US doctors call for health care reform

US: The 100 doctors in white coats at a rally in Washington did not dispute that there should be health care reform in the United States.

There has to be reform, they said, but President Barack Obama and Congress are going about it ham-fistedly and have picked the wrong bad guy.

"The American health care system is sick, but it's not the physician's fault," Richard Chudacoff, a gynecologist from Nevada who was one of the organizers of the rally, said. "It's the administration of health care that is sick," he added.

Many of the doctors at the rally pointed to two chief causes of US health care's ills: the insurance industry and malpractice lawsuits.

Kevin Smith told AFP he was forced "for economic reasons" to stop doing many of the medically necessary ear, nose and throat procedures he is qualified to do at his practice in Texas, in favor of plastic surgery.

Washington, Sunday, AFP