Med Students Lobby for New Yorkers’ Health

Doctors must advocate for their patients’ health � with supervisors who approve procedures, for instance, or insurance companies that pay for services.

On Tuesday, dozens of doctors-to-be tried different advocacy skills � lobbying state lawmakers to advance proposals they believe will improve New Yorkers’ health.

“If we are not going to fight for our patients, who will?” Albany Medical College student Xin Guan asked a few dozen young adults in white coats who had stopped in the basement of the Legislative Office Building for coffee, bagels and a press briefing between their morning and afternoon visits to lawmakers.

It was the first Medical Student Advocacy Day, organized by Guan, originally from California, and two other second-year students from Albany Med, Ajay Major of Indiana and Phyllis Ying of Seattle.

Some 60 to 70 students from around the state joined them. A glance at the coats suggested most were from Albany Med, but some had traveled from several downstate schools, including Albert Einstein College of Medicine, SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Mt. Sinai Medical Center.

Guan, Major and Ying had prepped them with some activist training before the event. Lobbying representatives was a new activity for about half the students, they said.

While the group shared a concern for health issues, they spoke with legislators about proposals that interested them as individuals. Small groups organized around a few popular issues, including bills to provide universal health coverage for all New Yorkers, allow marijuana for medical use, and prohibit doctors from participating in the torture and improper treatment of prisoners.

Anti-hunger advocate Mark Dunlea gave the students a pep talk before they headed back out to meet their afternoon slate of legislators. Dunlea’s group, Hunger Action Network of New York State, works with a coalition of organizations that provide aid to low-income people who struggle with the costs of health care.

He told the students that their future profession would carry some weight with legislators. And he reminded them that legislators are public servants.

“Remember, these guys work for you,” he said.

Med Students Lobby for New Yorkers’ Health

Doctors must advocate for their patients’ health � with supervisors who approve procedures, for instance, or insurance companies that pay for services.

On Tuesday, dozens of doctors-to-be tried different advocacy skills � lobbying state lawmakers to advance proposals they believe will improve New Yorkers’ health.

“If we are not going to fight for our patients, who will?” Albany Medical College student Xin Guan asked a few dozen young adults in white coats who had stopped in the basement of the Legislative Office Building for coffee, bagels and a press briefing between their morning and afternoon visits to lawmakers.

It was the first Medical Student Advocacy Day, organized by Guan, originally from California, and two other second-year students from Albany Med, Ajay Major of Indiana and Phyllis Ying of Seattle.

Some 60 to 70 students from around the state joined them. A glance at the coats suggested most were from Albany Med, but some had traveled from several downstate schools, including Albert Einstein College of Medicine, SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Mt. Sinai Medical Center.

Guan, Major and Ying had prepped them with some activist training before the event. Lobbying representatives was a new activity for about half the students, they said.

While the group shared a concern for health issues, they spoke with legislators about proposals that interested them as individuals. Small groups organized around a few popular issues, including bills to provide universal health coverage for all New Yorkers, allow marijuana for medical use, and prohibit doctors from participating in the torture and improper treatment of prisoners.

Anti-hunger advocate Mark Dunlea gave the students a pep talk before they headed back out to meet their afternoon slate of legislators. Dunlea’s group, Hunger Action Network of New York State, works with a coalition of organizations that provide aid to low-income people who struggle with the costs of health care.

He told the students that their future profession would carry some weight with legislators. And he reminded them that legislators are public servants.

“Remember, these guys work for you,” he said.

Single-Payer Activism Gets Boost from Obamacare

Dr. Richard Propp and Alice Brody thought Obamacare might sink their movement.

Instead, based on the interest they say they are getting, the federal Affordable Care Act has buoyed their cause of universal health coverage, or “improved Medicare for all,” they said.

At the heart of the new federal law are government-run online markets that provide one-stop shopping to public and private insurance plans for previously uninsured people. The intent was to improve access to health care.

But confusion over the insurance websites and disappointment with the coverage offered has fueled interest in something the activists say is simpler and better � a national health system supported with tax dollars. On Tuesday, they’re screening a documentary about the issue at the First Unitarian Society in Albany.

