Physicians Have a Responsibility to Meet the Health Care Needs of Society

A transcript of this portion of the debate, televised on September 12, 2011, is available at <http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1109/12/se.04.html>(last visited August 1, 2012).

Krugman P. , “Free to Die,” New York Times, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/opinion/krugman-free-to-die.html>(last visited August 1, 2012).

An overview of EMTALA is posted at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid website, available at <https://www.cms.gov/EMTALA>(last visitedAugust 1, 2012).

Starfield B. , “Is US Health Really the Best in the World?” JAMA 284, no. 4 (2000): 483–485.

Anderson G. F. Hussey P. S. Frogner B. K. Waters H. R. , “Health Spending in the United States and the Rest of the Industrialized World,” Health Affairs (Millwood) 24, no. 4 (2005): 903–914.

Spitz B. Abramson J. , “When Health Policy Is the Problem: A Report from the Field,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 30, no. 3 (2005): 327–365.

Reid T. R. , The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care (New York: Penguin Books, 2010): At 28–45.

Himmelstein D. U. Thorne D. Warren E. Woolhandler S. , “Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study,” American Journal of Medicine 122, no. 8 (2009): 741–746.

Barzansky B. Etzel S. I. , “Medical Schools in the United States, 2010–2011,” JAMA 306, no. 9 (2011): 1007–1014.

For two recent surveys of physician compensation, see “MGMA's 2011 physician compensation survey,” available at <http://www.mgma.com/blog/Highlights-of-MGMAs-2011-Physician-Compensation-survey>and “2011–2012 Physician Salary Survey,” available at <http://www.prof*lesdata-base.com/resources/2011–2012-physician-salary-survey>(last visited August 1, 2012).

This passage is included in a modern version of the Hippocratic Oath, written in 1964 by Dr. Louis Lasagna, and used in many medical schools today, available at <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html>(last visited August 1, 2012).

For example, in New York Times/CBC News polls conducted repeatedly between 1996 and 2007, the proportion of people who responded affirmatively to the question “Do you think the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans, or isn't this the responsibility of the federal government?” gradually increased from 56% to 64%;

see Toner R. Elder J. , “Most Support U.S. Guarantee of Health Care,” New York Times, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/washington/02poll.html>(last visited August 1,2012); a PDF document with complete poll results can be accessed from that web page.

Brett A. S. , “‘American Values’ – A Smoke Screen in the Debate on Health Care Reform,” New England Journal of Medicine 361, no. 5 (2009): 440–441.

Woolhandler S. Campbell T. Himmelstein D.U. , “Costs of health care Administration in the United States and Canada,” New England Journal of Medicine 349, no. 8 (2003): 768–775.

Physicians' Working Group for Single-Payer National Health Insurance, “Proposal of the Physicians' Working Group for Single-Payer National Health Insurance,” JAMA 290, no. 6 (2003): 798–805.

Schwartz M. D. Durning S. Linzer M. Hauer K. E. , “Changes in Medical Students' Views of Internal Medicine Careers from 1990 to 2007,” Archives of Internal Medicine 171, no. 8 (2011): 744–749.

Brett A.S. , “Two-Tiered Health Care: A Problematic Double Standard,” Archives of Internal Medicine 167, no. 5 (2007): 430–432.

Reuben D. B. Cassel C. K. , “Physician Stewardship of Health Care in an Era of Finite Resources,” JAMA 306, no. 4 (2011): 430–431.

A “White Paper” by Thomson Reuters, entitled “Where can $700 billion in waste be cut annually from the U.S. health care system?” includes 6 categories of waste in health care: Administrative system inefficiencies; provider inefficiency and errors; lack of care coordination; unwarranted use; preventable conditions and avoidable care; and fraud and abuse. Nearly half of the waste is estimated to occur in the “unwarranted use” category, which includes discretionary performance of nonbeneficial tests and treatments, available at <http://www.factsforhealthcare.com/whitepaper/HealthcareWaste.pdf>(last visited August 1, 2012). See also Brownlee S. , Overtreated (New York: Bloomsbury, 2007).

Fisher E. S. Wennberg D. E. Stukel T. A. Gottlieb D. J. Lucas F. L. Pinder E. L. , “The Implications of Regional Variations in Medicare Spending. Part 2: Health Outcomes and Satisfaction with Care,” Annals of Internal Medicine 138, no. 4 (2003): 288–298.

Bentley T. G. Effros R. M. Palar K. Keeler E. B. , “Waste in the U.S. Health Care System: A Conceptual Framework,” Milbank Quarterly 86, no. 4 (2008):629–659;

Sirovich B. E. Woloshin S. Schwartz L. M. , “Too Little? Too Much? Primary Care Physicians' Views on US Health Care,” Archives of Internal Medicine 171, no. 17 (2011): 1582–1585.

Brett A. S. McCullough L. B. , “Addressing Requests by Patients for Nonbeneficial Interventions,” JAMA 307, no. 2 (2012): 149–150.

Brook R. H. Young R. T. , “The Primary Care Physician and Health Care Reform,” JAMA 303, no. 15 (2010): 1535–1536.

Cooke M. , “Cost Consciousness in Patient Care – What Is Medical Education's Responsibility?” New England Journal of Medicine 362, no. 14 (2010): 1253–1255.