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The UCSF Student Newspaper
April 8, 2010
Opinion: Healthcare Reform Not Found: Abort, Retry, Ignore?
By Eric LaMotte
Despite the intense efforts of a vocal minority, healthcare reform was enacted this year by congressional Democrats who claimed to place the needs of American citizens over those of corporations. Unfortunately, they chose to enact policies that will continue to allow a costly, complex, fragmented, for-profit insurance system to inflict damage on the rest of our healthcare system. Now, living in a post-reform world, we must decide where to go from here, and I am reminded of the error prompt that every frustrated computer user has had to answer at one point or another: Abort, Retry, Ignore?
Amidst the already loud voices in support of "Abort" and "Ignore," we need to raise a new and thundering voice for "Retry." The national single payer bill described above (in the full article at the link below) is already written: HR 676.
In California, we will have our own shot at enacting a statewide single payer system with SB 810. The bill passed the State Senate in January by a vote of 22-14. But it's a long way from being enacted, and California's idiosyncratic political system makes it unlikely that California will be the first state to enact a single payer plan. You can support real reform by joining efforts with PNHP/CaPA, CaHPSA, AMSA, CNA, or California OneCare.
For a picture of Eric LaMotte with Senator Arlen Specter, with the caption, "Senator Specter talks with first-year medical student Eric LaMotte, who supports single payer health insurance":
Comment: For a breather, today's message is an affirmation that there is hope for the future in health care, as represented by this article by Eric LaMotte, an astute medical student at the University of California at San Francisco (my alma mater).
Thanks, Eric.
(During our travels this month, qotd messages will be sporadic to nil.)
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