Dear colleague,
We invite you to add your name to the list of endorsers of “Beyond the Affordable Care Act: A Physicians’ Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform,” which is displayed below. (To view a PDF of the proposal and other, supplemental materials, click here. To read and view media coverage of the proposal, click here. To access content from the May 5, 2016 news conference, click here.)
This proposal was drafted by the 39 member Working Group on Single-Payer Program Design. It was published in the June 2016 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, and has been endorsed by 2,525 other physicians and 186 medical students to date. (See below for a complete list of endorsers.)
Thank you for partnering with us in this effort.
Sincerely,
The Working Group on Single-Payer Program Design
Co-chairs:*
Adam Gaffney, M.D., Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellowship Program, Massachusetts General Hospital
David U. Himmelstein, M.D., Professor of Public Health, City University of New York; Lecturer in Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Public Health, City University of New York; Lecturer in Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Marcia Angell, M.D., Former Editor-in-Chief, New England Journal of Medicine; Senior Lecturer, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
* Affiliations listed for identification purposes only and do not imply institutional endorsement.
Endorsement Options
Abstract
Even after full implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), tens of millions of Americans will remain uninsured or only partially insured, and costs will continue to rise faster than the background inflation rate. We propose to replace the ACA with a publicly financed National Health Program (NHP) that would fully cover medical care for all Americans, while lowering costs by eliminating the profit-driven private insurance industry with its massive overhead. Hospitals, nursing homes, and other provider facilities would be nonprofit, and paid global operating budgets rather than fees for each service. Physicians could opt to be paid on a fee-for-service basis, but with fees adjusted to better reward primary care providers, or by salaries in facilities paid by global budgets. The initial increase in government costs would be offset by savings in premiums and out-of-pocket costs, and the rate of medical inflation would slow, freeing up resources for unmet medical and public health needs.
Click on each section to see text.
Endorsement Options
I am a non-physician health professional or a reform advocate outside the health professions and I wish to endorse the Physicians’ Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform.
I am authorized to speak on behalf of my institution, and my institution wishes to endorse the Physicians’ Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform.
