Below are excerpts from the remarks made at the unveiling of âBeyond the Affordable Care Act: A Physiciansâ Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reformâ and the related publication of âMoving Forward From the Affordable Care Act to a Single-Payer Systemâ in the American Journal of Public Health on May 5, 2016, at the National Press Club. The panel of speakers was moderated by Dr. Robert Zarr.
To view photos from the press conference, please visit our Flickr page. To hear audio highlights alongside these photos, please view the video below or visit our YouTube page.
We also encourage you to join PNHP today, and to endorse the Physicians’ Proposal, either as a physician / medical student, or as a non-physician health professional / reform advocate outside the health professions.
Robert Zarr, M.D., M.P.H.
President, Physicians for a National Health Program
As a pediatrician, I am tired of seeing families postpone medical care because theyâre afraid of the bill. I see children under-immunized for diseases that are easily preventable. In fact, just this week I saw another 18-month-old toddler who came in, not having had her 12-month shots. Weâre talking about immunizations for measles, mumps and rubella â delayed in 2016. I see my patients forced to change their doctor because their new insurance card is no longer accepted. Sadly, this is not uncommon. We can do better. Using five successful decades of experience with Medicare, we must improve and extend Medicare to all Americans. We can neither turn back the clock, nor accept the status quo. We must accept the inevitable, single payer, so we can start living without the ever-looming threat of medical and financial disaster.
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.
Co-chair, Working Group on Single-Payer Program Design
Twenty-seven million Americans are still uninsured and that number is not expected to fall. Tens of millions with insurance face sky-high copayments and deductibles that would bankrupt them if they were seriously ill. And many more have narrow network plans that wonât cover care at top medical centers. Meanwhile, profit-driven insurers and hospital chains increasingly dominate health care. And insurersâ growing demands for documentation wastes doctors and nurses time, and saps their morale. While these trends predated the ACA, the law fueled merger-mania, and added bureaucratic complexity and cost. The alternative we developed calls for radical change: a single-payer national health program. Our plan would cover everyone for all medically necessary care, without copayments or deductibles. And it would guarantee Americans the right to choose any doctor or hospital. Our nation can readily afford this if we replace todayâs wasteful patchwork of insurance plans with a streamlined single-payer system.
Claudia Fegan, M.D., CHCQM
National coordinator, PNHP
Many people may ask, âWell, why do we have a Physiciansâ Proposal? Why now? Didnât we get there with the Affordable Care Act?â And the simple answer is âno.â The simple answer is, âWhat is OK about a plan that leaves 27 million people still uninsured?â Iâm not even talking about the underinsured; Iâm talking about the uninsured. So the Affordable Care Act didnât get there. One, it leaves too many people uncovered. Two, it says itâs OK to have higher and higher patient cost sharing. And three, it increases the bureaucracy in health care. The amount of money going to administration, the amount of money deciding whoâs covered, is increasing, not going down. Itâs not going to patient care. The Physiciansâ Proposal is another opportunity to talk about how we can get health reform right.
Karen Higgins, R.N.
Co-president, National Nurses United
This updated approach to achieving guaranteed health care for all is essential to providing the health security our patients desperately need. Patients go without medications, or cut pills in half to make them last longer, are kicked out of the hospital when the insurance company says so, or cannot see the provider best suited to their condition because they are âout of network.â We should always remember that âcoverageâ is not âcare,â particularly in the present system of high deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs that create big barriers to access. Nurses work on the front lines with doctors within our dysfunctional health care system, which is dominated by private insurers, drug companies and corporate hospital chains that put their bottom line ahead of patient needs. For Registered Nurses, it is time to make our health care system reflect the values of caring, compassion and community. Itâs time for Single-Payer, Improved Medicare for All!
Adam Gaffney, M.D.
Co-chair, Working Group on Single-Payer Program Design
The good news is that there is an alternative path, which my colleagues and I are setting forth today. Our proposal sets forth the fundamentals of a far more efficient, fully universal national health program for the U.S. A single-payer national health program would cover everybody in the nation, regardless of age, income, or country of birth. It would provide comprehensive benefits to health care, including important services far too often neglected in todayâs system, like long-term care. It would, at the same time, eliminate cost sharing â copayments, deductibles, and coinsurance
â so that individuals and families would never again need to decide between medicine and rent. The system of single-payer financing is the critical factor that makes such an expansion of coverage economically possible. Itâs the only realistic way to achieve the long-sought goal of universal health care in America. We hope that this proposal can help to realize it.
Sidney Wolfe, M.D.
Co-founder, Health Research Group, Public Citizen
All of us here were trained and have provided health care to tens of thousands of patients in this country. And we are part of what we call a health-care-providing system: nurses, doctors, psychologists, physical therapists, pharmacists, dentists and others. But we have another system, and I think itâs important to identify it as such because it does eat up about a quarter of our health budget. Itâs called the health-care-denying and billing system. It starts out with the insurance industry and it foists itself on doctorsâ offices, pharmacies, hospitals and so forth. Thereâs no other country in the world that has anything remotely like it. If those nations had a system like ours, they would not be able to have health care for everyone. The only thing I can say is that a wealthy country such as ours that refuses to provide health care for everyone cannot be described as morally civilized.
Please note that PNHP maintains a speakers bureau. Contact us via this form to schedule grand rounds on the ongoing health care crisis and post-ACA options for reform.