Editorial
Des Moines Register
April 2, 2008
When it comes to reforming health care, special interests have run the show in Congress. Crafting Medicare reforms that benefit insurers and drug companies. Snuffing out proposals to allow Americans to import cheaper prescription drugs from other countries. Stonewalling the creation of a taxpayer-financed system of health insurance to cover all Americans.
Among the most powerful special interests on health care: insurance companies and physician groups. Both have opposed national health insurance that would provide coverage to all Americans similar to the way Medicare covers seniors.
Well, the times they are a changin’.
According to a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a majority of American physicians now support national health insurance. A survey of nearly 2,200 doctors found that 59 percent think government legislation should establish national health insurance – a jump from 49 percent in 2002.
“More and more physicians are realizing they’re seeing more uninsured patients, said Dr. Aaron E. Carroll, director of Indiana University’s Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research and lead author of the study. “Even those patients with insurance are having more difficulty getting care. Doctors in general are fed up waiting for the system as we have it to get better.”
Physicians embrace a credo that they must provide care to everyone. But then there’s the reality of needing to secure payment for their services, even though millions of Americans don’t have insurance to help pay the bill for that care. And doctors are tired of the paperwork burden of dealing with thousands of different private insurance programs.
The shift by doctors toward supporting creation of a national health-insurance system is an important finding, because the organizations that represent them continue to march to a different drummer in the halls of Congress. The American Medical Association, for example, has long opposed a taxpayer-financed system of health care.
It appears the special interests may no longer be representing their members. It’s time for the doctors themselves to speak up. And Congress to listen.