These Doctors are Mad as Hell!

Question: What do you get when you take 6 physicians add 4 wheels and send them on the road?

Although it sounds like a classic joke, this is no laughing matter!  In fact, Dr. Paul Hochfeld, Dr. Eugene Uphoff, Dr. Sam Metz, Dr. Mike Huntington, Dr. Joe Eusterman and Dr. Bob Seward are 6 Oregon physicians who are "Mad as Hell" about the state of health care coverage in the United States.  And they aren't going to take it anymore!

After years serving patients in an office, operating room, or emergency room these six physicians have grown frustrated at seeing health care costs rise while for-profit insurance companies reap enormous profits at the same time that millions of citizens remain uninsured and under-insured.  In the eyes of these 6 physicians there is only one answer to solving our nation's health care crisis and that is to replace our current system with a "single payer" system.

*What is a single payer system? 

“In a Single Payer System, your taxes go toward a government regulated, not-for-profit agency administered by medical personnel. You pay nothing else – not out-of-pocket, not to for-profit insurance companies (unless you really like giving your money away). When you see a physician, or go to the hospital, or buy medications, the physician, hospital, or pharmacy is paid by this agency. This agency is the Single Payer. It sounds simple. It is.”

But these physicians aren't sitting around in their offices lamenting our health care crisis.  Instead, they have officially labeled themselves the "Mad as Hell Doctors" (madashelldoctors.com) and beginning September 8, 2009 they will hit the road from Portland, Oregon on a trek across the United States on a mission to simultaneously educate the nation about Single Payer health care and build momentum for a single payer health care system that will mean no one is excluded from coverage!

Here is their plan:

On September 8, 2009 a group of dedicated Oregon physicians will take the message of Universal Health Care "on the road" in a wrapped and branded Motor Home headed for Washington D.C. Our cross-country mission:  to stop in big cities and whistle stops alike, conducting pre-booked, local and national media appearances for a curious press.  Every move we make along the way will be recorded on camera and then edited and uploaded to the internet that same day. This will allow our Mad As Hell Doctors Tour to leverage the edited video segments on social networking web sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace,  et al. In this way, our effort becomes an unprecedented hybrid of reality television and political activism that offers people the opportunity to follow us, in real time, as our story unfolds. The message will be unmistakable: caravan with us to Washington and help make a public demonstration of support for Single Payer Health Care that will be heard around the world. 

Check out their website to see profiles of the Doctors and read about why they are "Mad As Hell!"

But Health Care is in the news, so why have the Mad as Hell Doctors chosen this time to head out on the road?

The Mad as Hell Doctors’ (MAHD) trumpet this theme: Health Care for People, Not Profit and in order to make this more than a slogan the MAHD crew believes this is the time to make a difference.  They believe the so-called “Public Option” is doomed to failure because it keeps our current framework and still leave at least 15 million Americans without access to health care coverage. 

The Mad As Hell Doctors say:

You CAN handle the Truth!

There's no nice way to say it. The financial cost of health care is killing our citizens, hobbling our economy, crushing small business, and threatening the solvency of our government.  In the meantime, the Health Care Industry is spending almost two million dollars a day lobbying Congress and manipulating public opinion to accept “reform” legislation that leaves a vicious, for-profit system intact. The "public option" is a trap. We need real reform that finds immediate savings, controls costs, and accomplishes the moral imperative of true Universal Access.  A Single Payer plan is the only real path to a Health Care System that is socially, ethically and fiscally responsible. And yet, our elected officials refuse to even discuss the possibility of a Single Payer plan!  If that doesn't make you mad, we recommend checking your pulse.

The "public option" is doomed. 

First: we will still have a dysfunctional health care system designed around insurance companies.  Second: it will be impossible to cover everyone without raising taxes. The Obama administration is already saying it is acceptable to leave out 15 million people. Which 15 million? Will you be one of them? Who gets to decide? Third: in a "post-option" environment you can bet that the health insurance industry will manipulate the rules so that the sickest, most expensive patients will gravitate toward the public plan, which will cause it to fail. When it does, the opponents of real reform will point to the "public option" and scream: "See! Single Payer won't work!"

There is a time for compromise - this isn't one of them. 

We are a small group of Oregon-Based doctors who care.  We believe there is only one way to control costs, one way to remove profiteering from the system, one way to reclaim the care of our patients, and one way to be sure everyone is covered: we must replace our current pay-or-die system and with a comprehensive, publicly financed, privately delivered, Single Payer system that puts people first.  Our moment to take a stand for Single Payer is NOW. We may not have another opportunity like this in our lifetime. Please support this unprecedented road trip to real health care reform. 

I invite you to join me in following the Mad as Hell Doctors as they travel across the United States. I too believe that a single payer system is our best our only hope to achieve health care justice in this country.  The Mad as Hell Docs have announced that "This Fall, the rubber gloves meet the road."  So watch for the "Mad As Hell Doctors" as they come through your community, follow them on the web, and donate if you can! 

Comments

[Julie]

Awesome! Well document Ryan. I will definitely watch their progress and I will share their experiences with everyone I know on Facebook and everywhere else I see others. I believe vehemently in what they believe and what they are trying to accomplish! Good for them. I'm mad as hell too!

[Lucky Fresh]

Thanks for the heads-up! I see they are, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, not coming anywhere near my red state in the Heart of Dixie. Sad. But I will put a note up about them on Creme Anglaise anyway, so they know someone here cares.