Doctors Join President Obama in Push for Health Insurance Reform
Doctors and nurses from all 50 states joined President Obama in the Rose Garden this morning to call for health insurance reform. Representatives from the American Medical Association, the National Medical Association, the Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians, Doctors for America, the American College of Pediatrics and the American College of Cardiology were present.
Organizing for America and state Democratic parties all across the country have been organizing events for health insurance reform with doctors and nurses. Medical professionals are participating in press conferences, roundtables and phone banks – lending their years of experience and trusted voices to the effort to pass reform this year. Check out this article in the Gainesville Sun in Gainesville, FL and this piece at WALB News in Albany, GA.
Here’s an excerpt from President Obama's remarks in the Rose Garden this morning:
”...We have now been debating this issue of health insurance reform for months. The United States Congress has been working on it for better -- for the better part of a year, and last week the final congressional committee involved in shaping legislation completed their proposal and will soon vote on it. At this point, we've heard all the arguments on both sides of the aisle. We have listened to every charge and every counter-charge -- from the crazy claims about death panels to misleading warnings about a government takeover of our health care system.
”But when you cut through all the noise and all the distractions that are out there, I think what's most telling is that some of the people who are most supportive of reform are the very medical professionals who know the health care system best -- the doctors and nurses of America.
”These men and women here would not be supporting health insurance reform if they really believed that it would lead to government bureaucrats making decisions that are best left to doctors. They wouldn't be here today if they believed that reform in any way would damage the very critical and sacred doctor-patient relationship.
”Instead, the reason these doctors are here is because they have seen firsthand what's broken about our health care system. They've seen what happens when their patients can't get the care they need because some insurance company has decided to drop their coverage or water it down. They've seen what happens when a patient is forced to pay out of pocket thousands of dollars she doesn't have for treatments that she desperately needs. They've seen what happens when patients don't come in for regular check-ups or screenings because either their insurance company doesn't cover it or they can't afford insurance in the first place. And they've seen far too much of time that they want to devote to taking care of patients spent filling out forms and haggling with insurance companies about payments.
”So these doctors know what needs to be fixed about our health care system. And they know that health insurance reform will do -- that it will go a long way towards making patients healthier and doctors and nurses to be able to perform that -- those tasks that are so important to them and led them into medicine in the first place..."
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