About Us

About Dr. Blythe

Dr. Stephen Blythe is a family physician with a private solo practice in Melbourne, Florida. He is married with two daughters, 14 and 18.

Dr. Blythe, a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, ran for congress in 2008 to try to bring a voice for the uninsured to Washington. Although he received more votes than any Democrat before in his very conservative district, he was unsuccessful. He is now working in other ways to help the uninsured.

Dr. Blythe attended medical school with a scholarship from the National Health Service Corps, and when he finished his training he was assigned to work in a small Maine fishing village – literally sixty miles from the nearest traffic light! As the locals said: “This ain’t the end of the eahth, but you can see it from heah”. Being thirty miles from a thirty-bed hospital meant a trial by fire for a new doctor. He became a typical country doctor – he made house calls, delivered babies, and sometimes got paid in lobster.

But when he started practicing twenty-four years ago, there were no $10-a-pill medicines and there were no CT scans or MRI scans that were unaffordable. Most of his patients could get the outpatient care they needed. Only hospitalization and surgery could bankrupt most people without insurance. Practicing on the border of Canada, he participated as a provider with the New Brunswick Medicare System – all Canadians receive health care paid for through their income taxes. He enjoyed the fact that everyone in this system received care without question and received care equally.

He has served on the faculty of a Family Medicine Residency Training Program in Denver and has also worked in developing nations as a volunteer, once providing care to refugees in Central America for several months.

Dr. Blythe examining a young Guatemalan patient

Dr. Blythe examining a young Guatemalan girl on a medical service trip near Lake Atitlan.

Every day Dr. Blythe works to help his uninsured patients get the care they need. Especially with the growing number of unemployed and uninsured, it is a constant battle with hospitals, labs, imaging centers, specialists, and a constant struggle to know where patients can get the most affordable services. “There is no free market in health care", says Blythe, "and patients generally cannot be informed consumers as in other areas – this makes it a challenge”.

This “survival guide” is designed to help patients – the uninsured, the under-insured, and the insured – become better and more knowledgeable shoppers of health care services.