Affirmative Action in Health Care?

Given the mountain of reasons to oppose government health care, I’m sure you were looking for just one more before deciding the Democrats’ plan is the worst thing seen since 1917.  Well, now you have it.

A friend sent me a link to an article at yesterday’s Investors Business Daily which reveals still another “devil in the details” of this abomination of a bill: health care will become another sacrifice on the altar of affirmative action:

The racial grievance industry under health care reform could be calling the shots in the emergency room, the operating room, the medical room, even medical school. As Terence Jeffrey, editor at large of Human Events puts it, not only our wealth, but also our health will be redistributed.

Under the Democrats’ plans, if a medical school wants to receive contracts and grants from the federal government, it must operate under a quota system and be able to prove it. On Page 909, the House bill states: “In awarding grants or contracts under this section, the (HHS) secretary shall give preference to entities that have a demonstrated record of the following: . . . training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Jeffrey points out that in the name of eliminating “disparities” in health care, under the House version of the bill, payment to providers under the public option becomes a sort of Pavlovian reward and punishment system.

“The secretary,” says Section 224, “shall design and implement the payment mechanisms and policies under this section in a manner that — (1) seeks to . . . reduce health disparities (including racial, ethnic and other disparities).”

Frankly, I don’t care if the guy performing surgery on me is black, white or purple with yellow polka dots; I just hope he’s competent and the best I can get.  I think most Americans would share that sentiment.

Having said that, I’m not exactly thrilled at the idea of having my chest cut open by a guy–regardless of skin color–who wouldn’t have been good enough to be wearing the medical scrubs, were it not for handouts and fudge-factors from the government.  As much as I believe all Americans are created equal and should be treated so, I don’t want to risk my welfare in order to fix real or perceived “disparities” in “underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds.”

But here’s something even more scary–and un-American–to ponder.  If our government wants to affirmative actionize the corps of health care professionals as a part of their socialized medicine scheme, is it a stretch at all to believe they won’t extend their reverse-discrimination (aka affirmative action) schemes to the emergency room?

You can probably imagine it as well as I can.  A white guy comes in all mangled from a car wreck at the same time as a black guy who broke his leg falling off a ladder.  First the bureaucrats at the hospital much verify that black people haven’t been “underrepresented” in admissions, and that black people haven’t been “disadvantaged” by wait times longer than white people.  And if it turns out that black people–regardless of the proportion of skin colors actually coming to the emergency room, and regardless of the nature of the injuries of the various skin colors–have been “underrepresented” or have waited on average longer than white people, well, I guess the mangled white guy gets to wait until after the black guy with the broken leg gets seen.

And hopefully the white guy will live long enough to be seen.

Sound like “racial progress” to you?

Sound like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a world where people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”?

It doesn’t to me, either.

Let’s send this insane government health care idea to the bottom of the ocean. Permanently.

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