By Jeffrey Barg

Published October 1997

• Introduction
• Physician Unions
• Physician Organizations
• Physician-Owned Insurers
• National Health Insurance

• React to this article in the Discussion Forum.

While some publications ask the question: "What will replace these private practices and institutions," we at Physician’s News Digest prefer to ask: "What could and should replace them?"

Given this orientation, we could think of no better way to celebrate our 10th anniversary than to gather together a group of established physician leaders with institutional bases who have distinguished themselves through their advocacy of different future paths for Delaware Valley physicians.

The first essay, co-authored by Robert Sklaroff, M.D., and Raymond Lodise, M.D., presents a vision of how unionizing could help physicians regain control of medical care. Lodise as president of the Philadelphia County Medical Society (PCMS) gained national attention for his exploration of an affiliation between the PCMS (and other neighboring county medical societies) and the AFL-CIO. Now Lodise and Sklaroff, president of the Pennsylvania Society of Internal Medicine, provide an updated plan for the development of a Pennsylvania Physicians Guild tied to a consortium of Pennsylvania medical societies.

The second essay, authored by Anthony Coletta, M.D., president and CEO of Millennium Physician Organization, argues that the corporatization of health care in American is a forgone conclusion and that physicians must decide whether to be driven by such enterprises or whether to drive these enterprises themselves. In this world, Coletta contends, physician organizations provide the best opportunity for physicians to be empowered to deliver high quality care for their patients.

The third essay, authored by the chairman of Pennsylvania’s only physician-owned health insurer, Gary Brown, M.D., shows how a physician-owned health insurer, working with physician organizations and medical societies, can cultivate a strong physician voice in an era of for-profit health care entities and huge health systems.

The fourth essay, authored by Walter Tsou, M.D., M.P.H., medical director of the Montgomery County Health Department and co-chair of the Philadelphia chapter of Physicians for a National Health Plan, cuts across the grain of the previous essays. Tsou argues that physician attempts to combat health care corporations on their own turf will ultimately be self-defeating and relegate health care to being an economic commodity. The best way for physicians to be empowered to deliver high quality, affordable health care to all Americans is for them to seek national health insurance.

We hope to foster a serious discussion of these alternatives in this 10th anniversary supplement—one which will continue on our web site’s discussion forum (http://www.physiciansnews.com/discussion.html), letters to the editor, and at a panel discussion on November 4th, 1997 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM, at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in Philadelphia. You are invited to participate in all of the above.