Dr. Ross and other members of the PNHP’s views are simple. There
are some things too important to leave to the capitalist marketplace.
Among those are sanitation, water, fire, police and, yes, health care.
“The data is solid. For every 1,000 people uninsured, one will
die unnecessarily,” said Dr. Ross. “There are 30 million people
uninsured. So, 30,000 people are dying unnecessarily every year.
I’m not sure what would happen if we had somebody come over
and blow up 30,000 people each year, but I have a feeling we would
deal with it differently.”
Dr. Ross said, “This situation is a quiet disaster. These people
are separated. There’s no publicity for them, but they’re out there.”
Following the successful Medicare PIE event on July 30, Dr. Ross
and other representatives met with medical students on campus to
talk about ways to get involved and what can be learned from always
being skeptical. Dr. Ross recalled a story of one of his patients who
passed away unnecessarily.
“He was an assistant manager at a burger shop, I won’t say which
one. He had three kids, so he had to think about how to get by with
the money he was making. He chose not to purchase the very paltry
insurance package provided by his work. When he came to see me,
he was seriously overweight. He had trouble breathing, sleeping,
and edema in his legs which indicates heart failure. I told him it
was a serious problem but there was no place I could send him to
get a sleep study without proper insurance and he didn’t have the
money to get it done.”
Once a social worker became involved in the case, the man was
advised to quit his job. “They said, ‘You have three dependent children. You’ll qualify for Medicaid within the month and then we can
order the study. So he quit his job. But, he died in his sleep the night
before his sleep study was scheduled,” Dr. Ross said.
“These are the stories we see. Every doctor has stories like this,
a near miss or a wounding or sometimes these stories where we
lose good hard-working folks who were kicked aside by the health
care system. Working with the city population, you see this stuff
day after day.”
Talking to his residents at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in
Toledo, Dr. Ross routinely jokes about the United States having
the “best health care system in the world,” emphasizing the social
determinants and inadequacies of the health care system. Despite
going for laughs, he somberly admits many of his colleagues believe
it to be true.
“We cost twice what everyone else does and we don’t do anything
substantially better. We have worse mortality and some of the worst
childhood health statistics and maternal mortality statistics in the
world. Our system is dysfunctional because it’s too complicated.
There are too many people trying to make money from it rather
than look at it as a social good,” he said. In person, Dr. Ross is a
whirlwind of ideas and examples and statistics, but he knows that
it doesn’t matter what he alone thinks, but rather what he can do
to convince others.
All involved agree that the future of the PNHP and the continued
prospect of a single payer system depend on new blood. Medical
students and young physicians who will continue to fight and get
a seat at the table are becoming increasingly important as older
members can no longer maintain their level of activity.
Dr. Adams spoke to the students and residents in attendance.
“The most exciting thing happening in PNHP in the last five years
is the student movement. The questions and worries they have are
taking place across the country. What kind of practice will they
have? Will their activism affect their careers? You’ll get courage and
encouragement from them.”
Dr. Adams encouraged each of the students to keep a lookout
and get involved, saying he was so busy studying for medical school
that he didn’t pay attention to the civ