Monday, September 21, 2009

Some doctors have a few words on health care



The doctors letter to the president:

This September, as the healthcare debate rages in Congress, our core group of six doctors from Oregon will be embarking on an historic road trip across America. We will be conducting town halls in twenty-six cities as we make our way to Washington, D.C. Our mission is to educate our fellow citizens as to why a single payer health care system is the only means to lasting, substantive health care reform for this country.

All told, our group has 191 years of combined, real-world medical experience, much of it spent working in a system that serves neither patients nor their doctors. As physicians who have sworn an oath to behave in accord with the highest possible ethical, medical standards, we have all reached the same conclusion: it is our professional obligation to speak out against a for-profit system of health care that is fatally compromising the health and well being of our patients, their families and our nation.

We will be in Washington D.C. on the morning of Oct. 1 and it would be a distinct honor if you would meet with our modest delegation to discuss the future of health care as well as the moral, social and fiscal imperative of a enacting a single-payer system for America at this moment in our history.
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Doctors have had a number of problems with the system since it was changed with the advent of HMOs and PPO plans. If they're not part of some group of doctors they get nothing from some insurance companies or reduced fees from others. With few options many doctors are held hostage to the insurance companies with 20% of the costs going to insurance that provides nothing for patient health care. Now you know why they're mad.

4 comments:

Tom Harper said...

If Obama meets with this group of doctors, there will be a huge spontaneous demonstration taking place outside. Millions of everyday concerned citizens are furious about high taxes, government takeovers and the thought of government bureaucrats regulating their health care. Thousands of these patriotic Joe Sixpack citizens will quickly write a slogan on a placard and get to Washington DC ASAP so they can demonstrate their heartfelt anger at our socialist Kenya-born president.

They want to return us to the freedom and economic prosperity of the GW Bush years.

Holte Ender said...

It is admirable that six doctors would want to do this, I would be more impressed if 60,000 doctors wrote a letter of intent to the president, condemning HMOs and for-profit health insurance.

Demeur said...

I really think we're beginning to see the "real" protest about health care. Most medical people I've talked to are aware that the present system can not stand and know that it's the obscene profits by the insurance companies that are the problem.
We had a few small protests here around seattle in favor of a public option and I think the Blue Dogs are starting to get the message as well.

BBC said...

It sure is an interesting system in this country, if you are dying or trying to die they pack your ass off to a hospital to save your ass.

It saves worthless bottom feeders everyday that mooch off the rest of us for the rest of their lives.

I just don't get this system at all.