Too close to understand health-care…right.

I have to admit, I’m tired of the entire health-care reform debate.  Tired, tired, tired.  Not because it isn’t important, not because I don’t care.  But mainly because those of us with reservations are invariably lumped into broad classes.  We are 1) uncaring 2) greedy and/or 3) ignorant of the realities of modern health-care.

Like so many things, I’m tired of being told I’m irrelevant by major media outlets, by blog comment forums, by the sitting administration.

Oddly, I don’t doubt the sincerity of those pushing the reform package.  I believe that many of them are really caring, concerned persons who want the world to be more fair, more equitable, more democratic.  I may disagree, but I don’t doubt their devotion to doing good.

Why is it then, if I question the reform package, I’m considered uncaring?  Why is it that if I question the good it will do, in my concern for the well-being of my current and future patiens and my own family, I’m being greedy?  Why is it that after being a physician for 19 years, I am repeatedly told that I just don’t understand the problems of the populace, the complexities of the problem?  How is it that after all of these years in practice, after all of the nights spent awake, all of the phone-calls to arrange help for the homeless, the poverty-stricken, the schizophrenic, the alcoholics (all treated while many caring persons were enjoying a quiet night in a fluffy bed), after all of the uncollected bills, all of the efforts to do my best for the worst, and the poorest, and the most down-trodden, I am told that I just don’t care enough?  That I haven’t seen the realities that face medicine and families?  That those of us in the emergency room just don’t see the big picture?

It’s like telling a guy fighting in Kandahar that he just doesn’t get the war; he can’t see enough of it to really understand.

I’m tired.  I’m tired of being told I’m ignorant.  Tired of being told I’m myopic.  Tired of being accused of dismissing the poor.  I’m tired of the irony that even though I know perfectly well how complex and difficult medicine is, my opinion is often considered compromised.  By what?  My proximity to the problem?  Would I be more clear-sighted if I were distant from the problem?  What is the appopriate ‘distance’ we should place ourselves from America’s political and cultural difficulties, from which we may reasonably comment?

I’m tired of hearing that I don’t know  enough to comment on the issues.  It all makes my brain hurt!

Healthcare reform makes my brain hurt

I have no more comments.

For now.

Edwin