There’s some ‘magical thinking’ behind GOP health-care plan

A medical resident at Seattle Children’s says the Senate Republican’s prized health care bill will be detrimental to poor and working-class people, and the idea that it will provide more and cheaper choices is a dream.

“That is magical thinking,” Doctor Rachel Pearson, author of “No Apparent Distress: A Doctor’s Coming-of-Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine,” told Seattle’s Morning News.

She says that Obamacare may not be perfect, but the expansion of Medicaid has been one of the most successful health care moves in decades.

Pearson, who worked at a clinic in Texas, saw what can happen to a population living in a state without Medicaid expansion. The financial burden of health care has sent people into poverty and resulted in some dying of treatable diseases, she said.

On Tuesday, Senate Republican leaders delayed a vote on their health care bill until after the July 4 recess. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had hoped to push the measure through his chamber by this week’s end, before an Independence Day recess that party leaders fear will be used by foes of the legislation to tear away support.

Under the current bill, much of former President Barack Obama’s health care law would be rolled back.

Pearson, speaking for herself and not Seattle Children’s, says the bill would likely result in vulnerable populations being turned away from care.

“That’s the outcome we’re all hoping to prevent,” she said.

“It’s devastating,” she added. “As a doctor, you want to care for people. You go into it because you want to help people. It sounds cliche, but for most of us it’s true.”

She says the “shame” of not providing adequate or standard of care for people who can’t afford it is what ends up driving doctors away from practice.

Listen to the entire interview here.