Doctors group welcomes national debate on ‘Medicare for All’

[Uncle Joe]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, January 22, 2016

Physicians for a National Health Program, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of 20,000 doctors who support single-payer national health insurance, released the following statement today by its president, Dr. Robert Zarr, a Washington, D.C., pediatrician.

The national debate on single-payer health reform, or "Medicare for All," that has emerged in the course of the presidential primaries is a welcome development. But unfortunately a number of misrepresentations about single-payer national health insurance – and the prospects for its attainment – have crept into the dialogue and are potentially misleading the public.

Most of these misrepresentations, or myths, have been decisively refuted by peer-reviewed research. They include the following:

Myth: A single-payer system would impose an unacceptable financial burden on U.S. households. Reality: Single payer is the only health reform that pays for itself. By replacing hundreds of insurers and thousands of different private health plans, each with their own marketing, enrollment, billing, utilization review, actuary and other departments, with a single, streamlined, tax-financed nonprofit program, more than $400 billion in health spending would be freed up to guarantee coverage to all of the 30 million people who are currently uninsured and to upgrade the coverage of everyone else, including the tens of millions who are underinsured. Co-pays and deductibles, which have been rapidly rising under the Affordable Care Act, would be eliminated. Further, the single-payer system’s bargaining clout would rein in rising costs for drugs and medical supplies. Lump-sum budgets for hospitals and capital planning would control costs even more.

A recent study shows 95 percent of U.S. households would come out financially ahead under an improved version of Medicare for all. The graduated, progressively structured tax burden would be based on ability to pay, and the heavy cost to average U.S. households of private insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and many currently uncovered services would be eliminated. Patients could go to the doctor or hospital of their choice, and would no longer be restricted to proprietary networks. Multiple studies over a period of several decades, including by the General Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office, show that a single-payer system would provide universal coverage at a much lower cost, per capita, than we are spending now. International experience confirms it. Even our traditional Medicare program, which falls short of a true single-payer system, has much lower overhead than private insurance, and shows that publicly financed programs can deliver affordable, reliable care.

A single-payer system would also greatly diminish the administrative burden on our nation’s physicians and hospitals, freeing up physicians, in particular, to concentrate on doing what they know best: caring for patients.

(snip)

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2016/january/doctors-group-welcomes-national-debate-on-%E2%80%98medicare-for-all%E2%80%99

This is a good read.

[Skwmom]

1. As they play their political games thousands of people die for lack of health care.

Instead of informing the public we mislead them to score cheap political points.

[Uncle Joe]

3. I agree, Skwmom.

The carrying power of a bridge is not the average strength of the pillars, but the strength of the weakest pillar. I have always believed that you do not measure the health of a society by GNP but by the condition of its worst off.

Zygmunt Bauman


Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/z/zygmuntbau536833.html#gomDZZWkyAQZpH6z.99

[99th_Monkey]

2. This is exactly what is needed, for future debates. have them organized and moderated by non-profits

groups like the League of Women Voters, and this Doctors group, Common Cause, et. al.

And NOT organized by the M$M, as they are abusing their role, hopelessly biased and riddled
with conflicts of interest.

[Uncle Joe]

7. I agree, 99th_Monkey.

Peace to you.

[ViseGrip]

48. All know there is a rally on Sunday at the Concord Capitol 12:15 put on by the Granite State chapter

of the PNHP. Great group!

[Ron Green]

4. PNHP is probably the very best source

for accurate, clear and encouraging information about universal health care in this country.

[Uncle Joe]

9. I agree, they're a 20,000 member non-profit, non-partisan organization whose primary goal

is the betterment of health care.

[99th_Monkey]

43. Good to know, i hadn't heard of them before.

But I'm old enough to recall when the League of Women Voters conducted REAL debates,
without corporate spin or with M$M's finger on the scales.

[Fawke Em]

45. Agreed.

They can't legally endorse, so this is the closest thing they can do.

[Fumesucker]

5. Misrepresentations have crept into the dialog

Oh my what a masterful example of understatement, there certainly hasn't been much creeping going on, more like leaping, pouncing, charging, stampeding.

[Recursion]

6. And the AMA opposes single payer, and has 10 times the membership as PNHP

Because they know how much physicians' paychecks will have to come down.

[Skwmom]

10. The same association that said GMO labeling wasn't necessary and which led to doctors

quitting in protest.

[Recursion]

12. And the same organization which deliberately limits med school sizes to keep doctors scarce

I never said doctors were on our side.

[Uncle Joe]

14. So if the AMA does that why do you cite them and post threads concerning possible salary cuts

for them?

Apparently these 20,000 doctors are on the side of "do no harm."

[Recursion]

15. Because we need to cut physician and hospital payments

We need to stop futzing around on the borders with different financing models like Sanders wants to, and find a way to make doctors and hospitals do 33% more work for 50% less money like O'Malley has in Maryland*, and we need to be up-front about that.

