More than 2,000 doctors across the United States have endorsed a detailed proposal [3] for transforming America’s broken for-profit health care system into a publicly funded, universal model that would knock down all barriers to treatment.
Just published in the American Journal of Public Health by a 39-member Working Group on Single-Payer Program Design, and signed by a growing number of physicians and medical students, the proposal takes a hard look at just how effectively the Affordable Care Act has delivered on President Barack Obama’s declaration [4] last year that “health care is not a privilege for a few, but a right for all.”
“The U.S continues to spend strikingly more on health care than other industrialized nations, while our health outcomes lag behind,” the doctors conclude. “Even with the ACA fully implemented, an estimated twenty-seven million will remain uninsured, while many more face rising copayments and deductibles that compromise access to care and leave them vulnerable to ruinous medical bills.”