More than money at stake.(Letter to the editor)

I am writing in response to your article "Stay Healthy" in the January 19 issue. I agree with the author's opinions and conclusion. I would just like to add a few comments. First, the danger of socialized medicine goes beyond the increase in financial burden to the American public. The author touched on loss of physician autonomy, but she did not reflect on the loss of moral or conscience autonomy that physicians will face. As acts such as the Freedom Of Choice Act, which would eliminate restrictions on abortion nationwide, are passed and the government takes tighter control of physicians, physicians will be forced to comply with mandates to perform or refer for abortions, provide contraception, offer euthanasia, and so forth in the name of patient autonomy. Any patient who has the blessing of being able to patronize a physician who shares their conservative values can kiss that blessing goodbye as those physicians will be forced to either compromise their values or give up medicine. To answer both threats, it is my belief that the people who initiate the change in the current healthcare system need to be patients and physicians, not politicians.

Growing up the daughter of an independent rural general surgeon, I was taught how physicians can buck the system in small yet important ways. My father refused to work with an HMO in order to preserve his autonomy and his ability to treat (and bill) his patients as he saw fit, not as a group of lawyers or "expert panels" decided for him. Unfortunately, he is a rare breed. I have also spent the last three and a half years studying medicine at a rather liberal medical school where talk of "crisis" in the healthcare system is not only rampant, but almost always followed with the call for a "single payer" system. To my complete amazement, no one questions the routine of finishing training and getting a "job" for an HMO, few question what can physicians do to make ...