5,000 Physicians Agree

That in itself is an amazing statement. But on what do they agree? The way to ensure universal, affordable health care coverage in the US is to enact a single payer system. Our insurance and employer based system is irrational and broken. It treats health care as a commodity for profit when it should be a right of every citizen. Senator Obama agrees that health care is a right (response to question in the second debate), but offers a plan that still relies on employers to give their employees coverage, and does not ensure every American has health insurance because it lets "the market" set the price. We have seen to our chagrin how the market allocates resources on Wall Street--badly. Mandate models like Senator Obama's have been tried in several states including Oregon but have failed to provide universal coverage. Politicians have refused to appropriate more money for the state systems as health costs continue to spiral upward. Senator McCain's tax credit is laughable because it is not enough to replace employer provided coverage, and does nothing to control costs. Saving every penny of health care costs will be even more important, now that huge expenditures will be made rescuing the banks from their own greed. Single payer reform could save more than $300 billion annually in administrative expenses. Private insurers have overhead that is four times Medicare's because their profit incentive to deny claims imposes a costly bureaucratic burden on providers. A single payer system would also slow costs through coordination and planning. Incremental approaches will not work. Only a single payer has enough economic leverage to negotiate reasonable prices from private providers of health care and drugs. Such a system is working in Canada and in Europe. Call it socialized medicine if you will, but I would pay taxes for affordable health care over a busted bank any day.