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Marchers at a Medicare-for-all rally in Los Angeles, California on February 4, 2017. (Photo: Ronen Tivony/ZUMA)
Medicare for All Only Way to Fix Broken System: An Open Letter to Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Jamie Dimon
As you turn your focus towards health care, we urge you to meet with policy experts who have studied this problem for decades and concluded—like every other advanced industrialized nation in the world—that a single-payer system is the only way to solve this crisi
Feb 01, 2018
Dear Mr. Bezos, Mr. Buffett, and Mr. Dimon:
As a physicians and health justice advocates, we agree with you that health care is among the greatest issues facing society today. Your tremendous resources provide a unique opportunity to advocate for a health program to benefit all Americans: a universal, single-payer system.
Mr. Buffett describes our profit-based health system as a "tapeworm," a parasite whose survival depends on its ability to drain nutrients from the host. How did our health care system reach that sorry state?
Our nation faces a catastrophic failure on two levels. First, the market has failed to deliver affordable health care to those who need it most. More importantly, our elected officials have failed to enact the reforms that could remedy health care's woes because they are unwilling to offend big donors from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Instead, they've nibbled around the edges with incremental reforms like the Affordable Care Act. The ACA not only failed to kill the tapeworm of profit-based health care, it fattened it up with government subsidies, fueling the twin drivers of health costs--profits and administrative bloat.
Adding one more well-intentioned layer to our labyrinthine health care financing arrangements cannot fix these failures. Instead, we must to move to one simple nonprofit financing system, known as single payer or Medicare for All. In fact, Mr. Buffett recently supported single payer and said that as a nation "we can afford to do it." Medicare for all would bring desperately needed financial stability to the lives of everyday Americans, to every unit of government, and to businesses large and small.
As you turn your focus towards health care, we urge you to meet with policy experts who have studied this problem for decades, as well as the health care professionals operating at the front lines of this crisis. Physicians for a National Health Program is a 22,000-member nonprofit research and education organization that advocates for single-payer health care. Our "Physicians' Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform" is a research-based plan for expanding health coverage to all Americans while eliminating the waste and profiteering of private insurance, and the inefficiencies they inflict on doctors and hospitals.
We would be happy to meet with you to discuss how single payer could benefit your workers, your bottom line, and the American economy as a whole.
Sincerely,
Carol Paris, M.D.
President, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP)
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Dr. Carol Paris
Dr. Carol Paris is a psychiatrist and president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP).
amazon rainforestcorporate powerhealthcarejamie dimonjeff bezosmedicare for allphysicians for a national health program (pnhp)single-payerwarren buffettwashington post
Dear Mr. Bezos, Mr. Buffett, and Mr. Dimon:
As a physicians and health justice advocates, we agree with you that health care is among the greatest issues facing society today. Your tremendous resources provide a unique opportunity to advocate for a health program to benefit all Americans: a universal, single-payer system.
Mr. Buffett describes our profit-based health system as a "tapeworm," a parasite whose survival depends on its ability to drain nutrients from the host. How did our health care system reach that sorry state?
Our nation faces a catastrophic failure on two levels. First, the market has failed to deliver affordable health care to those who need it most. More importantly, our elected officials have failed to enact the reforms that could remedy health care's woes because they are unwilling to offend big donors from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Instead, they've nibbled around the edges with incremental reforms like the Affordable Care Act. The ACA not only failed to kill the tapeworm of profit-based health care, it fattened it up with government subsidies, fueling the twin drivers of health costs--profits and administrative bloat.
Adding one more well-intentioned layer to our labyrinthine health care financing arrangements cannot fix these failures. Instead, we must to move to one simple nonprofit financing system, known as single payer or Medicare for All. In fact, Mr. Buffett recently supported single payer and said that as a nation "we can afford to do it." Medicare for all would bring desperately needed financial stability to the lives of everyday Americans, to every unit of government, and to businesses large and small.
As you turn your focus towards health care, we urge you to meet with policy experts who have studied this problem for decades, as well as the health care professionals operating at the front lines of this crisis. Physicians for a National Health Program is a 22,000-member nonprofit research and education organization that advocates for single-payer health care. Our "Physicians' Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform" is a research-based plan for expanding health coverage to all Americans while eliminating the waste and profiteering of private insurance, and the inefficiencies they inflict on doctors and hospitals.
We would be happy to meet with you to discuss how single payer could benefit your workers, your bottom line, and the American economy as a whole.
Sincerely,
Carol Paris, M.D.
President, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP)
Dr. Carol Paris
Dr. Carol Paris is a psychiatrist and president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP).
Dear Mr. Bezos, Mr. Buffett, and Mr. Dimon:
As a physicians and health justice advocates, we agree with you that health care is among the greatest issues facing society today. Your tremendous resources provide a unique opportunity to advocate for a health program to benefit all Americans: a universal, single-payer system.
Mr. Buffett describes our profit-based health system as a "tapeworm," a parasite whose survival depends on its ability to drain nutrients from the host. How did our health care system reach that sorry state?
Our nation faces a catastrophic failure on two levels. First, the market has failed to deliver affordable health care to those who need it most. More importantly, our elected officials have failed to enact the reforms that could remedy health care's woes because they are unwilling to offend big donors from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Instead, they've nibbled around the edges with incremental reforms like the Affordable Care Act. The ACA not only failed to kill the tapeworm of profit-based health care, it fattened it up with government subsidies, fueling the twin drivers of health costs--profits and administrative bloat.
Adding one more well-intentioned layer to our labyrinthine health care financing arrangements cannot fix these failures. Instead, we must to move to one simple nonprofit financing system, known as single payer or Medicare for All. In fact, Mr. Buffett recently supported single payer and said that as a nation "we can afford to do it." Medicare for all would bring desperately needed financial stability to the lives of everyday Americans, to every unit of government, and to businesses large and small.
As you turn your focus towards health care, we urge you to meet with policy experts who have studied this problem for decades, as well as the health care professionals operating at the front lines of this crisis. Physicians for a National Health Program is a 22,000-member nonprofit research and education organization that advocates for single-payer health care. Our "Physicians' Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform" is a research-based plan for expanding health coverage to all Americans while eliminating the waste and profiteering of private insurance, and the inefficiencies they inflict on doctors and hospitals.
We would be happy to meet with you to discuss how single payer could benefit your workers, your bottom line, and the American economy as a whole.
Sincerely,
Carol Paris, M.D.
President, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP)
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