Actor Mike Farrell Promotes Health Care Reform
Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 01:11PM Television ads featuring actor Mike Farrell promoting a single payer health care plan have hit the airwaves.
The "Single Payer" System is an approach to health care financing with only one source of money for paying health care providers. The scope may be national (the Canadian System), state-wide, or community-based. The payer may be a governmental unit or other entity such as an insurance company. The proposed advantages include administrative simplicity for patients and providers, and resulting significant savings in overhead costs.
Single-payer health care pays health professionals that are either in the private or public sector. It is also used to pay both privately and publicly owned health care facilities.
The issue has often been debated, most recently in the 2008 presidential elections, and there are signs that the American public has warmed to the idea. A CBS News/New York Times poll published in February 2009 reported that 59% say the government should provide national health insurance (up from 40% thirty years earlier) A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded that 59% of physicians "supported legislation to establish national health insurance" while 9% were neutral on the topic, and 32% opposed it.
Critics say that government sponsored health care will legitimatize support for government services generally, and make an activist government acceptable. "Once a large number of citizens get their health care from the state, it dramatically alters their attachment to government. Every time a tax cut is proposed, the guardians of the new medical-welfare state will argue that tax cuts would come at the expense of health care -- an argument that would resonate with middle-class families entirely dependent on the government for access to doctors and hospitals."
Scott talks with Mike and lawyer, doctor Clark Newhall, founder and director of Health Justice, who produced the spots.
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