From Physicians (and others) for National Health Plan:
Citizens' Health Care Working Group" Ignores Citizens
The group created by Congress to listen to Americans' ideas for improving the health system has ignored their overwhelming advice to create a national health insurance program. Although a national health program was by far the most favored option at 86 percent (25 of 29) of the meetings of the Citizens' Health Care Working Group (CHCWG), the group's recommendations avoid the clear public preference for government-guaranteed health coverage.
Despite the clear public mandate, the CHCWG's report makes no mention of the vast support for a national health program. Instead, the group's official recommendations include only generic suggestions such as promoting "efforts to improve quality of care and efficiency." and finding a way to protect "against very high health costs."
When given a choice of ten reform options at public hearings held by the CHCWG, participants clearly favored a national health program by a margin of at least 3 to 1. At meetings where participants were asked to rank the 10 options, national health insurance was ranked first 16 of 19 times (Billings, MT; Denver; Des Moines; Detroit; Eugene, OR; Jackson, MS; Kansas City, MO; Memphis; Miami; New York, NY; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Providence, RI; Sacramento; and Seattle). At two meetings participants were neither polled nor options ranked.
"The structure of the meeting and the way the questions were presented were obviously geared toward producing recommendations that would fall far short national health insurance." said Dr. David McLanahan, a surgeon who attended the Seattle hearing. "It was very clear, however, that a national program was what the vast majority of people at the hearing wanted."
Dr. Garrett Adams, a pediatrician from Louisville, participated in a CHCWG-sponsored teleconference at which he complained about the questions' bias in writing. "I felt that the questions were written in such a way as to require you to acknowledge premises with which I disagreed," Dr. Adams said. "Even so, the Working Group's own data shows that most of the participants at the public hearing in Lexington supported a national health program. I think it was incredibly brave, here in the home state of Humana, for citizens to speak out on behalf of a program that would threaten the profits of huge insurance and drug firms."
Most supporters of a national health program favor a single-payer system, which retain the private delivery of health care by physicians and hospitals, but organizes payment under a single public agency. A 2003 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a single-payer national health insurance program would save enough on administrative costs -- more than $300 billion per year -- to cover all of the uninsured and provide full benefits for everyone else.
The 15-member CHCWG was created as a part of the 2003 Medicare drug bill to hold public hearings on health care and make recommendations to the President and Congress on "ways to improve and strengthen the health care system based on the information and preferences expressed at the community meetings."
http://pnhp.org/PDF_files/Last_Page_from_appendix_b.pdfSummary and data reports from individual community meetings can be found at:
http://www.citizenshealthcare.govPNHP has physicians and citizens who attended the CHCWG community meetings and are available for comment. To request an interview, contact Nicholas Skala at 312-782-6006.
Physicians for a National Health Program is an organization of 14,000 physicians that support single-payer national health insurance. PNHP is headquartered in Chicago and has chapters and spokespeople across the U.S. To contact a physician-spokesperson in your area, contact
[email protected] or call 312-782-6006.
www.pnhp.org.
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Please consider submitting an op-ed to your local paper.
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Op-Ed Template from PNHP (Pennsylvania)
This past April, a government-sponsored task force came to Philadelphia to hear citizens' advice on how to improve our distressed health care system. As in nearly all the states they visited, Pennsylvanians overwhelmingly said they wanted high-quality, cost-effective health care funded through a national health program. But there was a problem: such a recommendation would threaten the profits of powerful interests - huge insurance and drug companies known more for their generosity with political contributions than for their consideration for the public interest.
So in its final report issued on Sept. 27, the "Citizens'" Health Care Working Group simply ignored the citizens. Nevertheless, as a physician who practices in Springfield, I realize just as well as my fellow Pennsylvanians that a national health system is the only solution for our state and our nation.
The Working Group, a panel of health care experts appointed by the U.S. Comptroller General, was created by Congress in 2003. The group was given a mandate to travel the country, listen to citizens' advice for reform, and translate their wishes into recommendations for Congress. Wherever they went, ordinary citizens - patients, doctors, business owners, workers - consistently asked for national health insurance. In fact, the group's own data show attendees favored a national health program over any other option by an average of 3 to 1. Of the 29 meetings surveyed, attendees picked the creation of a national program as their top choice at 25 of them. Philadelphians ranked national health insurance first when given 10 possible reforms. From Los Angeles to Memphis to New York, the message was the same: replace our broken system with public coverage for everyone.
Yet the final recommendations that the Working Group reported to Congress make no mention of the national health program that the citizens asked for. Instead, they offer only half-measures, tinkering around the edges of our broken system while leaving the fundamentally flawed private insurance structure untouched. Unfortunately for all those families currently facing a choice between utility payments and medical bills, the Working Group's best suggestion is to ask taxpayers to help them buy deficient insurance products that offer little or no protection when serious illness strikes. As for finding a way to define, provide and pay for good health benefits for all Americans, the Working Group decided to put that off until later.
As a physician, it is easy to see why a national health program enjoyed such overwhelming public support. One in ten Pennsylvanians - 1.3 million - lacked health insurance in 2005. Medical care is increasingly rationed based on the ability to pay: ever larger numbers report going without needed care or medications due to costs, and more than 18,000 Americans die needlessly each year from lack of insurance coverage. Even for those rich or healthy enough to afford coverage, the private policies offered today are so riddled with exclusions, co-payments, and high deductibles that even a minor illness can threaten a family with financial ruin. Indeed, Harvard University researchers found that of the estimated 29,000 Pennsylvanians bankrupted by illness and medical bills in 2004, 75 percent had insurance when they got sick.
The support that the Working Group found for a national health program (but chose to ignore) certainly reflects this growing awareness that insurance coverage no longer guarantees access to care or protection from medical debt. By contrast, a national health insurance system - such as the one proposed by Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org) - could provide comprehensive coverage for everyone without costing us any more than we are already spending.
Replacing private insurance companies with a single public payer - "Improved Medicare for All", in essence - would save more than $300 billion annually by eliminating insurers' wasteful, duplicative paperwork and exorbitant executive salaries. This money - currently squandered on insurer bureaucracies whose primary purpose is to fight claims and deny care - is enough to cover every American for all medically necessary services. Patients would regain full choice of doctor and hospital, and physicians would be unleashed from corporate dictates over patient care.
The proposals of the Working Group offer nothing but a continuation of business as usual: insurance and drug firms reap kingly profits while millions go without needed care. Americans know that only national health insurance can provide the health security they need. Unfortunately, the Citizens' Health Care Working Group has made it clear that we will have to look beyond our current elected officials to make our voices heard.
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