President Obama Asks Docs to Promote Health Care Fix

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/26/us/politics/AP-US-Health-Care-Overhaul.html

The White House is asking doctors to help promote its drive to overhaul health care, marking an effort by President Barack Obama to regain momentum on the issue.

White House health advisers held an hour-long conference call Tuesday night with close to 3,000 physicians and officials of their professional groups in which they tried drumming up support by answering questions and describing the administration's goals, participants said.

Before the call, the White House e-mailed a 12-page booklet to medical associations titled ''Doctors for Health Insurance Reform.'' The brochure stated the administration's case for revamping the nation's health care system and suggested ways doctors could call attention to the issue.

Among the suggestions: Hosting local events on health care, giving tours of hospitals or designating a ''Health Insurance Reform Week'' during which events could be staged around the country.

''There are numerous ways that you can advance the president's goal of enacting health insurance reform this year,'' the booklet said.

[seafan]

1. Mr. President, these physicians are pointing out the way.

Physicians for a National Health Program


Max Baucus had them arrested for wanting to be heard. Instead, will you now listen to them?

Obama Asks Docs to Promote Health Care Fix, August 26, 2009


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House is asking doctors to help promote its drive to overhaul health care, marking an effort by President Barack Obama to regain momentum on the issue.

White House health advisers held an hour-long conference call Tuesday night with close to 3,000 physicians and officials of their professional groups in which they tried drumming up support by answering questions and describing the administration's goals, participants said.

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“There may come a time when we can push for single-payer,” (Max Baucus) said in February. “At this time, it’s not going to get to first base in Congress.”

And helping it not to get to first base was… Max Baucus. It was Baucus’ own committee that held the first round-table discussions on reform. In three days of hearings last May, he invited no fewer than 41 people to speak. The list featured all the usual industry hacks, including big insurers like America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Blue Cross and Aetna. It’s worth noting that several of the organizations invited—including AHIP and Amgen—employ several former Baucus staffers as lobbyists, including two of his ex-chiefs of staff.

Not one of the 41 witnesses, however, was in favor of single-payer—even though eliminating the insurance companies enjoys broad public support. Leading advocates of single-payer, including doctors from the Physicians for a National Health Program, implored Baucus to allow them to testify. When he refused, a group of eight single-payer activists, including three doctors, stood up during the hearings and asked to be included in the discussion. One of the all-time classic moments in the health care reform movement came when the second protester to stand up, Katie Robbins of Health Care Now, declared, “We need single-payer health care!”

To which Baucus, who looked genuinely frightened, replied, “We need more police!” The eight protesters were led away in handcuffs and spent about seven hours in jail. “It’s funny, the policemen were all telling us their horror stories about health care,” recalls Dr. Margaret Flowers, one of the physicians who was jailed. “One was telling us about his mother who was 62 and lost her job and was uninsured, waiting to get Medicare when she was 65.” The protesters were sentenced to six months’ probation. Baucus later met with them and conceded that not including single-payer advocates in the discussion had been a mistake, although it was “too late” to change that.

Single-payer advocates have had an equally tough time getting a hearing with the president. In March, the White House refused to allow Rep. John Conyers to invite two physicians who support single-payer to the health care summit that Obama was holding to kick off the reform effort. Three months later, a single-payer advocate named David Scheiner, who served as Obama’s physician for 22 years, was mysteriously bumped from a prime-time forum on health care, where he had been invited to ask the president a question.

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