By John Driscoll
Times-Standard (Eureka, Calif.), Sept. 24, 2010
In their pursuit of nationalized health care for everyone, Drs. Paul Hochfeld and Mike Huntington are under no illusions. They are swimming upstream.
At a time when Republicans — who could take control of Congress in the upcoming election — are talking about repealing recent health care legislation, some doctors are pushing to make health care reform far more complete. They are the Mad as Hell Doctors, currently on tour around California in an effort to educate people on the benefits of a single-payer and improved Medicare system.
After a rally at Humboldt State University, and before a community dinner and entertainment event at Bayside Grange in Arcata, Hochfeld and Huntington said that some people will benefit from the recently passed Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act. But the law leaves insurance companies entrenched, they said, and forces people to buy a flawed product through an industry that doesn’t add value to health care.
āWe still have this chaotic nonsystem,ā Hochfeld said.
Since people without insurance aren’t turned away at the emergency room door, the public is paying for the treatment that they get anyway, Hochfeld said. In a single-payer system, everyone is in the same risk pool, and taking the insurance companies out of the equation frees up 20 percent to 25 percent of the overall resources to improve care, he said.
But if Congress was unwilling to pursue true government-run health care, what makes
the Mad As Hell Doctors think anything will change? It won’t, Hochfeld said, until large numbers of people understand the benefits of such a system. Which is why the doctors are on tour again.
In 2009, the Mad As Hell Doctors visited 15 states in an effort to bring a message to Congress that the current system is inefficient, costly and doesn’t lead to better care. The 2010 California tour is backing Senate Bill 810 — the California Universal Healthcare Act — which they see as potentially leading the way toward a national single-payer system.
Huntington said that the United States can provide high-quality health care, but it does so at a higher cost than in other countries. The wealthy can afford such treatment, he said, but average people needing intensive health care find themselves facing bankruptcy.
Huntington said he knows of a man, with a family, who was diagnosed with throat cancer and was facing a long and uncertain treatment and recovery. The cure was no sure thing, Huntington said. The man might die or be unable to work after the treatment was over, Huntington said, making him worry that he’d be saddling his family with a massive debt.
“Nobody should be in that dilemma,” Huntington said.
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_16162335