Peace Post #4: Mad As Hell Doctors

[DP]

On September 9, some half-dozen Oregon physicians representing a variety of medical specialties held a town hall meeting at Seattle’s Langston Hughes Center. The doctors—who are mad as hell at the current unhealthy state of affairs—were in town promoting their vision of what the American health care system should be. Calling themselves the Mad As Hell Doctors Tour, they’re on a road trip that started a week earlier in Sequim and will finish in Washington, D.C. on October 1, after visiting 27 cities across the country.

Too bad the local evening news didn’t open with a story about the event. Apparently it wasn’t sensational enough for them. (There were no gun-toting rednecks lurking ominously outside, no Fox News zombies screeching about socialist plots.) But then, these doctors aren’t shooting for fifteen minutes of fame—they’re just giving us their take on the health care system, along with some (gasp!) facts. They’re telling us the truth, because they think we can handle it.

(http://www.madashelldoctors.com/)

The centerpiece of the Langston Hughes meeting was a video the doctors had made (to see it, go to http://www.ourailinghealthcare.com/) followed by a panel discussion. The doctors on the panel had between them over 250 years of medical practice, and one of the things they have decided, in those 250 years, is that the business model that’s come to dominate American medicine is actually preventing doctors from caring for their patients as they were trained to do. Plus, it’s outrageously expensive and inefficient. This peculiar health-for-profit system of ours, besides failing to making us healthy, will soon make us broke as well. It is estimated hundreds of thousands of families will go bankrupt because of medical bills over the next few years.

But what does the term “business model” mean, exactly? It refers to our whole money-driven system, from the doctors (who are forced to act more like accountants than caregivers), to insurance and pharmaceutical companies (who are more beholden to their stockholders than patients), to so-called not-for-profit hospitals that bill their rooms at thousands of dollars per night.

So far, in this debate, nobody has really questioned the right of corporations to make big profits off the sick. Yet even the most blindly market-oriented person can see that doctors and hospitals don’t represent a “market,” where consumers can freely pick and choose among products. After all, deciding whether to get medical treatment is not like deciding whether to buy an iPod or a latte. When a woman is pregnant, she’s not going to comparison shop among different obstetricians to get the best “value” for her money, nor can she “hold out” until the going rate for deliveries drops to what she can afford. When a child breaks an arm, his parents can’t put off going to the emergency room until the next paycheck arrives.

When we’re sick we need to be able to seek immediate help from health care providers, and we have a right to expect that these providers will act in our interest, not the interest of accountants or shareholders.

Are you starting to see the disconnect between health care and capitalist economics? Good. Join the Canadians, the British, the Swedes, the Australians, and a majority of the world’s other industrialized countries, countries that have better health care than we do. That is . . . by any measure other than profitability.

In a particularly odd twist of fate, it turns out that even Iraqis and Afghans have a more inclusive system of health coverage than Americans. Paid for of course by . . . you guessed it . . . your tax dollars! (Where were the teaboogers when that spending bill was passed? Hmm?)

Health care used to be seen as a public service and doctors were viewed as professionals, and even treated as members of our extended family. It used to be said “doctors aren’t good businessmen” and the Mad As Hell Doctors think that’s a good thing. They don’t want to be good businessmen; they want to be good doctors. And we should be on their side. Doctors have enough to worry about already. Making money for stockholders is not something we want our doctors worrying about, is it?

The Mad As Hell Doctors are advocating single-payer health insurance (“Medicare for all”) as the first step in more comprehensive reform. Toward that end they advise us to call our senators and representatives in Congress. Call Senator Murray at 202-224-2621, Senator Cantwell at 202-228-0514, and Congressman McDermott at 202-225-7761and the Congressional Switchboard 202-224-3121. Tell our politicians that America needs a government-run single-payer system like Canada’s, because single payer is the only system that will take the profit motive completely out of health care. Tell them the Mad As Hell Doctors sent you.

—David Preston & John Repp

Members, West Seattle Neighbors for Peace and Justice

More info about a single-payer health care system: http://www.pnhp.org/

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[charlabob]

Thank you, David and John — I think the progressives (myself included) made a big mistake giving up on single-payer so quickly. Now we’re on the verge of getting, um, nothing!!!!!

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[Julie]

But, oh dear o dear, what about protecting the poor insurance companies?

http://pol.moveon.org/insurance_execs/?id=17291-8197714-5omWiYx&t=2&reloaded=1

Join Billionaires for Wealthcare:

http://www.billionairesforwealthcare.com/be-a-billionaire/

After all, “You deserve the healthcare you can afford!”

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[JanS]

Julie…I like the way you think ! (=^-^=)

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[JoB]

When we gave up on single payer, the public option stopped looking like a compromise and the health insurance lobby put pressure on congress.

If we advocated nothing but single payer… a public option might be possible… as a first step.

step 2? did you know that in the state of Minnesota Health insurance companies have to be non-profit? They still hold ridiculous reserves but their insurance is a lot less expensive than ours. We could do that at a state level first.

step 3 we could reduce a large amount of administrative overhead by requiring insurance code standardization.

then.. ithink we could pass single payer.

will this happen in my lifetime? I sure hope so..

but then i would like to see the ERA ratified before i die too.

For now.. let’s put pressure on our elected reps for single payer… at least then when they settle we might actually get something.

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[JoB]

david and John..

please continue making your peace posts.. they are very well thought out.

I know not many people reply to them.. but i know they always make me think…

thinking is sometimes a better result than conversation… so don’t give up on us.

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