Media Advisory: Stanford Podcast Says Government-Run Health Care is Not the Solution

Business Wire, June 18, 2009

STANFORD, Calif. -- Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Stanford University’s Victor Fuchs agree on one key aspect of health-care reform: President Obama should scuttle the public agency option.

Fuchs, PhD, one of the nation’s foremost health economists and the Henry J. Kaiser Jr. Professor, Emeritus, says a government-run plan will not solve the huge financial issues that plague health-care in America. Fuchs recently outlined his perspective in an article titled, “The proposed government health insurance company: No substitute for real reform,” which ran in the New England Journal of Medicine in May.

Fuchs discusses how the current health-care system functions, what its major problems are and what reforms are needed to solve them in a podcast by the Stanford School of Medicine’s Office of Communication & Public Affairs. The interview can be heard at http://med.stanford.edu/121/2009/fuchs.html.

To subscribe to “1:2:1,” a podcast series about advances in health-care policy and biomedical research, visit iTunes at http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/itunes.stanford.edu.1635905012.01635905015.

The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation’s top 10 medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://mednews.stanford.edu. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. For information about all three, please visit http://stanfordmedicine.org/about/news.html.