Michael Flynn, MD, a retired surgical oncologist, has an article in the March 2020 edition of Louisville Medicine, the publication of the Greater Louisville Medical Society. The article is on page 31 and can be accessed from this link:
https://view.joomag.com/louisville-medicine-volume-67-issue-10/0707749001583327866?short
Courier-Journal
March 3, 2020
We can provide health care for all
Would you rather have your life and death medical decisions made by a “nameless bureaucrat” or in a boardroom in New York city? Having worked for many years for our government, I can assure you that the vast majority of government workers are motivated by the desire to do a good job and to provide a decent living for their family. They are not motivated by the need to siphon off millions of dollars from the healthcare industry to enrich their fellow board members and stockholders. These “nameless bureaucrats” do indeed have names and are responsible hard-working people trying to help with the mission their agency has been assigned. They are held accountable when they make mistakes and not given a golden parachute to go away. If all of our government workers and politicians are just lazy crooks, just what makes our country so great?
The insurance companies do not add any value to our health care. We can get along just fine without them. Our own Medicare, Medicaid and VA have proven this. Look at all of the other industrialized countries in the world that do just fine with government-run health care systems. If these other countries can afford to provide healthcare to all of its citizens, then surely the wealthiest country to have ever existed could also.
Gary Hagan, Shepherdsville, KY 40165
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Letter writer wrong about “Medicare for all”
I respectfully disagree with the views expressed by E. W. Hoelscher in his letter published in The Courier Journal’s Community Forum. In opposing Sen. Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill, it appears Mr. Hoelscher was confusing Bernie’s plan with the British National Health System (NHS), where doctors and hospital workers are employed by the government. The NHS is a true socialist system. Under Bernie’s proposal, physicians would not work for the government. They would operate their own practices, and their fees for service would be reimbursed and processed through the government—as is now the case for traditional Medicare. Nor would hospitals be expropriated; they would operate as they do now but be paid through the single-payer financing system, rather than by way of costly middlemen. It is true that “Bernie and friends” oppose the private insurance companies who pay their CEOs outrageous salaries and add billions to the costs of U. S. health care.
Harriette Seiler, Louisville, 40207
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Courier-Journal Letter
March 11, 2020
Distortions about single-payer healthcare
Not surprising, the single-payer, Medicare for All alternative to our current healthcare mess is being heaped with distortions and outright false information. Witness two recent letters to the editor in The Courier Journal.
One writer says businesses will be the big winner with Medicare for All. Partially correct. They will definitely save money, but they will pay their fair share, just like employees. Eliminate premiums, deductibles and co-pays, and workers are the big winners, not employers.
The second writer claims the federal government will expropriate all hospitals and clinics if Medicare for All is adopted, and everyone will be working for the government. Not true. Hospitals and clinics would continue to be privately owned and operated. No different than the current Medicare program.
When the profit and overhead of insurance companies and hospitals amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars, and drug prices will be lowered due to negotiation, the savings are huge under Medicare for All. Savings will go to patient care and everyone will be covered.
And rest assured, Medicare for All will be sustainable long term, since Congress will be included in the plan, just like each of us, a sure-fire way to make sure funding is preserved.
Charlie Casper, Louisville, 40207
State Representative Tom Burch has introduced HB 445 which would end the ability of Medigap plans to charge higher rates or deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions. The legislation is needed because seniors in Kentucky who purchase Medicare Advantage but later seek to return to traditional Medicare and purchase a Medigap plan are no longer protected from underwriting.
Such persons with pre-existing conditions can be charged sky high prices, or denied entirely, a supplementary Medigap plan. The problem is discussed in Medpage Today.
There are only four states where there is some protection against discrimination for pre-existing conditions under these circumstances. This article from Kaiser Family Foundation explains.
Republicans, Democrats and independents are all opposed to charging outrageous rates or refusing to sell policies to people because they are, or have been, sick. The practice is clearly inhumane, and Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care asks all legislators to join with us in banning Medigap discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions.
These are the representatives who are sponsoring HB 445: T. Burch, T. Bojanowski, J. Donohue, C. Miller, P. Minter, J. Raymond, A. Scott, L. Willner
Currently there are massive ad campaigns to entice seniors to purchase Medicare Advantage plans by offering additional benefits and lower or no monthly premiums. Such offers are compelling for Kentucky’s many seniors with fixed incomes and tight monthly budgets.
What the ads do not say is that for-profit Medicare Advantage plans place limits on which physicians you can see and which hospitals, rehab centers, and nursing homes you can use. These private plans can also charge co-pays, drop physicians from their networks, and charge large payments for drugs.
The limitations of the Medicare Advantage plans only become apparent when a patient is sick and has to use the plan. When seniors initially become eligible for Medicare, they are protected against discrimination for pre-existing conditions in the purchase of a “Medigap” plan to supplement traditional Medicare. But those who purchase a Medicare Advantage plan and later seek to return to traditional Medicare will find that protection no longer applies.
