Despicable Actions: Unethical and Harmful

[TexasTowelie]

By Dr. Brian Carr
President, Behavioral Health Associates, Lubbock, Texas, 1991-Present
Chairman, City of Lubbock Board of Health, 2013
Submitted on November 19, 2013 - 8:12am

Among my physician colleagues they are led by the first directive of the Hippocratic Oath that instructs them to “First of all, do no harm”.

If the politicians on the Extreme Right were held to this ethical standard they would be stripped of their license and publically censored. The efforts to disrupt the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (aka as Obamacare) is harmful to millions of Americans and the intentional misrepresentation of the law will promise to leave disease and death in its wake.

The AE Marketing group out of Chicago, hired by the Koch brothers, deployed a series of television ads and two Internet sites directing the citizens of Alaska to not sign up for the ACA. Their web site www.knowthefactsalaska.org encourages viewers to “not rush your decision” and suggests that they “wait until 2018”.

On the web site you can take the “quiz” with questions that are sophomoric in their leading to a specific decision. “Do you like having your choice of doctors and hospitals” and “Are you comfortable updating the government on your health and financial status” are what we call “forced choice” questions where the people is not really given a choice of answers. Interestingly, no matter how you answer the questions you get the same advice…don’t do it. A second web site (www.dontenrollalaska.org ) designed by the same company out of Florida is even more directive in asking visitors to take a pledge to refuse to sign up.

I just hope that those taking the pledge don’t get sick as I couldn’t find any place on the site to submit your medical bills for reimbursement in recognition of your standing with Cruz and the Koch brothers.

The Koch brothers are systematically working to ensure that young people do not sign up for the ACA with no regard to what happens if they become sick. This desire to destroy Obamacare no matter the cost to our citizens is a sick achievement that betrays the complete lack of humanity among those on the Extreme Right.

That our own Congressman Neugebauer can support stripping 40 billion from the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) while David Weaver, the CEO of the South Plains Food Bank makes it clear that agencies such as his will be unable to make up the difference is heartlessness of the highest degree.

Christie Herrera, a Koch brothers employee, has been making the rounds of the states as a self-proclaimed “Medicaid expert”. She appears before state and federal panels decrying the impact of the ACA and offering crafted legislation designed to avoid implementation of the ACA and any expansion of Medicaid. Politico.com noted in an article of the close connection between these “think tanks” and the Koch brothers.

This effort to keep people off of Obamacare means that 635,000 people in Georgia will not be able to secure health insurance. In Texas, with the highest number of uninsured citizens, our own Governor Perry has pledged to never accept Obamacare, leaving up to 40% of our citizens without health insurance. These men, women and children will not simply go away and they probably won’t “die quickly”. They will clog the emergency rooms of Covenant and UMC. They will not enroll for prenatal care. They will not get immunized. Care will be provided in the most expensive and less effective manner and the bill will go to the Lubbock County Health District where property owners across the county will foot the cost.

Randy is probably laughing as he toasts his masters the Koch brothers in their effort to contribute to the disability and death of our people. I wonder what the Congressman will be having for Thanksgiving dinner this year?

TAGS:

LubbockOnline Blog
death to the poor
have them pledge to not eat cake
heartless
let them eat cake
Lubbock
Perry doesn't have a soul
Randy lacks basic human decency
rich are well-fed
Texas
the money behind the throne

http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/dr-brian-carr/2013-11-19/despicable-actions-unethical-and-harmful

Cross-posted in Texas Group.

[Doctor_J]

1. I wish we had the nerve to deal with these people the way they should be

dealt with. Given how far this cancer has spread, it's a safe bet we're never going to fight back