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.
Or 50% more Foreign Medical Graduates. /s
Egalitarianism + price controls + bureaucratization =
-increased aggregate demand for medical services
-increased total costs
-decreased supply of doctors = shortages of doctors
-decreased quality and quantity of medical services for each individual patient
-decreased value of each individual patient to a provider
-enslavement of doctors
-death panels
-decreased technological advances and decreased technological progress
My mother never liked nor trusted doctors.
After my sister was born she never went back to a doctor again until six days before she died at age 77. She was into natural alternatives and health food.
One day she had symptoms that were too bad to ignore and we finally convinced her to see a doctor. He found lung cancer. She died six days later.
Which is EXACTLY the way she would have WANTED to live and leave her life.
That was her right as an adult in an allegedly free country.
Since she generally avoided the health care system it was foolish to force her to pay for a lot of insurance.
This is bad. It was doctors in Canada he essentially pushed for universal healthcare in the 1950s.
It is a tough job being in general practice in Canada. You have to run and pay for office rent and staff, but are constrained on your charge backs to the Ministry of Health.
Specialists do much better, especially hospital staff, since you are staff, and don’t have to worry about billing and over head like a general has to.
I’m a physician who won’t give a dime to the AMA. That organization betrayed us. That said, a 2-tiered system is inevitable. A large “public option” is likely to be introduced within a generation. Why? The demographics of the newly-trained MD is most certainly more female and leftist (redundant). Need I say more?
Doctors are clueless. They never have to wait for care as we mere mortals do. They have greater access to medications, and they can always call a buddy and get quick access. This really pisses me off. They have no idea what it is like to wait days or months to see a provider.
The really poor and mediocre ones will embrace it quite willingly due to money coming in for little negative consequences.
And only U.S. citizens......
It will be the Millennial Generation's grand "Screw You!" to their Boomer parents for dropping a giant s*** sandwich of debt on them.
"Sorry, mom about that five year wait for heart surgery but at least the broken arm my kid got falling off his bike won't bankrupt me."
I totally saw that coming during the 2009 pre-Obamacare debates and townhalls.
Those young people in the medical school training to get their doctor’s certificate, they were all in for single-payer. It was the older generation of doctors and healthcare professionals who were against it, because it is ‘enslavement’.
Then I realized this day is coming.
'Activist' organizations like the AMA often attract narcissists and people with an agenda who don't represent the views of the majority of those they seek to represent. As an example, when I was a medical student we received for free a publication from the American Medical Student Association (AMSA).
I remember some of the articles, because they were extreme, including articles about 'fisting' and other non-mainstream stuff that had nothing to do with being a medical student. There was also a very significant amount of gay advocacy literature. I don't care what people do with their personal lives, and I don't want to know what people do in their private lives. That said, this was 'in your face' activism, and was very off-putting. Some of these activists are now likely populating the AMA and other medical organizations - thus their non-representative platforms.
“A pay-cash-as-you-go system would be best.”
Sure, but we are going to get Medicare for all, eventually. Afterall, nearly half of Americans are covered by Medicare or Medicaid now.
We really are halfway there already.
The other half of medicine is not going to be able to pay for it all forever.
Of course “Medicare for all” will ration care and kill people. As long as everyone understands this, and they are free to seek care from other sources, some might be able to avoid some of the consequences of socialized medicine.
People at some point will make the poor decision and vote for “free”.
Kiaser is owned by a big Leftist family who donated 10s of millions to Ds. I
Brainwashing has worked. Sad, but true.
So the doctors want to become government employees.Goint to take awhile to pay off those loans. I’m just sayin’
The VA is single payer, look at that shit hole. There are good people in the VA, but the system grinds them into submission.
The real stars make a beeline for private practice, the 'union guys/gals' slide along, a few dedicated people tough it out, until they burn out, and get buried by the system.
Gummint screws it up, and it don't matter what it is.
“‘We want to make a difference through social justice. That’s why we’re here.’”
Social justice is an absolute joke. It’s a catch phrase that means essentially nothing. I would bet that ‘social justice’ as a concept was spouted by those narcissistic and delusional POS who ruined the Venezuelan economy and caused horrible suffering amongst the people of that country. The concept of ‘social justice’ is largely a construct through which privileged and self-absorbed liberal morons try to elevate their self-importance.
Since the beginning of medicine as a profession a great many of those who practice medicine have given free care to those who couldn’t afford it. I’ve taught medical students for a significant number of years now, and it is those who are committed to staying late and doing whatever is necessary to contribute to the care of their patients who are the principled students. Many of the ‘medical policy’ and ‘social justice’ crowd are lazy and self-absorbed, don’t spend any more time than they have to on rotations, and will go on to destroy medicine from within rather than save the lives of patients. That’s just a fact.
What you said! AMEN!!!!
What does Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution have to say about any government-run health care?
Government workers are the best loan risks for banks; they have job security that defies logic, and they ALWAYS get paid. This seems to mirror a trend of seen here with landlords in NJ; they used to shy away from Section 8 tenants, but now the state is dying, the middle class is fleeing or being forced out, and Section 8 tenants are the best way to ensure they receive their rents on time (and thus pay their mortgages on time). Between regulations and suffocating the middle class, the government is in effect taking over the rental market in whole swaths of NJ; they will determine who lives where, and the landlords will in effect house our welfare population along the lines of the Quartering Act leading up to the American Revolution.
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