PBS NewsHour - Patients' Rights
July 2, 2001
Patients' Rights
RAY SUAREZ: Dr. Angell (Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine), let me close with you. You've talked a little bit about where incentives, in your view, are misled. What about liabilities?
DR. MARCIA ANGELL: We have to look at the motivations, the incentives that cause care to be denied. If you talk, if you focus too much on the suits after the care has been denied, it's like trying to put a band-aid on a gaping wound. You have to look at why the care was denied in the first place. It's a little late in the day when you get to the point of suing. Now, let me answer Mr. Moffit (Robert Moffit, Heritage Foundation) because while he and I agreed on the diagnosis of patients' rights bills and the fact that it would increase the number of uninsured we certainly disagree on the remedy. And I'm appalled to hear him imply that Medicare is somehow inefficient. It has far lower overhead costs than the private managed care system, far lower, 2 or 3 percent as compared with about 30 percent, and in fact, his solution that you would throw individuals out into this treacherous private healthcare insurance market is a recipe for disaster. What we need, in essence, is Medicare for everyone. We need a single payer system, Medicare for everyone. Medicare is the most efficient part of our health care system and it's certainly the most popular. That's what we ought to be looking toward.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, that places the debate on a very, very different footing, and we're not going to be able to have that one right now, but thank you all for joining us tonight.
The entire transcript and audio is available at: <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec01/patients_7-2.html>http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec01/patients_7-2.html