April 2012 – Page 2 – Healthcare-NOW

Conservatives and Liberals Agree: Medicare for All Would Be Constitutional

By Miles Mogulescu for the Huffington Post – Conservatives and liberals may disagree about the constitutionality of the individual mandate requiring all uninsured Americans to buy health insurance from private companies or pay a penalty to the IRS. But there is no debate about whether single-payer Medicare For All would be constitutional. No one —…

Minnesota Single-Payer Impact Study Released

From Health Care for All – Minnesota – A report from Growth and Justice on the Lewin Group’s study of a single-payer health care system in Minnesota was recently released. Lewin Group’s Findings: – A total savings of $35.7 million to state and local governments; – An average savings of $1,214 per worker, for employers…

Against the health care mandate

By Helen Redmond for Socialist Worker – IN A highly charged and polarizing case, the Supreme Court heard a series of legal challenges to President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The case was brought to the high court by 26 Republican-led states that are hell-bent on a showdown with the Obama administration,…

Americans Cutting Back on Drugs and Doctor Visits

By Katie Thomas for the New York Times – Patients cut back on prescription drugs and doctor visits last year, a sign that many Americans are still struggling to pay for health care, according to a study released Wednesday by a health industry research group. The report, issued by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics,…

Is Single-Payer Inevitable?

You may have seen dozens of articles and news clips claiming that if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act in June, Democrats will have no choice but to turn to single-payer as the necessary alternative to healthcare reform. “It’s inevitable,” they say. It thrills us to see single-payer in the limelight, but…

GOP Attorney General Suing Over Obamacare Supports Single-Payer

‘I Trust The Government More’ By Scott Keyes for ThinkProgress – According to one Republican attorney general in the lawsuit against the health care individual mandate, the problem with Obamacare is that it’s not a government takeover of health care. ThinkProgress spoke with Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Caldwell…

All Parties Ignore the One Way to Reduce Health Care Costs: Single-Payer

By David U. Himmelstein MD and Steffie Woolhandler MD, MPH, for Truthout – In a recent full-page newspaper advertisement, IBM touted massive medical savings through computerization. It’s a promise they’ve made before, starting with a report issued in 1961. If only these promises were true. For 50 years, we’ve been told that computers would give…