Anyone who follows my blog knows that I usually post news generated by my clients at blueplate pr. I’m making an exception here because I feel it’s so important.
The following opinion piece was written by an old and dear friend of mine from high school — Dr. Rae Brown — who is now a Professor of Anesthesiology and Pediatrics, Executive Vice Chairman, Department of Anesthesiology University of Kentucky Medical Center, and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Anesthesia and Pain Management at The Kentucky Children’s Hospital in Lexington, KY.
One physician’s opinion….
Universal Health Care in the United States
I am a physician and I think that everyone should have the best health care that we as a country can provide. I recognize that personal responsibility would have to be a part of the equation – with taxes on sugar, fat, cigarettes and alcohol. But it is beyond me why we can spend a trillion dollars in Iraq and cannot provide universal health care for our citizens. Let’s be clear about this, the United States is the only industrialized country that doesn’t have health care for all. In this regard we are the pariahs.
Health care is certainly an industry, providing jobs and creating value. When we spend money on medical research or on making people more productive it is an entirely positive thing – the exact opposite of the military industrial complex. When we teach people to be nurse and doctors and technicians, we are creating stable employment opportunities within our economy. As we try to turn the United States from a boom and bust economy to one with steady stable growth, we could do worse than expand the health care industry, in a controlled fashion so that every child, every working person and every elderly person could get the same physical and mental health support that is availed of our congressmen and women.
I think that every physician in the United States probably has ten ideas to make health care more effective and efficient, reducing costs so that more care could be provided to those that have little or none now. I also know that providing this care will ultimately mean that I will pay more to the government, and I am fine with this. You see, I take care of people every day that wait until a disease process is virtually untreatable to come to the attention of the health care system. Many times this is because of the costs involved and the lack of a stable, affordable insurance product for those that are involved in self employment and small business. These are not welfare cheats…these are the working middle class. That everyone else in the industrialized world has recognized this and that we haven’t makes me sick and it is time for all of us to step up and think about the common good.
Thank you, Dr. Brown!
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