The Prescription From Obama's Own Doctor
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
NY Times Op-Ed: June 24, 2009
As a society, we trust doctors to be more concerned with the pulse of their
patients than the pulse of commerce. Yet the American Medical Association is
using that trust to try to block a robust public insurance option as part of
health reform.
In fact the A.M.A. now represents only 19 percent of practicing physicians
(that's my calculation, which the A.M.A. neither confirms nor contests). Its
membership has declined in part because of its embarrassing historical
record: the A.M.A. supported segregation, opposed President Harry Truman's
plans for national health insurance, backed tobacco, denounced Medicare and
opposed President Bill Clinton's health reform plan.
So I hope President Obama tunes out the A.M.A. and reaches out instead to
somebody to whom he's turned often for medical advice. That's Dr. David
Scheiner, a Chicago internist who was Mr. Obama's doctor for more than two
decades, until he moved into the White House this year.
"They've always been on the wrong side of things," Dr. Scheiner told me,
speaking of the A.M.A. "They may be protecting their interests, but they're
not protecting the interests of the American public.
"In the past, physicians have risked their lives to take care of patients.
The patient's health was the bottom line, not the checkbook. Today, it's
just immoral what's going on. It's abominable, all these people without
health care."
Dr. Scheiner, 70, favors the public insurance option and would love to go
further and see Medicare for all. He greatly admires Mr. Obama but worries
that his health reforms won't go far enough.
Dr. J. James Rohack, the president of the A.M.A., insisted to me that his
group is committed to making health insurance accessible for all Americans,
and that its paramount concern is patient health.
"When you don't have health insurance, you live sicker and you die younger,"
he said. "And that's not something we're proud of as Americans."
He added that the A.M.A. is not necessarily opposed to a public option, and
I have the impression that it might accept a pallid one built on co-ops. Dr.
Rohack wouldn't repudiate his association's letter to the Senate Finance
Committee warning against a new public plan. That letter declared: "The
introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by
driving out private insurers."
I don't mind the A.M.A. lobbying on behalf of doctors in the many areas
where physicians and patients have common interests. The association is dead
right, for example, in calling for curbs on lawsuits, which raise medical
costs for everyone.
An excellent study published in 2006 in The New England Journal of Medicine
found that for every dollar paid in compensation as a result of lawsuits
against doctors, 54 cents goes to legal and administrative costs.
That's an absurd waste of money. Moreover, aggressive law leads to defensive
medicine, in the form of extra medical tests that waste everybody's money.
Tort reform should be a part of health reform.
Yet when the A.M.A. uses its lobbying muscle to oppose major health reform -
yet again! - that feels like a betrayal. Doctors work hard to keep us
healthy when we're in their offices, and that's why they win our trust and
admiration - yet the A.M.A.'s lobbying has sometimes undermined the health
of the very patients whom the doctors have sworn to uphold.
I might expect the American Association of Used Car Dealers to focus
exclusively on wallet-fattening, but we expect better of physicians.
In fairness, most physicians expect better as well, which is why the A.M.A.
is on the decline.
"It's what has led to the decline of the A.M.A. over the last half century,"
said Dr. David Himmelstein, a Massachusetts physician who also teaches at
Harvard Medical School. "At this point only one in five practicing doctors
are in the A.M.A., and even among its members about half disagree with its
policies." To back that last point, Dr. Himmelstein pointed to surveys
showing a surprising number of A.M.A. members who support a single-payer
system.
For his part, Dr. Himmelstein co-founded Physicians for a National Health
Program, which now has more than 16,000 members. The far larger American
College of Physicians, which is composed of internists and is the
second-largest organization of doctors, is also open to a single-payer
system and a public insurance option. It also quite rightly calls for
emphasizing primary care.
The American Medical Student Association has issued a sharp statement
disagreeing with the A.M.A.
The student association declared that it "not only supports but insists upon
a public health insurance option."
Look, a public option is no panacea, and it won't automatically set right
the many shortcomings in our health system. But if that option is killed in
gestation, then we're back to Square 1 and there's little hope of progress
in solving the vast challenges confronting us.
So, President Obama, don't listen to the A.M.A. on this issue. Instead, for
starters, call your doctor!
***
From: Cate Engel, MSW
For Release
What: Sing out for Single Payer: A musical ChauTauqua on Health Care
Who: ANNE FEENEY & Friends
When: Thursday, July 2nd @ 7:30 pm
Where: Professional Musicians Local 47
817 Vine St., Los Angeles 90038
(just north of Melrose - free on-site parking available)
Suggested Donation: $10
(no one turned away for lack of funds)
For more information: (213) 252-1351
The woman that Utah Phillips calls the "best labor singer in North America"
As the debate on how to resolve the nation's health care crisis continues,
one singular answer has been widely ignored in the public debate, despite
its popular appeal: a progressively financed, comprehensive, universal
health care system - otherwise known as single-payer. That didn't sit well
with Pittsburgh activist and labor singer Anne Feeney. She says she's been
'comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable' with her music
since 1968.
Frustrated that patients, nurses and doctors have been largely excluded from
the debate, Feeney and almost four dozen professional musicians decided to
launch the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show. Modeled after the traveling
chautauquas of the 1930s, these concerts will take place nightly and run
from San Diego, CA to Bellingham, WA. "This is a pivotal moment in our
nation's history. It's a great opportunity for Americans to improve the
health of the nation and bring quality health care to everyone in the United
States. We're on the road - entertaining, mobilizing, educating, inspiring
and energizing folks on this chance of our lifetime," says Feeney. Some
musicians will sing at one location - others, like David Rovics, Brian QTN,
Green Mountain Grass and Citizens' Band will do several shows. Jason
Luckett, a Los Angeles based singer-songwriter who has been described as
"Billy Bragg meets Stevie Wonder" will do the entire tour with Feeney.
Several of the shows are being presented by physicians.
The two-hour concerts feature lots of community singing, humor, harmonizing
and jamming. The shows are sponsored by the California Nurses'
Association-National Nurses' Organizing Committee, Universal Health Care for
Oregon, Jobs with Justice, The Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care,
the Solidarity Education Fund, Physicians for a National Health Plan and
Unions for Single Payer HR 676. The musicians are traveling with lots of
information to distribute on national health care. Their slogan is "Everyone
In! Nobody Out!"
Cate Engel, MSW
Administrator & Projects Coordinator
Labor Task Force for Universal Healthcare
213.252.1351, cengel@USC.edu
:
No comments:
Post a Comment