Obamacare bureaucracy threatens doctors who speak out
Finding out what’s in it: Doctors are finding that they better not criticize Obamacare in public or they will face retribution from its bureaucracy.
For physicians in this position, public advocacy against the ACA could be in violation of employment contracts or could be a source for dismissal. Most doctors’ contracts also include a two-year noncompete clause that essentially requires the doctor to move out of town once he or she leaves a specific job. So, running afoul of your employer by criticizing the ACA could result in not just losing your job but also forcing you to leave your hometown.
And that’s not all. Many doctors are also afraid of losing insurance contracts. The vast majority of doctors who are still private-practice owners are dependent on a handful of large insurance contracts for revenue. Speaking out against insurance companies — which were complicit in the ACA’s passage and are some of its primary beneficiaries — can result in cancellation of those contracts.
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Finding out what’s in it: Doctors are finding that they better not criticize Obamacare in public or they will face retribution from its bureaucracy.
For physicians in this position, public advocacy against the ACA could be in violation of employment contracts or could be a source for dismissal. Most doctors’ contracts also include a two-year noncompete clause that essentially requires the doctor to move out of town once he or she leaves a specific job. So, running afoul of your employer by criticizing the ACA could result in not just losing your job but also forcing you to leave your hometown.
And that’s not all. Many doctors are also afraid of losing insurance contracts. The vast majority of doctors who are still private-practice owners are dependent on a handful of large insurance contracts for revenue. Speaking out against insurance companies — which were complicit in the ACA’s passage and are some of its primary beneficiaries — can result in cancellation of those contracts.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
We Canadians are used to the government forcing its will on citizens. With the government paying the health care costs, it is not wise to speak to clearly lest you be put in the slowest line. Getting on a government black list— Well you know after the IRS targeting scandal.
Phill O
I fully expected a tidal wave of bureaucratic nonsense after His High and Mightiness was re-elected, and we are getting it.
Or if you’re like my doctor, don’t accept insurance. Easy.
I hope that We the People in the United States never “get used to” government forcing its will upon us. The purpose of government (from the time pre-humans became a gregarious species) is to provide provide safety through leadership approved by the community and to peaceably resolve disputes among those of the community. The purpose is *not* to direct us as to how to live our lives. Or spend our money.
Looked at from a basic viewpoint, if I work hard and gather more berries than the others, *I* should be allowed to choose how to distribute them (perhaps to my family, friends, and others whom I wish to influence), not the leadership. Otherwise, why should I work extra hard to gather more berries. In fact, if lunch is distributed evenly. no matter how little I work, why should I work at all.
William Bradford, of Plymouth Colony, learned the hard way that the people must be free, in a productive society, and that the governor should not over-direct them as to how to live, work (including practicing medicine or, as Blair notes below, accepting insurance), and distribute their productive gains. Meritocracies work better than socialism.
No matter that people think that socialism will work in America, because they think that we will implement it correctly, Bradford already implemented it correctly, and it failed quickly and spectacularly, with much complaint and grumbling. Bradford’s correct way of implementing resulted in a disgruntled citizenry, and he responded by modifying the socialist experiment into a meritocratic experiment, giving power to the people — which worked so well that a (literally) lone backwoods village that couldn’t feed itself grew, in a mere three centuries, into the world’s leading economic, cultural, and military powerhouse that rescued the world from two world wars.
It is too bad that Canada’s leadership — and most other governments — are power hungry rather than being public servants to the people who accepted their leadership. One would think that the world would learn from Bradford, but that defeats the desires of those who are politically greedy.
It is too bad that so many people allow their governments to act as self-centered, greedy, power-mad tyrants. It is too bad that the same thing is happening in the United States and that the balance of governmental powers is no longer working to protect We the People from the ravages of tyrannical governance.
It once was said that a democracy would live only until the people realized that they could profit from the largess of government, and that almost seemed to happen to the US. But we have now lost our democracy because the three branches of government have realized that by working together, instead of against each other, they could tyrannize their citizens.
It must be the realization that someone else is still willing to pick all the berries that the community needs, so why should I be bothered to contribute, that lets some people think you can get a free lunch. Vote for tyranny: get free stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg98BvqUvCc (1 minute)
To think, here I am being grumpy online, yet just a couple of hours ago I was immensely overjoyed that a (famously grumpy) hobby shop owner gave me a deal on a purchase that the clerk had already rung up, because he had intended to lower the price on an item I had just paid for. Of course, this being a free market capitalist economy, the shopkeeper was free to do so, without some distant disconnected central planner forcing the prices onto him. At least I am happy that we still have a little economic freedom in this country.