Recently joining the ranks of single-payer promoters are young adults and labor unions, they said. Both have been dismayed by the trend toward higher-deductible health plans, whether through the new government-run health exchanges or from private employers.

“We’re really surprised at how much new interest there is in this issue,” said Brody, 69, who is active in Single Payer New York, which has supported a proposed state law that would create universal health coverage for New Yorkers.

Propp, 79, launched the Capital District Alliance for Universal Healthcare in 2005. The group is an affiliate of Healthcare-Now!, a national grass-roots advocate that supports similar federal legislation.

The trouble with the Affordable Care Act, single-payer proponents said, is that lawmakers gave too much weight to the concerns of the industries that profit from an overpriced medical system. The result, they say, was a convoluted law that perhaps no one understands completely.

“The reason Obamacare is so complex is it’s so gerrymandered,” said Dr. David Ray of Albany Medical Center, who is active in CDAUH and heads the local chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, a Chicago-based advocacy group. “The power of the moneyed interests � specifically the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry � was not taken out of the equation.”

By contrast, Medicare is easy to apply for and use, they said.

“You can understand Medicare,” Brody said. “The main problem with Medicare is it only serves the elderly, who are very sick. That’s why costs are high on Medicare.”

Another group whose support of universal health coverage may be surprising is doctors. Close to 60 percent of doctors support a single-payer health system, according to PNHP. Doctors support universal health coverage because it would make their business operations simpler, Ray said. Instead of meeting the requirements of dozens of insurance contracts, they would have to handle just one � with the government.

“Most physicians are dealing with so many masters, in terms of the insurance companies,” Ray said. “Single-payer is the only road to continuation of physician autonomy. And if there’s anything that physicians care about, it’s their autonomy.”

Ray, who has practiced medicine for 35 years at the former Community Health Plan and at the Whitney M. Young Jr. Health Center in Albany, said he has long held a philosophy that doctors should be paid for keeping people healthy, not for treating them only when they’re sick. His work at Whitney Young, an Albany-based clinic serving low-income patients, showed him the need for better health coverage for all people, he said.

Propp founded CDAUH when he retired, shortly after reading a Harvard study that showed uninsured people with diabetes had a 50 percent higher death rate than insured patients.

Brody’s impetus to join the movement came with the understanding in recent years that her childhood had been shaped by her family’s struggle to secure adequate health care. Her mother had multiple sclerosis, and her father worked three jobs to pay the household and medical bills. She and her sisters, Brody said, raised themselves.

“Health care should be a human right,” Brody said. “You have a right to be able to, if you’re sick, go see a doctor. It should be with you from birth to death.”

The Left After the Failure of Obamacare

It�s satisfying to watch rats flee a sinking ship. This is because onlookers knew the ship was doomed long ago, and swimming rats signify that the drawn-out tragedy is nearing an end. A collective sense of relief is a natural response.

The rats who propped up the broken boat of Obamacare are a collection of liberal and labor groups who frittered away their group�s resources�and integrity� to sell a crappy product to the American people.

Those in the deepest denial went �all in� for Obamacare� such as some unions and groups like Moveon.org� while the more conniving groups and individuals�like Michael Moore� playacted �critical� of Obamacare, while nevertheless declaring it �progressive�, in effect adding crucial political support to a project that deserved none.

But of course Obamacare was always more barrier than progress: we�ve wasted the last several years planning, debating, and reconstructing the national health care system, all the while going in the wrong direction� into the pockets of the insurance mega corporations. A couple progressive patches on the sails won�t keep her afloat. It�s shipbuilding time.

It was painful to watch otherwise intelligent people lend support to something that�s such an obviously bad idea. So it�s with immense relief that liberals like Michael Moore, labor groups, and others are finally distancing themselves from Obamacare�s Titanic failure. Now these individuals and groups can stop living in denial and the rest of us can proceed towards a rational discussion about a real health care solution.

The inevitable failure of Obamacare is not due to a bad website, but deeper issues. The hammering of the nails in the coffin has begun: millions of young people are suddenly realizing that Obamacare does not offer affordable health care. It�s a lie, and they aren�t buying it, literally.

