Private insurance companies will remain in “driver’s seat” if health care reforms being promoted by the president and Congress are approved, according to a prominent advocate for a single-payer system.

Dr. Paul Hochfeld, an emergency room physician who has made a documentary and is conducting a national tour, a “Care-A-Van” promoting a single-payer, Medicare-for-all solution, made the pronouncement after participating in a meeting with President Barack Obama and 150 doctors in the Rose Garden Oct. 5.

“Unfortunately, the current bills in Congress and the similar measures supported by the president will not fix the health care crisis – they will only perpetuate the miserable situation we presently have,” Hochfeld said in a statement. “These incremental reforms will leave the for-profit, private insurance industry in the driver’s seat. The insurance companies will continue to deny claims and raise premiums. Tens of millions will remain uninsured and underinsured. There will be no cost control.”

Hochfeld, a Portland, Ore.-based doctor, called for “only those who are knowledgeable in public health, health policy and health economics and who do not have ties to the health industry” to write reform legislation.

“Those who themselves or whose families have directly suffered because of the deficiencies of the current non-system should also be involved in the drafting of the bill,” he said. “The health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, on the other hand, have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are only interested in corporate profits. They should be kept out of the room.”

Hochfeld was part of a delegation of about 15 pro-single-payer doctors organized by Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of 17,000 doctors who advocate for single-payer national health insurance, who gathered outside White House gates before the meeting, hoping for admittance. At the last minute, Hochfeld was allowed to enter the meeting, PNHP said.