Archive for November 2011
U.S. Ranks Last Among High-Income Nations on Preventable Deaths
Up to 84,000 Lives Annually Could Be Saved if the U.S. Lowered Its Preventable Death Rate to That of the Top Three Performing Nations From the Commonwealth Fund – The United States placed last among 16 high-income, industrialized nations when it comes to deaths that could potentially have been prevented by timely access to effective…
Read MoreSupercommittee Dems offer $350 billion in Medicare cuts
From Politico – Supercommittee Democrats quietly floated details late Wednesday of a $2.3 trillion tax-and-cut proposal that includes $400 billion in Medicare and Medicaid reductions, but also clears the way for a new physician payment formula. The framework — a counterproposal to one offered by Republicans on Monday — calls for $350 billion in savings…
Read MoreGallup: Uninsured adults rising
By Tim Mak for Politico – None of the components of President Obama’s health care law that have taken effect appear to be affecting insurance coverage of adults over 26, according to a new poll Friday. The percentage of adults with no health insurance is the highest on record, with 17.3 percent of adults being…
Read MoreRegister for the Healthcare-NOW! Annual Strategy Conference
Healthcare-NOW! National Strategy Conference January 28th and 29th, 2012 Houston, TX We need your help planning the strategy for the year ahead. Join single-payer activists and supporters from across the country in Houston, TX so we can build on the successes of the year past and develop concrete plans for the year ahead. The Patient…
Read MoreWhy the Occupy Movement is Good for Our Health
By Julie Matthaei and Neil Wollman for Common Dreams – Recently, the Congressional Budget Office released a report on income inequality which found that the incomes of the top 1% nearly tripled between 1979 and 2007, whereas those of the middle class increased by less than forty percent. In his 2007 study, Jared Bernstein found…
Read MoreIBEW International Convention Endorses Single Payer
The 38th convention of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has endorsed single payer health as a solution to the nation’s health care crisis. The 3,000 delegates who attended the IBEW convention called upon “…our international officers (to) do everything in their power and authority to work with other groups and elected officials to…
Read MoreOccupiers plan epic New York to Washington march
Their target: The congressional supercommittee and the Bush tax cuts for the rich By Justin Elliott for Salon – Persistent criticism of Occupy Wall Street for failing to specify demands has helped obscure the fact that groups of people within the movement have been mobilizing around concrete political goals. The latest example is a small…
Read MoreVideo: Healthcare-NOW! at National Nurses United Rally on Nov. 3
National Nurses United (NNU) held a day of action on November 3rd in support of the Financial Transactions Tax, a tax on Wall Street transactions that would raise $350 billion. Vanessa Beck from Healthcare-NOW! speaks about why we also need a single-payer national healthcare system.
Read MoreSeniors Rally Against Cuts To Medicare, 47 Arrested
By Aricka Flowers for Progress Illinois – More than 1,000 Chicago-area seniors and their allies took part in an act of civil disobedience today to push back against cuts to safety net programs, like Medicare and Social Security. The group rallied outside of the offices of U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin (D) and Mark Kirk (R)…
Read MoreIncreasing Medicare Age Could Lead To Higher Costs
By Julie Rovner for NPR – Congress’ so-called deficit reduction “supercommittee” is down to the final weeks of deliberations in its efforts to come up with $1.2 trillion in budget savings. And one proposal that keeps cropping up is the idea of raising the eligibility age for Medicare. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney became just…
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