Anyone who has seriously studied Medicaid, the insurance program for low-income Americans, understands that there is a huge difference between possessing health insurance and having access to health care. Until late yesterday afternoon, the Obama administration seemed bent on spending $350,000 to spy on doctors and rediscover this well-known fact. Although those plans were finally scratched, doctors should expect to see similar government intrusions in the future thanks to Obamacare. The Department of Health and Human Services’ “mystery shopper” program would have called 4,185 primary care physicians in nine states, twice. On one call, they were to request an appointment while posing as a privately insured patient; on the other call, they were to pose as a patient with government insurance. Just this month, a similar study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that two-thirds of Medicaid patients were denied doctors’ appointments, compared with just 11 percent of those with private insurance. The government’s study would have merely duplicated the results of this and other private studies

The American Medical Association voiced displeasure at the proposed waste of time and money, and at the prospect of government spying on its members. “The government should be working to address [the doctor] shortage so all patients can have access to the health care they need, rather than using mystery shoppers to tell us what we already know,” said AMA spokesman Cecil Wilson, M.D. Other doctors contacted by the New York Times were less cordial, invoking “Big Brother.” We agree, but what did Dr. Wilson, and the rest of the AMA, think was going to happen when they threw their organization’s significant prestige behind Obamacare? By helping expand federal government control of our nation’s medical system to unprecedented levels, they have virtually guaranteed that bureaucrats will be looking over their shoulders regularly from now on.