"The American health care system is broken and should be fixed by moving to a single-payer, universal system that could be called enhanced Medicare, Democratic congressional nominee Al Weed told a group of 50 senior citizens in Albemarle County on Wednesday.

Weed, who is challenging 5th District Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. in the Nov. 2 election, said a single-payer system could reduce overall health care costs while ensuring choice and personal freedom for patients and providing more efficient and better health care.

'In spite of the massive amounts we as a nation pay for health care, we are not a healthy nation,' Weed, a former U.S. Army medic, told the Senior Statesmen of Virginia group meeting at the Northside Library. 'In a study of medical outcomes in a group of 13 industrialized nations in 2000, the U.S. ranked an average of twelfth, second from the bottom.'

'The major reason for much of the inefficiency in our system is the very confusing and wasteful way we try to pay for medical care,' Weed said. 'Ours is a complicated mix of private insurance and public payment.'

The Nelson County Democrat said the current private, for-profit system 'is not cheap, but it is profitable. … Private insurers have an administrative overhead of between 8 to 12 percent, compared to Medicare’s less than 3 percent.'

Goode, a Rocky Mount Republican, said he does not favor 'a socialized system, for example England or Canada.'

'I feel we should help the consumer through a system of refundable tax credits … to help people considerably with their insurance,' Goode said in a telephone call from Brunswick County.

Goode said he could not accept an invitation to Wednesday’s Albemarle County event due to a scheduling conflict but 'I hope to come in October, assuming we get out as expected' for an October congressional recess.

Weed said his single-payer health care system would not be socialized medicine as practiced in Canada or England, where health care providers are paid government salaries.

'I’m not proposing that at all,' Weed said. 'It’s just a payment system. You would have free choice of where you went, free choice of your provider [and] they wouldn’t be working for the government.'

The Democrat, who founded Mountain Cove Vineyards in Nelson in 1973, said he disagrees with Goode’s track record in Congress in support of the Bush administration’s Medicare reform bill and its 'hard-to-figure-out' prescription drug cards for seniors.

'It doesn’t solve the basic problem, which is affordable prescription care,' Weed said.

Goode said the Medicare reform plan’s key reforms for prescription drugs 'don’t take effect yet. They will by the end of next year. The neediest citizens and those with catastrophic care will be helped considerably.'

'I think that was a positive step,' Goode said of the Bush administration’s prescription drug reform. 'It doesn’t do everything everyone wants.'

Weed said the nation needs an open debate on health care access. He said that, unlike Goode, he will take no contributions from the drug and insurance 'vested interests … who profit from the dysfunctional system that we in America have accepted for far too long.' (Bob Gibson, Daily Progress, August 12, 2004)

Contact Bob Gibson at (434) 978-7243 or bgibson@dailyprogress.com.