ANA position on single payer
Health System Reform Agenda
American Nurses Association (ANA)
February 2008
Ultimately ANA supports a single-payer mechanism as the most desirable option for financing a reformed health care system.
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) is a “leading national advocate for universal healthcare reform through a single-payer style system,” often joining with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) in advocacy efforts for reform.
It is gratifying to see that the American Nurses Association (no relationship to California Nurses Association) also ultimately supports a single payer mechanism.
The American Medical Association (AMA) currently supports expansion of insurance coverage through income-adjusted public subsidies - an explicit support of a government role in the financing of health care. It should not be too great of a leap for them also to declare, ultimately, support of a single payer mechanism. The number of physicians currently supporting national health insurance already is much larger than the entire membership of the AMA.
Although mergers of these organizations would never be a realistic consideration because of other issues that separate them, nevertheless it would be nice to see the nurses and physicians of this nation unified in a single voice advocating for health care financing reform that would best serve the interests of our patients. We don’t have to love each other, but at least we could love our patients.