Universal Health Insurance Is Best Choice: Interview with Michael Kaplan, M.D., on "Spirit Of The Berkshires", Available On-Line

Michael Kaplan, M.D., a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, discusses Health Insurance Reform on ’Spirit of the Berkshires’, a weekly television series produced at CTSB-TV in South Lee, Massachusetts. The show is broadcast on cable stations throughout western Massachusetts, and can be seen on-line at http://www.andrewcort.com/spirit.html (Episode 6).

Dr. Kaplan makes a strong case for single-payer universal health insurance, and he responds clearly and definitively to many of the concerns of the opposition.

According to Kaplan, every nation that has a universal health insurance program has seen success. If the plan currently before the U.S. Congress were passed, every American would be covered, the coverage would be excellent and robust (after all, the plan would apply to Senators and Representatives as well as ordinary citizens), medical decisions would be made exclusively by doctors in consultation with their patients (not by insurance company bureaucrats or government bureaucrats), the only government function would be to pay the bills, medical research and development would increase, and the savings would be enormous -- current insurance companies spend more than 30% of every dollar on overhead, which could easily be reduced to 3% (which is what our Medicare program spends) or even 1.1% (which is the overhead costs in Canada). Minimal taxes would have to be raised, but these would be more than offset by the end of premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other out-of-pocket expenses.

Dr. Kaplan is a Family Practitioner, and is a faculty member with Tufts University School of Medicine and The University of Massachusetts Medical School.

The host of ’Spirit of the Berkshires’, Dr. Andrew Cort, D.C., J.D., is a teacher, an attorney, and a doctor of chiropractic. He is the author of “Return to Meaning: The American Psyche in Search of its Soul” (Outskirts Press, 2008) and several other books.

CTSB is a 501(c)(3) membership organization formed to facilitate, encourage, and promote community involvement in the production of locally originated, non-commercial television and other media. The program content may be informative, educational, or entertaining. CTSB serves the towns of Lee, Lenox, Stockbridge, Great Barrington and Sheffield. For more information please call 413-243-8211, or email info@ctsbtv.org.

Contact Information

Dr. Andrew Cort

Host of ’Spirit of the Berkshires’

CTSB-TV

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