Las Vegas
We'd Lose Under Single-Payer System
Dr. Kevin Grumbach made several points in defense of his argument for a single payer system of health care, and he made a glib comment—“physicians in Canada do very well”—to quell the worry that this system does not adequately reward physicians (“What is the best way to reform the U.S. health care system?” December 2006, p. 28).
The facts say otherwise. According to recent statistics from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the average income for a U.S. physician is $180,000, while in Canada it is $100,000. Given the real estate market in San Francisco where Dr. Grumbach practices, I imagine the next generation of physicians there will be camping out in the city's Tenderloin district if we adopt the Canadian model.
Rand L. Werbitt, M.D.
Stamford, Conn.