Abraham Verghese attended President Obama's recent health care town hall at the White House and shared his thoughts on The Atlantic blog. He is known for several non-fiction books, including My Own Country, which was based on his experiences as a physician treating persons with HIV in Johnson City, Tennessee. Dr. Verghese came to Johnson City from India in 1979 as part of a foreign medical graduate program and completed his residency there. He returned from Boston in 1985 and was surprised to find the signs of the AIDS epidemic which had previously been considered an urban disease. After several award winning books, his focus turned to medical humanities and the importance of bedside medicine. He is currently a tenured professor at Stanford.
The doctor has written a series of articles on health reform and has some of the most clear-eyed analysis of how we got here and where we need to go. He has no sacred cows, including President Obama, of whom he admits he is "an admirer". An article for the Wall St Journal hits directly at the AMA and their history of sabotaging public health care, going back at least as far as President Truman in 1949. According to Dr. Verghese, the AMA used the famous painting, "The Doctor" on thousands of posters with the caption "Keep Politics Out of this Picture." Sound familiar?
He goes on to dissect the claim that prevention will reduce costs, and rather says that the cost of services must be reduced, period. "The bottom line is that our health care is costly because it is costly, not because we deliver more care, better care or special care. Alas, a solution that does not address the cost of care, and negotiate new prices for the services offered will not work; a solution that does not put caps on spending and that instead projects cost-savings here and there also won't cut it. Leaders have to make tough and unpopular decisions, and if he is to be the first President to successfully accomplish reform there does not seem to be much choice: cut costs."
It is easy to see why he was invited to participate in the recent town hall and encouraing to hear his high opinion of the President on this most important issue.
"It was my first look at the President at close quarters. I came away with the impression that the President was possibly the most knowledgeable person in the room when it came to the current health care crisis. That's no small thing given the people who were there."
"The obstacles in the President's way are considerable: 1) people and businesses who are profiting hugely from the status quo; 2) a general fear of government interference; 3) fear in Congress about the amount of money to be spent on health care reform and finally, 4) the fact that legislators who have to make change happen often serve the interests of the people who gave them the most campaign money--pharma, insurers, organized medicine. These contributions are what taint our political process--call it first world corruption."
His full remarks can be found at The Atlantic
Crosspost: Obama-Mamas.com