BlogWatch
September 22, 2009
How the Baucus Plan Screws Older People
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.
August 27, 2009
Whole Foods CEO vs. Conservative Support for NHS, Medicare
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.
July 28, 2009
Plugging Single Payer...Sort Of
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.”
June 04, 2009
Democrats Start With Compromise on Health Care Reform
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.
March 09, 2009
A Canadian Comments on Experiences with Single Payer System in Canada
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.
November 24, 2008
Why I won't join the American Medical Association
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.
October 01, 2008
Cognitive dissonance in U.S. health care
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.
September 19, 2008
Allies rally for health care reform
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
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.
August 25, 2008
Markos asked for more; I answer: Obama on Single Payer
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.
August 21, 2008
What Do MoveOn Members Think About Health Care? Who Knows? A Reply to MoveOn's Eli Pariser
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.
August 13, 2008
Here's your chance to tell MoveOn either lead or get out of the way
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.
June 17, 2008
"I Think I See a Few Dollars on That X-Ray: We'll have to Operate"
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.
May 23, 2008
The Most Basic Question in the Health Care Reform 'Debate'
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
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.
April 08, 2008
Most Doctors Support National Health Insurance Updated
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.
April 02, 2008
Your Doctor Says Universal Coverage Is Good for You
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.
February 28, 2008
"Why Not Single Payer?" Parts 1-4
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?"
February 19, 2008
The real Irony of the Health Care Mandate Arguments
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.
February 08, 2008
The New Bailout: Individual Health Insurance Mandates and Greater Personal Debt
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.
February 07, 2008
More Fiscal Trouble Lies Ahead
by David Himmelstein, MD | WBUR.org
Last week the news leaked out from the Patrick administration that public spending for the health reform plan in the coming fiscal year will be about $400 million over the original projections. This follows a $146 million cost overrun in the current year.
Why are such miscalculations the norm? Are the costs of health reform unknowable? Or did politicians (and the media) listen only to the “experts” who told them what they wanted to hear?
November 13, 2007
The Market Made Me Do It: Health Insurance That Disappears When You Need It
Donald Cohen | Huffington Post blog
Health Net, one of California's largest health insurers, saved $35.5 million in medical expenditures for people that needed life-saving care. They did it the easy way -- they just stopped paying, ejecting the sick from their health plans.
October 12, 2007
The Frosts Demonstrate Why We Need Single Payer Health Care
Hale "Bonddad" Stewart
Here's the basic problem. The Frosts aren't rich and they have children. That means medical expenses are their biggest problem. Under the Malkin theory, either poor people shouldn't have children because insurance is too expensive, or the poor should go into debt to pay for insurance which under the new bankruptcy laws is tantamount to indentured servitude.
October 11, 2007
The Health Care Crisis in California
Jenny Price | The Huffington Post
On December 31, 2006, the health insurance I purchase through a group of freelance artists and writers cost me $4715/year. On January 1, it jumped to $12,268. That's $1.40 per hour. I watch a Dodgers game, and I'm down $3.50 by the 7th inning. I go to sleep, and I've paid another $11.20 for health insurance by the time I wake up.
"Why Not Single Payer?" A Response to Paul Krugman and the Leading Democratic Presidential Contenders.
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?"
October 05, 2007
The Garden Hose Health Care Brigade
Matthew Holt
Perhaps what's needed is a real down-and-dirty political operative like Otto von Bismarck, President Lyndon Johnson or even - God help us - Dick Cheney who knows how to focus attention on selling healthcare reform the way they sold the idea of invading other countries: As some kind of patriotic duty. If you question that you're some kind of traitor.
September 05, 2007
My Encounter with [insert scary music] ... Socialized Medicine!
by Jim Wallis
I realized then that I was about to have my first encounter with SOCIALIZED MEDICINE! Now it's one thing to advocate health care reform in America and even to be politically sympathetic to the idea of a single-payer government-supported system like they have in most of the world's developed and civilized countries (such as Canada, Germany, and Great Britain). But it was another thing to actually go to the emergency room (or ER, but in the U.K. they call it Accident and Emergency) of a hospital in the British National Health Service. After all, I had heard the horror stories--long waits in incompetent, dirty, and substandard medical facilities; bad doctors and faulty diagnoses; and, of course, incredible bureaucracies like everything in "socialist systems." Rush Limbaugh and every other conservative pundit have warned us all in America about the horrific practices of British socialized medicine.
March 28, 2007
The Corporate Crime of Selling Private Health Insurance
In most of the world, it is a corporate crime to sell private health insurance.That’s because most countries insure their citizens as a matter of right.
March 26, 2007
Blog postings from the Campaign for America's Future
Submitted by Bill Scher
After watching Saturday's presidential candidate forum on health care, and judging the candidates using Roger Hickey's five health care questions, I'm left with key questions for each Oval Office aspirant.
March 07, 2007
Universal Health for Insurance Companies
by DrSteveB | Daily Kos
Last week I outlined the generic components of so-called mandated or mandatory plans. This week we will, with the help of Professor Len Rodberg briefly outline some of specific national proposals that have been in the news lately
March 06, 2007
The Myth of Value-Based Pricing -- So Far
Posting by Donald Light, PhD | Princeton University | Health Affairs blog
At last policymakers and readers are being set straight that the prices of drugs are not related to the immense costs of research and development but to "what the market will bear," as James Robinson put it in his Health Affairs Blog post last fall.
January 25, 2007
Bush's Health Care Plan Deserves One Cheer, but One Cheer Only
By Robert B. Reich | Marketplace, January 24, 2007
The President's plan to de-couple health insurance from employment merits only one cheer, though, because it's only the first step. Two cheers for the President or any politician who comes up with a way to get health insurance to lower-income people who can't afford it on their own even with a tax deduction. It's called universal health care. Every advanced nation has it except the United States.
The State of Healthcare
By Katrina vanden Heuvel | The Nation | BLOG | Posted 01/23/2007
According to the Bush administration, the new health care plan that the President will unveil in the State of the Union address tonight would cover three million people who are currently uninsured. Three million -- out of forty-seven million. After years of dangerous inaction, this is what Bush rolls out to address a grave and growing crisis!