Former Orange County Physician makes case for single-payer health care

Interesting comments...Democrats wanting to fix the system, Republicans tend to "blame the victims" with statements such as if people didn't get fat, health care wouldn't be so expensive...hopefully things can someday meet somewhere in the middle so we can all get the healthcare we need...and know the bill will be paid...BD 

To Dr. Don McCanne, the remedy for California's health-care crisis is obvious. "Let's give up this concept that belongs in the last century of individual private plans," he told about 100 people who came to hear him speak in the Chico City Council chambers Thursday evening. McCanne said the solution is a single-payer system: private health insurance would disappear and the government California or the whole nation would act as an insurer, collecting premiums and paying for medicine, doctors, hospitals and other health-care services.

Trying to fix the present system the way the leading Democratic presidential candidates and Gov. Schwarzenegger propose doing, makes no sense, said McCanne, a senior health policy fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization advocating the single-payer system. McCanne, who worked as a family-practice doctor in Orange County for three decades, said the $2.2 trillion America spends every year on health care "will provide high-quality care for everyone if we spend it right.

Many leading Democratic politicians want to try to fix the current system, and Republicans tend to "blame the victims," saying things like if people wouldn't get so fat, health care wouldn't cost so much, McCanne said.  Not only is the present system way too expensive for what it provides but it's extremely inefficient, McCanne said. "This fragmented system of thousands of plans physicians and hospitals have to deal with puts a tremendous burden on them."

Chico Enterprise Record - Physician makes case for single-payer health care