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Articles of Interest
These articles highlight many of the health care related stories in the news–ranging from single-payer op-eds by PNHP members to reports by newspapers on corporate health care.
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Posted on Friday, March 7, 2014By William Rivers Pitt | Truthout
Nothing so thoroughly dominated the American political landscape over the last year more than the Republican assault on the Affordable Care Act, colloquially known now as "Obamacare." The GOP's eternal refrain that "Government is the problem" was used as a battering ram against the law, and House Republicans have voted to repeal or denude it exactly fifty times as of today. -
Posted on Wednesday, March 5, 2014By Gabriel Edwards and David Mealiea | The New Physician
In medical school, we are taught that practicing good medicine means first asking a good history. Gathering relevant information guides the review of the patient’s body systems, physical examination, and ultimately the assessment and plan that leads to an effective medical intervention. With experience, the doctor learns to recognize patterns which help guide clinical judgment. We are at the beginning of this process, but some patterns have already begun to emerge. -
Posted on Tuesday, March 4, 2014By David Sims | The Chief-Leader (New York)
The Affordable Care Act’s changes to the nation’s health-care business mean good and bad things for organized labor, but a Feb. 27 LaborPress event on its impact focused more on pushing for a single-payer system in the state to relieve the increased pressure on unions. -
Posted on Friday, February 28, 2014By Andrew D. Coates, M.D., F.A.C.P. | WAMC Northeast Public Radio
The Affordable Care Act is reducing the number of uninsured, yet at the end of the day it is not a program of universal access to care. Because the major failings of the U.S. system still persist — avoidable death and bankruptcy, racial and socioeconomic disparities, the perverse incentives of profiteering, burgeoning costs — the urgency for thoroughgoing health reform has returned. -
Posted on Thursday, February 27, 2014By Sara Foss | The Daily Gazette (Schenectady, N.Y.)
The other night I attended a debate at The Linda in Albany, WAMC’s performing arts studio, on whether the U.S. should adopt a single-payer health care system. -
Posted on Monday, February 24, 2014By Jawad Husain | The Daily Free Press (Boston University)
Six years later, most of the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have been implemented. However, it’s apparent that political pressure from the private insurance industry and the big drug companies has thwarted the goal of the universal health care. -
Posted on Monday, February 24, 2014By Lyndonna Marrast, M.D., and Danny McCormick, M.D., M.P.H. | KevinMD.com
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will increase insurance coverage for the poor, uninsured and minorities, but will it improve access to care and population health? The answer depends critically on whether or not physicians are available to care for the newly insured. Many health policy experts fear there may not be. -
Posted on Friday, February 21, 2014By Ed Weisbart, M.D. | The Lawton (Okla.) Constitution
I am a proudly patriotic, fiscally prudent, family physician. For those three reasons, I support a national health insurance program. -
Posted on Thursday, February 20, 2014By Philip Caper, M.D. | Bangor (Maine) Daily News
How much tax would you be willing to pay to make sure somebody who can’t afford health care has to grovel to get it? -
Posted on Wednesday, February 19, 2014By Ben Sisario | The New York Times
PITTSBURGH — Beer bottles clinked and indie-rock classics played overhead at a gallery opening here on a Friday night recently, as one artist after another chatted with Julie Sokolow, a filmmaker and health care advocate who has documented the Pittsburgh scene in detail. -
Posted on Friday, February 14, 2014By Anya Schiffrin | Reuters
Every time I sit on hold now with the billing department of my New York doctors and insurance company, I think back to all the things French healthcare got right. The simplicity of that system meant that all our energy could be spent on one thing: caring for my father. -
Posted on Friday, February 14, 2014By Elisabeth Rosenthal | The New York Times
American physicians, worried about changes in the health care market, are streaming into salaried jobs with hospitals. Though the shift from private practice has been most pronounced in primary care, specialists are following. -
Posted on Thursday, February 13, 2014The New York Times
The heart of the doctor is the soul of medicine. Historically the doctor-patient relationship has earned medicine recognition as a noble profession. Corporatization keeps doctors from practicing that time-honored tradition. It is demoralizing to the profession and unsatisfactory for the patients. -
Posted on Wednesday, February 12, 2014By Maggie Fox | NBC News
Tim Armstrong has had to apologize twice now for his announcement last year saying the company was changing its 401(k) retirement plan policy in part because it had some hefty health care claims, including two babies costing a million dollars each for care. -
Posted on Wednesday, February 5, 2014By Joshua Freeman, M.D. | Medicine and Social Justice blog
I wrote in a recent blog (“How can a health care system lead not to ruin but to, actually, health?”, December 28, 2013) that our health care system ”…is a parallel to our financial services industry: private enterprise is given a license to make money from everyone, and the government finances it. The only difference is that for financial services, the government steps in to bail them out only after they have already stolen all our money, while in health services the profit margin is built in from the start.” A recent article in the New York Times, “Hospital chain said to scheme to inflate bills”, by Julie Creswell and Reed Abelson (January 24, 2014) takes this a bit farther. -
Posted on Wednesday, February 5, 2014By Henry J. Waters III | Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune
Much is being made by opponents of the Affordable Care Act of adverse selection, the tendency of younger, healthier Americans to avoid buying health insurance, thereby skewing the economics of the plan, which depends on premium income from people needing relatively little care to offset the cost of care for older, sicker patients. -
Posted on Monday, February 3, 2014By Sarah Jaffe | In These Times
When Sergio Espana first began talking to people, just over a year ago, about the need for fundamental changes in the U.S. healthcare system, confusion often ensued. Some people didn’t understand why, if the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had passed, people still wanted to reform the system; others thought organizers were trying to sign them up for “Obamacare.” -
Posted on Saturday, February 1, 2014By Andrew D. Coates, M.D. | WAMC Northeast Public Radio
It is not only that Republican intransigence against the Affordable Care Act does nothing to advance the national debate about health care in a direction that would improve quality, increase access or reduce disparities. Nor would Republican proposals offer any means of cost saving, for both out-of-pocket costs and aggregate spending would continue to soar. -
Posted on Friday, January 31, 2014By Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare
This little Appalachian community that made national news a year ago by passing a Fairness Ordinance did it again Monday night. It voted to endorse single-payer health care, H.R. 676, joining 54 other American cities, including Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore. -
Posted on Friday, January 31, 2014By Rick Kogan | The Chicago Tribune
Near the end of this fine, fine book, Dr. Young writes, "As you've no doubt noticed in the preceding pages, my views and actions have also propelled me into sharp conflict with institutions and persons who would perpetuate injustice. That was true yesterday; it remains true today. My work is unfinished."