HMS Students Join Health Care Rally

BOSTON--Members of the health care profession, hundreds of citizens and scores of students assembled last night at Boston's hallowed Faneuil Hall to criticize the increasing privatization in the U.S. health care system.

More than 800 people swelled into the historic meeting house in an evening that included speeches by prominent members of the health care community.

The keynote address of the evening came from Bernard Lown, professor of cardiology, emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Lown spoke of the pressing need to reconsider the motivations of for-profit health maintenance organizations.

"We are in the midst of a crisis of unprecedented moral dimension," he said. "One cannot simultaneously believe that for-profit health care providers desiring to maximize profits care about patients."

"The thought of profiting in medicine robs the profession of any kind of caring, compassionate notions," Lown added. "Our new ethos of health care boils down to two words: buyer beware."

The forum was organized by the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care.

The Committee, formed in 1996, consists of members from various sectors of the health care community. In addition to the evening forum, the Committee staged a second Boston Tea Party yesterday afternoon in which health care providers dumped crates painted with the words' corporate greed,' 'loss of confidence' and 'declining care' into the harbor.

"America is ready to rethink its health care system," Lown said.

A second panelist, Dr. Judith Shindul Rothschild, said, "Doctors and nurses know that profiteering is killing patients and squeezing every ounce of compassion from the United States health care system."

Following Rothschild's comments, Dr. Linda Peeno, former medical director for an HMO recounted how, day after day, she denied patients access to coverage because it would bring lower profits to her employer.

"I knew it was time to quit when, after a corporate meeting, I received a standing ovation for drafting a resolution that would amount to denying coverage to hundred of our patients," she said.

The committee works to raise public consciousness about the mounting crisis of uninsured citizens.

Currently, more than 40 million Americans go without basic health care insurance, Rothschild said. By the year 2000, more than 50 million will have no health coverage.

In less than two years, Rothschild said, one in six people will lack basic health care.

"This perverse attitude in the American community must not continue," Lown said.

"For-profit health care is an oxymoron," he added. "We [the committee] do not propose to go back to fee-for-service care, but we do advocate an end to market-driven health insurance, first in Massachusetts and then on a national level."

Following the two-hour forum, members of the audience leaving Faneuil Hall said they were fired up and had been convinced that health care needs reform.

"We need students from Harvard and around Boston to get involved," said Maryellen Morris '97, who is currently a student in the School of Public Health

"I knew it was time to quit when, after a corporate meeting, I received a standing ovation for drafting a resolution that would amount to denying coverage to hundred of our patients," she said.

The committee works to raise public consciousness about the mounting crisis of uninsured citizens.

Currently, more than 40 million Americans go without basic health care insurance, Rothschild said. By the year 2000, more than 50 million will have no health coverage.

In less than two years, Rothschild said, one in six people will lack basic health care.

"This perverse attitude in the American community must not continue," Lown said.

"For-profit health care is an oxymoron," he added. "We [the committee] do not propose to go back to fee-for-service care, but we do advocate an end to market-driven health insurance, first in Massachusetts and then on a national level."

Following the two-hour forum, members of the audience leaving Faneuil Hall said they were fired up and had been convinced that health care needs reform.

"We need students from Harvard and around Boston to get involved," said Maryellen Morris '97, who is currently a student in the School of Public Health