By Wesley Smith

Editor's note. This appears today on Wesley's fine blog at http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/

This isn't a political blog, but by all appearances those who arrogantly forced Obamacare down the nation's unwilling throat–remember Speaker Pelosi's in your face march across Capitol Hill?–seem to face a stiff electoral price. Polls show that the public's opposition is growing, almost half the states are in open rebellion, with lawsuits filed and efforts taken to opt out of the law, and those who pushed the law through the Congress are being urged by Democratic pollsters to run away from their signature "achievement."

Now, a group of physicians -- Docs 4 Patient Care, has opened a new front against the law, particularly its heavy bureaucratic footprint that will make health care less efficient and less individualized. (See the clip embedded above.) The group working energetically to promote repeal, including urging physicians to place a letter to patients in their waiting rooms. The group's leader, Dr. Hal Scherz, wrote a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, explaining why the organization is taking such startling and high profile action. From "Dear Patient: Vote to Repeal Obamacare," {http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703369704575461840575037482.html}

The letter states in unambiguous language what the new law means:

"Dear Patient: Section 1311 of the new health care legislation gives the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and her appointees the power to establish care guidelines that your doctor must abide by or face penalties and fines. In making doctors answerable in the federal bureaucracy this bill effectively makes them government employees and means that you and your doctor are no longer in charge of your health care decisions. This new law politicizes medicine and in my opinion destroys the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship that makes the American health care system the best in the world."

This seems undeniable to me. I don't know if Docs 4 Patient Care will succeed in getting a large number of physicians to publicly urge their patients to work against the law. But if the public comes to perceive that their doctors widely oppose Obamacare, it could spell doom to all but the most benign provisions of the law. I wish them luck in their advocacy efforts.
Repeal. Reform. Replace. Defund.