State of the Union is a State of Denial, Writes Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

TUCSON, Ariz., Jan. 13, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In his final State of the Union message, Barack Obama effectively promised the moon, commented the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), Jane M. Orient, M.D.

Obama promised to launch a “moon shot,” with Joe Biden “in charge of mission control,” which will “cure cancer once and for all.” He also claims that ending the “scourge of HIV/AIDS” is within our grasp, and he will ask Congress to fund a program to end malaria too, according to the transcript published by the New York Times.

In the address, Obama took credit for having “delivered more care and benefits to our troops coming home and our veterans.” The Affordable Care Act “reformed our health care system” and slowed health care inflation. He also claimed that the platform set up by “our military, our doctors, our development workers” allowed “other countries to join in behind us and stamp out [the Ebola] epidemic.”

There was no mention of the national debt, of people losing their insurance plan and their doctors; of the unaffordability of escalating ACA premiums combined with massively increased deductibles; of rising death rates of middle-class Americans, as reported Nov 2, 2015, in the New York Times; or of continued delays and cover-ups at the VA while deaths from denied care as well as suicide continue unabated, Dr. Orient noted. He also failed to mention the continuing inadequacies in our public health system that the Ebola epidemic unmasked.

Obama promises to defeat terrorism, control the climate, and replace the fuels that now power four-fifths of the world’s economy with methods that can’t do the job, as well as wiping out medical and social ills, Dr. Orient observes. The obstacle, he implies in the address, is that “it has been more difficult to find agreement over the last seven years.”

The problem, in Dr. Orient’s opinion, is not lack of agreement and cooperation, but a disconnect from reality in both Obama and the applauding congressmen. “We cannot begin to solve problems by pretending they don’t exist.”

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a national organization representing physicians in all specialties since 1943.

Contact: Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, [email protected]