* (Obviously he didn't get 33% and 50% yet, but he got more people treated for a reduction in costs.)

[Uncle Joe]

16. The supply will meet the demand and nothing in your thread is proof of a 50% cut.

All manner of dynamics will be changed.

[Recursion]

19. Well, yeah, the dynamics of US hospitals getting $971B, and physicians getting $600B

Those dynamics will have to change, a lot, in the context of both physicians and hospitals treating 50 million or so more people.

[Uncle Joe]

22. Here's a nice article titled "AMA endorses single payer health care (sort of)"

(snip)

But what’s really shocking about the AMA study is that $210 billion figure. While at first glance it seems to draw on a methodology known as “throw in the kitchen sink,” I realized it actually fit quite well with a separate examination of health system bureaucracy. With a little searching, I found it:

“Because the U.S. does not have a unified system that serves everyone, and instead has thousands of different insurance plans, each with its own marketing, paperwork, enrollment, premiums, and rules and regulations, our insurance system is both extremely complex and fragmented…With a universal health care system we would be able to cut our bureaucratic burden in half and save over $300 billion annually.”

That analysis comes from Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), long-time flag-wavers for a Canadian-style single-payer system. As for the costs imposed by lawsuits, most Canadian doctors “receive malpractice protection from the Canadian Medical Protective Association, which tracks the number of legal actions launched and the amounts paid out to successful cases,“ according to the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation. Since 1995, the foundation added, there has been a steady and “startling” drop in the number of lawsuits filed and a steady increase in judgments favoring doctors in those lawsuits that do go to trial.

As it happens, there is a calculation of wasted dollars that dwarfs either the PNHP or AMA numbers, but it has nothing to do with paperwork. A 2005 Medical Care study by Terry S. Field et al. (Medical Care 43(12):1171-1176) examined annual costs related to adverse drug events in the ambulatory setting. It concluded: “Across the entire population of Medicare enrollees age 65 and older in 2000, we estimate the annual cost for adverse drug events occurring in the ambulatory setting was more than $2 billion, of which $887 million was associated with preventable adverse drug events.”

The authors did not suggest report cards to help patients pick the safest doctor. But the methodology does suggest that one AMA concern was addressed. Since the study was done at a large HMO, at least the doctors didn’t have to worry about getting paid.

http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2008/06/21/ama-endorses-single-payer-health-care-sort-of/

[white_wolf]

26. As someone who seriously considered law school for years, I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

I am by no means an expert, but I do know one of the biggest problems in legal education is the simple fact that there are too many schools taking too many students which leads to more lawyers than there are jobs for. I used to frequent a forum for law students and recent law grads and that was one of the common complaints they had about legal education in America. In fact, many of them expressed a wish that the ABA would follow the AMA and start cracking down on the number of law schools in this country since there are ton of students that graduate with a law degree and never find legal work despite the crippling amount of debt they are in. Keep in mind this is all anecdotal evidence, but I thought some people might find it interesting.

[Recursion]

28. Literally half of my electrical engineering class went to law school

They're all patent lawyers now. I agree, it's crazy.

[Skwmom]

8. Thank you Uncle Joe. Great post.

[Uncle Joe]

17. Thanks for being here, Skwmom.

Peace to you.

[slipslidingaway]

11. My daughter, a 30 year old internal medicine physician in Fl. is voting for Sanders and a HC ....

system for all. She grew up in a more conservative/Repub neighborhood in the NE and registered as a Repub in high school. We have always been more liberal and believed in education. Strange that we moved for our first born to a good school district, but our second born might have been the child that benefitted more from the public education system.

She has come almost full circle and has seen the pitfalls of those in need after doing her residency in an inner city.

Something needs to change!

[Uncle Joe]

13. Thanks for sharing that, slipslidingaway.

I wish your daughter well and peace to you.

[slipslidingaway]

25. In hindsight I wish that I had recorded the speeches given on her graduation from

med school. These were all seasoned veterans of the system and they all looked towards a more just HC system for all, they recognized the pitfalls.

I remember advocating on DU for a universal system even before and then when she was she first accepted into med school and before my husband was diagnosed with MDS which led to acute myeloid leukemia, an allogeneic transplant, relapse and another allogeneic transplant last year. So I guess you can say we have seen it all, wanting a good salary for your child who studied hard and our out of pocket annual premiums in addition to HC expenditures that eat away at hopes for a decent retirement. I almost have to laugh at the thread about reducing salaries for physicians, she is now helping her parents, in addition to my sister who lives in the UK under 'socialized' medicine. What a strange world we live in! Thankfully those who live within a 'socialist' med system can help those who live in a for profit country can help us out. Not sure that speaks well for the viability and sustainability of country, but we just take it one day at a time.

