title:  Thousands Of Doctors Agree: Single-Payer Is The Way To Go
text: Despite recent assertions from certain Democratic presidential candidates, the dream of a single-payer national healthcare system in the United States is alive and worth fighting for   even if it may not be implemented tomorrow. Thousands of physicians have recently endorsed a proposal to make that dream a reality.On Thursday, the Physicians for a National Health Program released their final proposal for creating a single-payer or as it is commonly referred to a  Medicare-for-all  national health care plan. The proposal was crafted by 39 top physicians and released in an editorial titled  Moving Forward from the Affordable Care Act to a Single-Payer System,  which was published in the American Journal of Public Health. The proposal also came with a political punch. At the time of the proposal s release 2,280 physicians and 168 medical students endorsed the plan. If you are a physician or work in the healthcare industry, you can endorse the proposal on PNHP s website. Our nation is at a crossroads,  said Dr. Adam Gaffney, a Boston-based pulmonary disease and critical care specialist, lead author of the editorial and co-chair of the Working Group that produced the proposal.  Despite the passage of the Affordable Care Act six years ago, 30 million Americans remain uninsured, an even greater number are underinsured, financial barriers to care like co-pays and deductibles are rising, bureaucracy is growing, provider networks are narrowing, and medical costs are continuing to climb. PNHP notes that their proposal would  save about $500 billion annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of insurance firms, and the massive paperwork they inflict on hospitals and doctors.  Furthermore, since there is only one health insurance plan, there would be no bars in place from insurers that prevent individuals from seeing whichever doctor they choose. That has been a major talking point for conservatives over the past few years that would be immediately invalidated. Going back to the cost savings benefits of the program, since there would only be one major healthcare provider, the cost of medications and other medical devices would almost instantly decline, due to strengthened negotiating power.It almost understandable why some progressives might think that a serious push for a single-payer healthcare system might be a waste of resources, and instead advocate for small reforms. However, I don t think that there has ever been a better time to go all in for a single-payer healthcare system.Republicans have been fighting the Affordable Care Act tooth and nail since its implementation. During this time, they have not been able to come out with any real alternative proposals or ways to improve the system. Instead, right-wing politicians and pundits have programmed their supporters to hate the ACA, or Obamacare, without question. Despite having an outright hatred for the concept as a whole, conservatives actually tend to have fairly high favorable attitudes towards specific elements of the plan.This gives progressives an incredible talking point to make   that they, too, want to end Obamacare. That may sound like a heretical statement to make considering the all-out rhetorical war that has raged over keeping the healthcare reforms in place for over half a decade. However, progressives shouldn t shy away from such a statement. The ACA was meant to end one day. It was created with the intention of being a stepping stone towards a single-payer system. That doesn t mean that the successful aspects of the law would need to be done away with if we switched to a single-payer system; if anything, the last few years have taught us much about how such a system would need to work in order to be successful. Featured image from Photo by Lefteris Pitarakis   WPA Pool/Getty Images