Fwd: qotd: Dr. Weisbart writes on single payer in the AMA Journal of Ethics

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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: qotd: Dr. Weisbart writes on single payer in the AMA Journal
of Ethics
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2012 12:35:50 -0800
From: Don McCanne <don@mccanne.org>
To: Quote-of-the-Day <quote-of-the-day@mccanne.org>



American Medical Association Journal of Ethics
Virtual Mentor
November 2012
A Single-Payer System Would Reduce U.S. Health Care Costs
By Ed Weisbart, MD, CPE

Today's fragmented system is akin to requiring each household in a
community to anticipate their needs for the coming year and negotiate
their own fees and scope of services with the local police and fire
departments. Imagine instead how much of their budgets these life-saving
community services would be obliged to devote to marketing to and
negotiating with each household and the rampant disparities in service
that would result. That is precisely what is happening today in health
care, and it is absurdly wasteful. For police and fire departments, we
have recognized that it is significantly less wasteful to give all
citizens the same "coverage" for set prices and to administer it with
regional coordination. Global budgeting is the only sensible strategy
for such unpredictable yet universally needed services.

Conclusion

The ACA has begun the process of much needed change. Now we need to go
further in reforming health care finance to enable all Americans to
achieve their fundamental human right to comprehensive coverage. The
rest of the modern world has run the laboratory studies for us; now is
the time for us to adopt this well proven solution.

http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2012/11/oped1-1211.html


Comment: Health care financing is a fundamental ethical issue, thus it
is very appropriate that Ed Weisbart's article on single payer be
published in the AMA's journal of ethics. Hopefully, the brief excerpt
above will entice you to click on the link to read the entire article,
and then share it with others to spread the word on the imperative of
the single payer model - an improved Medicare for everyone.

(Gad, our PNHP members are producing some really great articles. Now if
only we can get people to read them.)