I agree with Dr. LeBow. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. One of my professors once said, “Don’t let analysis lead to paralysis.” What would it take for the National Coalition on Health Care to address the issue of achieving universal health care in the United States?
Aaron Beckerman
Professor Emeritus Yeshiva University
Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine New York University Medical Center
Philip Pollner, M.D. and Nancy Wooten, Ph.D. of Unity for NHI (national health insurance) respond to Joel Miller (“A Perfect Storm”) and to Robert LeBow’s comments:
While we are trying, as we have for decades, to make single payer “marketable” to the kinds of organizations and individuals that Joel Miller represents, it would be far better (and probably easier) without “an appearance of some private sector involvement” to market it to those who have the most to gain – the uninsured, underinsured and even the insured who have witnessed the dark side of the present health care system. It would, as a colleague has stated, take only ten minutes to empower such individuals to agree. If only ten million of them were mobilized nationally, our movement would have three times the membership of the powerful NRA (3.5 million members); at those numbers and political clout we would finally achieve our goal. Unity for NHI is struggling to reach out to educate and empower large numbers of the grassroots into a formidable voting bloc. We need the support of all of those activists who wish to make the vision of universal health care a reality.
Philip Pollner, MD
Nancy Wooten, PhD