Obama's Chicago Doctor Says Health Reform Will Fail

5013473President Obama's very own doctor thinks Mr. Obama's plan health care reform is "piecemeal and ineffectual," according to reports -- and doomed to fail.

"I look at his program and I can't see how it's going to work," Dr. David Scheiner said, according to the Huffington Post. "There would be no effective cost control in his program... and the thing that I really am worried about is, if it is the failure that I think it would be, then health reform will be set back a long, long time."

The 70-year-old doctor based in the Chicago area treated Mr. Obama for more than 20 years. Scheiner is an advocate of single-payer health care systems -- through which a single entity, like the federal government, pays fees to hospitals and doctors -- and believes that "in his heart of hearts" Mr. Obama is, too, he said, the Huffington Post reported. He said he is troubled the president has consulted with private industry executives more than primary care physicians and has not talked more about the benefits of single-payer coverage.

Insurance companies interfere with his work more than the government does, even though he works with both, Scheiner said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Mr. Obama years ago said he was a proponent of a single-payer system but has since said such a program is not feasible given the current, employer-based structure of the nation's health care system. The president has left many of the details of health care reform up to Congress, encouraging them to come up with a bipartisan plan.

"His pragmatism is what is overwhelming him," Scheiner said. "I think he's afraid that he can't get anything through if he doesn't go through this incredibly compromised program."

In the end, however, "I think [Obama's] program is going to fail," the doctor said, according to the Huffington Post.

Scheiner, who produced the impressively short one-page summary of Mr. Obama's health, praised the president for his intelligence and personable nature, as well as his health.
"The guy is built like a rock, he could probably bench-press me," he said.