Lawson Takes On Obamacare at Western Wake Republican Club

Dr. BJ Lawson (MD), the 2008/2010 Republican candidate for the US House of Representatives in No. Carolina’s 4th District was the “headliner” at last night’s Western Wake Republican Club meeting. In a hard-hitting presentation dubbed, “Healthcare Post-PPACA, United States v. Your Health,” Lawson, a physician, entrepreneur, activist, and would-be politician effectively “nuked” the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, with one slide from his PowerPoint presentation.

Illustrating the new healthcare system that Lawson calls a “cancer of excessive complexity,” the slide depicts a cluttered array of dozens of new bureaucracies, agencies, officials, processes and procedures umbilically connected to a monstrously powerful unelected Federal official, the Secretary of Health & Human Services. This vast collection of bureaucrats and regulations required to administer the new healthcare law will further bog down an already grossly inefficient healthcare delivery system and make medical care infinitely more cumbersome, costly, impersonal and ineffective both for consumers and practitioners.

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Dr. Lawson warned club members and guests that although the government was adding thousands of bureaucrats to facilitate this complex and confusing web of healthcare legislation—a system that adds an estimated 30 million or so to health insurance rolls—Congress and the Obama Administration are doing nothing to entice new doctors into the field or reduce the costs of healthcare delivery. To the contrary, under the new regs, patients can only expect more limited access to physicians as they retire, stop accepting new patients, or decrease encounter times; longer waits for shorter doctor visits, and more drug dispensing at the doctor’s office in place of meaningful treatment, removing much of the altruistic or humanitarian appeal of physician care.

Although the picture was bleak, the good doctor was not content to spend his time merely maligning the healthcare albatross we call Obamacare. Instead, he devoted most of his attention to the up-side—that is, the things we can do to manage our own healthcare and effectively secede from the government system.

Lawson pointed out that thanks to some aggressive and effective politicking during the late formative stages of the healthcare bill, patient/doctor advocates were able make lemonade from lemons by inserting one saving sentence into the law that he calls a “maelstrom of legislative malpractice.” The clever escape clause reads, “Direct primary care coupled with a high deductible insurance plan should be an eligible option in the benefits exchanges.” (PPACA Section 1301(a)(3))

In other words, among your insurance options under Obamacare, you are allowed to pay your physician directly, out of pocket for routine medical services and purchase lower cost, high-deductible insurance to protect you from the devastating financial consequences of a catastrophic injury or illness.

Dr. Lawson compared this approach to buying auto insurance. “Insurance should be insurance,” he said. “You don’t expect your car insurance to pay for gas and oil changes or other routine maintenance, do you? If you did, no one could afford auto insurance, either.”

Some doctors and clinics are already being set up along a modified “gym membership” model to accommodate these patients, according to Lawson. Members receive healthcare services for a fixed monthly or per-visit fee, pay for prescriptions and other medical supplies as needed, and purchase catastrophic insurance to protect from the unforeseen major medical event. Such a system puts patients and practitioners back in control of the relationship.

BJ had some additional advice for consumers seeking to regain control of their healthcare and avoid entanglements with the government administered system:

1. The best solution is to not need so much healthcare. The doctor pointed out that the medical profession is great at handling accidents, injuries, and even infectious disease, but not so great with the kinds of chronic illness that are bogging down the healthcare system today; problems like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Many of these maladies are lifestyle illnesses that can be prevented with better personal choices.

2. Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food. You are what you eat. If we can’t control what’s going into our mouths, we can’t expect the government to fix it for us. Lawson warned, however, that the food industry is almost as heavily regulated and subsidized as healthcare and the government’s version of what’s good for you may vary depending on whose financial interests are being served. So beware!

3. Consider your physician – find a doctor that you can trust to help you achieve wellness. Look for someone who will care about you and your family as individuals, not merely as an “encounter” with a fixed cash value; someone who will help you and your loved ones achieve wellness.

4. Insure properly.

5. Trust in God, not government. Your body is a miracle of self-healing. The best medicine enables or clears the way for that innate God-given power to take effect.

To view excerpts from Dr. Lawson’s speech, visit our YouTube channel. To learn more about how Dr. Lawson is working to implement the principles discussed in his presentation in the real world, visit his website, http://physiciancaredirect.com.

Bruce Ackerman is a Marketing Executive, Actor and Blogger at The Rational Conservative. He lives in Cary, North Carolina and is a member of Western Wake Republican Club.

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