Callaway County Concerned Citizens will host an informal discussion on the subject of Medicare for All, sometimes called universal health care or single-payer health care.
The speaker will be Dr. Robert Blake, Emeritus Professor of Family and Community Medicine, University of Missouri. The meeting will take place at 5 p.m. Monday at KACO, 600 Commons Drive, Fulton.
Blake is a retired family physician who was on the faculty of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine for many years. In the '80s and '90s, he sometimes supervised family practice residents and medical students at the Fulton clinic and delivered babies at the birthing center of the Fulton hospital.
Blake has a deep understanding of challenges to health care in rural communities. Besides his work in Fulton, one early job was practicing medicine in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina.
For 20 years, he has been a member of the national organization Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of health professionals and nonprofessionals that advocates for universal healthcare in the U.S.
With other physicians and advocates, Blake is a member of the recently-organized Columbia chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. Information about PNHP is available at pnhp.org .