Single Payer Healthcare or a Public Option? 159,000 Doctors Got It Wrong

Patients Not Profits

Read all about it. Headlines trumpet a revolutionary about-face among thousands of doctors on how to fix U.S. crumbling healthcare. “Major Doctors’ Group Calls for U.S. to Read all about it. Headlines trumpet a revolutionary about-face among thousands of doctors on how to fix U.S. crumbling healthcare. “Major Doctors’ Group Calls for U.S. to Assure Coverage for All (The Washington Post and The New York Times); “In Historic Shift, Second Largest Physician’s Group in the U.S. has New Prescription: It’s Medicare-for-All (Common Dreams). It sounded like a dream come true and though we hate to admit it, Suspicious Angels swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Until we actually read the report and realized it was another attempt to “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” The author of the report, The American College of Physicians, is the second largest medical society in the U.S. with a membership of 159,000 internists (aka primary care physicians). You might say they didn’t really take a position coming out somewhere between single payer and a public option. In contrast, the largest medical society, the American Medical Association with 218,000 members, in June, 2019 voted to oppose single payer or even its second-class cousin, a public option. Thoughts of an approaching revolution called single payer is having another effect. The billionaire class is in a tizzy. Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, declared that single payer was “un-American.” So Assure Coverage for All (The Washington Post and The New York Times); “In Historic Shift, Second Largest Physician’s Group in the U.S. has New Prescription: It’s Medicare-for-All (Common Dreams). It sounded like a dream come true and though we hate to admit it, Suspicious Angels swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Until we actually read the report and realized it was another attempt to “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” The author of the report, The American College of Physicians, is the second largest medical society in the U.S. with a membership of 159,000 internists (aka primary care physicians). You might say they didn’t really take a position coming out somewhere between single payer and a public option. In contrast, the largest medical society, the American Medical Association with 218,000 members, in June, 2019 voted to oppose single payer or even its second-class cousin, a public option. Thoughts of an approaching revolution called single payer is having another effect. The billionaire class is in a tizzy. Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, declared that single payer was “un-American.”

So what’s the real deal? Will we settle for a public option or go whole hog like the rest of the developed world with single payer? It’s time to rally around the flag. But which flag? You may find the answers in “Single Payer Healthcare or a Public Option? 159,000 Doctors Got It Wrong

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