The uninsured and indigent are top priorities of both the American Medical Association and Utah Medical Association, which unveiled a new program Wednesday to provide free medical care to Utah's poor.
Dr. John C. Nelson, new UMA president, said the association this year plans to establish health centers throughout the state where the indigent can receive medication and care from physicians and nurses volunteering their time.The facilities, he said, will be modeled after a clinic now operating in Ogden.
"I am sure we will not be able to care for all those we would like to," Nelson said in a press conference Wednesday morning. "But physicians in Utah would like to try to make a difference. There are a lot of problems in our society, and we don't think it's time to throw up our hands. We think it's time to roll up our sleeve. We really do care and want to show the community we do."
Similar sentiments were expressed by Dr. Alan R. Nelson, AMA president, who spoke at the opening session of the UMA annual meeting in the University Park Hotel.
During the three-day conference the House of Delegates, the UMA's 290-member policy-making body, will discuss such pressing issues as medical ethics; rural health assistance; mandatory continuing medical education; tobacco legislation; abortion, and medical assistance to the poor and uninsured.
"America has 31 million uninsured people that we must take care of," Alan Nelson (no relation to John Nelson) told members of the news media. "Of that 31 million uninsured, two-thirds are working." Alan Nelson said that's why the AMA is calling for required employer coverage, which will be phased in with tax advantages for small businesses.
"We don't want to drive small businesses out of business," he said. "It won't help a person who lacks insurance to also lack a job."
Alan Nelson, a Utah physician who became chief of the AMA this summer, said despite problems facing America's health care system, the association strongly believes it's nonetheless superior to government-sponsored health care.
The AMA chief maintains that under a system similar to Canada's, costs would skyrocket because the demand would go up.
"Efficiency would go down because no one would have the guts to ration care," he said. "You can't tell me that government does anything more efficiently than the free enterprise system."
To further assist the poor, Nelson said the AMA is advocating that the Medicaid program be changed so all persons below the poverty level would be eligible. Medicaid eligibility would no longer be based on categories such as Aid to Dependent Children.
"There should be voucher assistance for the near-poor, and we should have a uniformed system of benefits so that those Medicaid programs in the country that have inadequate benefit packages would provide adequate preventive health care services and prenatal care services," he said.
Alan Nelson said the AMA is also seeking the establishment of state risk pools, to which all insurers contribute. Such pools would enable the medically uninsurable - people with diabetes, AIDS, and chronic illnesses - to purchase insurance at group rates.
Thursday the UMA House of Delegates will review 14 resolutions. Educational sessions of the 16 specialty societies will also be held before the meeting concludes Friday.