Doctors and Medical Students: Sign our open letter today!
Join the 10,034 physicians and medical students who have signed the letter supporting the Obama Health Plan over the McCain plan in this election.
Physicians' voices ought to be an important part of shaping health policy. Interest groups are often heard from in elections but our voice is missing. That is why we, as doctors, have come together to inform the media and the nation what we need - for doctors and for our patients - to keep America healthy.
Before the election we will release the letter and list of signatories to the news media. Doctors have yet to be heard from in this election and we believe that Americans will be very interested in what we have to say about the candidates' health proposals.
Our goal this week:
10,000 signatures
As of Saturday, May 19th, 1:09 AM
10,034
people have signed
An Open Letter on Health Reform in the 2008 Presidential Election
As doctors, nurses and providers of medical care, it is our obligation to speak out in the interests of our patients. In this year's presidential election, Barack Obama and John McCain offer two starkly different visions of what is wrong with our healthcare system and two different prescriptions for how we can repair it. We believe that Barack Obama's health care plan is right for our patients, right for our medical system and right for America - it offers the best hope of improving quality, controlling health care costs and guaranteeing health security for all Americans.
Senator Obama's plan will allow all Americans to share in the advances of modern medicine by providing guaranteed, affordable choice to all Americans. For those who like the insurance that they have, his plan allows them to keep what they have. For those who do not have insurance or are underinsured, his plan will give people access to new, affordable insurance options. In each case, premiums and direct costs will be made affordable, and people will not have to fear losing their coverage or entering bankruptcy if someone in their family should become sick.
Senator Obama's plan will also reduce the cost of health care by making our health care system safer and more efficient and then passing those savings on to all Americans. His plan would create a national state of the art health information system and would invest in helping doctors better understand what therapies work and what therapies do not. His plan will promote a rational policy on prescription drug use by allowing Americans to buy drugs more cheaply from other developed countries and increasing the use of generic drugs. And, his plan will increase our spending on preventative care.
Already, we have seen attacks on Senator Obama's health care plan that reflect fear mongering, not serious debate. But we know that the Obama plan will protect the health coverage of ordinary Americans by allowing them to continue to get their health insurance through their employers. Rather than forcing Americans to pay ever-higher insurance premiums, deductibles and copayments that subsidize the run-away profits of the insurance industry, it will cut costs for all Americans. Unlike John McCain's plan, the Obama plan will not allow insurance companies to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions such as cancer or diabetes, which shifts the cost of health care onto the shoulders of ordinary American families and leaves them even more vulnerable to financial ruin because of medical costs.
America cannot afford another four years of inaction on health care. We believe that Barack Obama's plan will help our patients live longer and healthier lives; that it will reduce the cost of health care for all Americans; and that it will help us deliver safer and higher quality care to our patients. For this reason, we support the Obama plan, and we encourage all Americans to do so.
Sign the Letter
Partial List of Signatories (See full list of signatories to this letter)
affiliations are for identification purposes only
- Elena Rios, MD, MSPH
- President & CEO, National Hispanic Medical Association
- President, National Hispanic Health Foundation
- Paul Farmer, MD, PhD
- Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology
- Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
- Founder, Partners in Health
- Michael McCally, MD, PhD
- Clinical Professor of Community and Preventive Medicine
- Mount Sinai School of Medicine
- Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility
- Pedro Jose Greer, Jr., MD
- Assistant Dean for Homeless Education,
- University of Miami Medical School
- Founder and Medical Director, Camillus Health Concern
- Whitney Addington, MD
- President Emeritus, The American College of Physicians
- Allan Rosenfield, MD
- Dean Emeritus, Mailman School of Public Health
- VP Emeritus, Columbia Medical Center
- Professor of Public Health, Mailman School of Public Health
- Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
- Christine K. Cassel, MD, MACP
- President Emeritus, American College of Physicians
- Chair Emeritus, American Board of Internal Medicine
- Barton Wald, MD
- President, Physician Associates Medical Group
- Thomas J. Coates, PhD
