Obama Battles Health Care Reform Critics

President Dismisses Mounting GOP Criticism as "Politics of Delay and Defeat", but Eases His Deadline for Congress

(CBS/AP)  President Obama pushed back hard against Republican critics of his health care overhaul plan Monday, dismissing the "politics of the moment" marked by GOP comparisons of his efforts to socialism.

Struggling to revamp the nation's $2.4 trillion health care system, the president gave ground on his tight timetable for passage of sweeping legislation.

Mr. Obama's strong words came just hours after Republicans ratcheted up their criticism of the president and congressional Democrats. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican Party, likened Mr. Obama's plans to socialism and argued that the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and key congressional committee chairmen are part of a "cabal" that wants to implement government-run health care.

The White House also faced troubling news in the latest polling, with approval of Mr. Obama's handling of health care slipping.

"We can't afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care," Mr. Obama said after meeting with doctors, nurses and other health care workers at Children's National Medical Center. "Not this time. Not now. There are too many lives and livelihoods at stake."

White House officials admit there is no easy way to pay for the kind of health care the president wants, but they say he'll push hard to get it. As one official told CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante of Obama: "Do you realize how competitive he is?"

Without mentioning his critic by name, the president recounted South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint's comment that stopping Mr. Obama's bid for health care overhaul could be the president's "Waterloo," a reference to the site of Napoleon's bitter defeat in 1815.

"This isn't about me," Mr. Obama responded. "This isn't about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America's families, breaking America's businesses and breaking America's economy."

Striking a more populist tone than in past remarks, the president complained that "health insurance companies and their executives have reaped windfall profits from a broken system."

"Let's fight our way through the politics of the moment," Mr. Obama said. "Let's pass reform by the end of this year."

That reflects a shift in a timetable he has stressed repeatedly. Mr. Obama had said previously that he wanted the House and Senate to vote on legislation before lawmakers leave town for their August recess, with a comprehensive bill for him to sign in October.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama declined to take a surtax off the table as a way to pay for the new health care system.

The president told NBC's "Today" show that "the House has put forward a surtax," but was noncommittal about whether it should actually be part of the reconstituted health care system he is pushing.

"I want this done now. Now, if there are no deadlines, nothing gets done in this town," Mr. Obama told PBS's "The NewsHour." "If somebody comes to me and says 'It's basically done, it's going to spill over by a few days or a week,' you know, that's different."

He said too much of the focus has been on what has not been accomplished instead of on a coalition of health companies, professionals and constituents. Later in the day, aides organized a conference call for Obama to speak with liberal bloggers and rally them behind the White House's broad outline for overhaul.

"One of the things that I know the blogs are best at is debunking myths that can slip through a lot of the traditional media outlets and a lot of the conventional wisdom," he said, according to audio of the call posted on Web sites. "And that is why you are going to play such an important role in our success in the weeks to come."

Steele accused Mr. Obama of conducting a risky experiment that will hurt the economy and force millions to drop their current coverage.

"Obama-Pelosi want to start building a colossal, closed health care system where Washington decides. Republicans want and support an open health care system where patients and doctors make the decisions," Steele said in a speech at the National Press Club.

Asked whether Mr. Obama's health care plan represented socialism, Steele responded: "Yes. Next question."

Mr. Obama has said he does not favor a government-run health care system. Legislation taking shape in the House envisions private insurance companies selling coverage in competition with the government.

The president is struggling to advance his trademark health care proposal after a period of evident progress. Two of three House committees have approved their portions of the bill, while one of two Senate panels have acted. A Washington Post-ABC News survey released Monday shows approval of Mr. Obama's handling of health care overhaul slipping below 50 percent for the first time.

The president, who spent most of last week making his plea for health care overhaul, was pressing his case hard again this week, first at the children's hospital, and later this week in a prime-time news conference Wednesday and a town hall in Ohio on Thursday. On Tuesday he planned to meet with Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the one House committee that hasn't yet acted on the bill.

Energy and Commerce members worked into the night Monday, but besides numerous objections raised by Republicans the committee has a bloc of conservative Democrats who've raised objections to some elements of the legislation. However, there were signs Monday that some of their concerns were being addressed. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who with other anti-abortion Democrats had threatened to oppose the bill over concerns it would fund abortions, said a compromise was being worked out.