In addition to the disadvantages brought to seniors by the Medicare Advantage plans, these plans also overbill the government by billions each year in a money grab that diverts Medicare money from health care into the pockets of the insurance companies. By 2012 the diversion of Medicare funds to private companies had already cost Medicare over $282 billion, and it is projected that the overpayments to Medicare Advantage insurers will amount to $200 billion over the next decade.
Speaking on behalf of Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care, Dr. Garrett Adams stated that Rep. Tom Burch’s bill to end discrimination by Medigap plans on the basis of pre-existing conditions has strong public backing. He added that the longer term solution must be the enactment of a national, improved Medicare for All plan that will finally cover everyone through a not-for-profit single payer system. “Such a plan will end the waste caused by profits, free everyone to choose their own doctors, end discrimination for pre-existing conditions and remove all financial barriers to care,” Dr. Adams said.
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The Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression honored Dr. Garrett Adams with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his leadership in the single payer/improved Medicare for All movement. The award was presented on December 7, 2019, at the 22nd Annual Alliance Unity Dinner celebrating the 45th year since the founding of the Alliance.
Dr. Adams was born in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Wake Forest School of Medicine, where he was recognized as a Distinguished Lecturer.
He completed pediatric residency at Vanderbilt University Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, and Pediatric Infectious Disease Fellowship at the University of Colorado.
He has a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health by whom he was recently recognized with the Distinguished Alumnus Award.
In 2014 he was the Granger Lecturer at the Yale Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine.
He is retired from the full-time faculty of the University of Louisville School of Medicine where he was Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Medical Director of Communicable Diseases at the Louisville Metro Health Department.
During his forty-year career he attended the health care needs of sick children and their young families. He witnessed deterioration in health care access and health care delivery in the United States and now works for health care reform as a member of Physicians for a National Health Program (www.PNHP.org). He is a founding member of PNHP-Kentucky (www.kyhealthcare.org), a member of the national Board of PNHP, and was national President of PNHP 2010-2012.
He is the founder (2010) and Medical Director of the Beersheba Springs Medical Clinic, Beersheba Springs, Tennessee, a not-for-profit, volunteer clinic in the Cumberland mountains of Tennessee (www.beershebaclinic.org).
In 2011 he testified to the U.S. Senate on “Is Poverty a Death Sentence”, based on his experience in Appalachia.
Congratulations, Dr. Adams, from all of us at Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care!
Thanks to Carrie Irwin for the photos.
Dr. Wayne Tuckson, a Louisville colorectal surgeon, past president of the Greater Louisville Medical Society, and host of Kentucky Health interviews economist Gerald Friedman on the meaning and financing of Medicare for All. The interview took place on October 24, 2019.
https://video.ket.org/video/health-insurance-for-all-what-does-it-mean-ebmtcm/
(Video of event by Stephen Mattingly is here.)
On October 24, 2019, at 7 pm, economist Gerald Friedman presented the Economic Case for Medicare for All to a full house at the Unitarian Church on 4th street in downtown Louisville.
Dr. Karen Krigger, who practices Family and Geriatric Medicine in Louisville, opened the program with remarks about the current crises in health care in Louisville.
Kentuckians came from as far away as Richmond to hear Dr. Friedman.
Dr. Garrett Adams, pediatrician and past president of the Physicians for a National Health Program, introduced Friedman who earned his doctorate in economics at Harvard and currently teaches at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Dr. Friedman is an expert on the financing of single payer health care systems. He studied HR 676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All legislation, introduced in the House by Congressman John Conyers.
He found that over $500 billion could be saved each year by switching to this single payer program.
Dr. Friedman’s presentation gave compelling evidence that people in the United States are victims of an inferior health care system that brings suffering and early death to those who do not have the ability to pay the high cost of care.
He presented evidence that the U. S. spends more than twice, per capita, on health care as the other wealthy countries yet has poorer outcomes in life expectancy and other measures of quality.
He showed that, contrary to insurance company claims, additional funds spent on care produce improved outcomes and longevity. He gave the figures that prove that co-pays and deductibles and the high cost of drugs are causing irreparable harm to Americans.
His studies show that one-third of Americans are going without necessary care because of the high costs even for those who have health insurance plans.
He gave compelling evidence that a national single payer health care system, an improved Medicare for All, would save money yet improve care for those who now have insurance and extend those benefits to the 3o million who have been left without coverage despite the gains of the Affordable Care Act.
The program can be seen on the Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care facebook page, thanks to medical student Sarah Parker.
https://www.facebook.com/KSPHmed4all/videos/2334827763293174/
On Thursday, October 24, 2019, economics Professor Gerald Friedman spoke on what Medicare for All would mean for physicians. The Grand Rounds was sponsored by the University of Louisville Department of Medicine. The program took place in the Ambulatory Care Building at University of Louisville Hospital. A video is available here.
On Friday, October 25, 2019, Dr. Friedman addressed the Grand Rounds of the University of Louisville Department of Family and Geriatric Medicine. This event was at Jewish Hospital in Bottigheimer Auditorium.
