Emeritus Professor and Medical Student Activists Support Healthy Wisconsin
Madison – Health care for everyone is what we need in Wisconsin is the message from a group of medical students and an emeritus professor of public health and family medicine. Medical students argue that Healthy Wisconsin will help ensure future doctors will stay in Wisconsin, countering arguments from those opposed to health care for all.
“Ensuring coverage for everyone in the state will not drive physicians from Wisconsin or discourage physicians-in-training from seeking residency and placements here. On the contrary, today's classes of medical students are heavily invested in giving quality care that is accessible to everyone," said Elizabeth Doherty, second year medical student University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
“Ideally, coverage would be universal and uncomplicated in its financing and administration. Healthy Wisconsin is a big step in the right direction. As future physicians, we believe no one's health should suffer due to economic "inadequacy." Especially at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, we understand that a just policy can do so much more for so many more than individual clinic visits ever will,” Doherty said.
Emeritus professor of family medicine and public health at University of Wisconsin Medical School William E Scheckler, MD added, “Wisconsin has a long history of being a laboratory for changes that benefit our citizens. As someone who has spent over 30 years teaching Family Medicine residents and medical students about the value of cost effective, personalized, family based care I am excited about the addition of Healthy Wisconsin to our basic Badger Care. In my view, universal health care for EVERY citizen of the state is a fundamental moral requirement for good government.”
Healthy Wisconsin supports medical professionals by:
• Building on the strong excellent health care system Wisconsin currently has
• Guaranteeing patients have a medical home strengthening the doctor patient relationship
• Providing hassle free billing; no arguing with insurance companies about payment
• Guaranteeing payment for services, no more bad debt
• Offering More time to practice medicine and be the best doctors
“The Legislature cannot run from the fact that health care is the number one issue for the people of Wisconsin. This budget is our opportunity to do something. If Assembly Republicans don’t think the people of Wisconsin deserve access to health care through Healthy Wisconsin, they can offer any other idea to actually provide health care to those that can’t afford insurance right now or when the cost doubles in ten years,” Senator Erpenbach, chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee said.
