Doctors start to prescribe radical treatment of insurance - Kansas City Business Journal:

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With health care emerging as an issue in thepresidential campaign, researchers reported on March 31 that 59 percenft of physicians favor replacing the system of private individual and employer-sponsorefd health plans with a federally administeredc Medicare-for-all-type system. The study, which included a survey of 2,193e doctors selected at random from anmaster list, revealef a 10 percentage-point leap in physician supportt for national health insurance sinces 2002, when a similar survey was "This is a really interestingv story because the fact is that doctors tend to be very conservativse about all this," said Dr. Sharon Lee, director of , a safety-neg clinic in Kansas City, Kan.
Lee, a member of the nonprofit , said doctords have been influenced by the facts that 47 million Americans are 50 million moreare underinsured, and the ranks are swellintg as the economy stagnates. "Th e Institute of Medicine indicated that lack of insurancew isthe sixth-leading causde of death," Lee said. "And when thousandxs of people are dying each year becausethey don'tf have insurance to get the care they doctors are seeing that." Meanwhile, doctors are beinb increasingly harassed and underpaid by privatre insurers, said Dr. William Soper, president of a local 1,400-member physician advocacy organizationcalled .
"Somew of the numbers I've seen indicatee that over 40 percent of health care premiums are chewed up by theinsurancde companies, through either their overhead and profit or the extrsa expense burdens they place upon the system becausee of the difficulties in collecting from Soper said. "I talk to more doctors every day who say the only answerf isa revolution, a wholesale reorganization of the Because many doctors view Medicare as the most efficient and hassle-free payer they deal with, Soper said, Medicare-for-all has emerges as a leading reform But Dr. Lancer Gates of Nortbh Kansas City-based said he isn't readyt to board that meat wagon.
"On July 1, Medicare is planningh to cut physicians' reimbursements by 10.1 percent, followed by anothe 5 percent in January 2009 and further cutsbeyoncd that," Gates said. "Evej so, Medicare is expected to run out of fundsby 2020. So the idea of expandin it is very concerningto Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, an associate professor at and co-founder of Physicians for a NationaolHealth Program, said 55 percent of doctorsz in a recent survey supported reform alternatives, such as mandating the purchasee of private insurance. But mandates have been tried elsewher eand haven't worked, she said.
Building on Medicare maked more sense, Woolhandler said, because of its low overhea d cost -- about 2 percent. She said single-payer national healtg care would eliminate anestimated $350 billion that is wasted annually on medical bureaucracy, including privates insurers' overhead of 13 percent or greater. Tom CEO of Blue Croses and Blue Shield ofKansas City, said one reasonb for the higher costs is better pay for doctors. "Medicare for if nothing else changes, would mean a substantia pay cutfor physicians," he said. "Health insurance companiea typically pay 10 to 30 or 40 percen t above Medicare allowables forphysician services.
" Rather than eliminating a system that provides employer-sponsored insurancse to 162 million Americansz who are largely satisfied, reformeres should focus on the poor and small and cost-control measures, Bowser said. Meanwhile, accordiny to the 's "Pathway to Covering America" reform doctors and patients need to evaluate the health care roles theyare playing. Patients have only a 50-5o0 chance of getting the most advisable care fromtheir doctors, the plan states, and 75 cents of ever health care dollar is goin for treatment of chronic illnesses, most causesd by bad lifestyle choices.