"Notification of Termination to Aetna", KrisHeldMD.wordpress.com
With a deep sense of sadness, I must inform you that I will no longer serve as a physician for Aetna patients under the terms of our contractual agreement, which you most recently unilaterally changed. I have been privileged and honored to care for thousands of patients covered by Aetna policies since the 1990’s. I have devoted my life to providing the very best, state-of-the-art care to these individuals.
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Obamacare, the “law of the land”, contains ever-changing-at-the-whim-of-HHS, politically-expedient mandates, rewards, penalties, rules and regulations with which I cannot rationally or morally treat my patients and run a practice, much-less interpret, implement, or comply.
Millions of Americans have lost coverage because of the healthcare law and must now shop on a defective, insecure government website and sign up for more expensive policies through Federal and State exchanges. Only by logging in as a prospective patient did my office manager and I discover that Aetna was selling plans for which I am a provider-effectively selling my services without even asking, much less informing me that my services would be sold on such a site, under the auspices of new terms with which I will not comply.
Then, after the fact, I received a form letter informing me of Aetna’s “new allowables”. I will not sell my services under such terms. While treated as such, patients and doctors are not commodities worthy of such impersonal, inconsiderate, and cavalier treatment. We choose dignity and personal service over disrespect and form letters.
So here we are, you are getting new business offering health insurance plans featuring my services without my consent under terms which are unacceptable to me. Accept this as my official written notice that the changes that you have unilaterally made to our contract are unacceptable to me and make our contract null and void. You must explain this to your patients. You must tell them that they have purchased a product that was misrepresented to them and that you cannot deliver.
It saddens me to think of the decreased access to care from actual physicians and the shockingly increased costs Aetna patients will now experience because of your choice to collude with big government rather than collaborate with patients and physicians.
Kristin S. Held, MD"
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In another of Dr. Held's posts she says the "single payer" system often spoken about is medicaid: "Instead of fixing Medicaid, Obamacare expands the definition of poverty to put more people on Medicaid. Instead of getting people out of poverty, Obamacare expands the definition of poverty."
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"Obamacare haters are patient lovers"
"When I speak out against Obamacare, I am often called a hater-at
best. The very people I fight for, attack me. Ironically, it is the
grueling rite of passage from little girl to physician that has equipped
me to take the heat and stay the course in the fight for the
patient-doctor relationship and against the government’s effort to
supplant it. I learned how to “wear my big-girl pants” and “cowgirl up”.
Here is what the American patient must know from the trenches.
Most physicians believe in universal healthcare and providing a safety net to achieve this, as do I. By universal healthcare, I mean providing care to each and every precious human in need. By safety net, I mean a mechanism to care for those precious individuals who cannot afford the care they desperately need. This does not mean I believe in socialized medicine; I do not.
A few years ago, I was getting ready to go to a long-anticipated
Saturday family function with my four daughters when my phone rang-it
was the ER. A mom had brought in her little boy, injured, and they
needed help. I broke the news to my girls that I couldn’t go with them
and raced to the ER. Little five year old Luke (fake name, so I won’t be
fined for a HIPAA violation) sat quietly in his young mom’s lap. She
was weeping. Luke’s older brother had thrown a broken beer bottle at him
the night before. Luke had cried himself uncontrollably to sleep. Mom,
single, working, and going to school to become an LVN, while caring for
four small children, had not noticed the severity of Luke’s beer bottle
encounter until the following day when he would not open his eyes.
Beautiful little Luke was at one of those crossroads where your life
changes in a blink. The broken glass had cut his eye wide open. His
cornea was lacerated with his iris prolapsing out into the outside world
blocking total collapse of the globe. He could see only light. The
contents of his eye had been exposed to all the germs of the world for
hours. The injury was disfiguring and potentially
blinding-life-changing. Most physicians believe in universal healthcare and providing a safety net to achieve this, as do I. By universal healthcare, I mean providing care to each and every precious human in need. By safety net, I mean a mechanism to care for those precious individuals who cannot afford the care they desperately need. This does not mean I believe in socialized medicine; I do not.
