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Mr. Meese, Heritage Foundation Leadership, Heritage members and guests

I want to thank you for this great honor and let you know how humbled I am to be up here today receiving an award that I’m not sure that I truly deserve. Standing up here before so many great Americans and being recognized for an effort that I consider to be part and parcel with the very reasons that I became a doctor seems a bit odd. So many very important people and organizations have stood before you to receive this award previously- the Tea Party, the great author David McCullough and the Federalist Society, to name a few. To be mentioned in the same sentence as these former recipients simply takes my breath away.

Many of you are probably asking the question that I would be if I were sitting where you are- who is Hal Scherz and why is HE getting an award like this?

I am a Pediatric Urologist and have been for 23 years. If you know any urologists, then you know that generally, we have a good sense of humor- after all, you need one to do what we do. I considered telling an Obamacare joke but thought better of it because I did not want to do CPR on our executive director afterward.

Unfortunately, Obamacare is no joke.

After Mr. Obama was elected president, it became clear that he was coming after healthcare. Virtually every doctor that I know understands that there are many problems that need fixing in healthcare, but what the President had in mind was something very different.

I have a full time private practice, caring for children with urologic problems. I am a reconstructive surgeon and I am the managing partner of Georgia Pediatric Urology- part of a 38 person Urology group in Atlanta, Georgia. I am a clinical professor at Emory, because we also train residents and fellows in Pediatric Urology. My wife is a full time Pediatric Ophthalmologist, and we have 3 children. We have many other interests and commitments and our lives are quite busy and hectic. My plate is not just full- but is overflowing.

I share this to make you understand that the last thing in the world that I ever dreamed of doing was giving up an additional 25 hours or more of my life, every week for the last 2 years- without any financial benefit to me personally, to fight to preserve the thing that I love the most after my family- my profession. I love taking care of children. I’m really good at what I do and my patients like me. President Obama and his surrogates have put people like me on the endangered species list- I should probably seek federal relief.

When it became clear to me that our healthcare system would be circling the drain after President Obama got through with it, I could not sit around idly. I was frustrated that there was not more of an outcry from doctors who felt as I did. Sadly, most of my colleagues did feel the same, but doctors are a strange group of people. It is difficult to get them to rally behind a cause. Some say it is like trying to herd cats.

In the winter of 2009, I was getting frustrated listening to talk radio particularly with people like Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Prager, who constantly railed against the doctors for being so complacent about what was going on. But they were right. To make matters worse, the AMA- which you might be interested to know only represents about 17% of the doctors in the country, was supporting Obamacare, so the public believed that doctors were lining up in favor of this monstrous bill.

So I reached the tipping point- I either needed medication, or I had to do something bold. My friend and fellow Atlantan, Congressman Tom Price allowed me to unload on him and what he said to me struck a nerve. He said that the time to be complacent was over and that people like me had to stand up and do something bold. So I did. I twisted his arm and got him to come to my office to give the same speech to 40 doctors who then wrote checks to help us get underway, and Docs 4 Patient Care was born.

What a 2 year ride it has been. We have over 4000 doctors on our email list, and over 8000 supporters who follow us.

Time does not permit me to go through everything that we have done, but in the past 2 years, we have gotten doctors who love medicine and love their patients, and who believe in the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship to join us. We have provided the means for doctors to give their patients a clear understanding about what is happening to their healthcare, and what they must do to preserve it. I didn’t know where this was going. I certainly didn’t expect to be here today. I just knew that what we were doing was right and that all that was needed was a spark and that I could provide that spark to get the fire going.

D4PC has delivered this message over 300 times on syndicated radio shows and television. We have done so in dozens of articles and opinion pieces in print media and on the internet, including twice last year in the Wall Street Journal. We have brought this message to Washington 11 times and when we come, we call it “House Calls on Congress”. We wear our white coats so that everyone knows that we are there- coats which are earned every day- not given out as props like they do in the Rose Garden at the White House. And the Congressmen and Senators now know us. Some welcome us as allies in the fight to preserve the greatest healthcare system in the history of the planet, because they know that we are sincere and that we understand the problems and are the best hope to fix them.

Most importantly, we deliver this message thousands of times daily to our patients. One of our signature projects has been to take 2 minutes with our patients at the end of their visit to discuss healthcare and give them some literature. Some people were appalled that we would do such a thing. The AMA tried to put us on notice, issuing a statement, warning doctors not use their influence in political matters. I look at this differently. What is more important to people’s health than to understand how the government wishes to control it? I feel that doctors have an obligation to explain this to patients who don’t understand this and wish to learn. And 99% of my patients thank me and hug me and wish that more doctors did this.

I can go on for a lot longer, but must wrap this up.
Before I do, there are many thank you’s that must be given out.

First- I am receiving this award not for myself, but on behalf of Docs 4 Patient Care and the people who have worked so hard to get us to this point. The Salvatori Prize will go back to Docs 4 Patient Care. D4PC is essentially a labor of love. We do everything on our own nickel and take time away from our families, our patients and practices to do things like being here today or going to Washington. There is a core group in the audience today, who I would like to recognize. Dr. Tod Rubin has been with me almost since the beginning and gets the credit for our excellent website and information that gets out to the public. Dr. Dick Armstrong is our COO and if I am the heart of D4PC, then he is the soul. These fellas have become my best friends over the past 2 years. And Felicia Horton, our executive director. She is our only full time employee – because it’s all that we can afford. I can only dream about our potential if we had more people like Felicia. She stalked me from the day that I called into the Hugh Hewitt show in May 2009 and knew that she wanted to be part of this. She does everything for us- from secretarial work, to political strategy, to creative content. We couldn’t be where we are today without her. I love her and am eternally indebted to her.

We have made many friends along the way and the list of people who have helped us is so long that I can’t mention them all, and if I leave anyone out, it doesn’t mean that they are any less important than someone that I do recognize.

First, I would like to acknowledge Bridgett Wagner from Heritage. She immediately got what we were doing and has taken us under her wing from the very beginning. When we come to Washington, she opens up Heritage for us and makes us feel like we are coming to our own Washington office. The entire healthcare policy community has been good to us and has helped us with developing our messages and our understanding of the healthcare issues on a level that we as doctors don’t typically deal with. Bob Moffit from Heritage, Grace Marie Turner from Galen, Sally Pipes from PRI, and Betsy McCaughey from Defend Your Healthcare, have been wonderful mentors and friends to us. Our attorney, Cleta Mitchell knows about righteous causes and has believed in us from the beginning, and does her best to make sure that we don’t bring trouble down on ourselves.

I would also like to acknowledge someone who has become a dear friend and a mentor to me in my journey as a writer. Some of you know Tony Dolan, who was Ronald Reagan’s chief speech writer for 8 years. He patiently worked with me and transformed me from a technical writer of medical papers, into a writer of political thought, and I am indebted to him.

Finally, I wish to thank my children and my wife, Dr. Jeri Salit, who have put up with a lot to enable me to pursue this mission. I love them very much, which is why I will not rest until I know that I have done everything humanly possible to ensure that the promise of excellent healthcare for them in the future is the same as it has been for all of us in this room today. It is because of their grace and patience that it is possible for me to be here today on behalf of D4PC accepting the Salvatori Prize.

Once again, thank you for this honor.