Joseph Rugg's Health Law Blog

Bob Doherty, ACP’s Senior Vice President, Governmental Affairs and Public Policy, blogs about important health policy issues in The ACP Advocate Blog.

This is from Doherty’s August 2 blogpost, “If I were King.”  It is a thoughtful article that focuses on the issues that need to be addressed in U.S. healthcare and offers sensible approaches to resolving them.

“But yet, is my wish list really too much to expect from elected lawmakers in Washington who take a solemn oath to a Constitution that requires them to promote the common welfare and ensure domestic tranquility?  Is it too much to ask that we provide every American with health insurance, that we free doctors from unnecessary red tape and paperwork, that we enact policies that support the value of primary care,  that physicians and nurses put aside their differences so that they can work together to provide the best possible care to patients, that we facilitate choice and completion by posting comparative information on price and quality, that we keep guns out of the hands of insane people and convicted felons and that we limit access to guns that allow murderers to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible (including schoolchildren), that we repeal the ridiculous SGR formula, and that we reform our politics so government can actually start governing again?  Is that really too much of a fantasy to ask of the people we elect?”

See on advocacyblog.acponline.org