As the Energy and Commerce meeting wrapped up after midnight Monday, the panel chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., announced it would not reconvene until Wednesday. He didn't mention the White House appointment but said he'd been having good discussions with panel members that he wanted to pursue.

Meanwhile Pelosi is floating an idea that could make proposed tax increases more palatable to fiscally conservative Democrats. She would like to limit income tax increases to couples making more than $1 million a year and individuals making more than $500,000.

The bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee last week would increase taxes on couples making as little as $350,000 a year and individuals annually making as little as $280,000.

"I'd like it to go higher than it is," Pelosi told CBS News partner Politico on Friday.

The speaker would like the trigger raised to $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for families, "so it's a millionaire's tax," she said. "When someone hears, '2,' they think, 'Oh, I could be there,' because they don't know the $280,000 is for one person.

In the Senate, negotiators seeking a bipartisan compromise reported progress Monday. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said there's tentative agreement on four big policy issues out of a list of about one dozen. He would not elaborate.

Separately, senators are discussing a variation on the idea of taxing high-cost health insurance benefits. The proposal would not raise taxes on individuals and families. Instead, insurers and employers who offer the benefits would pay the tax. Advocates say such a tax would encourage people to be thriftier consumers of health care. Prospects are uncertain.

Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders face a new batch of ads.

Republican officials said they were supplementing Steele's speech with a round of television advertising designed to oppose government-run health care. The 30-second commercial, titled "Grand Experiment," criticizes recent government aid to the auto industry and banks as "the biggest spending spree in our history" and warns similarly of "a risky experiment with our health care."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business group, planned to announce ads of its own Tuesday criticizing the government-run insurance proposal, saying it would threaten employer-provided coverage.

R. Bruce Josten, the group's top lobbyist, said the campaign would begin with a $2 million budget and include newspaper and Internet ads, as well as efforts to drum up public support across the country. The ads will appear in Capitol Hill newspapers beginning Tuesday, then in coming days in newspapers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Colorado, Nebraska and other states where lawmakers are wavering.

Citing liberal and labor groups that have run ads criticizing Democrats who have not endorsed the health care effort, Josten said, "It's time to push back a little bit."

Separately, the insurance industry, which challenged then-President Bill Clinton's health care effort in the early 1990s, launched a $1.4 million ad campaign, its first TV ads of this year's health care fight. The multimillion-dollar campaign, being aired nationally on cable stations, restates the industry's support for an overhaul that provides universal coverage and its offer to cover people who are already sick. The ad campaign does not mention the insurers' strong opposition to creating a government-run insurance option.

An official disclosed the cost of the campaign on condition of anonymity, as the numbers have not been made public.

[SteveVA78]

Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, the United States has already tried its hand at a pseudo-single-payer system. Based on an agreement in 1787, the government is responsible to provide health care to Native Indians on reservations. This government run single-payer system is an utter, complete failure.

American Indians have an infant death rate that is 40 percent higher than the rate for whites. They are twice as likely to die from diabetes, 60 percent more likely to have a stroke, 30 percent more likely to have high blood pressure and 20 percent more likely to have heart disease.American Indians have disproportionately high death rates from unintentional injuries and suicide, and a high prevalence of risk factors for obesity, substance abuse, sudden infant death syndrome, teenage pregnancy, liver disease and hepatitis.

And, after Haiti, where in the Western hemisphere do men have the lowest life expectancy? It?s on Indian reservations in South Dakota.


Here are some examples of the care we can expect from the Government if Indian Health Service (IHS) is any indication.

A five year old with stomach pain who stopped eating who visited the clinic ten times and was diagnosed with ?depression.? Later the family discovered she had terminal cancer. She died at age six.

Another patient was given cough syrup for his congestive heart failure and sustained damage to his heart. He died while waiting for a transplant.

Another patient visited the clinic with stomach pains for 4 years and was diagnosed with possible tapeworms and stress. Later, she discovered she had metastatic cancer.
Yet another patient couldn?t get a prescription filled despite repeated trips to a clinic because of lack of appointments. She died before she was able to see the doctor.

Forget Canada and England look at IHS as an example of what the Government will provide if we let them take over health care.

