M.D.

OPINION: Medicaid expansion is a real investment in private system health care that will boost Alaska's economy in a time of budget crisis while improving individual and public health for all.

OPINION: Convenient, professional, local emergency care is a very good thing to have in your community, but a current proposal by Hospital Corporation of America will result in limited storefronts lacking the kind of lifesaving resources that only hospital emergency departments can offer.

I have made the heart-wrenching decision as a physician to opt out of Medicare. I do so after working with Sen. Stevens, Sen. Murkowski and Rep. Young for a decade in hopes we could ensure seniors would be able to continue to receive medical services in Alaska.

Congress is on the verge of passing landmark legislation ensuring that most Americans have access to basic health care. Many people are asking whether we, the richest nation in history, can afford to provide health care to our citizens.

Despite the best efforts of Sen. Begich, legislation that would have preserved the security and stability of Medicare recently fell victim to Washington politics.

Spending money on homeless alcoholics, as Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan proposes to do, is never a politically popular move. But the reasons it makes sense should be readily apparent.

Alaskans read in the newspaper or the Internet daily about new advances made in the "battle" against cancer. These advances are made possible, in large part, by patients participating in clinical trials. A clinical trial is a way to test scientifically whether a new treatment is safe, effective and superior to existing treatments.

As proposals for a government-sponsored public health care plan are being debated, it is no surprise that the pharmaceutical industry and the private insurance companies are pulling out the big guns to fight it. They reap huge profits from our current system. It is also no surprise that the American Medical Association has added its voice to the fight against a public plan.

You can be confident that you will receive emergency trauma care in Alaska that compares favorably with care virtually anywhere else in the nation. Right? Maybe, but maybe not.

This July 1, the government health insurance program for elderly and disabled patients will automatically begin draconian payment cuts to physicians. Over a year and a half, the cuts will cost $20 million to Alaska's physician practices caring for Medicare patients. The real losers are Alaska's growing number of Medicare patients who will be left with reduced access to physician care.