How Obamacare Will Screw Black Doctors

How Obamacare Will Screw Black Doctors

By tying doctor pay to patient satisfaction scores, Obamacare’s ‘pay for performance’ system is going to disproportionately hurt minority doctors. Here’s why.

Imagine that you’re an optimistic third-year medical student walking into the ER. Your first patient says to you, “I don’t want any niggers touching me.” There you are in your brand new white coat—the apotheosis of your and your parents’ hopes and dreams—but still, to this patient, you’re a nigger. You try to ignore the sting in your eyes—the shame of it. You suck it up, say nothing, and move on.

This kind of thing has happened to me from time to time—even as a studious, light-skinned offspring of a white father and black mother; even as a person who has “no discernable negro accent”; even as a person who was schooled since I was knee-high to respond to the question of what race I am by saying, “Homo sapiens sapiens because there is no such thing as race.”

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