The Social Medicine Portal

Bad and good news: Comparing single payer health care with the reconciliation bill

A letter from Dr. Quentin Young, founding member of Physicians for a National Health Program

March 22, 2010

Dear colleagues and friends,

We have some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is that the president’s health plan, which was drafted by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, will leave about 23 million Americans uninsured and over 100 million Americans underinsured nine years after implementation.  Here is how single payer compares with the reconciliation bill soon to be signed and declared the law of the land.

Activists are encouraged to send our information to their local media contacts and physician colleagues.

The good news is that there is growing awareness that the bill won’t work, and, sooner rather than later, we need single-payer national health insurance.  As noted by Harvard economist Dr. William Hsiao, the architect of Taiwan’s successful health reform, “You can have universal coverage and good quality health care while still managing to control costs.  But you have to have a single-payer system to do it.”

What you can do:

1. Talk to the press.  Please forward the following press release, chart, and key PNHP research findings to your local media with a cover note that you would be willing to be interviewed (if you are!).

2. Publish opinion pieces in the medical and lay press.  Use the following materials (recycle our prose as you wish!) for letters to the editor, op-eds, and other articles. PNHP communications director Mark Almberg can help with editing and submitting articles for publication.  Mark@pnhp.org

3. Deliver grand rounds, or invite a PNHP speaker.  PNHP will have new slides on health policy in the Obama era and the reconciliation bill soon.  Please contact Dave Howell at Dave@pnhp.org if you would like a PNHP speaker or would like a copy of our new slide set when it comes out.

Because of the enormous power of the insurance and drug companies, we in PNHP have always known that ours is a long-term struggle.  Of the women who participated in the Seneca Falls convention, only two survived to see women win the right to vote.  Susan B. Anthony was not not one of them, but her final words on her deathbed were “failure is impossible.”  We agree.

In memory of the 45,000 Americans who die annually for lack of health insurance, and in memory of the many tireless activists for single-payer national health insurance and health care as a human right who died this year, including Dr. Linda Farley, Dr. David Prensky, Dr. John Shearer, Dr. Bud Goodrich, PNHP staffer Nicholas Skala, and others, PNHP will continue the struggle.

With your help, failure is impossible.

In solidarity,

Quentin Young