Doctors Urge Universal Health Insurance

The country’s largest medical specialty group called today for universal health insurance in the United States to reach the 87 million Americans who have not enough or no coverage at all.

The American College of Physicians said that merely building on the present structure, such as expanding government Medicare or Medicaid programs or requiring all employers to offer insurance, are short-term solutions at best.

“A nationwide program is needed to assure access to health care for all Americans, and we recommend that such a program be adopted as a policy goal for the nation,” the group said in a position paper released at the start of its annual meeting.

“In the near term, given the urgency of the need, it should build on the strengths of existing health care financing mechanisms,” the college said.

“In the longer term, careful consideration of new and innovative alternatives, including some form of a nationwide financing mechanism, will be necessary,” it added.

Edwin Maynard, president of the 67,000-member organization, said his colleagues are not endorsing a system such as that used in Canada in which provincial and central governments back a fee-for-service insurance that offers universal coverage.

He said, however, that the Canadian system, while still evolving and under cost pressures, does “in many respects accomplish some of the goals we want to achieve.”

For now, he said, “we are not endorsing anything.” He said the problem is a “national disgrace” and must be addressed rapidly.

The position paper stopped short of making specific recommendations, and called for debate and discussion on the issue.

The college, whose members are all specialists in internal medicine, said that up to 37 million people in the United States have no form of health insurance, private or public, and that another 50 million have inadequate protection for major hospital and medical expenses.