September 24, 2009

Dr. Arnold S. Relman, M.D., professor emeritus of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, argues on the web site of Tikkun Magazine that President Obama cannot meet his criterion of signing a health care bill which does not add to the U.S. national debt unless health care reform includes eliminating the present profit motive from medicine. This includes licensing doctors so that they get a fixed salary rather than making profits from prescribing more tests, procedures and visits that increase their incomes. Relman, also a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, explains in Tikkun why the reform that is needed must go beyond a “public option” so that it can eliminate the constant growth of medical costs. Tikkun states that Dr. Relman’s analysis is extremely important because it helps people understand why the current plan to expand coverage by mandating coverage — without creating a vigorous public option to lower costs, and without challenging the ability of health care providers to raise costs — will bankrupt the system and provide insurance companies and others with the argument that “we tried government intervention in health care and all it succeeded in doing is to raise the costs for everyone and eventually led to collapse.” The Summit Council believes Relman’s plan is an example of the “Just Third Way,” as featured on our page devoted to Economic and Social Justice

Read Dr. Relman’s full article here