As America hears of more doctors leaving the profession, the head of a patient-centered national health care organization based in St. Paul, Minnesota, sees both political parties in Washington making matters worse.
“Huge things are happening under the surface that people don’t understand,” says Twila Brase, a public health nurse and the founder of the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom in this 33 minute video interview with The Daily Caller. “The power of the doctor is becoming subsumed by the government.”
America is moving, from Brase’s perspective, from the charitable human “mission of medicine” to a cold, sterile “business of health care.” Doctors face increasing “ethical dilemmas” as their Hippocratic Oath requires them to do no harm to their patient and keep confidence.
Yet, she says government mandates are requiring doctors to breach confidences, surrender private information to outsiders and seek approval for treatment choices in order to be reimbursed. The third party of government is replacing the third party influence of insurers with a pernicious influence, Brase says.
The “Doc Fix” bill, to Brase, “put doctors and patients in conflict,” while being hailed as a recent legislative victory in bipartisan governance, with all but eight senators voting for it and all but 37 House Members voting for it. Unfortunately, Brase says this bill, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, remedied a poor government reimbursement rate for doctors, but it came at a high cost.
Dangerous incentives that set up ethical conflicts between the doctor and patient were established, while strengthening Obamacare and the government’s hands. Citing two new means by which doctors will be paid under this law, Brase says one of them — the Alternative Payment System — would provide a group of doctors with a lump sum payment for the year.
“Pity you if you have a significant and expensive condition and it is November,” she says. With a lump sum payment for their patients, doctors will suddenly have a “conflict of interest” with patients who may have unanticipated, expensive, difficult or complex medical needs — all because of government policy-makers who are lauded for a bipartisan accomplishment.
Obamacare’s fraudulent salesmanship, made more clear by a key architect of the law, Jonathan Gruber, is discussed in the interview. Brase says we do not have health insurance anymore and our previously excellent system is being eroded. “Obamacare is really about bringing in the health plans as collaborators with the government to run the health care system that covers all expenses from the first dollar to the last and then calls it ‘private coverage.’ It really isn’t. It is really about moving us to government health care, without it looking like government health care.”
She calls the secret newborn screening happening in every state without true parental consent “the baby DNA warehousing” issue. Few parents understand when blood is taken from their newborn and goes into the largest genetic testing program run by state governments. An expert on the controversial storage, use and dissemination of baby DNA, she frequently testifies and helps patients know their state laws with this website, ItsMyDNA.org.
Privacy in health care, she says, “is about control. He who has the data makes the rules.” Brase describes the people who want access to patient data in private records. This is expedited by requirements of use of the electronic health records, she says. Profiles will be made of you and your doctor, she says, and this will influence medical treatments and rationing, along with reimbursements to the doctor.
Brase encourages patients to ask questions and warns that few realize that HIPPA, the law, is a grand deception as it does not protect your health privacy. Your signing the HIPPA form, which she discourages, can be used to demonstrate consent to share your personal data.
As for solutions, Twila Brase sees a future “wedge of freedom” that protects cash-based practices, and the ability of patients to find a doctor without an electronic health care record, so as not to be hampered by privacy invasions. She also describes a future when Americans won’t be dependent on and relegated to Medicare after paying in all their life, and then losing choices and options just because they reach age 65.
WATCH:
For more see CCHF’s website, their Facebook and follow her on Twitter @TwilaBrase.
Mrs. Thomas does not necessarily support or endorse the products, services or positions promoted in any advertisement contained herein, and does not have control over or receive compensation from any advertiser.