[cinci_citizen]

America is a superpower and world leader in technology. We are the wealthiest country in the world. So why is it that out of thirteen countries studied, when it comes to health care, the United States ranked an average of twelfth (second from bottom) in sixteen available health indicators? It is not the lack of technology and our lifestyle is not the worst, so why do we rank number twelve? Unfortunately, the U.S. health-care system itself is actually the major contributor to our low ranking and our poor health. Citizens who are not insured cannot easily get coverage and those who are insured often get declined or cannot afford the out-of-pocket expenses to receive the necessary care. These American citizens often die or remain untreated and ill for years, before they expire. How can we stand by and let this happen? Big insurance and pharmaceutical companies directly profit by stopping the American people from voting ?in? competition and of course, they have their own best interest at heart. They have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase politicians who are siding with them. As it stands right now, insurance companies, not doctors, are making the decisions regarding your health care coverage, while they are looking their bottom line. Business 101 teaches these business mangers how to make a PROFIT, and that is what they are practicing (which is fine, I just don?t want them to continue making my health care decisions while contemplating how much money they need to make for their Boss that month). These big companies stand to lose billions if the American people succeed in creating a Public Health Care option that would serve as a competitor and as an alternative insurance for those who wanted it. Yes, it might cost the richest people in our country (those earning over $350,000.00 a year) a few extra dollars, but I?m willing to let them make that sacrifice. Support INSURANCE FOR ALL AMERICANS? it?s the right thing to do!

[noloyalisti]

Why are we so awed and afraid of the rich in this country? It is time we taxed the rich, reeled in the corporations who own and run our government and take down the aristocratic corporate elite. Only then will we have a real country.

[cydygitt1]

Single-payer health care system a breath of fresh air

By Michael Owen

There is a piece of legislation in Augusta for establishing a single-payer health care system in Maine. This bill, sponsored by Rep. Charles Priest, is a breath of fresh air to a country that spends more than twice the amount of money on health care per capita than any other nation on earth.

There is an excessive amount of information available addressing health care quality, access and cost, compiled by our nation?s top universities, various international organizations and think tanks. In every study, the United States ranks at the top in terms of cost, waste and inequality in treatment.

All of these studies ? albeit outside libertarian think tanks like the Cato Institute ? share a consensus on two fronts. First, our health care system is broken and unsustainable. Second, a single-payer health care system provides universal quality access care most efficiently in terms of cost. We know this from the 2002 Mathematica study, commissioned by our state?s bipartisan Health Security Board.

This definitive study showed that by moving to a single-payer system, Maine could provide universal coverage to its citizens without having to increase health care spending beyond existing state levels. Even more impressive, ?expenditures over time would decline as the system realizes savings through global budgeting, reductions in administrative costs, and enhanced access to primary and preventive care.?

Right now our country has a health care delivery sector dominated by medical-market entrepreneurs seeking a profit. This constrains the clinical freedom of physicians to deliver the best care to their patients, and places an undue burden on businesses that provide health insurance ? creating a grossly inefficient and disproportionately expensive health care system that makes us less competitive globally.

What we have, in fact, is a health care trap, for success is measured by the profit margins of ?health care providers? and the dividends paid to their investors and shareholders, to the detriment of those who are sick and suffering. Often these very same people end up finding themselves overwhelmed by medical debt, regardless of their insurance coverage.

Former President Nixon said in his message to Congress on February 18, 1971: ?Just as our national government has moved to provide equal opportunity in areas such as education, employment and voting, so we must now work to expand the opportunity for all citizens to obtain a decent standard of medical care. For without good health, no man can fully utilize his other opportunities.?

In this for-profit enterprise of lost opportunities ? known as our health care system ? insurance companies are the sellers of health care and patients are the consumers. Under this arrangement, physicians and care practitioners have little influence and power over our health care policy, much as employees have little choice over which health insurance plans are offered to them by their employers. In addition, doctors have to take courses on these health insurance plans so they can know how to administer treatment to their patients.

Besides the conflict of interest that this creates, physicians are left devoting their energies to the ways in which care should be rationed based on how insurance policies are written, instead of how to better serve the public?s health. Yet we wonder why our doctors are leaving their chosen fields for other less demanding professions.

