Friday, September 24, 2010

Celebratory day for Obama is a day of "mourning" for a Wyoming Dr.


President Barack Obama today called attention to tomorrow's date as marking 6 months since he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. He held this up as a celebratory date for his administration's accomplishments. He signed that bill on March 23, 2010.

Not coincidentally, March 23, 2010 also marks the date of my retirement from the practice of medicine. Although at age 67 I was still healthy and active and enjoying my profession part-time, I felt obligated to express my dissatisfaction -- my thorough disapproval -- of a plan conceived not in the best interest of the American people, but a political sword thrust to derail the free market system at the expense of patients and providers from coast to coast, border to border, and to bring the American population further under direct control of an uncaring government.

My retirement was and is a symbolic protest. I completely agree that health care reform was warranted -- but a a plan much simpler, more market-oriented, and far less intrusive had been proposed by conservative thinkers and rejected out of hand, without consideration, by the Powers That Be in government and most of the media. The conservative alternative never saw the light of day, and the general public was told, in fact, that the Republicans were rowdy obstructionists who had no plan of their own. This was patently untrue.

I have watched in dismay as our government has enslaved us for generations to come, with no positive results and apparently no end in sight to the ensuing chaos and irresponsible behavior.

And thus my symbolic gesture, and a promise to spend more of my (now much-freer) time being actively involved in the pursuit of political change. Our country faces a transformation, as promised by Barack Obama, but I doubt that many who desired change are satisfied with the direction our Republic is heading. I hope that multitudes will agree with me.

Obama celebrates September 23, 2010, as the six-month mark in the official existence of "Obamacare." I mourn the same day as the six-month mark of my withdrawal from medical practice. My symbolic gesture represents a very small voice in this vast nation -- but I hope with all my heart that "We, the People" will all make our individual small voices heard, to build to a resounding roar that will save our country from the relentlessly downhill course that the administration and a "progressive" Congress have planned.

Kent D. Stockton M.D., Riverton, Wyoming

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