This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” March 16, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Doctors have been railing about what a government takeover of health care could mean for families across the country. And tonight I am joined by one of them who has a unique connection with President Obama.
Now, he recently wrote that, quote, “Politicians who would rewrite our health care laws do not live in the same universe as the doctors and health care professionals who must practice it.”
And he, like many other doctors, warn that the president’s plan could drastically reduce access to health care, so much so that rationing could soon become a reality in America.
But this doctor’s words are capturing everyone’s attention because he happens to be a cousin of President Barack Obama. He is Dr. Milton Wolf, a radiologist in Kansas. He is a second cousin of the president, once removed. And he joins me now.
Dr. Wolf, how are you?
DR. MILTON WOLF, RADIOLOGIST: Doing fine, thank you.
HANNITY: Now do you ever talk to the president? Are you friends with him? Do you communicate with him? Have you over the years?
WOLF: No. In fact, I’ve not met him. His part of the family moved away long before I was born. And those were decisions made by people who are no longer living today.
HANNITY: All right. Well…
WOLF: I am proud to say — I’m proud to say it was my mom who was able to put the pieces together and found him while he was in Illinois and kind of put two and two and got together got on the phone, got on a plane, and was able to make the union.
HANNITY: All right. What we just read, “Those politicians who would rewrite our health care laws don’t live in the same universe as do the doctors and the health care professionals who must practice it.” Explain that.
WOLF: There’s a bedrock principle in medicine in America, and that is first do no harm. Every decision we make and every patient that we see, we have to — we have to decide what we will do in that context. And if we will do more harm than good, we don’t do it.
And a politician has a different way of looking at things. They’re — they’re not held to the kind of scrutiny we are. They don’t spend tens of thousands a year in insurance to cover themselves, and they don’t face million-dollar lawsuits with every decision they make.
So “first do no harm” is — is a concept that I wish we could get across to politicians, but I don’t think that we have.
HANNITY: You know, it’s interesting, because you wrote something else in the piece that, if we applied to politicians, the very people who bankrupted Social Security, the same people who bankrupted Medicare, the same people that are robbing from our kids and grandkids, you wrote about doctors.
You said, “Imagine if, like physicians, politicians were personally held to incredibly high levels of scrutiny that includes civil, financial liability for any unintended consequences of their decision.” So on any of the issues that I mentioned, if they were held to account, probably those standards, some of them might be in jail, no?
WOLF: Well, there are some serious problems with this legislation that they’re putting forward. And if they were held to account, I don’t think they’d put this forward. I think that this legislation will do some significant harm.
And I’ve had a difficult time trying to decide what my role should be in that. But the more that I studied this and the more than I looked at how this would impact my patients and then, by extension, patients around the country, I knew that I had to make the difficult decision. I knew I had to take a stand for my patients, for my profession, ultimately for my country, and say this is simply not good for our country.
But I have to say, despite that, I’m enormously proud of President Obama. And I can’t tell you, I can’t even put into words the honor it is to say that I’m from the same family as the president. That fate put us in a position to see the wonderful turn of events that made him president and what that means for our country. But I think ultimately that this is not in his best interest.
HANNITY: Well, what did you — you were very, very clear, because — and very critical. I mean, I understand the pride you may have that somebody in your family became the president of the United States.
But you said Obamacare proponents will have us believe that 30 million patients we’re going add to the system without adding providers will see no decline in the quality of care for millions of Americans happy with the system currently, and that we’re going to save money in the process. Then you go on to say, “Why stop there? Why not promise it will rain on — never rain on weekends, every day is going to be a great day.”
You think this is a fantasy, what they’re selling us?
WOLF: Sadly, I think it is. It really stretches anyone’s credibility to try to say that it would happen in those ways.
They’ve already built in — things into this plan, schemes into this plan, that will ration care. They’ve created a — the 10 percent rule. If your doctor, your primary care, your family-care doctor is in the top 10 percent of doctors who send patients on to specialists, then your doctor will face a 5 percent cut, not just on the patients they sent to specialists but on every Medicare patient they’ve seen for the year.
Now, that will have a devastating effect, because that policy doesn’t care if you needed to see a specialist. It only matters that your doctor sent to you a specialist.
HANNITY: I have one last question, because you’re a doctor. You’re in the profession. You’re related to the president. Will this plan that they’re now pushing, and I think in a very corrupt way, do you believe this will harm and — if you believe so, how greatly will it harm our health care system?
WOLF: I’m afraid of what this could do to our system. Because of these kind of things that they’ve put into place. And not only that, but the 30 extra million people without providing extra providers.
We just learned from The New England Journal of Medicine that a significant percentage of doctors would consider leaving — seriously consider leaving the profession if this went through. We’ll actually have less providers if this went through to try to take on these extra burdens. There would be no choice but to ration care. They’ve already built it into this plan.
HANNITY: All right, Dr. Wolf, good to see you. Thank you for being with us. If you do see the president, send him my regards. Ask him to come on the show.
WOLF: Thank you.
HANNITY: I know, fat chance.
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