In our country, many of our residents wait until the last minute before seeking medical care, either because they are uninsured or they cannot afford to incur the financial setback written into the deductible portion of their health insurance policy. Diabetes is a good case in point. We waste billions of dollars treating individuals with diabetes by catching the disease in its advanced stages because our current health care system focuses on the costs of treatment more than on preventive medicine. Such is our decent standard of medical care.

Our privatized insurance-based health care system is inordinately expensive and archaic in comparison with the rest of the westernized countries, which all have nationalized universal health plans or single-payer health care systems.

www.bangordailynews.com

[cydygitt1]

Too bad the CONServitards here are unwilling to accept the huge problem that other true conservatives at the Heritage Foundation see with our current health care system......

Conservative Principles of Health Care Reform: The Road Ahead
by the Honorable Michael B. Enzi
Heritage Lecture #1124

The state of our health care system poses the single greatest long-term domestic threat to America's stability, and responsibly reforming this system poses the single greatest challenge to our nation's policymakers in more than a generation. Two years ago, I said that we needed comprehensive health reform. And today, I say it again. I agree with President Obama, millions of Americans, and many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle: The time for reforming our health care system is now.

Our current rate of health care costs is simply unsustainable. Health insurance premiums for the average American family have nearly doubled since 2000. As a nation, our total spending on health care has more than doubled as a share of gross domestic product over the last 30 years. Health care economists agree that, absent reform, this trend will only accelerate over the coming decades.

Spiraling costs are also forcing more employers to cut back or drop the health insurance coverage they offer to their employees. The United States currently has the largest percent of its population uninsured of any industrialized nation. And as recent unemployment numbers show a rise to nearly 9 percent, we are sure to face a growing number of uninsured in the coming months.

We are headed down this unsustainable path because most of the incentives built in to the current system are designed to raise costs. Both in the area of health insurance and in medical services, we currently operate under a system that promotes inefficiency, encourages waste, and invites fraud.

If we stay the course and do nothing new with our nation's health care system, we threaten the American Dream. Our future entitlement obligations will grow, people will pay even more money, and they will receive less care. They will have to fill out more forms and wait longer to get the tests and see the doctors they need to see. There will be fewer doctors, nurses, and health care professionals to take care of an increasing number of patients.

We must reform our health care system, and the time to act is now.

www.heritage.org

[jsd330]

Dems health care plan goes into effect in 2013 and isn't fully implemented until 2018. AP article on the 1000 + page bill. And you want to ram it thru. Go to www.ahiphiwire.org/News Wonder why the major news networks aren't reporting this, could it be they are in the DEMS pocket?

[wdh3007]

If 12 million illegal aliens get health care you know America is facing a catastrophe. Our uncompetant unqualified fraud in chief is trying to control everyday Americans by using health care to complete this quest for total domination. In essence he is deliberatly and willfully trying to destroy the very country he represents. It is very clear now that he does not have the leadership or qualifications to carry out the very principles ideas and beliefs that make a country work. Citizens across the nation are losing their jobs at every corner and the econmomy what is left of it is dying to a point of no return therefore by defination he is a failure in more ways than one. He will have no legasy and his downfall will be his own doing. The rest is history!

[hungry1968-16]

Why would you post such a blatant lie?

No illegal aliens are going to take part in our health care system.

Why would you and Fox News presume that we are going to provide "health care to the world", which is basically what you're suggesting?

[Joe_NY_15]

Check out this Lib.....he/she thinks that Illegal aliens will not take part in our healthcare system.....LMAO !!!! actually rolling on the floor laughing at his naivete'

Are you expecting to leave them on the street dying, Lib ?

If that's the case, wait until we inform the Hispanic community that the Democrats don't care about them......how Ironic and hypocritical of the left

[Joe_NY_15]

by wdh3007 July 21, 2009 6:38 PM EDT

That's the bottom line....You are very wise.....wise indeed

[hungry1968-16]

by beaumuff July 21, 2009 6:00 PM EDT
Lets see Obama got 800 billion and Bush left 400 billion, I would say thats close enough, dummy.






You think that Bush created a $400 BILLION stimulus package?!?!


ROFL!!!!


Maybe you can buy a clue, since you apparently don't have one?!?

