The Denver Post
January 02, 2005
Fomenting a medical-care revolution
Rural doctors eye solutions to a “broken” health system
By Karen
Rocky White is an unlikely radical.
A Nebraska-bred country boy, a Republican-voting, ranch-owning, small-town
doctor, he hardly fits the profile of a wild-eyed revolutionary. But White and a handful of cohorts are, in fact, trying to foment upheaval.
The revolution they are proposing: a national health-insurance program. Nothing short of that will fix what White calls “our god-awful broken system.”
… it may be that this valley, like other rural areas, is getting hit hard first. That the forces driving doctors and insurance companies out, squeezing hospitals to the breaking point in rural Colorado, are simply foreshadowing what is in store for metro areas.
And some suggest that by wrestling with those problems now, small communities are in the vanguard, and the solutions they craft may offer road
maps for the rest of the country.
… the problems faced by rural medicine are daunting, complicated and growing worse.
That is what drove White to join forces with Dr. Gladys Richardson, an unabashed liberal, a woman who could hardly be more different from White.
In August, they invited virtually every health care provider in the five-county valley to hear their pitch for national health insurance.
The response was so huge they had to move the evening meeting from White’s
office to the largest conference room in the largest hotel in Alamosa.
They came last August and listened as White stood at a podium, his laptop in
hand.
He triggered a PowerPoint avalanche of data, provided by Physicians for a
National Health Program in Chicago: (the article then lists a few of the highlights)
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2630298,00.html
Comment: Democrats support access to affordable, comprehensive healthcare
for everyone, and Republicans support sound business principles which reduce
administrative waste and contain costs. And each side supports the agenda of
the other as long as there is no compromise in their own positions. The beauty of the single payer model is that it accomplishes these goals. It has been said that the Democrats will educate the nation on the single payer model, and then the Republicans will enact it.
Rocky White attended the PNHP Leadership Training Institute held in Chicago
last May. He was only one of several Republicans present. These were not
Republicans who had crossed over. They were Republicans who recognize
that the current system violates the most fundamental business principles by
wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on administrative excesses – dollars
that would be better spent on health care. Other nations apply sound business principles to their health care systems, resulting in more comprehensive systems at far lower costs. That has to grab the attention of Republicans, even if the Democrats already lay claim to it.
PNHP’s mission is to educate our colleagues and the nation on the advantages
of the single payer model. The purpose of the Leadership Training Institute
is to expand our mission by placing trained activists in communities throughout the nation. The 2005 training sessions will be held in Cambridge in May and in New Orleans in November. Because of the nature of the training sessions, enrollment is limited. But if you are ready to become much more actively involved in the reform movement, you may want to contact our executive director, Ida Hellander (pnhp@aol.com), to see if openings are available. (Unfortunately, the sessions do oversubscribe, so not everyone will be able to attend.)