EMAIL PAGE

PRINT PAGE
EN ESPAÑOL

Latest PNHP News

Articles of Interest

• Rising insurance costs may force MDs to quit - May 9, 2008
  By Saul Friedman | Gray Matters | Newsday.com
  I know, everyone has a doctor story, including me. But most of today's doctors are besieged, working under great pressure from insurance companies and the corporations that own or finance their practices. They are trying to keep up with the latest devices, drugs and developments in their fields, and dealing with sick patients who can't afford all the medical care they should get.

• Single-Payer Healthcare: a Reality for California? - May 9, 2008
  By Julie Illi Laird | Synapse, UCSF Student Paper
  As a nurse, I have seen countless examples of the devastating outcomes that result when people do not have access to care due to lack of insurance. Just last week, I visited a 35-year-old cancer patient to help her manage oxygen treatments at home. She had beaten breast cancer at age 25. However, she was a restaurant worker and did not have health insurance; consequently, once she started working again, she no longer qualified for MediCal and could no longer see a doctor to be screened for recurrence. Sadly, when the cancer did come back it was not detected until she went to the ER one night when she could no longer breathe.

• Video: Who will fix America's broken health care system? - May 8, 2008
  The Real News Network
  Health care scholar and author Regina Herzlinger and PNHP Senior Health Policy Fellow Don McCanne each take a look at how effective the proposals will be in increasing quality of health care and the number of insured.

Quote of the Day

• Herzlinger and McCanne on "choice" in candidates' proposals - May 9, 2008
  Anyone following the national dialogue on reform is certainly aware of the rhetoric over "choice." Those supporting reform that builds on private health plans use "choice" to mean choice of health plans. Those supporting a publicly financed and publicly administered national health program use "choice" to mean choice of physicians and hospitals and other health care professionals and institutions.

• AHIP on Medigap's Impact On Medicare Costs - May 8, 2008
  Medigap plans are standardized supplemental private insurance plans that fill in some of the gaps in Medicare coverage. Medigap plans, as a group, have amongst the lowest medical loss ratios of all private insurance plans; that is, they pay out the least for health care benefits. Thus the plans are very lucrative for the private insurers, but they are amongst the worst values in private health care coverage.

• Millennials support a government health insurance plan - May 7, 2008
  The bad news is that Millennials face "lower rates of healthcare coverage, worsening job prospects, and higher levels of student loan debt." The good news is that they now "reject the conservative viewpoint that government is the problem, and that free markets always produce the best results for society."

Blog Watch

• Most Doctors Support National Health Insurance Updated - April 8, 2008
  by DrSteveB | DailyKos
  I have always wanted to do a "Breaking" headline. Well this is from a press release embargoed until just now on an article in the professional peer reviewed journal Annals of Internal Medicine (aka: the green journal; it's generally considered the 3rd most prestigious American medical journal). It reports on a methodogically valid survey of American doctors.

• Your Doctor Says Universal Coverage Is Good for You - April 2, 2008
  By Jonathan Cohn | The New Republic
  For most of the twentieth century, no single group represented a bigger obstacle to universal health care than organized medicine. It was state medical societies that blocked the very first efforts in California and New York, back during the late Progressive Era. (Back then, reformers called it "compulsory insurance.") And it was the threat of similar opposition that is widely believed to have dissuaded Franklin Roosevelt from including health insurance as part of the Social Security Act in the 1930s.

• "Why Not Single Payer?" Parts 1-4 - February 28, 2008
  Miles Mogulescu | The Huffington Post
  Faster than you can say the word "Sicko" and turn around 3 times, the Democrats' promise of health care for all has gone from "Universal Medicare For All" to "Individual Insurance Mandate". In Monday's New York Times, Paul Krugman defends that reversal in an article entitled "Why Not Single Payer?"

Press Releases

• Labor, Faith, Seniors, Consumer Groups Rally at New York State Capitol in Support of Single Payer Universal Health Care - May 7, 2008

• Most doctors support national health insurance, new study shows - March 31, 2008

• Clinton vs. Obama on Health Care -- Interviews Available - February 8, 2008