Archive for September 2009
As Baucus Unveils Health Plan, New Study Finds 45,000 Uninsured Die Every Year
From Democracy Now – A long-awaited healthcare bill from Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus includes no public option and would require almost all Americans to buy insurance or pay a penalty. This comes as a new study finds that nearly 45,000 Americans die every year due to lack of health insurance. We speak with…
Read MoreHarvard study finds nearly 45,000 excess deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage
A study published online today estimates nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002. The new study, “Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults,” appears in today’s online edition of the…
Read MoreAFL-CIO Convention Endorses Single-Payer
Unanimous Vote for Medicare-for-All Reform PITTSBURGH – In a historic vote that adds the nation’s leading voice of American workers to a broad national campaign, the AFL-CIO voted unanimously at its national convention here today to endorse the enactment of single-payer, universal healthcare for all Americans. The resolution was sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National…
Read MoreMichael Moore marches to his movie
From www.post-gazette.com – See video here. In-your-face filmmaker Michael Moore came to Pittsburgh instead of Hollywood last night to show his latest rabble-rousing documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story” to its first American audience, a spirited group of union workers energized by the AFL-CIO convention Downtown. A last-minute change of plans and an invitation from the…
Read MoreMad-As-Hell Doctors On Cross-Country Tour with a Mission
By Michele Swenson for the Huffington Post – They have been ostracized and marginalized in the great U.S. health care reform debate, but now a group of doctors, many from Physicians for a National Health Care Program, are hitting the road and taking action, and they visited Denver on September 14. They will arrive in…
Read MoreIt’s Simple: Medicare for All
By George S. McGovern for the Washington Post – For many years, a handful of American political leaders — including the late senator Ted Kennedy and now President Obama — have been trying to gain passage of comprehensive health care for all Americans. As far back as President Harry S. Truman, they have urged Congress…
Read MoreBuilding on the Hopeful Aspects of Obama’s Health Care Speech and Helping Him Get Beyond His Internal Contradictions
By Rabbi Michael Lerner for Tukkin Daily – Media analyses of President Obama’s health care speech were divided on whether he had indicated serious support for a public option or had, instead, cleverly tossed a bone of “recognition” to the progressives while simultaneously demanding that they drop their insistence that the health care reform undercut…
Read MoreUninsured figures show mandate-based health reforms don’t work
17,000-member organization of physicians says latest numbers show urgent need for single-payer health reform Official estimates released this morning by the Census Bureau showing a marginal increase in the number of Americans without health insurance in 2008 – now estimated at 46.3 million, up from 45.7 million in 2007 – masks the true dimensions of…
Read MoreAction Alert: Call Congress to Support the 9/11 Responders
When the towers fell on September 11, 2001, more than 50,000 people responded to the call to action to help with recovery at the World Trade Center. 8 years later, these same heroes feel great betrayal as more are dying from 9/11 related injuries and illnesses without proper health care or financial security. A recent…
Read MoreTwo Harvard Medical professors critique our current system and offer a better vision
From PNHP – Universal Health Care Even with its dazzling technical advances and sophisticated medicines, health care increasingly frustrates Americans. Patients must contend with a system that won’t pay for some treatments, long waiting lists, rushed visits with doctors, copious paperwork and — of course — the ever-soaring cost of medical coverage and medications. Many…
Read More