It’s not Obamacare

Stubbs said he has had numerous patients ask him if he’s making the change as the result of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, known by many as Obamacare.

“I say, ‘No.’ Maybe that’s the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Stubbs said. “(But) this started long before that.

“This all sounds good, give everybody health care. But there’s no free lunch. There are not enough tax dollars period to pay for that. And, there are lots of parts of Obamacare (that) are good,” he said.

Stubbs said the American public is woefully misinformed about what’s going on in healthcare. He pointed to legislation in 2008 and 2009, which he said was hidden in part of the recovery act budget — “the same one that gave us lights on the bridge” — requires physicians to keep electronic medical records or risk losing a significant portion of their income.

He said that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, politicians began working to cap the amount of money doctors can be paid by Medicaid and Medicare, known as the Sustainable Growth Rate. However, he said every year politicians write a stop-gap bill that negatives that law because “they know if they do that, doctors will stop seeing any Medicare and Medicaid patients and hospitals will go broke.”

Stubbs said he made the decision to change the way he practices to what is known as concierge medicine because he found himself waking up in the mornings angry.

“I appreciate y’all so much. Lots of you have been patients of mine for many years and I appreciate your loyalty. I found myself waking up every morning and was mad. I wasn’t mad at you, I was mad at the system. That’s no way to go through life, waking up mad every morning.”