Doctors For America

Submitted as a Letter to the Editor:

To the Editor:
As a primary care physician in Waterbury, I have paid close attention to the year’s developments in health care reform. I too have been frustrated by the Congressional sausage-making, backroom deals, and lobbyists spending $1.4 million a day (Washington Post report, July 21, 2009).
The political landscape is said to have changed with the election of a Republican to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts. However, several things have not changed, and we must keep this in perspective.
We still have 47 million people without health insurance, and 14,000 more lose health insurance every day. A study from the December 2009 issue of the American Journal of Public Health found that almost 45,000 American deaths per year were related to lack of insurance. Premiums and out of pocket costs will continue to skyrocket this year, as evidenced by recent increases in premiums by Anthem in California.
As a member of Doctors for America, a grassroots organization of almost 17,000 physicians who support reform, I share the story of another member physician, Glenn Wishon, a man who was insured under his wife’s plan when he developed a rare cancer. His treatment cost $6000 per month, and insurance covered most of it until his wife developed her own cancer and died. Now he has no insurance and cannot obtain new coverage due to a preexisting condition. We are all vulnerable to the loss of our health insurance and financial ruin, every single one of us.
So much has been discussed, so many compromises already forged. The bills before Congress are not perfect, but they are a real start. We must continue to work to ensure access to cost-effective, high quality care. We need a national insurance exchange and elimination of the worst practices of the insurance industry. We need tort reform, as well as comparative effectiveness research to help guide me to know what really works when I try to help my patients. We need more nuanced discussions about how much health care really costs so we can figure out how to ensure that all Americans have access to care that will help them have a high quality of life and have good value through our treatments. All other developed nations have figured this out, why can\'t we?
As the President said in the State of the Union, “Don’t walk away from reform.” Senators Dodd and Lieberman and Representative Murphy must move forward; this is too important of an issue to give up on.
Julie Rosenbaum MD