Bob McCarty Writes

“Medical decisions are best made by patients and their doctors without interference from government bureaucracies.“

If you agree with that statement, received in an e-mail this morning from Dr. Alan Zuckerman, then you’re likely to find yourself in agreement with the stance being taken by Docs4PatientCare when it comes to health care reform.

Dr. Zuckerman describes Docs4PatientCare as a grassroots organization of physicians, not professional lobbyists. Further, he writes, “We agree that there is much in the health care system that needs fixing, but we believe those problems should be targeted and solved rather than doing a complete reconstruction of the best health care system in the world.”

Below are are eight proposed alternatives for effective health care reform that Dr. Zuckerman shared with me:

• There is no logical reason to hastily pass this legislation by a predetermined deadline.  We have one chance to get this right.

• Bring “all” stakeholders together to help assure a meaningful and sustainable reform by considering many recommendations and proposals.

• Adopt a patient-centered approach to health care reform that empowers patients and promotes freedom of choice.

• Use the power of government to assist the uninsured to obtain health coverage through modification of the tax code, such as tax credits and vouchers.

• Reduce high insurance premiums by opening up patient risk pools across the entire nation, thereby diffusing risk.

• Allow the individual/family to be the “owner” of the policy making their health care coverage portable and available if they lose their job or move to a new place of employment. This will eliminate exclusion from the new employer’s plan for a “pre-existing” health issue and also eliminate a waiting period to qualify for enrollment.

• Encourage and expand health savings accounts. Tax-free savings vehicle for planned and/or unexpected medical expenses.

• Tort Reform. The costs to our healthcare system secondary to the practice of defensive medicine are over $100 billion annually, or $2,000 per family.

• Insurance Reform.  Guarantee insurability due to pre-existing illness.  Eliminate Insurance company antitrust exemption.

For more information about this issue, visit Docs4PatientCare.org.