Issues confronting medicine

Our representatives in Washington are attempting to deceive the American public with a giant prevarication. The electorate is being told that more patients can obtain better health care at a lower cost. The practicing dermatologist is caught between opposing forces that are demanding improved care in the face of dwindling reimbursements. Concomitantly, the inexorable forces and constraints of escalating office overhead, tort liability, bureaucratic red tape, and managed competition hang like a sword of Damocles over the head of the practicing dermatologist. The independent practitioner stands alone as the only advocate for his patient; however, the physician's plea to maintain the sanctity and dignity of the doctor-patient relationship is being sacrificed on the altar of cost containment.