July 2010 – Healthcare-NOW

Private insurers cause health care heartbreak

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. I have been exposed to thousands…

For-Profit Insurers Leaning on Regulators to “Reform” Health Reform

By Wendell Potter for Huffington Post – The nation’s biggest insurers — not happy with provisions of the four-month-old health care reform law that would force many of them to spend more of the money they collect in premiums for their policyholders’ medical care — are pressuring regulators to disregard what members of Congress intended…

Rx on Medicare’s Birthday: Expand it to All

By Dr. Quentin Young of PNHP – Medicare, one of our nation’s most cherished social programs, turns 45 on Friday. I was in active medical practice when, on July 30, 1965, Medicare was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. The law’s impact on older Americans and their families was swift and spectacular. I saw…

Health Care Supporters Say “Hands Off Our Medicare!”

NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Katie Robbins, National Organizer, Healthcare NOW! healthcarenow08@gmail.com 330-618-6379 Donna Smith, National Nurses United donnas@calnurses.org, 773-617-4493 Kay Tillow, All Unions for Single Payer-HR 676 nursenpo@aol.com 502-636-1551 Sandy Fox, Western PA Coalition for Single Payer Health Care sm2fox@yahoo.com 412-527-9072 Health Care Supporters Say “Hands Off Our Medicare!” Don’t let Congress Cut…

Happy 45th Birthday, Medicare

Join in actions across the country this Friday, July 30th in celebrating 45 Years of Medicare – and call for Medicare for All. Groups across the country are organizing events this Friday to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Medicare – and to continue to push for a single payer, improved and expanded Medicare for All…

Who Tells the Dead Patient Stories Now?

by Donna Smith – Since the health insurance reform bill passed this past spring, you’d think we suddenly stopped having American patients die and suffer unimaginable horror at the hands of the corporate owned and operated healthcare business system in the United States. No one tells the stories. The reality is that patients were props,…

NARH Nurses Vote to Authorize Strike

PATIENT SAFETY AND QUALITY OF LIFE AT STAKE The registered nurses of the North Adams Regional Hospital (NARH) voted overwhelmingly July 19 to authorize their union leadership to call a strike if necessary in their ongoing negotiations with hospital management. In a unified show of strength, 99% of the voting members voted in favor of…

Health Law May Cost Children Coverage as UnitedHealth Ends Plans

By Alex Nussbaum for Bloomberg – UnitedHealth Group Inc. and insurers in Florida and Oklahoma stopped offering children-only health coverage because of the potential added costs of sick youngsters under the new U.S. health-care law, state officials said today. UnitedHealth’s Golden Rule subsidiary won’t sell new policies that cover only children, foreclosing an option for…

Hands Off Our Medicare!

At a time when this nation faces the deepest recession in decades, skyrocketing unemployment, and fiscal crisis in our states, towns, and families, the nation’s safety net is threatened by a select group whose overwhelming majority have historically favoured cutting benefits or privatizing federal social programs in order to balance the budget and enriching the…

Don’t Gamble with Our Social Security

Andy Stern, a key member of the president’s deficit commission, proposes to invest a part of our Social Security funds in the stock market. Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank, has expressed approval for Stern’s proposal. “I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea,” said Baker.…