When I saw the headline (1/19/11), “Vocal Physicians Group Renews Health Law Fight,” I thought maybe–just maybe–the New York Times might be talking about Physicians for a National Health Program, the group comprised of “18,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance.”
But no. The Times story is about the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons,a3,000-member organization that is on the far right of the healthcare debate, and is garnering coverage now because they support repeal of the new healthcare law. How far? These excerpts from the Times piece should give you some idea:
Founded in 1943, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons opposed the creation of Medicaid and Medicare. A decade ago, it was among groups that unsuccessfully urged the United States Supreme Court to release post-mortem photographs of a former Clinton administration official, Vincent Foster. In its brief, the group argued that an independent inquiry was necessary to confirm that Mr. Foster, whose death was attributed to suicide, was not murdered.
And:
Its internal periodical has published studies arguing that abortion increases breast cancer risks, a tie rejected by an expert panel of the National Cancer Institute, as well as reports linking child vaccinations to autism, a discredited theory. Another report, “Illegal Aliens and American Medicine,” contended that illegal immigrants not only brought disease into this country but benefited if their babies were born with disabilities.
“Anchor babies are valuable,” that 2005 report stated, using a negative term for children born in America to illegal immigrants. “A disabled anchor baby is more valuable than a healthy one.”
Now perhaps the angle here is that since repeal is in the news, this group deserves coverage. And citing their extremist positions on an array of subjects might be useful for readers who want to know what sorts of folks are backing repeal.
But in the broader debate over healthcare, single-payer advocates like PNHP are largely sidelined. A search of Times coverage in the Nexis news database shows that PNHP usually shows up only in the letters section. A June 11, 2009 article, “Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan,” focused on opposition to the public option from the likes of the American Medical Association; it included a passing reference to PNHP.
It makes sense for the healthcare debate to include the voices of doctors and other caregivers. But that discussion needs to include those who support single-payer.
The AAPS credo?
First, do know what harm you can do
Then, do it
Any policy to the left of the Democratic Party and Obama will be demonized and marginalized as socialist or communistic without regard to the majority of this so-called democracy. The majority wanted single payer health care, minimally, to be part of the health care reform discussion.
The NYT demonstrates its function as a Democratic Party rag once again.
It’s rather disturbing to know that there are 3000 mentally unstable doctors in the US.
I think that their name fits them. I pronounce it The Apes! This small group of physicians does not represent me, help humanity, or honor the Hippocratic oath in my opinion. They do not take patients with Medicare or Medicaid. Shining a light on them exposes their defects which are many.
As the old joke contends, “What do you call the guy who graduated at the absolute bottom of his medical school class?” The answer, of course, is: “Doctor.”
Hey,
Thanks for the shout-out! It’s encouraging. I encourage like minded physicians and others to join up: http://www.pnhp.org
Laura Boylan, neurologist and PNHPer
I’m disappointed in the NYT. Someone on there staff of writers should be able to straighten them out on health care. Some kind of “Single Payer” is the only way to go.
I’m disappointed in the NYT. Someone on their staff of writers should be able to straighten them out on health care. Some kind of “Single Payer” is the only way to go.
Can do, Laura Boylan, can do. And yes, Bill Young, but the Times has been lost to us for some time, as FAIR routinely points out. Forget about them. If you subscribe, unsubscribe. They can’t be straightened out.
“Socialized Medicine” is a dirty-term that lingers with the infection of the brainwashing of the better-dead-than-red era when we threw the baby out with the bathwater. We listen to the Special Interest propaganda that appeals to this brainwashing. We point to the imperfections of healthcare in relatively-socialized countries and are blind to our trashing of our own backyard and the manipulations that pitt us one against the other. // Jean Clelland-Morin
So, how to expose the charlatans that play upon individual’s ignorance and fear to advance causes that benefit a few people at the expense of the rest? If a “Single Payer” system may provide better health care to more people at less cost, why not allow the discourse to take place? Hurling negative terms, name-calling, and threatening others with harm does nothing to advance American democracy. Identify who is throwing the garbage and follow the money trail. Mis-information and other lies are part of the enemy within.
