August 7, 2010
Well it was a nice walk in the sun. The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons had a well advertised national Tea Party Doctor rally here in San Diego on Saturday. Rachel Maddow had a segment on them last night, making clear they supported Medicare repeal and one of their members (a neurosurgeon) did the embarrassing mailing of Obama as a head hunting cannibal. About 300 people turned out to hear local right wing radio talk show host Rodger Hedgecock and Senatorial candidate Sharon Angle.There was suprisingly little media presence. Their crowd included maybe 20 doctors total. The speeches were vigorously against immigrants, Obama, any taxes and pro health reform repeal. San Diego CalPNHP had a polite vigil for SB 810 and Medicare for All with a good turnout of about 30 people. There was some dialogue, no tension, and little impact. Ironically the National Association of Black Nurses was having its national convention 25 yards away in an adjacent hotel. A little prescience and luck could have mobilized their attendees and created a whole different ballgame.See the attached pics.
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Jeoffry B. Gordon, MD, MPH
Read the PNHP San Diego press release :
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 6, 2010
Contact
Anita Simons: 619-884-6482
Dr. Jeoffry Gordon: 619-890-2018
Doctors, Nurses and Patients Rally For Medicare for All to Counter Protest of Tea Party Doctors
A local group of physicians, nurses, patients and health-care activists will rally at Spanish Landing (3900 Harbor Drive) on Saturday, August 7 at 12 noon to counter the National Tea Party Doctors Rally held to protest the recently passed Health Care Reform bill or as they refer to it as “Obama Care.”
Many of the local doctors who favor Medicare For All agree with the Tea Party doctors that “Obama Care” is not the way to solve our health care crisis. But what is the alternative? To continue with increasing numbers of uninsured? To continue to be badgered by insurance company disallowances and paperwork? To ignore the demands of social justice? Dr. Paul Friedman is San Diego Chapter Chair of Physicians for a National Health Program, a membership organization of over15,000 physicians who support a single-payer national health insurance program. Friedman says “The only effective cure for our health care woes is to establish a single, publicly financed system like Medicare, that removes the inefficient, wasteful, for-profit private health insurance industry from the picture.” Friedman say a solid majority of physicians endorse such an approach. Friedman also adds “The ‘doctors’ Tea Party is a fraud. They don’t represent the majority of doctors any more than the Tea Party represents the great majority of voters.”
Jeoffry Gordon, MD,MPH., a San Diego family practitioner, believes that health care is a human right. Gordon emphasizes, “In 2008 there were over 200,000 uninsured people in San Diego. Obamacare depends on expanding MediCal or subsidizing private insurance companies intent on maximizing their income to provide access to medical care which will inevitably continue to create great complexity and waste of resources and impose significant out of pocket expenses on many families.” Gordon feels that the Tea Party doctors profess to be against both private insurers and government financed care. “My question to them is how they expect the poor, the large number of unemployed, and the vast majority of Americans to find the resources to obtain needed medical care in their time of need? The only real solution is to expand the proven, dependable, effective and efficient Medicare system to cover all Americans.”
Both doctors and others at the counter rally support California SB 810 which is based on a single payer system where patients would be able to go to the doctors and hospitals of their choice and not have to worry about being able to afford it.