The physician's voice in the health care debate

Abstract

Physicians in the United States have a unique appreciation of the tremendous successes and even greater potential of our health care system, yet we also endure firsthand its woeful deficiencies. In the ongoing debate about how to improve the current health care structure in the United States, our individual voices have been all too quiet. No single health care organization, nor its spokesmen, speaks for the broad range of physicians’ opinions. Rather, doctors must make every effort, and indeed have an obligation, to speak forcefully as informed participants in this important process.