- Michael and Sue Steinberg Endowed Professor of Global AIDS Research
- Director, UCLA Program in Global Health
- David Geffen School of Medicine
- Steven P. Shelov, MD, MS
- Chair and Vice President
- Maimonides Infants and Children's Hospital of Brooklyn
- Lutheran Medical Center
- Joseph Martin, MD, PhD
- Dean Emiritus, Harvard Medical School
- Jeffry S. Akman, MD
- Leon M. Yochelson Professor & Chair
- Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
- George Washington University
- Phillip Pizzo, MD
- Dean, Stanford University School of Medicine
- Eli Adashi, MD
- Professor of Medical Science,
- Former Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences,
- Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University
- Ralph Snyderman, MD
- Chancellor Emeritus, Duke University
- Harris A. Berman, MD
- Morton A. Madoff Professor and Chair of Public Health and Family Medicine
- Vice-Dean, Tufts University School of Medicine
- Roseanna H. Means, MD
- Founder, Women of Means
- H. Jack Geiger, MD
- Logan Professor of Community Medicine (emeritus)
- City University of New York Medical School
- Jerome P. Kassirer, MD
- Distinguished Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine
- Former Editor-in-Chief, New England Journal of Medicine
- Howard Dean, MD
- Chairman, Democratic National Committee
- Former Governor of Vermont
- Judith Steinberg Dean, MD
- Former First Lady of Vermont
- John F. Williams, MD, EdD
- Provost and Vice President for Health Affairs
- The George Washington University Medical Center
- Barry Zuckerman, MD
- Joel and Barbara Alpert Professor,
- Boston University School of Medicine
- Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics
- Boston Medical Center
- James Mongan, MD
- President and CEO, Partners HealthCare
- Professor of Health Care Policy and Professor of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
- Barbara Turner, MD, MSED
- Past President, Society of General Internal Medicine
- Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
- Jim Yong Kim, MD, PhD
- Chairman and Professor of Medicine
- Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
- Former Director, World Health Organization (WHO) HIV/AIDS Unit
- Lee Goldman, MD, MPH
- Dean, Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine,
- Columbia University
- David Blumenthal, MD
- Director, Institute for Health Policy, Massachusetts General Hospital
- Samuel O. Thier Professor in Medicine
- Harvard Medical School
- John C. Lewin, MD
- Chief Executive Officer, American College of Cardiology
- Irwin Redlener, MD
- Professor of Population and Family Health
- Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
- Director, National Center for Disaster Preparedness
- President, Children's Health Fund
- Christopher Barley, MD
- Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine
- Cornell/Weill School of Medicine
- President, Citta Hospitals
- Steve Schroeder, MD
- Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care
- University of California San Francisco (UCSF)
- Dan Morhaim, MD
- Deputy Majority Leader, Maryland House of Delegates
- Faculty, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
- Howard Hiatt, MD
- Former Dean, Harvard School of Public Health
- Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
- Thomas Bodenheimer, MD
- Professor of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
- Andy Calman, MD, PhD
- Founder and National Chair, Physicians for a Democratic Majority
- Susan Lynch, MD
- First Lady of New Hampshire
- Ayaz Samadani, MD
- Chair, Public Health Council, State of Wisconsin
- Robert S. Lawrence, MD
- Director, The Center for a Livable Future
- Professor of Environmental Health Science, Health Policy, and International Health,
- John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- Lynne Kirk, MD, FACP
- Immediate Past President, American College of Physicians
- Tim and Toni Hartman Professorship in Medicine, UT Southwestern
- Katherine Treadway, MD
- Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
- J. Sanford Schwartz, MD
- Leon Hess Professor of Medicine and Health Management & Economics
- School of Medicine and The Wharton School
- University of Pennsylvania
- Jay Bhatt, DO, MPH
- Former National President, American Medical Student Association
- Harold C. Sox, MD, MACP
- Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine
- Harvey Sloan, MD
- Former Health Commissioner, District of Columbia
- Former Mayor, Louisville, KY
- Jo Ivey Boufford, MD
- President, NY Academy of Medicine
- Philip R. Lee, MD
- Former United States Assistant Secretary of Health
- Former Chancellor, University of California at San Francisco
- Professor of Human Biology, Stanford University
- Harold Varmus, MD
- Former Director, National Institutes of Health
- David Kessler, MD
- Former Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Admninistration
- Victor Dzau, MD
- Chancellor for Health Affairs, Duke University
- President and CEO, Duke University Health System
- Lawrence Hartmann, MD
- Former President, American Psychiatric Association
- Bernard S. Arons, MD
- Former Director, Federal Director of the Center for Mental Health Services, DHHS