Luke’s mom stated they had no insurance. I contemplated transferring him to the county hospital, but he and I had bonded; he was brave and trusting. I knew operating on him opened me up to potential lawsuit if he had a bad outcome-even if the injury was horrific initially and even if I had done my best. Again, I contemplated transferring him, but he and I had bonded; I was brave and trusting. My girls were disappointed, patiently waiting for me. This would be a long, intricate operation. Once again, I contemplated transferring him, but the girls were patient and brave and trusted me. My girls trust me to do the right thing in life, even if it is the hard, risky thing; that is our bond.
Luke’s mom passed him from her arms to mine. Our eyes locked, tears welling in all four, as I carried Luke to the OR. Such profoundly humbling moments I cannot put into words, and only through my faith and experience do I muster the courage to do such things. By the grace of God, Luke’s surgery went flawlessly. Today, he sees 20/20, and his eye looks absolutely perfect. I see a bright future for this brave, trusting child. I never received a penny. In fact, I incurred great expense and great risk to care for Luke over the next several months. My reward is not monetary. My reward- again, no words…
I am privileged and humbled by cases such as Luke’s. This is why I fight. My colleagues and I know better than government how to do what we, America’s physicians, do. My physicians and surgeons and I know better than government how to treat me and my cancer; yes, doctors are patients too.
In reality, Luke could have been on a form of Medicaid, but his mom, had not signed him up. Our current safety net for the poor is Medicaid. It does not work well. The United States spends exorbitant amounts of money on it and achieves outcomes worse than those of patients who have no insurance
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The status quo is Medicaid, a government safety net for the poor, costing us trillions in unfunded liability for poor access to suboptimal care with a big price tag all tied up with strings of waste, inefficiency, and bureaucracy. This status quo, Medicaid, is what needs healthcare reform. What does Obamacare do? It expands Medicaid instead of fixing it. Instead of fixing Medicaid, Obamacare expands the definition of poverty to put more people on Medicaid. Instead of getting people out of poverty, Obamacare expands the definition of poverty
to get more Americans in it, so they can get on Medicaid (the part of Obamacare that really needs reform). This insanity is so frustrating. When the Obamacare supporters call me “hater” and say I am cruel for “not wanting 40 million to have health insurance”, I literally chuckle in disbelief. They are the actual haters, befuddled in their mob-mentality-induced blindness, for not wanting all 314 million Americans to have actual medical care. Health insurance does not translate into actual medical care under Obamacare. We can and must do better. The irony of Luke’s case is that had he actually had Medicaid, he wouldn’t have had me. I don’t accept Medicaid, and government would not have let me see him. I prefer to provide my services for free, or even at a loss, than participate in Medicaid, a failed system that is red-lining our economy and flat-lining our people.
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Finally, when the Obamacare lovers say “there are no alternatives” and that Obamacare opponents just want to return to the status quo, stop and call out the irrationality. The status quo is Medicaid. Medicaid is the very problem that needs to be fixed. Their fix is to double-down on Medicaid, expanding it and the definition of poverty, so everyone can be on it. Returning to the status quo is returning to dysfunctional Medicaid, which they are expanding. There is no logic or reason here. There is no faith or trust. There is no truth.
Truth is, excellent plans for true patient-centered, physician-guided, market-driven healthcare reform do exist. See examples of such plans at www.AmericanDoctors4truth.org and www.Docs4PatientCare.org among others. The same people that want to expand Medicaid do not want you to know about REAL REFORM, because once the public learns about available alternatives to Obamacare, the fewer people will want it. Insanity Reigns. We must dethrone it, because in truth we Doctors are lovers, not haters, with minds ruled by reason not politics. We must stay the course, brave, undeterred, and patient-for the patients."
via Free Republic
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More on Dr. Held:
"Constitution-defending Conservative Christian Texan Physician Patient Survivor Mother of 4 daughters Small business owner on a mission to get government out of medicine. I have read The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), tweeted it and studied it. I will not implement, comply with it or let my patients live or die by it. Co-Founder AmericanDoctors4Truth.org"...
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