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Maine AllCare
Website: http://www.maineallcare.org/
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State Organizations Endorsing HR676
- Woolwich, Maine Democratic Committee
Local Unions Endorsing HR676
- Local 2327, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Augusta, ME
- Greater Bangor Area Central Labor Council, Bangor, ME
- Southern Maine Labor Council, AFL-CIO
- Local 327, LIUNA
- Central Maine Labor Council
- Maine Building & Construction Trades Council
- Western Maine Central Labor Council AFL-CIO, Lewiston, ME
Maine State News
By Julie Pease, M.D. | Portland Press Herald (Maine)
For two years, while great effort has been spent debating health care reforms, costs for health insurance have continued to spiral out of control. Contrary to the assertions of Sen. Deborah Sanderson in a Dec. 30 column ("Legislature is tackling the causes of Maine's high health care costs"), there is simply no evidence to suggest that increasing competition in the for-profit insurance market will control health care costs, just as there is no evidence to suggest that federal reforms will be able to bring costs under control.
By Philip Caper, M.D. | Bangor Daily News
For more than a month, the Legislature has been focused on the governor’s proposal to cut $221 million from the Department of Health and Human Services budget by revoking Medicaid eligibility for about 65,000 low-income and disabled Mainers. His proposal has generated controversy, including marathon hearings, state house rallies, articles in many of Maine’s papers as well as a petition that garnered more than 8,000 signatures in less than two weeks, all opposing the cuts.
By John Benziger, M.D. | Letters, Kennebec Journal (Augusta, Maine)
Last year, people woke up to the fact that corporate greed and injustice are hurting Americans. We have a broken for-profit health care system. More than 50 million Americans are uninsured. Medicare and hospitals, along with other public programs like Medicaid, are under constant threat of new cuts by lawmakers. Meanwhile, last year, the nation's five largest for-profit health insurers netted $11.7 billion in profits, and their CEOs took $54.4 million in pay.
By Philip Caper, M.D. | Bangor Daily News
America is the only wealthy country in the world that does not guarantee its people access to health care as a fundamental right. More than 15 percent of Americans are uninsured and many more are seriously underinsured. That was the bottom line message of T.R. Reid, author of the best-selling book “The Healing of America” and the television documentary based on it, “Sick Around The World.”
By Philip Caper | OpEd, Bangor Daily News
For the past several decades, America has been experimenting with applying the principles of business to our health care system. Many believed that by unleashing the power of markets, health care costs would be controlled and access and quality improved.
By Philip Caper, M.D. | The Ellsworth American (Maine)
We need less, not more competition among health insurance companies. Competition does not work in medical care as it does in normal markets. The proof is in the fact that our current market-based system is failing.
By Richard C. Dillihunt, M.D. | | Letters, The Portland Press Herald
It is the matter of health care costs. Canada, with its universal health care and single-payer system, spends only about half what we do on health care. Canadians enjoy more money in their budgets for other things. Naturally, shopping and travel enter this picture.
By PHILIP CAPER, JOE LENDVAI and JULIE PEASE | The Portland (Maine) Press Herald
There has been a great deal of discussion recently about health care reform in America and in Maine. Many Republicans want to repeal last year's federal health care reform law, and most Democrats want to implement and improve it. In the meantime, pending full implementation of the law in 2014, health care costs for individuals, employers and the government continue to soar, and the number of uninsured Americans (including Mainers) continues to grow.
By Stephan Burklin | MaineWatchdog.org
A resolve requiring the Legislature to update a single-payer feasibility study is headed for the Insurance and Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.
By RICHARD C. DILLIHUNT, M.D. | The Portland (Maine) Press Herald
Health care costs are devastating the U.S. middle class in ways not seen in countries that have universal care.
Speaking in Maine | The Maine Public Broadcasting Network
Audio of lecture by Dr. William Hsiao at Bates College
Maine Public Broadcasting Network
With health care costs high and rising, state lawmakers are trying to come up with new alternatives incorporating recent federal reform laws. Today in Augusta, a committee heard from a health care expert who says a single-payer system could save a billion dollars in Maine each year.
By Richard C. Dillihunt, M.D.The Portland Press Herald
Health care costs remain a major concern of all Americans. Inflation in such costs has become increasingly important in our fragile economy. Expanding alarmingly, much faster than that of the economy in general, these costs are dipping deeply into the ballooning budgets of middle Americans.
From Unions for Single Payer Health Care
Recently, The Maine state AFL-CIO has developed a number of materials, including a power point presentation, leaflets, cost analysis, and other tools to reach out to local unions and rank and file members to help educate and arm them with the knowledge of the benefits of single payer health care and how it works.
by Matt Schlobohm | Public Policy & Poltical Mobilization Director, Maine AFL-CIO
On Friday October 23, 2009 the delegates at the Maine AFL-CIO’s 27th Biennial Convention unanimously passed a resolution calling on the AFL-CIO to convene, after the current healthcare reform process in Congress concludes, a democratic strategic planning process to develop a long term strategy to win Single Payer national health insurance.
By Phil Caper and Joe Lendvai | Bangor Daily News
The health care reform bandwagon is rolling in Washington. Committees in both houses of Congress are at work on health care reform, and many politicians are saying "now is the time." But meaningful reform is about a lot more than getting a few more people "covered." It must also be about reining in the out-of-control cost, making sure health care is affordable and accessible to everyone and assuring that the right number and types of health professionals are there to care for the millions who are doing without decent health care.