[beaumuff]

Bush left Obama about 400 billion in TARP money. Obama and his well thought out stimulis got 800billion, give or take a few billion. Whats the problem, it's money under the bridge.

[hungry1968-16]

by beaumuff July 21, 2009 5:47 PM EDT
Hungry were those two roads worth a trillion? The only road you gheto dwellers need is a road to the south in all those u-hauls coming everyday.






The whole stimulus package wasn't worth a trillion, dummy.

And who in the hell would want to live in the south with all the redneck morons and their "chew dipping" wives, that also double as their sisters?

I'll take the suburbs and snow, over trailer trash and "stupid" anytime.

[beaumuff]

Lets see Obama got 800 billion and Bush left 400 billion, I would say thats close enough, dummy.

[Joe_NY_15]

Suburbs ????? of what, Endicot ? Amherst ? the bustling suburbs of nowhere,ny

Bbwwwaaaaaaahhh !!!

[Joe_NY_15]

by beaumuff July 21, 2009 5:47 PM EDT

I don't have the heart to tell Hungry, that the back woods of NY where he lives, is no different then the south....same rednecks, just northern rednecks.....they are the confederates of the north

[hungry1968-16]

by beaumuff July 21, 2009 5:28 PM EDT
How did the ramrod stimulis shoved through congress with no thought or plan help anybody except AIG and the likes?






I have two resurfaced roads, both of them are within a 1/4 mile of my house, and there are 42 more infrastructure projects in my county being funded with stimulus money.

Keep it coming!!!

We'll take Texas' and South Carolina's share if they don't want it!!

[beaumuff]

Hungry were those two roads worth a trillion? The only road you gheto dwellers need is a road to the south in all those u-hauls coming everyday.

[Joe_NY_15]

We needed a massive trillion dollar stimulus bill to pave your roads in rural new york ?

They couldn't have done their job without it ? They not only get paid from your county/town, but now taking stimulus money, all to pave a road that should have been done with your own local taxes, not my taxes !!! you just don't have a clue do you ?? absolutely not a clue

[Joe_NY_15]

I thought your Socialism Road crew, could have taken care of your roads without making me pay for it.....after all, according to you, the highway department is "socialism"......your idiocy is so funny

[hungry1968-16]

by trapbreaking July 21, 2009 4:52 PM EDT

LOL!!! This the same guy who wanted the stimulus package for the people who bought houses they couldn't pay for? Duh!!!







How did the stimulus package help home buyers, that couldn't pay for their mortgages?

[beaumuff]

How did the ramrod stimulis shoved through congress with no thought or plan help anybody except AIG and the likes?

[jobernie]

if this plan is so great why don't ALL americans (senators and Congressmen and women ) all have to have the same one.

[beaumuff]

Well thats easy, see they are better than us and only want our money. Other than that we are useless and put on the Pelosi hate list.

[jab232]

I don't understand the Blue Dog Democrats.

No public option health care plan, no reform.

My question to the Blue Dog Democrats would be: Describe your own health care plan. What is the deductible? How much co-pay do you have? Is there a limit on the coverage? Can you take it with you in retirement or if you change your job and become a lobbyist? And if the answers are what I suspect they are, if they have health care insurance which is among the best in the U.S.A., I'd ask, "How can you in conscience vote to exclude the American people from a public option plan?"

I understand the Republicans. They are just a front for the big corporations. They were in charge under George W. Bush totally for for six years and basically for eight, and I remember who got rich and who became unemployed. The GOP historically doesn't care about ordinary or middle class people.

But Democrats? Come on!

[beaumuff]

Health care needs to be fixed. My problem is we cannot take the risk of these bungling idiots doing it. Look at them,Pelosi, Reid ,Barney, Geithner(alias Turbo Timmy) Kennedy,and side kick Obama. They have all just been a total bunch of cluster f--- since they arrived in DC.

[trapbreaking]

"White House officials admit there is no easy way to pay for the kind of health care the president wants, but they say he'll push hard to get it."

LOL!!! This the same guy who wanted the stimulus package for the people who bought houses they couldn't pay for? Duh!!!

/

[Wolf1944]

If this is Obama's Waterloo, please let him be Wellington.

[noloyalisti]

Welcome to the United States of Inequity. Where rich greedy corporations decide on who gets health care, a basic human right. How ashamed we should be. How embarrassed we should be that we EVER vote for a corporation loving Republican (ALL of them) or Democrat. Shame.