The system depends on sufficient young people to opt in and purchase plans, in order to offset the costs of the older, higher-needs population. Poor young people with zero disposable income are being asked to pay monthly premiums of $150 and more, and they�re opting out, inevitably sinking Obamacare in the process.

Those young people who actually do buy Obamacare plans�to avoid the �mandate� fine� will be further enraged when they attempt to actually use their �insurance�. Many of the cheapest plans�the obvious choice for most young people� have $5,000 deductibles before the insurance will pay for anything. For poor young people this is no insurance at all, but a form of extortion.

At the same time millions of union members are being punished under Obamacare: those with decent insurance plans will suffer the �Cadillac� tax, which will push up the cost of their healthcare plans, and employers are already demanding concessions from union members in the form of higher health care premiums, co-pays, deductibles, etc.

Lower paid union workers will suffer as well. Those who are part of the Taft Hartley insurance plans will be pressured to leave the plans and buy their own insurance, since they cannot keep their plans and get the subsidy that the lowest income workers get. This has the potential to bust the whole Taft Hartley health care system that millions of union members benefit from, which is one of the reasons that labor leaders suddenly became outraged at Obamacare, after having wasted millions of union member�s dollars propping it up.

Ultimately, the American working class will collectively cheer Obamacare�s demise. They just need labor and other lefties to cheer lead its destruction a little more fiercely.

Surprisingly, most of the rats are still clinging to Obama�s hopeless vessel, frantically bailing water. Sure they�ve put on their life preservers and anxiously eyeing the lifeboats, but they�re also preaching about how to re-align the deckchairs.

For example, in his �critical� New York Times op-ed piece, Michael Moore called Obamacare �awful�, but also called it a �godsend�, singing his same tired tune. Part of Moore�s solution for Obamacare�which was cheered on in the Daily Kos� is equally ludicrous, and follows his consistently flawed logic that Obamacare is worth saving, since its �progress� that we can build on. Moore writes:

�Those who live in red [Republican dominated] states need the benefit of Medicaid expansion [a provision of Obamacare]�. In blue [Democrat dominated] states, let�s lobby for a public option on the insurance exchange � a health plan run by the state government, rather than a private insurer.�

This is Moore at his absolute worst. He�s neck deep in the flooded hull of the U.S.S Obamacare and giving us advice on how to tread water.

Of course Moore doesn�t criticize the heart of Obamacare, the individual mandate, the most hated component.

Moore also relies on the trump card argument of the pro-Obamacare liberals: there are progressive aspects to the scheme�such as the expansion of Medicaid� and therefore the whole system is worth saving.

Of course it�s untrue that we need Obamacare to expand Medicaid. In fact, the expansion of Medicaid acted more as a Trojan horse to introduce the pro-corporate heart of the system; a horse that Moore and other liberals nauseatingly continue to ride on.

But Moore�s sneakiest argument is his advice to blue states to ��lobby for a public option on the insurance exchange��

Again, Moore implies that it�s ok if we are �mandated� to buy health insurance, so long is there is a public option. But that aside, the deeper scheme here is that Moore wants us to further waste our energy �reforming� Obamacare, rather than driving it to the bottom of the sea.

Moore surely knows that very few people are going to march in the streets demanding a public option at this point; he therefore knows that even this tiny reform of the system is unachievable. He�s wasting our time. Real change only happens in politics when there is a surge of energy among large sections of the population, and it�s extremely unlikely that more than a handful of people are going to be active towards �fixing� Obamacare� they want to drown it.

Moore�s attempt to funnel people�s outrage at Obamacare towards a �public option� falls laughably short, and this is likely his intention, since his ongoing piecemeal �criticisms� of the system have only served to salvage a sunken ship.

Instead of wasting energy trying to pry Obamacare out of the grip of the corporations, Moore would be better served to focus exclusive energy towards expanding the movement for Medicare For All, which he claims that he also supports, while maintaining that somehow Obamacare will evolve into Single Payer system.

Most developed nations have achieved universal health care through a single payer system, which in the United States can be easily achieved by expanding Medicare to everybody. Once the realities of Obamacare directly affect the majority of the population and exacerbates the crisis of U.S. healthcare, people will inevitably choose to support the movement of Medicare for All, the only real option for a sane health care system.