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PNHP Ohio
Dr. Johnathon Ross - drjohnross@ameritech.net
Blog: http://pnhpohio.blogspot.com/
Single-Payer Action Network, Ohio
Website: http://www.spanohio.org/
E-mail: SPANHealthCare@aol.com
Health Care for All Ohio
http://healthcareforallohio.org/
Media Contacts
Johnathon Ross, M.D., MPH
(419) 536-3879
drjohnross@ameritech.net
Dr. Johnathon Ross is a past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, a national health reform group with over 17,000 members (PNHP). He is a graduate of Cornell University and received his medical degree in 1975 from the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo. In addition to his medical degree, he has a master’s degree in health policy and administration from the School of Public Health of the University of Michigan. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Toledo and currently practices and teaches general internal medicine at St Vincent Mercy Medical Center, a 500 bed center city teaching hospital in Toledo, Ohio. He has served as a family physician in a small rural community in upstate New York as a member of the National Health Service Corps. He has served as medical director for several organizations including: a local industrial medicine concern, the local visiting nurse service, a charitable HMO established by his Catholic hospital system and currently a center city adult medical clinic. He has served as chairman of the department of Internal Medicine at St. Vincent. He has been a member of the executive committee of medical staff of St Vincent, a board member of its PHO, and as chairman of several committees of the hospital, the HMO and the PHO focused on quality improvement. He has served as a member of the Ohio State Medical Board and helped to establish the educational requirements and scope of practice for licensed physician assistants in Ohio. His experience inside the health insurance industry convinced him of the logic and need for a national health insurance program.
Alice Faryna, M.D. | 614, 249-2667 | alicyna@yahoo.com
Dr. Faryna is certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. She has 40 years of experience including private practice, Neighborhood health centers, the VA. Associate professsor of Medicine at the Wright State University School of Medicine (now the Boonshoft School of Medicine) for 14 years, and 8 years as Medical Director for Medicare Part B, Ohio and West Virginia.
Andrei Vermont, M.D.
216.491.7004
vermonta@yahoo.com
Dr. Vermont is a Radiologist who completed his post graduate training at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution. He now practices in the Cleveland Clinic and has taught on the faculty of SUNY University Hospital, University of North Carolina, Michigan State University, and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Mary Jo Groves, M.D., FAAFP
937-215-6940
mjgroves1@gmail.com
Dr. Groves received her training at Ohio University, and Ohio State University, with clinical honors in internal medicine, OB/GYN, pediatrics and psychiatry. She is Board certified in family practice, and a Fellow, American Academy of Family Practice. She currently is the Director of Community Mercy Urgent Care in Springfield.
Thomas Pretlow, M.D.
216.368.8700
tgp3@cwcru.edu
Dr. Pretlow is Professor in the Departments of Pathology, Oncology, Urology, and Environmental Health Sciences at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Since becoming Professor in the Departments of Pathology and Biochemistry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dr. Pretlow has spent a year or more on the faculties at Harvard, Stanford, and Case Western Reserve. He was Visiting Professor for a year at the Dana Farber Cancer Center at Harvard.
State Organizations Endorsing HR676
- Lorain, OH
- Oberlin, OH
- Lorain County, OH
- Single-Payer Action Network (SPAN), Ohio
Local Unions Endorsing HR676
- USWA Local 1375, Warren, OH
- Division 4, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), Rail Conference, IBT, Toledo, OH
- Lorain County AFL-CIO Federation of Labor, Lorain, OH
- Cleveland AFL-CIO Retiree Council, Cleveland, OH
- Toledo Area Jobs with Justice, Toledo, OH
- Ashtabula AFL-CIO Retiree Council, Ashtabula, OH
- Ashtabula AFL-CIO Labor Council, Ashtabula, OH
- Cleveland Painters District Council 6 Retiree Council, Cleveland, OH
- AFSCME Retirees, Chapter 1184, Sub-Chapter 109, Northwest Ohio
- Cleveland AFL-CIO Federation of Labor, Cleveland, OH
- Ohio State Legislative Board, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen (BLET), Rail Conference, IBT, Columbus, OH
- Toledo Area AFL-CIO Council, Toledo, OH
- Dayton, Springfield, Sidney, Miami Valley AFL-CIO Regional Labor Council, Dayton, OH
- Local 50, Plumbers and Steamfitters, United Association (UA), Northwood, OH
- Ohio AFL-CIO, July 19, 2006, at Convention in Cincinnati
- Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA), State Convention, September 2006
- Ohio Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR)
- Local 546M, Graphic Communications Conference, GCC/IBT, Cleveland, OH
- Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council
- International Association of Machinists and Aerspace Workers (IAMAW) District Lodge 34
Ohio State News
By Brad Cotton, M.D. | Circleville (Ohio) Herald
By Brad Cotton, M.D. | Circleville (Ohio) Herald
Many of us were shocked and disgusted that for the second time in recent years Tennessee firefighters allowed a families’ home to burn to the ground. Seems the monthly premium for fire service had not been paid. I wonder if this family, like so many families today, was struggling deciding what bills to pay that month, choosing among their children’s prescription meds, school fees, car payments, certainly the chance of a fire seemed remote.
