April 19, 2002
By David DeWitte
American Medical Association President Dr. Richard Corlin drop-kicked the notion that national health insurance will ever solve the health insurance crisis during a visit to Cedar Rapids on Thursday.
Finding a system that will cover all Americans is both costly and politically hamstrung, Corlin said.
Richard Corlin, M.D., AMA president:
“We need a pragmatic, not an ideological solution. Reduce the number from 39 million to its irreducible minimum, probably about 15 million, and consider that a victory and not a terrible tragedy.”
Comment: Dr. Corlin leaves virtually no doubt as to why Physicians for a National Health Program should supersede the American Medical Association as the legitimate physician organization representing the cause of health care justice.
From Karen Palmer, who is currently on a sabbatical at the World Health Organization in Switzerland, commenting on the findings of The Lewin Group in the California Health Care Options Project:
I was skimming through a textbook written by two of my colleagues here at WHO, and I came across this quote, which so supports the findings of the Lewin group. Maybe folks are starting to get the picture, which is so well-known in the rest of the world that it is part of a standard college level text book on public health:
“The United States of America epitomises the problems wealthy countries experience when public health is neglected. The major dilemma facing public health in the United States continues to be its relationship with the organisation and delivery of medical care services. Until a national and equitable system of medical care is achieved, public health will be neglected and receive an inadequate share of the vast resources devoted to “health” in the United States. The tremendous amount spent on medical care limits the availability of funds for a whole range of public services, not just public health.”
Citation: “Public Health at the Crossroads: achievements and prospects” by Robert Beaglehole and Ruth Bonita, Cambridge University Press 1997.