Editor: One of our favorite OB doctors, Jeoffry B. Gordon, MD, MPH, is helping to organize a counter-rally to a Tea Party Doctors Rally. We covered Dr Gordon in a recent interview by Shane Finneran and know he is deeply involved in social justice issues. We here at the OB Rag support this counter-rally as we also organized a counter-rally to tea partiers last February where we sang songs to counter their hate. If you can, please join these progressive health care folks on Saturday.
A local group of physicians, nurses, patients and health-care activists will rally at Spanish Landing (3900 Harbor Drive) on Saturday, August 7 at 12 noon to counter the National Tea Party Doctors Rally held to protest the recently passed Health Care Reform bill or as they refer to it as “Obama Care.”
Many of the local doctors who favor Medicare For All agree with the Tea Party doctors that “Obama Care” is not the way to solve our health care crisis. But what is the alternative? To continue with increasing numbers of uninsured? To continue to be badgered by insurance company disallowances and paperwork? To ignore the demands of social justice?
Dr. Paul Friedman, San Diego Chair of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) chapter, suggests
“The only effective cure for our health care woes is to establish a single, publicly financed system, one that removes the inefficient, wasteful, for-profit private health insurance industry from the picture,” he said. “Single payer has a proven track record of success – Medicare being just one example. A solid majority of physicians endorse such an approach.” Friedman goes on to say “The ‘doctors’ Tea Party is a fraud. They don’t represent the majority of doctors any more than the Tea Party represents the great majority of voters.”
Jeoffry Gordon, MD,MPH.,family practitioner in Ocean Beach (San Diego), feels that health care is a human right. Dr. Gordon emphasizes,
“In 2008 there were over 200,000 uninsured people in San Diego City. Obamacare depends on expanding MediCal or subsidizing private insurance companies intent on maximizing their income to provide access to medical care which will inevitably continue to create great complexity and waste of resources and continue to impose significant out of pocket expenses on many families. The Tea Party doctors profess to be against both private insurers and government financed care. My question to them is how they expect the poor, the large number of unemployed, and the vast majority of Americans to find the resources to obtain needed medical care in their time of need? The only real solution is to expand the proven, dependable, effective and efficient Medicare system to cover all Americans.”
Both Dr. Friedman and Dr. Gordon support California SB 810 which is based on a single payer system where patients would be able to go to the doctors and hospitals of their choice and not have to worry about being able to afford it.
For more info, contact Anita Simons: 619-884-6482 – asimonsays@gmail.com
Physicians for a National Health Program, a membership organization of over 15,000 physicians, supports a single-payer national health insurance program. To contact a physician-spokesperson in your area, visit www.pnhp.org/stateactions.
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Apparently Sharron “Obtuse” Angle, the Nevada Republican Senate candidate and Tea Party flag bearer will be a part of the festivities here in SD tomorrow. For those of you not aware, “Obtuse” Angle has some VERY extreme views, far wackier than the rightest of the right wing will usually admit. She opposes abortion in ALL instances, including rape and incest, even if the victim is a mere child (“let them turn lemons into lemonade,” she says), she wants to abolish the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the EPA, she wants to privatize Social Security, she thinks the unemployed are just “lazy,” she wants clergy to be able to promote political candidates from the pulpit, she thinks school prayer should be mandatory, she apparently thinks equal rights under the constitution is a bad thing……she thinks she knows more about the law and the Supreme Court than Elena Kagan, who was just confirmed to said Supreme Court…..she thinks the media should ONLY ask her questions she actually WANTS to answer, and she refuses to grant interviews to anyone who will “badger her with her (own) words,” she calls a press conference and then runs away (literally) when the gathered press has the temerity to actually want to ask her questions…..
This is who they’re marching out to the protest tomorrow. This is their champion. The woman is anti-intellectual in every sense of the word, and from what I can tell by watching her speak and reading about her, she can’t have an IQ of more than 50. And we all thought Sarah Palin was an idiot? Angle makes Palin look like Albert Einstein!
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/angle-to-headline-event-promoted-by-anti-medicare-hiv-denying-conspiracy-theorist-group.php?ref=fpa
More on the group that’s sponsoring the Doctor’s Tea Party event tomorrow, that has Sharron Angle as its headline speaker: CLICK HERE
The group is the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. They believe that Medicare is evil and immoral. They don’t believe that HIV causes AIDS. They believe that Barack Obama used hypnosis on the crowds that gathered to hear him speak during the 2008 campaign (no kidding! They actually believe this! http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/0089 make sure to read the comments below the article…..great stuff!).
Truly disturbed individuals……These people are batshit CRAZY!
Thanks Andy for hanging on like a bulldog on this issue. I truly believe that while we are all entitled to our opinions, we are not entitled to cooking up a different set of facts. You have consistently presented the facts and I appreciate that.
I am a single payer advocate and will be in San Diego for the Counter Protest.
Missed you guys at the “Doctor Tea Party” rally, but I showed up a little late due to the fact that I initially drove right by it. Not a very large crowd! I took multiple pictures and spoke to a few doctors. Most of my pictures and comments are posted on my Twitter page @DebErupts.