John i agree that the debate should take place.And Obama saying he is not aiming toward a single payer system just adds to the firestorm,because that is his aim.Doctors want to get payed ,and some(some I say)believe it will be better both ways if we move this way.And in certain fields it would.For Doctor and patient- economics aside.Problem is you cant put economics aside.I could say we all should get the same free treatment as the president ,or congress and that sounds great.But who will pay for it?I know few Doctors who believe in Obama care.Most believe as i do that it will be more expensive,lead to more infringement of Dr /patient care and lead to rationing.On top of all it will break the system.More so it will make worse the lack of doctors that is now becoming a major problem.Government control will always result in less .Less people being motivated to undertake the long haul of becoming.There has to be a payoff at some point.And for Doctors now it has been pushed back so far.At least half the surgeons i know have lapsed their licenses due to insurance cost.Bitch all you want about those evil rich.My guess is if you could do their job you would not want it….damn the pay.Dr Boylan above seems to be advocating a system like Englands.Or Canada.One is in the dump ,and one is going there.We need a change.This just is not the way.
It is manifestly not (it never was, and he was quite clear about it) the President’s aim to put in single payer. The President wants (and wanted) to please Wall Street and the big Phamaceutical companies, and he did just that. He also cut a deal with the insurance companies ahead of his (false) claims that he was all for the public option. The only way to get Medicare for all is to work it out on the state level. Our President is never going to implement any kind of Medicare For All–so right-wingers and other back-sliders should focus on the troublesome, liberal States like Vermont and California, which will, over the President’s no-doubt strenuous objections, start up some kind of single-payer, state-wide program. This will be wildly popular, and will spread like wildfire across this Great Land. At some point, our President, by this time writing his “memoirs,” will have the not wholly illegitimate gall to claim this great victory for himself. “I got the ball rolling with my skillful bipartisan reasonableness,” he’ll write, and by God, I won’t care about this outrage, because, perhaps, it won’t matter. Of course, this probably won’t happen, but the President, no matter what, will still make his grandiose claims, history notwithstanding.
Tim there are 3 or four snippets of Barrack saying that this is where america must eventually go.Toward a single payer system.They were played during the election, but are hard to find now.It is also in his writings.Though you are quite right that as president he has danced around it skillfully.But every move moves irrevocably that way.If his work had gone through it would of put private insurance out of business pretty quickly.They could never compete.The next shoe would by necessity be single payer.The masses would scream for it.”The masses must first be beggard,then trained to ask for their bread.”There are places like Camdon NJ that have grown up under democratic rule.As dem a city as their ever was.A perfect circle of poverty.Camdon is a dead zone.No-one works.There is no work.No one understands that the necessities of life come from their own hard work.A generation taught to live soley on the government dole.The perfect end to the Liberal dream.They have children that they expect government to support from cradle to grave.They demand that support.And their mouthpieces are…..YOU. You Who demands it from those who produce.The so-called rich.Most of whom are nothing of the sort.And this puts you on the side that cares?You are nothing more than slave masters endlessly keeping people in servitude.The tea Party was the cog in that wheel.And now i do not think he(Obama) will succeed.Thank God.
We have 2 right wing parties, the Democrats who are now clearly on the right, even the far right, and the Republicans who are even farther right. We need at least one political party that represents workers, the poor, the ill, the retired, and millions of others for whom the free market system of hawking and whoring does not work.
I’ve been a Green and now I’m a Socialist (although I still like to refer to myself as a Green Socialist as the two are not too far apart in attitudes). Now all we need are people to give up their lone struggle and join a much more powerful force that can create the social goods people want, including Single Payer.
We won’t get democracy in health care until we get democracy in representation. We must work for proportional representation and join alternate non-dysfunctional parties.
Health Care Reform can be improved upon and adjusted for the better. That is why it was so important to pass this law. We can improve health care reform with single payer or the public option. That is possible if we can get President Obama elected in 2012 and a lot more Democrats of like mind. We have to fight the right wing hypocrites, bigots and all the money pouring in to support tea party republicans by corporate interests who are now able to do so because of the republican Supreme Court decision. We do not have two right wing parties. We have 3 or 4 Democrats who are corporate owned, but every single republican is corporate owned and operated. We need more people like Al Franken, Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz who are more concerned about real people who are struggling and policies and jobs to help them than anything else. We need some very good Democrats elected in 2012.