Posted on 08/08/2018 12:47:50 PM PDT by MarchonDC09122009
https://khn.org/news/once-its-greatest-foes-doctors-are-embracing-single-payer/
By Shefali Luthra 08/07/2018
When the American Medical Association — one of the nation’s most powerful health care groups — met in Chicago this June, its medical student caucus seized an opportunity for change.
Though they had tried for years to advance a resolution calling on the organization to drop its decades-long opposition to single-payer health care, this was the first time it got a full hearing. The debate grew heated — older physicians warned their pay would decrease, calling younger advocates naïve to single-payer’s consequences. But this time, by the meeting’s end, the AMA’s older members had agreed to at least study the possibility of changing its stance.
“We believe health care is a human right, maybe more so than past generations,” said Dr. Brad Zehr, a 29-year-old pathology resident at Ohio State University, who was part of the debate. “There’s a generational shift happening, where we see universal health care as a requirement.”
The ins and outs of the AMA’s policymaking may sound like inside baseball. But this year’s youth uprising at the nexus of the medical establishment speaks to a cultural shift in the medical profession, and one with big political implications.
Amid Republican attacks on the Affordable Care Act, an increasing number of Democrats — ranging from candidates to established Congress members — are putting forth proposals that would vastly increase the government’s role in running the health system. These include single-payer, Medicare-for-all or an option for anyone to buy in to the Medicare program. At least 70 House Democrats have signed on to the new “Medicare-for-all” caucus.
Organized medicine, and previous generations of doctors, had for the most part staunchly opposed to any such plan. The AMA has thwarted public health insurance proposals since the 1930s and long been considered one of the policy’s most powerful opponents.
But the battle lines are shifting as younger doctors flip their views, a change that will likely assume greater significance as the next generation of physicians takes on leadership roles. The AMA did not make anyone available for comment.
Many younger physicians are “accepting of single-payer,” said Dr. Christian Pean, 30, a third-year orthopedic surgery resident at New York University.
In prior generations, “intelligent, motivated, quantitative” students pursued medicine, both for the income and because of the workplace independence — running practices with minimal government interference, said Dr. Steven Schroeder, 79, a longtime medical professor at the University of California-San Francisco.
In his 50 years of teaching, students’ attitudes have changed: “The ‘Oh, keep government out of my work’ feeling is not as strong as it was with maybe older cohorts,” said Schroeder. “Students come in saying, ‘We want to make a difference through social justice. That’s why we’re here.’”
Though “single-payer” health care was long dismissed as a left-wing pipe dream, polling suggests a slim majority of Americans now support the idea — though it is not clear people know what the term means.
A full single-payer system means everyone gets coverage from the same insurance plan, usually sponsored by the government. Medicare-for-all, a phrase that gained currency with the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), means everyone gets Medicare, but, depending on the proposal, it may or may not allow private insurers to offer Medicare as well. (Sanders’ plan, which eliminates deductibles and expands benefits, would get rid of private insurers.)
Meanwhile, lots of countries achieve universal health care — everyone is covered somehow — but the method can vary. For example, France requires all citizens purchase coverage, which is sold through nonprofits. In Germany, most people get insurance from a government-run “public option,” while others purchase private plans. In England, health care is provided through the tax-funded National Health System.
They’re assuming the socialist promise “there’ll be plenty of money for everybody”! Tell them they’ll be paid like burger flippers and watch their ideas change!
The Commie’s almost had us Nov. 2016.
Thank God America awakened to, and rejected the Siren’s call.
We have to stay awake. They were so close, and that’s what really has them pissed off, and arrogant.
What people don’t realize is the medical education system is dominated by liberal government/hospital employed physicians who eschew private practice. I have two daughters who graduated or are about to graduate from med school. Both went in fairly conservative and have emerged as full bore social justice warriors who view their years of medical training as their contribution to our society’s realignment. Neither would deprive a patient of any test, procedure or expense on the basis of inability to pay, but expect either the government or insurance companies to cover it.
