But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. (Applause.) Let me know. Let me know. (Applause.) I’m eager to see it.

Healthways SilverSneakers is a membership fitness program for seniors provided as a free benefit by many Medicare Advantage programs throughout the nation. It is not a benefit that is allowed in the traditional Medicare program.

The malpractice system does not serve injured patients well. It needs to be reformed. It needs to be redesigned with incentives to reduce exposure to error, and to appropriately compensate patients when error does occur, all in a non-hostile environment that serves the interests of both patients (compensation for injury) and health care professionals (performance enhancement). This is not the topic of today’s message.

The leadership of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) do agree on one crucial point: the current health care reform proposal does very little to control the intolerable escalation of health care costs. Both agree that Congress must provide the remedies to control spending and improve health care value.

We have stated repeatedly that health care costs are now so high that private insurers are no longer capable of providing health plans with affordable premiums if those plans are to be effective in preventing financial hardship in the face of medical need. Private health plans are an obsolete method of financing health care.

It looks like there are four choices: 1) walk away and accept the status quo, 2) use alternative political maneuvers to move the bill through Congress, 3) attempt to salvage at least a portion of the less controversial components of the current proposal, or 4) start over. Let’s look at these.

Oh no! Not another commentary on the significance of the Massachusetts special election for U.S. Senator. This one will be brief, and include input from the current NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey.

Remember the managed care revolution in the latter part of the last century? Remember how angry everyone became over the interventions designed to control spending by preventing patents from having timely access to care?

The speech of Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Proper Sense of Priorities,” was, as the title states, a speech on the proper sense of priorities. As a central theme he expressed his opposition to the war in Vietnam.

This week medical students and other health professional students and colleagues marched on Sacramento in support of Sen. Mark Leno’s SB 810, a reintroduction of Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s single payer bill that was passed and vetoed twice in prior legislative sessions.