In traditional medical ethics, a doctor’s primary responsibility is to tell his patients the truth and to treat his patients according to his best honest judgment, skill, and ability.

But a new form of medical ethics is being taught in medical schools that tells doctors to place the needs of “society” ahead of individual patients. At best, it forces doctors to juggle the truth and the interests of their patients alongside “social” considerations. At worst, it will give them license to sacrifice their professional integrity (and their patients’ interests) in the name of “society.”…

This new approach to medical ethics was exemplified clearly by the young family medicine physician who told Ann Althouse that writing questionable work excuses was morally proper (“an ok thing to do”) because it served the greater “social” goal of helping the Democratic-backed government employee union against the Republican governor.

But what happens when this new breed of doctors start applying those same ethical principles in regular clinical practice? Under ObamaCare, many of these physicians will no longer work in traditional private practice but rather in large Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) where they will treat patients according to government-specified “cost-effectiveness” guidelines. These guidelines will often be constructed to save money for the government entities paying the bills (such as Medicare and Medicaid), even at the expense of the patient’s well-being. We’ve already seen this in the government’s recently failed attempt to impose similar cost-effectiveness guidelines that would have restricted screening mammograms to women over age 50 (even though research has shown a clear medical benefit to starting screening mammography at age 40).