Word: cared
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...came as a shock last week when the American College of Physicians, the U.S.'s second largest medical society, called for comprehensive health-care reform that would include some form of national financing. The announcement, made in Chicago at the A.C.P.'s annual meeting, marks the first time that a doctors' group has backed an overhaul of American medical care. And it puts the 68,000-member group at direct odds with the powerful 300,000-member American Medical Association, which has been opposing sweeping change for at least 30 years. Says Dr. John Ball, the A.C.P.'s executive vice...
Somebody has to do it. Medical costs have soared from $75 billion in 1970 to $600 billion last year, gobbling up more than 10% of the gross national product. And while many citizens receive exemplary care, many others -- mostly poor women and children, and the unemployed -- do not. About 50 million Americans have inadequate medical insurance, and as many as 37 million have none...
...issued last week, the group cites several such flaws, including wasteful administrative overhead that has burgeoned to 22% of medical expenses, and enormous malpractice awards that force doctors to buy expensive insurance and pass the cost on to patients. But the biggest problems, according to the A.C.P., are inadequate care for many Americans, and the "complex, confusing, costly, wasteful and intrusive" bureaucracy involved in paying for the care others...
...problems, the A.C.P. offers broad guidelines. Explains Ball: "One of the reasons we don't have solutions today is that we haven't got societal agreement on what kind of health system we need, want and can afford." Although the report does not say so explicitly, the Canadian health-care system, based on principles of accessibility, universality and public funding, is a model. The reason Canada was not mentioned, according to one official: its system is considered by some to be "socialized medicine," a buzz word that could torpedo the reform effort. Besides, says Ball, the Canadian model could...
Still, the Canadian system has a good deal going for it. Citizens are issued a health card by the government, and they present it when they receive care. Doctors process claims much as retailers handle credit-card transactions. The government then pays the doctor with money that comes largely from taxes. "Once somebody's in the system," says Dr. Graham Pineo, an A.C.P. officer from Canada, "the payments flow regularly." Only a few services are excluded. Among them: private or semiprivate hospital rooms, drugs prescribed outside the hospital, eyeglasses and wheelchairs, and pre-employment and insurance examinations...