When I ask how they expect to repay their medical school debt if the government enacts single payer healthcare, they both answer that the government would not allow students’ debt to go unpaid, or else there will be a shortage of students willing to spend the years and incur the debt to become doctors.
“Affordable Health Care” is a Fascist scheme. The gov demands that everyone gets health insurance, and their deep-pocket donors get inserted to make health care decisions and to skim off profit. It’s single-payer, but with insurance companies skimming off money. Clinic-style health care with lower prices for choosing low-cost solutions would be better for competition. What would work even better would’ve been if the traitors had gotten rid of the ACA as soon as President Trump was inaugurated.
Dr. Kildare style medicine sounds better.
that being said, the insurance/govt cabal have put such a stranglehold on what drs can do/when they can do it/how they can to it/and how often they can do it that's its a nightmare trying to get compensation...
THat’s because there are no more doctors. They are corporate employees forced to be that way due to burdensome lawsuits that they have no exposure too.
A pay-cash-as-you-go system would be best.
Prices would fall to be more in line with what people could actually afford. Providers would not have to artificially inflate prices to compensate for the fact that insurance companies are going to kick the check 200 or more days down the road. Office paperwork would be reduced 90% and bloated office staffs could be laid-off.
Indeed. And it was a problem created by government in the first place, by its own participation in the marketplace through Medicare and by promoting employer-provided health insurance through the tax code. Health insurance and Medicare are the worst things that ever happened to medicine in this country.
Are We Going the Way of Rome?
By Lawrence W. Reed, published on Sept. 1, 2001 (FEE)
Rome brochure(Editor’s note: This publication was updated in July 2010.
There’s an old story worth retelling about a band of wild hogs which lived along a river in a secluded area of Georgia. These hogs were a stubborn, ornery, independent bunch. They had survived floods, fires, freezes, droughts, hunters, dogs and everything else. No one thought they could ever be captured.
One day a stranger came into town not far from where the hogs lived and went into the general store. He asked the storekeeper, “Where can I find the hogs? I want to capture them.” The storekeeper laughed at such a claim but pointed in the general direction. The stranger left with his one-horse wagon, an ax and a few sacks of corn.
Two months later, he returned, went back to the store, and asked for help to bring the hogs out. He said he had them all penned up in the woods. People were amazed and came from miles around to hear him tell the story of how he did it.
“The first thing I did,” the stranger said, “was to clear a small area of the woods with my ax. Then I put some corn in the center of the clearing. At first, none of the hogs would take the corn. Then after a few days, some of the young ones would come out, snatch some corn, and then scamper back into the underbrush. Then the older ones began taking the corn, probably figuring that if they didn’t get it, some of the other ones would. Soon they were all eating the corn. They stopped grubbing for acorns and roots on their own.
“About that time, I started building a fence around the clearing, a little higher each day. At the right moment, I built a trap door and sprung it. Naturally, they squealed and hollered when they knew I had them, but I can pen any animal on the face of the earth if I can first get him to depend on me for a free handout!”
The moral to that story happens to be the connecting link between the course of ancient Rome and the path which America has been taking for much of the last century.
The AMA is about as much about doctors as the Teacher’s Unions are about teachers.
They are nothing more than a branch of the DNC.
A pay-cash-as-you-go system would be best.
Prices would fall to be more in line with what people could actually afford. Providers would not have to artificially inflate prices to compensate for the fact that insurance companies are going to kick the check 200 or more days down the road. Office paperwork would be reduced 90% and bloated office staffs could be laid-off.
_____________________
no because you have a medical industrial government insurance complex that fixes prices.
People will lose their homes to these Magogs
The percentage of doctors who are AMA members today is a small fraction of what it was a few decades ago. It’s nothing more than a political front group now.
You could let in 100% more people and not make a big dent.
All the women in med school?
Most go into easy fields.
Would at least need 100% more to compensate for the women and the retiring mds.
The extenders, PAs and NPs are not going to cut it.
The AMA only represents a tiny fraction of MD’s.
Many are academics and administrators.
Well, most new doctors in the US are Chinese or Indian, so....
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