College of Surgeons this week said it was “deeply disturbed” by “uninformed public comments President Obama continues to make about the high-quality care provided by surgeons in the United States.”

The group’s statement notes Obama “got his facts wrong” during his townhall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire this week when he said a surgeon is paid $50,000 for a leg amputation.

In fact, Medicare pays a surgeon roughly $740 to $1,140 for a leg amputation, the group said, noting the payment includes the evaluation of the patient on the day of the surgery plus follow-up care for up to 90 days after the operation. Private insurers pay some variation of the Medicare reimbursement for this service.

The surgeons’ group also fact-checked the President on his suggestion several weeks ago that ”a surgeon’s decision to remove a child’s tonsils is based on the desire to make a lot of money.”

“That remark was ill-informed and dangerous, and we were dismayed by this characterization of the work surgeons do. Surgeons make decisions about recommending operations based on what’s right for the patient.”

Tags: amputation, surgeons, tonsils, townhall

Dissent Is Not “Un-American”

Whether the source is Gallup, Pew, Quinnipiac, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, the Washington Post, or even the New York Times; every recent poll on the issue shows that either pluralities or majorities of Americans have serious doubts about President Barack Obama’s health care plan. Reviewing the month’s polling data, Gallup’s Frank Newport sums it up: “The bottom line is a sense that, while Americans apparently favor some type of healthcare reform in the long term, they are in no hurry to see healthcare reform legislation passed in the short-term on a rushed schedule. … A Pew Research poll released this week shows that those who are worried about new health care legislation are most likely to say it is because it involves too much spending and would increase the deficit.”

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Tags: deficit, health care plan, President Barack Obama, townhall, un-American