Nurses and Doctors Reject Current Health Reform, January 14, 2010

 By Carolyn Bninski

 

With the election of Republican Scott Brown as the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts on Tuesday, Democrats are expressing their concerns that they will no longer be able to overcome a Republican filibuster on health care “reform”. Brown has said he would vote against the current legislation.

 

Thousands of doctors and nurses are calling for the defeat of the current “reform”. I agree with them.

In a December 22, 2009 press release, the Physicians for A National Health Program (PNHP; www.pnhp.org), a national organization of 17,000 physicians “called on the U.S. Senate today to defeat the health care legislation presently before it and to immediately consider the adoption of an expanded and improved Medicare-for-All program”.

While the doctors’ group said that there were some positives in the Senate bill, the group says “the negatives in the bill outweigh the positives”. These negatives include “the individual mandate requiring that people buy private insurance policies, large government subsidies to private insurers, new restrictions on abortion, the unfair taxing of high-cost health plans, and cuts of $43 billion in Medicare payments to safety-net hospitals. Moreover, at least 23 million people will remain uninsured when the plan finally takes effect.”

 

The 150,000-member National Nurses Union (NNU), the largest union and professional organization of registered nurses in the U.S. also opposes the Senate bill (which is only slightly different from the House bill).

 

In addition to the flaws cited by the PNHP, the NNU points to the following: there is no challenge to insurance company monopolies; the bill exposes too many families to grave financial risk; there are major loopholes in the insurance reforms regarding exclusion for pre-existing conditions and cancellations for sickness; there is minimal oversight on insurance denials of care, there are inadequate limits on drug prices; there are new burdens on public hospitals and clinics; and nothing changes in the basic structure of the system.

 

Is this what you want? If not, join the doctors and nurses in saying no to phony insurance company-driven health “reform”. Call Senators Michael Bennett and Mark Udall and Rep. Polis at 202-224-3121 and tell them to dump phony reform, and enact Medicare for All.

 

Carolyn Bninski is on the staff of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center.

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