Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

American doctors support the public option for health care reform

While Congress is still circulating numerous, half-baked ideas on health care reform, the most progressive proposal still standing, a public option, has the support of a key stakeholder group as represented by Doctors for America. This national grassroots organization, which organizes doctors in support of health care reform, held a press conference today in conjunction with the Center for American Progress in order to make it clear that doctors across the country strongly support the public plan option.

Since a single payer plan is no longer “on the table,” a public plan is the second best progressive solution to providing all Americans with access to affordable, quality health care. This plan would provide government-run health insurance to compete with the plans offered by private insurers, and would be open to all Americans.

Doctors for America wished to quell doubts that doctors do support a public plan option. It would be easy to come to that conclusion considering the American Medical Association’s public opposition to such a plan, yet that association has a long history of opposing health reform and their current opposition is just more of the same:
Despite a lofty reputation and purported commitment to universal coverage, AMA has fought almost every major effort at health care reform of the past 70 years. The group's reputation on this matter is so notorious that historians pinpoint it with creating the ominous sounding phrase "socialized medicine" in the early decades of the 1900s.
The 12,000 plus members of Doctors for America joined the organization because they see the urgent need for change in their own practices and in their own interactions with patients. When asked how Doctors for America can counteract opposition to a public plan by enormous groups such as the AMA and the AARP, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the group's president, said that his organization represents the voices of its members “on the ground” all across America, not just the opinions of its leaders.

Here’s an example of what some of its members are saying:
Dr. Elizabeth Powers, Enterprise, Oregon: In the current system, what frustrates me the most is time and money spent on paperwork and bureaucracy.

I want health reform that is patient centered, allowing patients to get the care they need when and where they need it. We must measure the efficacy of any new system by the health of our entire population. Inequities based on race, socioeconomic status, insurance status, etc. must be eliminated.
Doctors for America has four big goals for an improved health care system: provide affordable coverage, provide high quality care, expand access to care, and allow for physician practice environments that allow doctors to focus on patient care.

This group won’t let organizations such as the AMA speak for all doctors. The AMA is just one more group that is protecting the status quo and the insurance industry and doesn't have the best interest of Americans in mind. It can't succeed again.

Comments:

OpenID pamwinifred said...

http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/06/apparently_were_not_getting_mu.html

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

We want health care equality. We also want our health care to be more affordable and better quality. To achieve all of that, we will need to reform our current system by retooling the methods of financing. By changing the way that health care is paid for, single payer health care can eradicate the disparities and inequalities while simultaneously improving quality of care for everyone. This increase in quality will also cost less. I'm eager to talk to you about how this can only be accomplished with single payer.

More here: http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/06/apparently_were_not_getting_mu.html

June 12, 2009 12:46 AM  
Blogger Rabaeys said...

Health care reform is not an option for America, but it is a necessity. The cost are to high and all the other industrial countries has show that other systems work.
Oosteeklo

July 28, 2009 5:22 PM  

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