I was priveleged to represent the state of Pennsylvania at the White House Rose Garden ceremony with Doctors for America and representatives of some other large physicians' membership organizations.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
Here's how the day went.
First, Doctors for America is a grass roots organization of physicians that started out supporting the health reform ideas of candidate Barack Obama and then evolved into our current state, organizing doctors to support reform.
We have had 15,000 physicians join our web site and many have placed their voices on our companion site, Voices of Physicians,where doctors show why they support reform.
We are currently working on a 5K campaign to get as many physicians contacting as many legislators as possible in support of reform.
We have been working with Organizing for America around the country, giving talks, organizing meetings, exhorting other doctors, writing op-eds and letters and blogging, appearing on radio and TV. In short, doing everything we can to get recognition of the fact that doctors want health reform.
So, Monday morning we gathered in the offices of the Center for American Progress (CAP administers the grant that funds a bit of our work - mostly we are ALL volunteer). Several members of our leadership peeled off to get an advance tour of the White House and a brief bit of face time with POTUS. A while later, the rest of us, all in our white coats, walked the few blocks to the White House.
We ran into some members of Physicians for a National Health Plan protesting outside including a couple friends of mine - in addition to DFA, I'm a member of PNHP, ACP, ACCP, SCCM and the AMA and on the Board of the Pennsylvania Medical Society. We at DFA are a diverse group, with many single payer advocates mixed among an intellectually diverse group all advocating for reform.
We went through the security area, where I had the first of many discussions of the Steelers victory on Sunday night with WH staff and others - I had worn my Steelers tie, hoping Obama would catch a glimpse of it!
We were ushered past Jackie Kennedy Garden, then the South Lawn with a spectacular view of the Ellipse, the Washington Monument and, in the distance, the Jefferson Memorial. This led to the Rose Garden, just outside the West Wing and Oval Office, where the press and many cameras were set up on the perimeter, with rows of chairs waiting for us, and the POTUS podium up front.
We all had a great time waiting, taking pictures, talking to the press a bit, and I sat near the official WH photographer and we chatted about the Steelers first, then Pittsburgh (he was there for the G-20) and then about his very interesting job.
You can watch the speech at the links in the intro, but I note a few things about the speech. He talked about our oath as physicians. I am not sure how aware he is about the Charter on Medical Professionalism,but I think its sentiments of social justice, eliminating health care disparities and our duties as physicians to be leaders in these areas is why leaders of professional organizations have, this time, stood up for reform.The rank and file can grouse if they like, but if you are in a position of leadership in the profession, it is not so easy to minimize these concerns and simply continue to blinkeredly advocate only for narrow physician interests of reimbursement and tort reform.
He also, for the first time that I am aware of, talked about the inequality of opportunity that lack of access to health care causes. Interestingly, ethicist Art Caplan had made this his central ethical argument at the Society of Critical Care Medicine's annual meeting earlier this year. So, kudos to Caplan and Obama for making this case. I am not sure how much traction it will get, but I think it is worth throwing into the moral case mix.
He did not explicitly mention the Public Option, which upset some of us, but more about that later.
After the speech and a fair amount of handshaking (that did not include me, sadly), we dispersed among the press and several of us had interviews with the media. I was quoted on FoxNews.com,if you can believe that!
We had a break and I went to lunch with my daughter, who'd already blogged the event for The New America Foundation. The restaurant owner asked me about my Steelers tie, naturally, and asked why I was there. He asked, "Do you think it will pass?" I said I thought it would. He said that "it has to, for people like me, we can't afford it any more."
We came back and had a surprise speaker, Paul Begala. After we discussed my Steelers tie(!), he spoke to us for a short time, but then really spent some time listening to our perspective. He genuinely seemed excited to hear from us, saying, "this is the most interesting thing I'll do all week!!"
He told us he was optimistic that Obama's team would get the public option through in the end. He expressed confidence that Obama had the ability to wok the system well enough to do it.
A couple interesting points made during the exchange:
-Alabama only offers Medicaid to those at 15% of poverty, while Minnesota is all the way up to 250%
-Considering that a trillion dollars over ten years for reform is $100 billion a year, and we spend 2.5 trillion a year on health care, I quoted my favorite economist, Uwe Reinhardt: "Explain to God why you cannot do this. He will laugh at you." An Oklahoma colleague volunteered to ask this of Senator Coburn!
Well, this is far longer than I expected, so I'll stop here.
Most important travel tip: Wear a Steelers tie to DC and you will talk to lots of people. At least a dozen people stopped to talk to me about it!
Cheers!