By Brad Cotton, M.D. | Circleville (Ohio) Herald
Rep. Hayes, Ohioans health is at risk not because of too much government, but of too little. We the people have failed to demand that our elected representatives appropriately oversee and regulate Wall-Street-traded health insurance giants that increase their bottom line by not keeping their word on the promise they offer: financial security in the face of illness.
By Brandon Glenn | MedCity News
In Ohio, PNHP’s top official is Dr. Johnathan Ross, a Toledo internist who practices and teaches at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center. Ross, who holds a medical degree from Cornell University and a master’s in health policy from the University of Michigan, is a past president of PNHP, having served a one-year term in 2000. Ross spoke with MedCity News about why he believes a health system based on profit will never provide the high quality and low cost the U.S. needs, what he sees as the major weaknesses of Obama’s health reform, and how his up-close experience with an HMO led him to support single-payer.
By JOHNATHON ROSS | The Blade (Toledo, Ohio)
The American health care system is severely dysfunctional. We spend about twice as much per person on health care as other wealthy democracies, yet our medical outcomes are mediocre by comparison. Some 45,000 Americans a year die because they lack health insurance. Thousands more needlessly suffer and die from preventable causes. Others go bankrupt because of medical bills.
by Margaret Brinich | The Lakewood (Ohio) Observer
Premiums will continue to rise. More and more Ohioans will be priced out of the health care market. It’s not only a health care crisis, but a major contributor to the economic crisis. Lack of health insurance leads to lack of health care and a less-healthy working population. Ohio needs jobs. If Ohio had a comprehensive health care plan covering all citizens and the costs were known, prospective employers would be encouraged to start up new businesses or move businesses into Ohio. It’s in our economic self-interest.
By Johnathon S. Ross | Toledo Blade
Medicare, which just turned 45, is a uniquely American program that should have been the model for health reform: no overwhelming bills, no denial of services, no limitations on what hospital patients can use or what doctor they can see.
By Maude L. Campbell | Cleveland Scene
George Randt didn't go into medicine for the money. His influence was Dr. Bob — Robert Ballard, MD, a neighbor and family friend in post-World War II Bay Village whom Randt calls a true family physician. "He made house calls. He'd come down and see us when we were little and bring that black bag with the medicinal smell. He'd sit on the edge of the bed, and you immediately felt better just having him be there," says Randt. "And at street parties he'd bring out the banjo."
By Johnathon Ross, M.D. | Cleveland Plain Dealer
Mrs. Brown (not her real name) was recently in to check on her blood pressure. She knows I've worked decades for a national health plan that would benefit individuals and businesses alike. "So what do you think of the reform bill, Doc?" she asked, hoping I'd be pleased.
By Kevin Kelley | West Life (Westlake, Ohio)
WESTLAKE, Ohio -- About 50 protesters demonstrated in front of St. John Medical Center Sunday afternoon to protest the termination of Dr. George Randt’s contract with Cuyahoga Physicians Network.
Enactment of Medicare Part D - the Medicare drug program - was a gift to the pharmaceutical industry and the private intermediaries managing the drug benefits. The government was even explicitly prohibited from negotiating drug prices in a competing plan. Many of us at the time objected to the rejection of the broader concept of having the government as the exclusive administrator of the Part D pharmaceutical benefit. We could have had greater savings and less third party intrusion if we had adopted a public program instead.
By JOHNATHON ROSS | The Toledo (Ohio) Blade
I care for low-income patients in an inner-city Toledo clinic. My work there convinces me that our country never will have high-quality, accessible, affordable health care as long as private insurers make the rules. The best policy solution would be a single-payer system, such as an improved and expanded "Medicare for All."
Drew Smith | Letter to the Editor | Acron Beacon (Ohio) Journal
Dear Santa: I know that I haven't written in a while, but this is an emergency. Please, Santa, please bring us Medicare for all this Christmas. As an employee in a medical billing office, I can't watch any more people declare bankruptcy because they had the audacity to get sick so their bills are too high.
By Hirsh Cohen | Business Courier of Cincinnati
The latest numbers are staggering. A new Harvard study in the American Journal of Public Health reports that nearly 45,000 deaths occur each year in the U.S. because of the lack of health insurance. That’s a death every 12 minutes.