Daniel C. Bryant, MD, lives in Cape Elizabeth.

In his Nov. 23 Maine Sunday Telegram op-ed (“When health insurance breaks down, we break too“), Dr. Jeffrey Barkin, former president of the Maine Medical Association, gave an expert’s critique of our troubled health care system.

Though Dr. Barkin did end his piece on a hopeful note — “it is never too late to do the right thing” — he did not recommend any specific reforms, such as the publicly funded, privately provided universal health care model (“single-payer,” Medicare for All).

I had a chance to discuss that model with him and his colleague Stephen Woods (CEO of TideSmart) on the Nov. 3 episode of their “Healthy Conversations“ radio program. As we struggle to deal with the problems Dr. Barkin outlined in his piece, I would like to alert readers to the fact that many medical providers do support such reform.

The Maine State Nurses Association is a subsidiary of National Nurses United, which advocates for passage of Medicare for All.

In May, Coralie (Cokie) Giles, RN president of the Maine State Nurses Association and vice president of National Nurses United, testified in support of LD 1883, a publicly funded universal health care plan for Maine.

On behalf of the Maine Medical Association, Lani Graham, MD, also testified in support of LD 1883.

The MMA’s 2023 reform statement concludes, “… we are calling for federal health care reform that provides universal coverage through either an adequately funded single-payer system or a combination of private and public financing …”

In 2020, the American College of Physicians stated it “recommends transitioning to a system of universal coverage through either a single-payer system, or a public choice to be offered along with regulated private insurance.”

Despite failure of a state-based single-payer plan effort in 2014, the Vermont Medical Society passed this resolution in 2020: “Be It Resolved that the Vermont Medical Society express its support for universal access to comprehensive, affordable, high-quality health care through a single-payer national health program …”

In 2014, the AMA Medical Student Section adopted this resolution: “RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association shall advocate for legislation to implement a single-payer health insurance system.”

Though it did not pass, in 2023 the Medical Student Section proposed a resolution to counter the AMA’s longstanding opposition to publicly funded universal health care: “RESOLVED, That our AMA adopts a neutral stance regarding single-payer health insurance.”

Two single-payer advocacy organizations, Physicians for a National Health Program and Maine AllCare, were founded mainly by physicians and have large physician participation.

Though they usually do not take official stands on health care policy, some hospitals have expressed interest in the global institutional budgets, reliable payments, elimination of bad debt and charity care and administrative simplification featured in single-payer plans.

In a March 11, 2019, Portland Press Herald op-ed, for example, Les Fossel, then a Lincoln Hospital Board and Health and Human Services Committee member, wrote, “We must pay attention to what works. Universal health care works. It is less costly and more effective.”

And speaking at the Hancock County Health Care Forum in October, Doug Jones, former chairman of the Maine Hospital Association Board and Maine and New York hospitals CEO, described the problems hospitals are facing and concluded, “I believe that single-payer is the way to go …. I’m going to be involved in it at some point because I believe in it.”

As Dr. Barkin said, “Something has to give. But it should not be people’s health.” And who knows more about that than nurses, doctors and hospitals?