BlogWatch
These articles highlight many of the health care related stories appearing in blogs on the internet.How the Baucus Plan Screws Older People - September 22, 2009
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.Whole Foods CEO vs. Conservative Support for NHS, Medicare - August 27, 2009
By Ben Day | Mass-Care
Last week Whole Foods CEO John Mackey wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal opposing health care as a right, and proposing instead that insurers be allowed to foist crummier health plans on residents and that states be limited in their ability to regulate health insurers. The root cause of our health crisis, Mackey claims, is that people are failing to keep themselves healthy, and need to be held responsible.Plugging Single Payer...Sort Of - July 28, 2009
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.”Democrats Start With Compromise on Health Care Reform - June 4, 2009
Michele Swenson | Huffington Post
Democrats at the fore of shaping health care reform policy concede the issue from the start by failing to put forth the best possible case for reform. Instead, they have begun the discussion with compromise.A Canadian Comments on Experiences with Single Payer System in Canada - March 9, 2009
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.Why I won't join the American Medical Association - November 24, 2008
by donag | Daily Kos
I am a local leader in healthcare and will not endorse [the AMA], but will continue to advocate for Physicians for a National Health Program. It is my advice to my colleagues to support that organization and not the AMA who are now one of the biggest obstructions to healthcare justice.Cognitive dissonance in U.S. health care - October 1, 2008
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.Allies rally for health care reform - September 19, 2008
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.On the Single Payer Road Again: It'll Be a Tough Lobby to Beat - September 19, 2008
By Donna Smith, community organizer
From one speaker to the next, the case for single payer grew ever sharper and more contrasted with the status quo. Audience questions revealed strong support for making the right sorts of political pressures heard in the right places. And this is one lobby with motivations so focused and strong that it was energizing just to be in the room.Markos asked for more; I answer: Obama on Single Payer - August 25, 2008
by DrSteveB | DailyKos
First, it should be noted that in addition to whatever policy analysis he has done, Obama actually has something of a personal connection to knowing about single payer since (I am not breaking any confidentiality here, since it is public knowledge) the physician group that he has been going to for years for his own personal medical care includes one the most famous physician single payer (and all around progressive political) advocates, Dr. Quentin Young. Given the political activism of that physician group and the young Mr. Obama's intests in politics and policy, one can assume it has been discussed during check-ups! Obama attended Quentin's 80th birthday back in 2003.What Do MoveOn Members Think About Health Care? Who Knows? A Reply to MoveOn's Eli Pariser - August 21, 2008
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.Here's your chance to tell MoveOn either lead or get out of the way - August 13, 2008
by nyceve | DailyKos
This morning a variety of single-payer healthcare advocacy organizations including Progressive Democrats of America, Healthcare Now, PNHP and All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care are petitioning MoveOn."I Think I See a Few Dollars on That X-Ray: We'll have to Operate" - June 17, 2008
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.The Most Basic Question in the Health Care Reform 'Debate' - May 23, 2008
Posted by John P. Geyman, M.D. | PNHP Blog
The most basic question underlying the so-called debate over reform of U.S. health care is being dodged by most participants, policymakers, and politicians. As health care costs spiral out of control and exclude more and more millions of Americans from even the most rudimentary health care services, what debate we have deals with incremental tweaks as delusional and false hopes of reform.WellPoint Meeting, 5/21/08 - May 23, 2008
From Dr. Rob Stone in Indianapolis, IN
Five of us who own some stock went into the meeting and were able to address the board, which includes one of former President G H W Bush’s brothers William H T Bush, Sen Don Reigle, and Susan Bayh, amongst others. (The stock is right now trading around $50/share, and so you can buy 5 shares like I own and be able to attend the meeting next year!) We were polite, civil, and relentless. We made our case.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?"The real Irony of the Health Care Mandate Arguments - February 19, 2008
by DrSteveB | DailyKos
The real irony of the Obama vs. Hillary (and Krugman and Baker & Hacker et al) argument over individual mandates for purchasing health insurance, is even more fundamental then they are both right and they are both wrong. The argument against individual mandates is both political and practical. They can't really be enforced, and they are political poison.The New Bailout: Individual Health Insurance Mandates and Greater Personal Debt - February 8, 2008
Rose Ann DeMoro | The Huffington Post
Behind the escalating debate on the health care between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on individual mandate -- she's for it, he's against it -- is a critical policy battle that not only cuts across health care reform but also the neo-liberal privatization dreams, the home mortgage crisis, and the recession that is no longer looming, it's here.