The New York Times
January 16, 2003
Frist and Health Care
To the Editor:
Re “Weapon in Health Wars: Frist’s Role as a Doctor” (Political Memo, Jan. 11):
I am a practicing pediatrician and emergency physician in a large urban hospital. Accepting Senator Bill Frist as a spokesman for health care reform is difficult for me. He is a businessman-physician who did transplant surgery and made a lot of money in corporatized medicine – not exactly a mainstream medical practitioner.
Most doctors in poll after poll favor a single payer system and are dismayed at the continuing privatization of medical care. It’s time for physicians and patients to have the courage to publicly support health care as a right; lacking this principle, our current nonsystem will continue to implode. Does anyone really believe anymore that the marketplace medicine that Dr. Frist represents is working?
David A. Poleski, M.D.
Grosse Ile, Mich.