Inland Empire Chapter of CAMFT

“Should CAMFT Endorse Single Payer Healthcare?”

We watched "The Healthcare Movie," a documentary  film narrated by Kiefer Sutherland, and listened to Bill Honigman, MD, an ER doctor at Kaiser Permanente Orange County with over 30 years experience, explain why Single Payer offers a more equitable, ethical, and economically-sensible alternative to for-profit insurance, through comparing and contrasting the two approaches to health care.

Objectives were:

• 1.       Members would learn how single payer is a viable option to the private health insurance industry for-profit model

• 2.       Members would learn why many healthcare professionals believe single payer is a more equitable and ethical choice that would provide better, more comprehensive care
• 3.       Members would have the opportunity to ask questions regarding single payer vs. for-profit insurance

• 4.       Members would be better equipped to decide whether they think CAMFT should endorse single payer health care

Recommended reading:

“Practicing Medicine Without a License:  the Corporate Takeover of Healthcare in America” by Don Sloan, M. D. with Robin Feman

http://www.amazon.com/Practicing-Medicine-Without-License-Healthcare/dp/0974524549

Dr. Honigman presented statistics on which medical professionals support Single Payer/Medicare for All and which ones do not and he and Carol A. Bouldin, LMFT led a discussion on the corporate takeover of healthcare and our profession, dictating what will be paid, how many sessions will be allotted, requiring mountains of paperwork and invasive examinations of treatment plans, documentation, and patient symptomatology and history.  This was compared to when we had non-profit healthcare, which did not incentivize the denial of care.

“The Healthcare Movie” details how there was tremendous opposition by the medical profession to universal healthcare being instituted in Canada at first, much as it has been in this country, with the same attempts to smear it by labelling it “Socialized Medicine,” a Cold War propaganda tool.  We have seen the same thing in the past few years with “Obamacare” and the attendant accusations, even though the terms of the Affordable Care Act were dictated by the health insurance industry and big pharmaceuticals, who stand to profit tremendously by the mandated coverage provisions and lack of even a public option, let alone Single Payer, which would have been far more affordable, effective, and efficient.

Unlike Canada, it seems we have lacked an effective leader like Tommy Douglas, a social democrat and Baptist minister, who could have gotten the message across to the public enough to combat the well-funded obstruction by the AMA, big insurance, and big pharma.  Douglas is revered in Canada as the father of universal health care, a system very much like our Medicare system, a system for which he had to fight long and hard but is now favorably regarded by virtually everyone in Canada.

For Dr. Honigman's Power Point click:

SP(MFA)vsACA.pptm

For more information on therapists who support Single Payer Healthcare see:

Therapists for Single Payer brochure.pdf

http://therapistsforsinglepayer.org/

For a pdf of the picture below, click:  Covered California vs. Medicare for All.pdf