American College of Physicians endorses SINGLE PAYER healthcare

I'm a physician and part of Physicians for a National Health Program and I want to spread the news that in a recent research survey 59% (a clear majority) of physicians support single payer health care.

Additionally, the American College of Physicians has does extensive research and endorses single payer health care. If your doctor has FACP in their title they are a "Fellow of the American College of Physicians".

Finally, the New York Academy of Family Practice is working within the American Academy of Family Practice (of which I am part) to try to get them to promote single payer health care as well.

These are all very good indicators.

You would be surprised at how many people, nurses, and physicians support single payer health care and I hope the Democratic Party gets the message loud and clear because it seems we are ahead of the party leaders.

PNHP has sent an open letter to the Presidential candidates to pursuade them to reconsider single payer health care as the best solution.

Call it socialized medicine, call it what you want but it seems to be the best sort of system for any advanced industrialized Western country. We deserve much better than what we get. We deserve at least what we pay for.

Thanks and make sure you never shy away from a debate on health care policy. The facts are in our favor.

:kick:

They vehemently opposed LBJ when he pushed through Medicare. They were against it. Maybe they hate socialism? :shrug:

They became big supporters of Medicare after it was enacted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association

I don't trust these guys.

and that doesn't necessarily mean nationalized or socialized health care (although most folks seem to have accepted socialized education pretty readily...gripe about it though they will...)

The insurance industry will howl, to be sure...which almost makes it an automatically superb idea, IMHO.
:hi: I'll do whatever I can to push, plead, promote, pray for, and otherwise provide progress!

single payer system in America already looks like.

And there is nothing socialized about Medicare.

c'mon people this thread needs to be on the greatest page !!

Medicaid, and Medicare if it is an elderly lady. I can't imagine why he would think his life would get worse if a new SP system replaced what we have.

Big plus for doctors is simplified billing. Eliminate the billing dept. Not good for those laid off though. Oh well...

:sarcasm:

:thumbsup:

it's all there.

www.pnhp.org

First WE must wrestle our health care system away from the criminals of wall street, the HMOs and the AMA. Congress needs to be replaced with individuals that understand how important a single payer health care system is and then do it!

About damned time! Toss in dental work and 100% behind the effort.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

We can pick and choose the best of the available systems, and design what is truly a first-class healthcare system. Heck, to get some Repubs on board maybe work it out so that different states can do single payer different ways, just like the different countries in that Frontline episode handle things differently from each other. Maybe some things that work great in a rural state doesn't work as well in a more urban state.

deal directly with the insurance providers, it doesn't surprise me one bit.

Support for single-payer seems widespread across people in the healthcare industry. Nurses, pharmacists(especially), social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists. I know of some individual physicians that support it, but I did not know it was so widespread.

Now, to get the insurance company tail to stop wagging the dog.

with insurance companies? Many hire people just to work on insurance.

My sons' pediatrician said he would be very happy with true Universal. He has a very successful practice that includes 1 additional doctor and a nurse practioner. He also has 3 regular nurses. He personally had to stop taking new patients because his demand is very high.

He's an ACP member (we like their state conference every year, and he loves their journal). He's happy they finally caught on.

Sometimes, the most effective way to explain the need for a Government-paid health care system, for those who actually do not support, or understand, it, is not to tell why it would be better, but just to go over some of the outrageous practices that are typical right now, under the corporate-run system. Once you really think of the implications of the fact that the entire system is an investment opportunity, and that its sole motive is profit-making on its stocks, profit-making for all involved corporations, than you start to realize many of the situations that will never go away, and also understand the reason for so much of the corporate secrecy. One of the biggest things about the problem is, as many people (Dennis Kucinich, etc.) have mentioned, we actually already pay the exhorbitant rates of a world-class system of medical care--but we don't get it. We are only paying endless "fees," price-gouging, premiums, co-pays, "penalties," "processing fees," etc., etc., and it all goes to them.

Ted Kennedy, one of the great champions of health care reform, gave a speech several months ago, (on C-SPAN), about this issue. Apart from the huge waste of money spent on advertising and other attempts of corporations to destroy each other, and huge amounts wasted on executive pay, bonuses, investments that don't work, etc., part of the speech was on something Kennedy had investigated. It turns out, the insurance industry spends more money--by many times over--and has a larger staff of full-time lawyers, for the sole purpose of devising ways to DENY claims, than they do for paying all claims each year. A complete theft of millions of dollars, with no consequences!

Because it is a profit-making system, and not health care, we get countless diet drugs, "impotence" drugs, and sickening amounts of cosmetic plastic surgery, and no coverage at all for most plans, for dental care or mental health. Vital and necessary medical practices such as geriatric care are finding it hard to even find people to serve there, because it is so reliant on long-term relationships with patients, and not "glamour" careers, prestige, and quick-bucks for single surgeries. The proliferation of separate specialties, highly paid, sometimes threatens the patient's health, as these people are not coordinated and do not communicate information to each other. Under certain circumstances, it is hard to even find a general practitioner to organize the care of a patient.

Hospitals do not operate as servants of the patient's health, but as profit centers, and that accounts for many recent Congressional hearings on some of their scandals. Hundreds of thousands of people die each year, and hospitals lose millions of dollars each year, because of the horrific effects of bacterial infections that patients get in hospitals--not from other patients, but because hospitals do not do a good job of cleaning surfaces, (an EXPENSE), and doctors and other staff do not wash their hands! A huge loss of money, and needless further care of illnesses, because they are so cheap and sloppy on cleaning! Hospitals spend far more on each and every one of them getting all the latest multi-million dollar scanning equipment that all the other hospitals in the same area already have, (a potential big-bucks moneymaker), than making basic care available by making it more affordable.

Most people are aware of how insurance/hospitals have unconscionably cut down on the amount of time patients are allowed to stay in the hospital following surgery--sometimes, people who are still groggy and feeling pain are discharged the same day. Today, I heard a hearing on C-SPAN with one panellist, a woman who had had, I think, breast cancer surgery, sent home almost immediately, even though she was not ready. The recovery from surgery involved a complicated procedure of draining tubes from her chest, and measuring something or other accurately (I didn't catch the first part, and am not familiar with this procedure). Something went wrong--as they were not TRAINED MEDICAL STAFF, and it became infected, turning to a horrible staph infection that nearly killed her. There were other stories of exactly the same result of this early discharge, so they can make even more money. I had never before heard of people discharged, when they actually still needed observation, and might have deathly consequences. Of course, everyone is familiar with the disgusting way women who have just given birth are treated--what once was a week or two in a hospital, a generation or two ago, now is sometimes a release on the same day.

People are familiar by now, with the typical refusal to order tests that are needed, because they take away from profits, or an the other hand, the ordering of tests that are not needed, and then it turns out there is a financial relationship between the doctor/clinic and the testing lab--all for profit, not medicine. Under a commercial system, the cost of everything--prescriptions, medical equipment, surgery, everything--skyrockets until it is unaffordable, and far beyond its actual cost, while Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, meanwhile, have extremely efficient operating/cost systems, far better than the corporate world. It is the complete death of an attitude of public service, to introduce the concept of profit, and of a stratified, owner-provider/customer approach.

On and on and on it goes.