Single Payer Advocate Quentin Young Dies at 92

Dr. Quentin Young, past president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and from 1992-2014 the organization’s national coordinator, died on March 7 in Berkeley, California where he had been under the watchful eyes and care of his daughters and other family members.

He was 92.

In addition to his work with PNHP, Dr. Young co-founded and chaired for many years the Chicago-based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group.

“Dr. Young was known for his sharp, clear-eyed analysis of social and economic problems, particularly in health care, his deep commitment to social justice and racial equality, his quick wit, his insuppressible optimism, personal courage, and his ability to inspire those around him to join him in the battle for a more equitable and caring world,” said Robert Zarr, president of PNHP.

Beginning in the late 1980s, he was perhaps the nation’s most eloquent and high-profile spokesperson for single-payer national health insurance, or improved Medicare for all, and was a vigorous champion of single-payer legislation, notably “The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” H.R. 676.

President Barack Obama was the patient of Dr. Young’s practice partner, Dr. David Scheiner, for twenty years before becoming president.

But both Dr. Young and Dr. Scheiner had a policy falling out with Obama over single payer. In 2007, Dr. Scheiner — also a single payer advocate — was invited — then un-invited to a White House roundtable on health policy issues.

In Young’s autobiography — Everybody In, Nobody Out: Memoirs of a Rebel Without a Pause — published last year, Young writes that “had I been in Congress, I would have unequivocally voted against Obamacare.”

“It’s a bad bill. Whether it’s worse than what we have now could be argued. We rather think because of its ability to enshrine and solidify the corporate domination of the health system, it’s worse than what we have now. But whether it is somewhat better or a lot worse is immaterial. The health system isn’t working in this country — fiscally, medically, socially, morally.”

Young rejected the idea that President Obama should have compromised on single payer in the face of industry opposition.

http://www.singlepayeraction.org/2016/03/08/single-payer-advocate-dr-quentin-young-dies-at-92/