Doctors Call for Universal Health Insurance

[Guest guest]

> Doctors Call for Universal Health Insurance

> Tue Aug 12, 4:05 PM ET

> By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

>

> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 7,000 doctors, including two former

> surgeons general, called for universal health insurance for the United

> States on Tuesday, saying it would not only be more fair,

>

>

> " We endorse a fundamental change in U.S. health care -- the creation of a

> national health insurance program, " the doctors wrote in a special

> communication to the Journal of the American Medical Association

>

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>

> The doctors, who have an Internet Web site at http://www.pnhp.org/, say

> Americans are overpaying for medical care and point out that 41 million

> lack any kind of health insurance at all.

>

> Unlike countries such as Canada, Britain and France, the United States

> relies on a combination of private and government health care. Most

> Americans are insured through their employers, but small employers are not

> required and often not able to provide health insurance.

>

> Medicare and Medicaid offer care to patients who are old enough, disabled

> enough or poor enough to qualify for the state-federal health plan, but

> many doctors do not participate. States trying to balance budgets have

been

> forced to cut Medicaid and Medicare services.

>

> " In our market-driven system, insurers and providers compete not so much

by

> increasing quality or lowering costs, but by avoiding unprofitable

patients

> and shifting costs back to patients or to other payers, " the group, who

> call themselves Physicians for a National Health Program, wrote in JAMA.

>

> " This creates the paradox of a health care system based on avoiding the

sick. "

>

> SINGLE-PAYER SYSTEM

>

> They call for a single-payer system, in which government pays for health

> care but keeps the delivery of health care under mostly private control.

>

> Dr. Marcia Angell, a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine

>

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> sites), said the group's proposal would not lead to socialized medicine,

> and denied that it would lead to an inefficient bureaucracy.

>

> " We should remember that the government is representative of the public

> that elects it and we are responsible for it, " she said at a news

conference.

>

> " An investor-owned insurance company reports to its owners, not to the

> public. "

>

> Former Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher said the current system ensures

> that blacks, Hispanics and other minorities are more likely to lack

> insurance than whites. He said 4,700 more black babies than white babies

> died by the age of 1 because of such disparities.

>

> " The world's richest health care system is unable to ensure basics like

> prenatal care and immunizations, and we trail most of the developed world

> on such indicators as infant mortality and life expectancy, " the doctors

> wrote.

>

> The AMA itself came out in opposition to the plan.

>

> " A solution to the problem of the uninsured is desperately needed -- but a

> single-payer health care system is not the answer, " AMA President Dr.

> Donald Palmisano said in a statement.

>

> " Long waits for health care services, a slowness to adopt new technologies

> and maintain facilities, and development of a large bureaucracy that can

> cause a decline in the authority of patients and their physicians over

> clinical decision-making are all hallmarks of the single-payer system. "

>

>

>

> Private insurers agreed.

>

> " The American people do not want to stifle the innovation and quality that

> the private sector enables, " said Mike Tuffin, a spokesman for the

American

> Association of Health Plans.

>

>

http://story.news./news?tmpl=story & u=/nm/20030812/hl_nm/health_insu

rance_dc_2

>

[Guest guest]

I don’t understand how it can be “more fair”.

That would mean that I – who hasn’t been to the

doctor in 25 years because I take care of myself – would have to pay for

the health insurance of someone who, for instance, smokes and

drinks and eats at McDonald’s & Krispy Kreme every day, and has all kinds of degenerative

diseases. Doesn’t seem fair

to me!

Carol

 

 

luckypig

[luckypig]

>

>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 7,000 doctors, including two former

> surgeons general, called for universal health insurance for the

United

> States

on Tuesday, saying it would not only be more fair,

>