By Kenny Colston | WFLP Radio (Louisville, Ky.)
A new poll shows Kentuckians are becoming increasingly aware of the commonwealth’s health issues and willing to act on them.

By Ellen R. Hale | Louisville (Ky.) Medicine
David A. Ansell, MD, MPH, visited Louisville in January to offer evidence from his long career as an internist in Chicago for a one-card national health program. Author of the recently published book “County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospital,” Dr. Ansell delivered a lecture to University of Louisville medical students and another to the general public. He also spoke at Grand Rounds for the Department of Family and Geriatric Medicine and the Annual Meeting of Physicians for a National Health Program-Kentucky.

By Kay Tillow | Other Words
More than a year after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, our nation's health care delivery and coverage remain the disgrace of the industrialized world. There are more than 50 million uninsured Americans. Even if the health care overhaul works as planned, 23 million Americans will still lack health insurance in 2019.

By Kay Tillow | FireDogLake
Detroit Diesel has been around since April 1937, a few months after the Flint sit down strike that won union recognition. This year, 1,100 retired auto workers at Detroit Diesel suffered a giant cut in company provision of health benefits because their Voluntary Employees Benefits Association, VEBA, went belly up. Workers who retired between 1993 and 2004 will have to pick up an increasing share of the premiums that were once fully covered by the company. Some retirees will have to pay as much as $4,000 per year, or even higher, just to keep their health coverage.

The following is a slightly edited translation of an interview with Edgar A. Lopez, M.D., F.A.C.S., which was conducted in Spanish by journalist Pablo Castelo of Al Día en América in early February. Dr. Lopez is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care.

By Ellen R. Hale | Louisville Medicine
Garrett Adams, MD, MPH, spent 40 years practicing medicine as a pediatrician, as chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, and as medical director of communicable diseases at the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness. In January, he will begin serving as the president of Physicians for a National Health Program. The Louisville Medicine Editorial Board drafted a list of questions for Dr. Adams.

Bill Mahan | Letters to the Editor | Herald Leader (Lexington, KY)
As a dedicated activist for single-payer health care, it has become crystal clear to me that the private, for-profit health insurance companies are the biggest detriment to having a health care system in the United States that is comparable to the rest of the developed nations of the world.

By Janelle MacDonald | WAVE NBC 3
Dr. Garrett Adams, puts it even more bluntly. According to Adams, it's, "aspirin for cancer." Adams says the healthcare reform bill as passed won't do anything to control costs.

From Mobilization for Health Care for All
The Mobilization for Health Care for All continues to see a growing number of doctors participating in these actions. Yesterday Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician who has testified before Congress on the need for meaningful health care reform, was arrested in Baltimore and joined by Dr. Eric Naumberg, also a physician.

By All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care -- H.R. 676
A group of state legislators has initiated a nationwide effort to publish an appeal to President Obama and members of the 111th Congress to support H.R. 676, single-payer health care legislation introduced in Congress by Rep. John Conyers Jr. and presently co-sponsored by 75 other House members.

KAY TILLOW | Louisville Courier-Journal | Readers' forum
We cannot solve the nursing "shortage" in Louisville without solving the conditions that force good nurses from the bedside and from their chosen profession. Many can't sleep after their 12-hour shifts for thinking about what almost happened and what could happen. The lack of organized nurse power to change these conditions and win truly professional standards of care and benefits has stifled health care progress in Louisville.

By Mark Gruenberg | PAI Staff Writer | 1/29/2007
The advocates, led by Deborah Burger, President of the California Nurses Association, and Dr. Oliver Fein of the Physicians for a National Health Plan, contend a government-run single-payer plan would cut costs, eliminate the health insurance companies and their paperwork, denial of coverage and high overhead, and cover everyone, including the uninsured and underinsured. Bush wouldn’t do that, they added.