Published in the Portland Press Herald on March 20, 2026
by Philip Ptacin, MD, lives in Portland.
I’m writing in response to John Schaberg’s letter of Feb. 25 (“Dr. Oz may want to focus more on Medicare fraud”). While I certainly agree that fraud, in any situation, hurts all of us, I believe that often the institutional fraud in the Medicare system that Schaberg writes about is a symptom of a very sick system.
Organizations like Martin’s Point, that are primarily engaged in “primary care” — i.e., family physicians and family nurse practitioners, etc. — are struggling to survive. Our government simply does not reimburse family health care providers and their organizations nearly enough to serve us well.
In health care, doctors are taught to not simply treat symptoms but to find the cause of the symptoms. We all know that the USA is the only advanced country in the world without universal health care. This country needs health care for all that is well funded by all of us citizens. Let’s fix our sick American health care system.