News - May 17, 2016 - by Ray Hagar

Dr. Sean Lehmann and the 20,000-member Physicians for a National Health Program have a mission:

They want to replace the nation's current Affordable Care Act health-care system (Obamacare) with a publicly financed program that would fully cover medical care and prescriptions for American citizens. In short, these doctors want the current Medicare program -- which covers those 65 and over -- to be extended to all Americans.

Instead of the current system of paying insurance premiums and meeting one's deductible before insurance benefits kick in, the "Medicare-for-all" system would be financed by a two-percent payroll tax or another modest tax based on the taxpayer's ability to pay, according to Lehmann and the Physicians for a National Health Program website.

"I talk to people on either side of the political spectrum about this in my own (medical) practice," Lehmann, the Nevada chair of the doctors' organization, said on the Nevada Newsmakers TV program Tuesday. "If you do the numbers and show how much they are paying in premiums, co-pays and deductibles and compare it to a 2-percent payroll tax, there's a big savings versus what you are currently paying. Employers would see a huge savings. They are paying, on average, 8 percent or 9 percent toward health-care benefits as it is right now."

Yet there's a rub. The doctor's plan would cut insurance companies out of the health-care system, with Lehmann calling them unnecessary "middle men." Insurance companies, however, have a strong lobbying force in Washington D.C. and both houses of Congress would have to approve the doctors' plan.

"The power of the insurance industry is great," Lehmann said. "You look at United Health Care. It made $62 million last year. There's millions and millions of dollars involved here. So in order to overcome that lobbying effort, it is going to take citizens that want to see that change."

Lehmann cited a Kaiser Family Foundation study from 2015 that showed 58 percent of Americans were in favor of the Medicare-for-all health-care system. Eighty-one percent of Democrats and 60 percent of non-partisan voters were in favor of the proposal, according to the Kaiser study. However, 63 percent of Republicans opposed it.

Lehmann doubts the doctors'  proposal could currently pass Congress.

"I'd be the first to agree with you that Congress, right now, probably is not going to get this through," he said. "The idea is to get the people more interested in this type of plan. And this political season, this has been on the table and people have talked about this.

"There is a bill in Congress (to put the plan in place), House Resolution 676," Lehmann said. "But we need to get more sponsors and we need to get more people in Congress (to support it)."

The current health-care tug-of-war in Congress is frustrating, Lehmann said.

"What I find frustrating with Congress is the Republican plan is basically to repeal Obamacare," he said. "That's really not a plan within itself. And the Democratic plan is to maintain Obamacare. Both of those plans have significant drawbacks and impediments."

Under the current system, there is a big difference between having health insurance and getting health care, Lehmann said.

"The financial barrier is still there," he said. "I see people in my own practice with $10,000 deductibles and $100 co-pays. People don't come in and see me until something is pretty bad because the financial barrier is still there. Yes, they have health insurance. But that is not the same as health care."