Health Providers Want Health Care Changes To Be Affordable, Maintain Coverage
By Shamane Mills
Wisconsin Public Radio, Jan. 16, 2017
In a 1966 speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhuman.”
Now, Dr. Jeff Huebner, a family physician in Madison and chair of the National Physicians Alliance, is calling on lawmakers to not repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement offering the same protections, including affordability and adequate medical benefits.
“We (NPA) were a proud leader in voicing support for (the) Affordable Care Act, and we will continue to raise our voices in support of improving the ACA and not going back to the days of inhumane health care,” Huebner said at a press conference Monday following the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday celebration at the state Capitol.
Huebner and other doctors also expressed concern Monday about Republican plans to offer premium support, or vouchers, for Medicare and cap Medicaid spending through block grants.
The press conference was sponsored by Physicians for a National Health Program and Physicians for Social Responsibility, both support a national health care system.
But the nation’s largest doctor’s group, the American Medical Association, has long opposed the idea of a single-payer model. In June, however, the AMA did adopt a resolution to study single-payer, along with other payment models.