Florida should prepare to opt out

Our representatives in Washington have a new idea on health care reform: national, government-run health insurance that is optional on a state-by-state basis. This idea, pushed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is effectively reviving the most controversial and wrongheaded idea in the current health care reform debate.

I cannot say this simply or strongly enough: Gov. Crist and the Legislature must prepare, now, to become an opt-out state. They must choose to spare Florida from a policy that would have a devastating effect on the quality of care that our residents now enjoy.

As a physician, I can tell you from experience that having the government pay health claims is a recipe for failure, pain and frustration for both doctors and patients. The quality of care will be diminished for all Americans who fall under a national plan, so if the governor and Legislature are ultimately empowered to "just say no," then they simply must. It is the right thing to do for Floridians.

Don't take my word for this. Ask any doctor who has been denied Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement or given minimal reimbursement for a course of treatment prescribed that best fits the needs of a patient and that patient's family. The fact of the matter is that the government cannot possibly understand the oath that we take as doctors to "apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism."

We physicians also pledge to "remember that we do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the persons' family and economic stability."

Again, there is no way that a bureaucracy can understand that. The government only understands its charts and rules; it should not be involved in health care decisions.

Florida is a large state with a population that needs flexibility, creativity and compassion in its health care. We have some of the best doctors and medical facilities in the country. A government-run plan would put Florida patients at risk of losing all of those things.

My unambiguous perspective on this issue, as a doctor, was echoed by a nationwide, nonpartisan poll of physicians taken this summer by WRS Opinion Research. It found that a full 70 percent of specialists oppose the health care reform proposals currently under consideration by Congress. Sixty-six percent feel that a government-run health insurance plan would restrict doctors' ability to give the best advice and offer the best care possible to their patients. Perhaps most importantly, 60 percent said they would not accept new patients covered by a government insurance plan.

Do not be misled by the false representation of the American Medical Association on this issue of government-run health insurance. At this moment, the AMA speaks more for its own perpetuity - cutting deals with the White House for its own profit in exchange for support of White House policies - than for the interests of its physician membership.

In fact, the poll I referenced earlier also found that 86 percent of specialty doctors feel the American Medical Association has become too political and has lost touch with the doctors it is supposed to represent.

I speak for the majority of specialist physicians when I say that we are prepared to "just say no" to a government plan nationwide. Florida must say "no" first and spare our state from this ill-informed idea. Rejecting the government-run plan will protect Florida's doctors and patients, and it will keep our state free to explore its own innovative approaches to more affordable health care.