Oct. 10, 2012 — Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is a practicing internist, and co-founder and board member of Physicians for a National Health Program. Dr. Woolhandler is a professor at the City University of New York School of Public Health at Hunter College and has previously taught at Harvard Medical School.
Remapping Debate recently interviewed Dr. Woolhandler, and discussed her view of the inadequacies in the way health care is provided and paid for in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and in the Massachusetts health care reform, which the ACA is said to be modeled after.
Dr. Woolhandler is convinced both that we can get significantly more for our health care dollars if we moved away from a profit-driven system. She also said that viewing patients as “consumers” who need to put more “skin in the game” is deeply misguided.