SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - A group of Utah health care providers has teamed up to support federal reform plans, while other doctors say Obama's plan won't work.
On Wednesday, a group calling themselves "Utah White Coats" gathered at the Salt Lake Jewish Community Center near the U of U to urge Utah's U.S. representatives to pass comprehensive healthcare reform.
Dr. Claudia Fruin, a Bountiful pediatrician said, “There's a lot of gaps in coverage for children, families, teenagers, young adults, that to me is just unacceptable.
The group gathered more than 500 online signatures from doctors and other health care providers including Nobel prize-winning geneticist and U of U medical researcher Mario Capecchi, calling on Congressman Jim Matheson to support the congressional health reform bills.
Jessica Kendrick, Community Engagement Director for the Utah Health Policy Project that organized the petition drive said the group believes comprehensive health care reform is long overdue.
ABC 4 News also contacted Dr. Paul Harrison, a Sandy Dermatologist who opposes the Obama health care reform package now at the center of a heated national political debate. Harrison says the 550-pus doctors and health care professionals who signed up to petition Utah congressional delegation to support the Obama plan do not represent a majority among Utah doctors. Harrison says there are between 5,000 to 8,000 medical doctors practicing in Utah, and 550 represents approximately 10 percent of that group.
ABC 4 contacted the Utah Medical Association, and Mark Fotheringham, UMA Vice President of Communications said there are anywhere between 4,500 to 5,500 practicing physicians in the state of Utah.
Harrison is a member of The Coalition to Protect Patient’s Rights and he says most of his colleagues believe the Obama plan fails to address the real causes of the high price of health care.
Harrison said, “None of the ideas in Obama’s plan reduce premiums.”
Kendrick says the “White Coats” organization is a bi-partisan effort to gather a general consensus among Utah physicians on health care issues. Harrison disagreed, saying the Utah Health Policy Project has become more political of late, siding with Obama’s plan almost exclusively.
Kendrick said the coalition is not political, and welcomes ideas from all doctors, regardless of their political affiliation.
Speaking of using an online petition, Kendrick said she is certain that an overwhelming majority of the people who added their names to the organization are legitimate practicing doctors in Utah.
By late Wednesday, Kendrick said the total number of medical workers who signed up to join the "White Coats" petition exceeded 900.
Kendrick also said doctors and medical students within the University of Utah Medical Center and medical school were heavily represented in the group of endorsers in part because their email addresses are published on the web.
Kendrick said most Utah doctors have not yet been contacted by the organization, which mostly used e-mails, phone calls and word-of-mouth to recruit petitioners.
