ObamaCare: Affordable health care a good thing says doctor in Muncie
By Rick Yencer
MUNCIE, IN - The Supreme Court ruling upholding affordable health care for all brought mixed views from a doctor and patients with and without health insurance coverage.
"I think it is a good thing," said physician George Branam, who has practiced medicine for 50 years and the former owner of Pathologists Associated now known as PA Labs.
Branam, a doctor in the Air Force and Army, knows the insatiable appetite Americans have for health care, and the problems with government run health care like Medicare and Medicaid. But Branam knows it is fundamentally right for everyone to have health care coverage besides a delivery system that is fair and equal to all.
Actually the ruling took those simple concepts into consideration when upholding that insurance companies will not be able to deny coverage for medical treatment or charge more for people with health problems.
It's Branam's opinion that pre-existing conditions that deny millions of Americans health coverage and care was the undoing of the current health insurance and care system before the Affordable Care Act passed and was signed into law. With the court ruling, that now becomes the law and Congress cannot repeal it while Democrats rule the Senate.
The ruling upheld the individual mandate that requires Americans to obtain health insurance. And there is a penalty, just like with car insurance, if you don't. And the court based it's decision on that financial penalty being a tax that is allowed by the Constitution. More than 50 millions Americans have no insurance.
Branam said health costs have been rising in recent years given technology and treatment advances. and nearly doubled in the last 15 years. And government run health care has its problems, although health care actually comes down to a simple premise. "It is the encounter between a doctor and patient," said Branam.
Tom Lowe, and his wife Judy, went to Washington D.C. this week to witness the court ruling and subsequent protests. Lowe is a retired Ball State University natural resources professor and protested against the war in Vietnam.
Now, he supported Medicare for all and making health care a air and equal proposition.
Edward Osborne is a self employed mechanic and also works on homes and has no insurance. He waits months just to get into a medical clinic because most doctors and health care providers won't see him without insurance.
"When I tried to get on the state's health insurance program, they said I made too much," said Osborne.
He also was upset that free medical clinics had been taken over by pay clinics that won't see patients who have no insurance.
Physician John Peterson, a member of the Delaware County Board of Health, is talking about opening a free health clinic downtown to overcome statistics that Indiana ranks at the bottom in public health besides at he top in obesity and health risks.
The board of health recently decided to move to a new facility to provide emergency response to public health disasters and provide other services like a new free clinic. That move could happen this fall.