US physicians talk on short fallings in the current healthcare reform bills

Aug 20 2009

Physicians across the nation are speaking out on Sermo, the world's largest online physician community, about the short fallings in the current healthcare reform bills working their way through Congress.

 The 110,000 US physicians who use Sermo are becoming more vocal to ensure meaningful reform occurs. The central issue, according to physicians, is that the current bills do not address the real sources of rising healthcare costs. According to Dr. Daniel Palestrant, a surgeon and CEO of Sermo, “Physicians are in a unique position in that they know exactly where the breaks in our healthcare system are. They have been shielding the general public from these realities for years, but realize the current situation is now untenable.”

To date, US physicians have not actively participated in the healthcare debate, but recognizing that traditional institutions like the American Medical Association have failed to accurately address the real issues in healthcare reform, physicians are increasingly using the Sermo platform to actively get involved in reform. 95% of nearly 11,000 physicians who responded to a recent survey on Sermo state that the AMA does not speak for them in endorsing the current House Healthcare bill.

Doctors on Sermo.com say there are some key steps to improving healthcare quality and access while reducing costs. None of those issues are even mentioned in the current versions of the reform bill. Physicians state that true healthcare reform will only succeed if the following issues are addressed:

Dr. Palestrant goes on to say, “for reform to be effective, we have to address the real sources of spiraling costs. Not one of the issues that physicians consistently point to as being critical to healthcare reform is included in any version of the current bills making their way through Congress now.”

Sermo is a closed community, which can be accessed only by licensed, US physicians. Each physician is verified and credentialed. Select physician debates and the US physicians’ reform platform have been republished and can be viewed by the public and media at www.sermo.com/reform.