[credibility2]

Another soon to be failed program demand of Obama. This is what some in the opposition meant by Obama failing - not as the president, but being a failure because of his ill-advised, misguided programs that will hurt rather than help.

[cydygitt1]

Conservative Principles of Health Care Reform: The Road Ahead
by the Honorable Michael B. Enzi

The state of our health care system poses the single greatest long-term domestic threat to America's stability, and responsibly reforming this system poses the single greatest challenge to our nation's policymakers in more than a generation. Two years ago, I said that we needed comprehensive health reform. And today, I say it again. I agree with President Obama, millions of Americans, and many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle: The time for reforming our health care system is now.

Our current rate of health care costs is simply unsustainable. Health insurance premiums for the average American family have nearly doubled since 2000. As a nation, our total spending on health care has more than doubled as a share of gross domestic product over the last 30 years. Health care economists agree that, absent reform, this trend will only accelerate over the coming decades.

Spiraling costs are also forcing more employers to cut back or drop the health insurance coverage they offer to their employees. The United States currently has the largest percent of its population uninsured of any industrialized nation. And as recent unemployment numbers show a rise to nearly 9 percent, we are sure to face a growing number of uninsured in the coming months.

We are headed down this unsustainable path because most of the incentives built in to the current system are designed to raise costs. Both in the area of health insurance and in medical services, we currently operate under a system that promotes inefficiency, encourages waste, and invites fraud.

If we stay the course and do nothing new with our nation's health care system, we threaten the American Dream. Our future entitlement obligations will grow, people will pay even more money, and they will receive less care. They will have to fill out more forms and wait longer to get the tests and see the doctors they need to see. There will be fewer doctors, nurses, and health care professionals to take care of an increasing number of patients.

We must reform our health care system, and the time to act is now.

heritage foundation

[alien_view]

Reduce Health Care Cost = do away with the Tort Lawyers in Congress and the Lobbist. Many of your Congressmen and women are Tort Lawyers. It is in their interest to be able to sue the insurance industry and medical specialist and anyone else they can bleeed for any amount they want. They are looking out for only their selves money and power. That is why you very seldom see a Lawyer in Heaven.
Put a cap on law suits awards and suddenly medical care cost go down, doctors don't have to pay so much for insurance, insurance companies don't have to charge so much to the doctors and the drug companies.

[cydygitt1]

Tort ?reform? will not reduce costs in a meaningful way. The costs reduction it does achieve will be done at the expense of innocent people seeking to uphold their right not to receive negligent, sub-par medical care. Tort ?reform? will not keep insurance companies from finding a way to bilk doctors, and it will not improve the quality of the health care we receive. In other words, so called medical tort ?reform?, is not (reform, def.: the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory). Real health care reform should focus on patient safety through initiatives like improved technology and record keeping, not medical malpractice caps.

[hungry1968-16]

by Joe_NY_15 July 21, 2009 3:08 PM EDT
When Obama supporters suggest he's a total failure, I just have to agree with them.....sorry....it's NOT only me....everyone, including your democrat party moderates are running away from this welfare-care bill.






No - just you 12%er's, and the other Fox News loyalists that ignore reality.

[hungry1968-16]

by Joe_NY_15 July 21, 2009 2:55 PM EDT
charlie874....you are making a lot of sense today






Only you would think so.

[Joe_NY_15]

When Obama supporters suggest he's a total failure, I just have to agree with them.....sorry....it's NOT only me....everyone, including your democrat party moderates are running away from this welfare-care bill.

[cydygitt1]

Myth: Canada is a socialized health care system in which the government runs hospitals and where doctors work for the government.

Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt says single-payer systems are not "socialized medicine" but "social insurance" systems because doctors work in the private sector while their pay comes from a public source. Most physicians in Canada are self-employed. They are not employees of the government nor are they accountable to the government. Doctors are accountable to their patients only. More than 90 percent of physicians in Canada are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Claims are submitted to a single provincial health care plan for reimbursement, whereas in the U.S., claims are submitted to a multitude of insurance providers. Moreover, Canadian hospitals are controlled by private boards and/or regional health authorities rather than being part of or run by the government.