Obama Plan To Spy On Doctors Cancelled. . . For Now

Sometimes, legitimate ideas die as a result of guilt by association. For example, you can bet that Pop Tarts would not be as popular today if Ted Bundy or Hitler gave them a rousing endorsement. And sometimes, good ideas get twisted by bad people. That’s the case with Obama’s latest attack on doctors, it was good idea perverted. Fortunately, they are abandoning it. . . for now.

The idea in question stems from the problem that more and more doctors are refusing to take Medicare/Medicaid patients. This has become such a problem that there is an acute doctor shortage developing for these patients. I’ve discussed the main reason for this before (LINK): doctors lose money on Medicare patients because the government doesn’t fully reimburse them.

In any event, whether the reason is simple economics or the crushing imposition of paperwork and other requirements/limitations imposed when doctors accept Medicare/Medicaid patients, fear of being ensnared in a Medicare/ Medicaid fraud through some paper work error, or just prejudice, it is a solid and good idea to determine the reason doctors won’t see these patients. Why? Because the government has promised to provide Medicare/Medicaid patients with medical care and it can’t do that if doctors won’t see them. Therefore, the government must get to the root of the problem and fix it. Thus, investigating this is a good idea.

Also, the mere fact that such an investigation is done secretly does not make it evil. Sometimes these things are best conducted secretly. Perhaps the only way to get at the truth is to conduct a secret investigation. Maybe doctors will be more honest in “blind” interviews than they would be on surveys. It’s the same thing with secret shoppers, where the only way to truly judge service is to keep the store from knowing which customers are rating them.

So far, so good. But here’s the catch. . . trust.

If Obama had been a trustworthy fellow, then I might say that conservatives are making too big of a deal about his plan to secretly call 4,185 doctors’ offices in nine states. But Obama is not a trustworthy fellow, and I doubt very much this study was planned to actually investigate the problem. Instead, I think it was intended to generate data for another ObamaCare anti-doctor campaign, e.g. “look how bad these evil doctors are, one even called Medicaid patients ‘filthy.’”

And let me give you the main reason for my suspicion other than Obama’s history and the fact that generating such data would be in his political interests: I can see no value in the type of information this study would be likely to collect. Indeed, the only way this study method works is if doctors are some form of James Bond villain, who would lie on official surveys but couldn't stop themselves from blurting out the truth to random people on the phone: “well, I would never say this on a survey, but you seem trustworthy Mr. John Smith, so let me tell you what’s really going on before I turn you away mwhooo ha ha!!” This is why the whole premise of this study is laughable -- unless you realize its real goal is to goad doctors' receptionists into make unflattering comments about Medicare/Medicaid.

And thus, a good idea is perverted.

Fortunately, HHS has canceled the program after doctors complained. But if history is any judge, they will try again. In the meantime, we should remain vigilant for more attempts by Team Obama to generate politically helpful data. In fact, coming on the heels of the “gun walking” scandal, this is starting to look like a trend.