"Time Will Tell": Dr John Geyman to be Honored at 26th National Conference, and to Preview Latest Published Critique of American System of Health Care Financing
Last Updated on April 16, 2022 by Lee Burnett, DO, FAAFP
Author; University of Washington Emeritus Professor
Doctor John Geyman, Emeritus Professor of the University of Washington and a Senior Fellow of the National Conferences, will be honored by the 26th National Conference on Primary Health Care Access, an invitational conference held April 13-15, 2016 at the Hyatt Regency Orange County.
Doctor Geyman’s lifetime accomplishments are extraordinary. After practicing rural family medicine in Mount Shasta, California, he was invited to establish one of the nation’s first residency programs for training family physicians at the then county hospital in Santa Rosa, California.
His subsequent academic accomplishments included the founding of the University of California, Davis’ network of family medicine residency programs throughout the Northern and Central California towns of Redding, Stockton, Martinez, Modesto and Merced. Forty years later, the network of programs continues 40 years later to be major producer of family physicians.
Dr Geyman was the long-term editor in chief of the professional Journal of Family Practice e and was also the Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Washington.
In recent years, Doctor Geyman’s academic focus has been on the impact on American health care of the ways in which it is financed. He has in recent years been associated with the group, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), which advocates for a single payer for American healthcare, having served as PNHP’s president.
Critiquing American Health Care Financing
As with other nations, the United States (and state and local governments as well) spends a very large percentage of its budget on health care.
In 2015, the 50th anniversary of the passage of Medicare and Medicaid will be observed. Doctor Geyman is a strong advocate for the basic principles underlying the financing and administration of the original Medicare system.
However, such later additions to Medicare as “Medicare advantage” programs and pharmaceutical funding mechanisms introduced or reinforced “for-profit” intermediaries, that Doctor Geyman argues transformed and distorted American health care.
In his latest book, Geyman argues that 2010’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is irredeemably flawed and will ultimately prove unsuccessful.
Dr Geyman’s presentation at the 26th National Conference will summarize the findings of his latest work, which, in his words “shows the increased challenges of restoring primary care to the base of our ‘system’ [of healthcare].”