Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP) is a group of radical left-leaning doctors in favor of single-payer health care. As progressive blogger Ezra Klein writes, they are opposed to any measure that isn’t single-payer:
Their take on Obama’s health plan is that it’s not single payer, so they don’t support it. And their take on Health Care for America Now coalition is that it’s not pushing single payer, so they don’t support it.
Their shrill, pig-headed inflexibility is counter-productive in today’s health reform debate.
I’m not going to debate the pros and cons of single-payer, but for a variety of reasons, implementing a single-payer system in the United States is impossible. That’s an indisputable reality.
American health reform will come from a more moderate, centrist approach, using both public and private options. PHNP, being one of the more visible physician groups in mainstream media, should use their resources to push for a plan that’s more realistically achievable and better accepted by the physician community as a whole.
