February 2009 – Healthcare-NOW

Can the US Achieve Meaningful Healthcare Reform Within a For-Profit System?

Democracy Now hosted a debate between Dr. David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program and Len Nichols of the New America Foundation about their views on the most feasible healthcare plans available. The full video can be found on DemocracyNow.org. Here’s the full transcript: JUAN GONZALEZ: President Obama has unveiled a $3.6 trillion…

Video: National Lessons from State Health Reform

The following video was taken on February 25, 2009 at the “National Lessons from State Health Reform: The Massachusetts Case Study” forum in Washington, DC. National Lessons from State Health Reform: The Massachusetts Case Study from New Words on Vimeo. Speakers include: David Himmelstein, MD, Cambridge Hospital Physician, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical…

Bluegrass Central Labor Council Endorses HR 676

At its February meeting the Executive Board of the Bluegrass Central Labor Council voted to endorse HR 676, single payer health care legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI). Council President Barbara Pierce said: “The Board of the CLC endorsed HR 676, single payer universal health care, because we firmly believe that it’s the best…

Economist Joseph Stiglitz A Single-Payer Supporter

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, after being asked if he supported single-payer healthcare, that, “I think I’ve reluctantly come to the view that it’s the only alternative. You know, we’ve tried a lot of other things. And we’ve been — you know, I was in the Clinton administration, and…

Renew Auto Industry? Start With Real Health Reform

By John Nichols for the Nation— General Motors, and what is left of Chrysler, are back asking for another government bailout. And Americans who recognize that an auto industry is a good deal more vital to the country’s future than those bankers who are using taxpayer billions to retrofit their executive washrooms will be inclined…

Health care bills suffer conspiracy of silence

By Saul Friedman— Too often journalism ignores or belittles reports or proposals as outside the mainstream and bound to fail, thus assuring they will remain outside the mainstream and fail. That, I believe, is what has been happening to proposals by three Democratic members of the House of Representatives to provide health care for all…

Members of Congress Offer Prescription for General Motors’ Competitive Disadvantage

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and two other Members of Congress today sent a letter to the CEO of General Motors, Mr. Richard Wagoner, Jr., to propose a different kind of auto industry rescue plan that eliminates the competitive disadvantage of inflated health care costs. As health care costs continue to spiral out of control, the…

Massachusetts Labor Leaders Write to Obama Urging Passage of HR 676

Forty Massachusetts labor leaders have written President Obama to inform him of the failure of the much touted ‘Massachusetts Plan’ and to tell him that the passage of HR 676 is the best way to implement his own healthcare goals. The labor leaders state, “The chief problem with the Massachusetts plan is that it leaves…

Seattle City Council endorses single payer healthcare

Since early days of Bill Clinton’s administration, 16 years ago, Rep. Jim McDermott has carried the torch for a national single-payer health program. A Washington Post profile characterized his devotion to the cause as bordering on religious. At one point in the early 1990’s, McDermott had nearly 90 House cosponsors for a Canada style national…

Massachusetts Is No Model for National Health Care Reform

Public Interest Groups Urge Sen. Kennedy to Introduce Single Payer Legislation The Massachusetts health care system, widely regarded as an example of how to provide universal coverage and keep costs low, is in fact faltering badly and should not be held up as a national model for reform, according to a study released today by…