[slipslidingaway]

27. And I forgot ...

thank you!!!

May this next year be filled with happiness for all, we are all in this world together.

[Enthusiast]

35. PLUS ONE, a huge bunch!

[slipslidingaway]

36. Think we did OK ...

you always look back on what might have been and how things could be different.

All in all it turns out well

If you could have heard the speeches, the professors/docs were all about a radical, more socialized version of our HC system.

The times they are a changing.

[passiveporcupine]

18. Wish there was a way to make this mandatory reading for every DU member

Some good points to argue with here, that's for sure. I'm bookmarking this thread.

[Uncle Joe]

20. That's a good idea, I'm bookmarking it as well.

Peace to you, passiveporcupine.

[passiveporcupine]

21. You too Unc

We gotta get this info out there.

[Eko]

23. Please.

This.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

24. There shouldn't even BE a debate within the party.

[Recursion]

30. And yet there is, even in Vermont.

You're in a coalition with people who don't agree with you on the best way forward for healthcare.

[Enthusiast]

33. There is no debate on the best way forward for healthcare.

The best way forward is fully understood by everyone involved including defenders of the status quo for profit morass we are living in.

Anything that happened in Vermont is a result of a strong defense by entrenched interests. Our aim is to defeat these people that do not support our best interests. But then you knew that.

[Recursion]

34. Sorry, but I think O'Malley's plan is just a better idea

To the extent that Sanders's "plan" can even be compared to an actual plan.

I'm not terribly interested in how we are financing health care; I'm concerned about how much it costs. O'Malley's plan directly addresses that; Sanders waves his hands and says the magic of financing will, even though it hasn't happened for Medicare.

[Enthusiast]

40. It hasn't happened for Medicare because Medicare only enrolls the sick, elderly and disabled.

Financing health care is the most important aspect of health care as it stands now. Including for profit elements in financing universal health care is a waste of precious resources.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

41. Expanding Medicare for all will be the way we go in the future and everyone knows it.

[polly7]

29. PNHP have been fighting for this for a long time and have done exhaustive research into it.

Great thread, Uncle Joe.

[slipslidingaway]

37. And yet,when it came to the first HC forum at the WH Obama blocked the PNHP advocates from attending

that spoke volumes to me.

If you said so, then you were considered a racist.

[polly7]

38. I remember that ... it was sad to see. nt.

[slipslidingaway]

39. Thx and yes it was as if you could not say anything ....

and financial advisors were another topic.

We were all treading on eggshells to a certain degree, that should not be.

[polly7]

42. Health care is a human right ......... that it's causing such anxiety to even discuss

is - again - sad for me to think about. I understand that those with the most to lose will fight to their last breath to hold onto their billion/trillion dollar profits - those who've never set foot in a classroom offering medical training of any type. People may think our system up here is so complicated - really, it's not ... we don't have those people in the middle who decide who receives diagnostics and treatment and who doesn't. Our physicians and specialists do that directly. I don't want to disparage your system, but after reading so much on it here - ours seems so very simple.

[slipslidingaway]

49. Well it should be, but we are still living within the for profit system ...

sounds as if you are north of our border and like the system.

Unfortunately even discussing a not for profit system is looked at as something rotten by politicians in both parties.

[slipslidingaway]

31. Every major Dem candidate for 2008 feel in line with the changed Jacob Hacker plan ...

when Obama got into the WH he abandoned his vision and campaign platform of Medicare negotiating drug prices. He blocked the PNHP advocates from the HC forum at the WH and instead substituted insurance and pharma CEO's to the table. It was a telling sign!

Obama did well, but he marginalized the need for a universal HC system, which was paramount back in 2007. Now we are dealing with even more threats from the ME because some think we can go into a country and oust their leader and all that will change is a country that wants to fall to follow in our footsteps.

We need someone who will think about the consequences, not just some fairy tale vision of the people and their aspirations to fall in line.

We came, we saw, he died ... really!

[Enthusiast]

32. Kicked and recommended! Thank you, Uncle Joe! Excellent article!

Democratic office holders and candidates for office should be united in their support for single payer.

Lies are a piss poor substitute for the truth when it comes to Medicare For All.

[Uncle Joe]

46. It all boils down to what societies; value the most, good health care for all its' people or every

man, woman and child for themselves.

The carrying power of a bridge is not the average strength of the pillars, but the strength of the weakest pillar. I have always believed that you do not measure the health of a society by GNP but by the condition of its worst off.

Zygmunt Bauman


Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/z/zygmuntbau536833.html#gomDZZWkyAQZpH6z.99

Thank you, Enthusiast.

[Duppers]

44. This throws a monkey wrench into some talking points.

Great post. Thanks, Uncle Joe.

[Uncle Joe]

47. Thank you, Duppers.