ABC News, April 5, 2005 — The good news reached the Jamestown, N.Y., office of Dr. Rudolph Mueller in a fax from a congressman in Washington. Mueller had been named 2004 Physician of the Year.
There was a little catch. To receive the award, he had to go to a 2-day workshop in D.C. To attend the workshop he had to "contribute" $1250 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Smelling a rat, Dr. Mueller teamed up with ABC News to investigate this highly unusual, um,
well, what would you call it?It turns out that the award
was on the up-and-up. Dr. Mueller received the 2004 Physician of the Year Award for which he had paid. In fact, it was so up-and-up, that
hundreds of other doctors received their 2004 Physician of the Year Awards, also. Did I mention that there were
hundreds of 2004 Physician of the Year Awards distributed?
Did you ever go to one of the events where you can get your "free" weekend at a resort? The ones where you get locked in a mass sales pitch with all the other "winners"? And your weekend consists of salespeople trying to wear you down until you buy a timeshare or some such foolishness?
So Dr. Mueller's $1250 bought him a worthless piece of paper AND sales pitches from George W. Bush and Tom Delay. He got to sit through pitches about why trial lawyers are the scum of the Earth and should be banned, why the Republican Health Care reforms are God's gift.
Dr. Mueller, author of
As Sick As It Gets: The Shocking Reality of America's Healthcare, A Diagnosis and Treatment Plan, wanted to talk about really fixing health care. Mueller said most of the talk at the sessions was about marketing, lawyers and taxes, and that he was met with silence when trying to raise the issue of the lack of affordable health insurance.
"It's like the old diploma mills," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a government watchdog group. "It's the kind of scam that we've seen congressional investigations look at when they take place in the private sector. But here, since members of Congress are doing it, we're not going to see any investigation."
Some of the other winners told Mueller that his $1,250 fee to the NRCC was a wise investment indeed. He should use the award as a marketing tool, they said, as an impressive honor he could tell patients.
Wertheimer warned that the award was misleading and that they should add the award was given "because I paid for this certificate, not for anything else that happened."
A Republican spokesman said there were thousands of doctors around the country content with their Physicians of the Year awards, and that there was nothing about the program to apologize for.
Some of the attendees shamelessly post NRCC's Physician of the Year among their honors and credentials - even on the Internet. What you you do if your doctor proudly displayed a fraudulent award? I'd wonder what other paper on his/her wall was fraudulent.
Google "Physician of the Year" + NRCC . You will quickly discover that a lot of doctors should be ashamed of themselves. Note: the same scam has been used with "Businessmen." There are many, many NRCC "Businessman of the Year".
This scam, perpetrated many "professionals," raises
millions of dollars for the NRCC. I'll bet if you contacted any true-believer Republican congressional rep, you, too could get the award, and you, too, could con John & Jane Public that there is something special about you.
Hey, I know a true-believer Republican congressional rep. Maybe he could get me a discount on "Blogger of the Year" or "Webmaster of the Year" or just leave the title part blank and let me fill it in.
