Official Obama Derangement Syndrome Blog

Obama Exposure

August 13, 2009 at 11:45 pm

Obama’s Foot Amputation ‘Foot in the Mouth’ Gaffe

» by ODS Expositor in: -Gaffes, -Obamacare

Image by Great Beyond via Flickr

In the process of giving an example of why ObamaCare is needed, the Prez implied that Doctors amputated feet needlessly in order to collect a fat fee:

“…if a family care physician works with his or her patient to help them lose weight, modify diet, monitors whether they’re taking their medications in a timely fashion, they might get reimbursed a pittance. But if that same diabetic ends up getting their foot amputated, that’s $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 — immediately the surgeon is reimbursed. Well, why not make sure that we’re also reimbursing the care that prevents the amputation, right? That will save us money.”

Here he goes again just making stuff up this time at the expense of doctors. However The American College of Surgeons struck back with some inconvenient facts of their own:

When the President makes statements that are incorrect or not based in fact, we think he does a disservice to the American people at a time when they want clear, understandable facts about health care reform. We want to set the record straight.

Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation. This payment also includes the evaluation of the patient on the day of the operation plus patient follow-up care that is provided for 90 days after the operation.

There you have it, the Prez was suffering again from ‘foot in the mouth’ syndrome. Gee, maybe he should go to a surgeon for one of those amputations he was talking about—huh?