How should entrepreneurial physicians respond to the call for healthcare reform?

Paul Craig Roberts has a distinguished career track record as a journalist and economist.

His Wikipedia entry reads as follows:

Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939, in Atlanta, Georgia) is an economist  and a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as the "Father of Reaganomics".
He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. He is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology  and he holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University where he was a member of Merton College.

In 1992 he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 1993 the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States.

These credentials are enough to persuade me that his thoughts are worth reading and mulling over. As a critic of both the Democrats and Republicans, he strikes me as an independent thinker... which is to be admired, given the partisanship that we are facing daily in the media.

I came across a recent article of his titled "How Wall St Destroyed Private Medicine", an eloquent rant in which he makes three key statements:

1. "My doctor has more people employed doing paperwork than he does delivering health care."
2. "Corporate lobbies and campaign contributions use government power to create bureaucratized monopolies that destroy medicine for the practitioner and the patient. Wall Street pushes for greater shareholder earnings, which are achieved by denying care."
3. "The lobbies of greed rule America. The White House, Congress, even the federal judiciary are impotent in the face of capitalist greed. There is no government of the people, for the people, by the people, only the rule of private interests."

His words voice much of the frustration and impotence that so many physicians express to me. He has articulated some of what I find so troubling about healthcare here.

And I find myself grappling with questions such as:

• How should physicians respond to the mandate to improve US healthcare?

• Who should speak for us as a group?

• And, if entrepreneurship is The American Way, by symbolizing all that is creative, innovative and industrious about this country, what roles can entrepreneurial physicians play in producing better health outcomes more efficiently and at a more acceptable cost?

And I am curious, Is this issue on a par with votes for women and blacks, and workers’ rights?  A blog commenter remarked elsewhere in response to my comment about the Massachssetts result (partially quoted): "I hold both sides of the table (along with any Independents!) accountable to work out their differences and get something meaningful and useful accomplished."

His response: "With respect Philippa, this isn’t going to happen on anything meaningful. The GOP voted to a man and woman against what is really modest reform.

History tells us that in the western world things like votes for women and blacks, and workers’ rights, were only gained through huge struggle and sacrifice. Those with power and money do not as a rule sit round a table and give it up politely."?

Is he correct? Is this what it is going to take - a Civil Rights-size revolt? And are we ready for this?