BlogWatch

By Clyde Winter
The insurance policy exemptions and co-pays and “reviews” resulted in substantial cost not being covered by insurance, and in the family quickly depleting all savings and credit. (The treatment was such that the father could not continue working, and since they, like virtually all working families in similar circumstances, could not afford to “choose” to make COBRA payments, the family no longer had health insurance.) They were informed by the hospital administrators that in order to continue the treatment plan, they would have to “choose” to sign a payment plan. Well, a payment plan does not even have the slim legal protections that remain for personal bankruptcy. A payment plan is whatever you agree to. And the administrators wanted everything this family owned in order to continue with the treatment plan.

By Suzanne Gordon
Boston surgeon Atul Gawande has become one of the most acclaimed mainstream media critics of American health care. An elegant writer with first-hand hospital experience, he has pointed out, in many articles for The New Yorker and several books, a number of ways that patient care could be improved. My major concern about his reporting has been its consistent failure to acknowledge the critical role that nurses and other non-physicians play in our health care system.

by James Ridgeway | Baltimore Chronicle
As I wrote yesterday, there are aspects of the Baucus health care reform plan that don't bode well for Medicare recipients. But the people who stand to get screwed most by the plan are those who aren't old enough to qualify for Medicare, but are still old enough to be discriminated against by insurance companies.

By Steven T. Jones | SFGB Politics on-line
When asked about the approximately 2 percent of Americans that will be left uncovered by the Democrats' plan, Obama said, "I want to cover everybody. Now, the truth is unless you have what's called a single-payer system in which everyone's automatically covered, you're probably not going to reach every single individual."

Posted By Chris Dinn
As a Canadian who watched and helped his sister go through 5 years of elite treatment medical treatment for a rare brain tumor, I consider myself experienced with the single-payer approach and I have generally great things to say about it.

By Maggie Mahar | THCB (The Health Care Blog)
A great many Americans do not want "Big Government" interfering with their health care. Unless they lose their insurance and then they expect "their government" to bail them out.

By John Morgan | The Pennsylvania Progressive
Dr. Tsou showed a comparison of the single payer plan with Gov. Rendell's ABC Plan which has no cost containment and will only add 270,000 people to coverage over five years, not even enough to keep up with those losing coverage. Should John McCain's plan pass millions more Pennsylvanians may lose their employer based health insurance as business loses tax credits for providing these benefits.

By Miles Mogulescu | The Huffington Post
On Wednesday I posted a blog on Huffington Post asking readers to sign a Petition requesting that our friends at MoveOn.Org let its members vote on whether they support universal single payer health care or reforming private health insurance (while adding an optional public plan that the uninsured could purchase themselves). In less than 48 hours, nearly 3,000 people have signed the Petition and, as the Petition spreads virally, new signatures keep coming in at the rate of 50-100 per hour.

by David Himmelstein, MD | WBUR Blog
As a primary care doctor, I live with one foot in the horse and buggy era and one in the silicon age. I spend most of my time talking to patients and wielding a stethoscope, and I also use the latest high tech gadgets. But the gadgetry is getting out of hand; its overuse threatens patients and is blowing the lid off health care costs.