A Grateful Patient Reports: PNHP doctors on the health reform front
By Donna Smith
American SiCKO and HealthCare-Now Road Show team
DENVER — It hasn’t been an easy year. But as 2007 draws to a close, I can count among my political allies and new friends some of folks I would never have guessed would have given me the time of day outside of an exam or procedure room. We truly are blessed in this nation to have thousands of doctors who care enough about the practice of medicine and the delivery of health care to support real reform and to do so publicly.
As subjects in Michael Moore’s film ‘SiCKO,’ my husband and I have traveled throughout the country introducing showings of the film, advocating for single-payer, universal health care, testifying before a Congressional sub-committee, helping organize local activists and meeting thousands of other Americans with health care horror stories very much like our own.
But over the course of the past several years, we have been crushed by the health care crisis in this nation — in spite of having health insurance. Being in the Moore film and fighting for change has not rectified the conditions that brought us to this time and place. We are still fighting the health care crisis.
One remarkable twist in our journey is that we now know so many U.S. physicians who support a single-payer system. We have met them from coast-to-coast, and they bravely and eloquently advocate for a just system of health care delivery in which they can truly practice medicine and still earn a decent living.
During our years of fighting the system, the doctors we knew (and who treated us) kept themselves remarkably removed from the “front office” dealings regarding money and insurance and payment. At least that’s what they wanted us to believe. We rarely had any doctor, clinic or hospital visit that was not prefaced by a financial discussion or the signing of a check or payment plan or both. Though we knew that the doctors who were in charge of these private offices, clinics, surgery centers and many hospital boards do and did set the policies followed by their office staff members, we never had a doctor talk to us about that stress and that trauma. The sterility of their inner sanctum was never pierced by such mundane issues.
Yet, our ability to get care was always determined by our ability to pay. We felt very alone in the struggle and certainly never felt supported by the folks who delivered our care and who rarely gave us more than a few moments of their time — as they all had to move quickly on to their next patients and that next source of revenue for their practices and organizations.
Then I went to Cuba with eight other Americans as a part of the filming of ‘SICKO.’ For the first time I met doctors who spent time with me and the other patients — and I watched them do the same with the Cuban patients on our floor in the Havana hospital where we stayed. The Cuban docs sat and listened to patients and family members. A Cuban pulminologist waited for me to finish my coffee before visiting with me. I was horrified about having him wait despite reassurances from other medical staff that the doctor routinely waits for patients — not the other way around. It was a difficult concept to absorb. My American patient’s brain was struggling with the thought of revenue lost as this specialist sat waiting for me.
But after my return to the U.S. and after the opening of ‘SICKO,’ I began to meet a different sort of American doctor. I learned about the Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), and it seemed everywhere we went, a PNHP doc was there advocating for change and listening to other providers and patients share their stories.
And these U.S. doctors seemed very comfortable with themselves and in the company of patients — they didn’t rush me or act annoyed by my story or appear threatened by the thought of a truly universal system in which all Americans have access to care.
I met PNHP co-founder David Himmelstein when I testified before a House Judiciary sub-committee in Washington, D.C.; I met Henry Kahn when I did an Air America radio show at the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta; I met Elinor Christiansen here in Denver as an outspoken advocate and member of Health Care for All Colorado; I met Rob Stone (picture attached), an ER doc in Bloomington, Indiana, who speaks forcefully in favor of single-payer reform; I met Jim Hudson (picture attached) at the Farm in Summertown, Tennessee, and a Nashville physician for many years; and, of course, it has been one of the joys of this effort to meet Quentin Young on several stops along the way as he steadfastly supports all of the efforts physicians of the PNHP organization make to transform the U.S. system.
Suddenly, a new vision of what the U.S. system can be has been revealed to me through these amazing doctors who represent all the good that could be and who lock arms with we patients who so want change to happen and who will work to see that it does.
No, I do not want to throw out all that is best about the U.S. system, but I will demand that we celebrate those doctors, nurses and other clinicians who step up into the light and speak on behalf of our shared humanity and for the ideals that should exemplify the practice of medicine. Single-payer, universal health care honors us all — patients and practitioners — and together we can make it a reality.
As for me, I am so very honored to know so many PNHP doctors and I am absolutely reassured through their hearts and minds that my nation will have the best health care and the most just health care possible.
PNHP, along with the California Nurses Association, the National Nurse Organizing Committee and the Progressive Democrats of America, are co-sponsors of HealthCare-Now’s SiCKO Cure National Road Show, bringing the message of HR676 and single-payer, universal health care to the grassroots level.