May 2012 – Healthcare-NOW

Single-payer health care would save billions for Massachusetts

By David U. Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler for the Boston Globe – The House and Senate health care proposals would set imaginary limits for spending growth enforced by secret “improvement plans” and wrist slaps for hospitals that overcharge; establish tiered payment schemes to consign the poor and middle class to second-tier hospitals and doctors; push…

Praying for Health Care Sanity

By Donna Smith – I admit it. I pray. I know there are intellectuals who are above such frivolity and for whom the showing of any belief in a power greater than one’s self and one’s intellect is the ultimate sign of weakness and inferiority. I don’t care. I am not weak, and just because…

Legislation May Enable States to Offer Universal Healthcare

To make universal coverage work at the state level, you’d need to channel federal healthcare funds into the system. A bill being drafted by Rep. Jim McDermott would allow that to happen. By David Lazarus for the LA Times – Universal coverage, Medicare for all, single payer — call it what you will. It’s clear…

Constitutional or Not, It’s a Win-Win for the Health Insurance Industry

By Katie Robbins for the People’s Tribune – The recent Supreme Court hearing on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or “ObamaCare,” has reopened the false debate surrounding the President’s signature legislation. Whether to uphold or strike down the ACA isn’t about how to provide truly universal healthcare in a sustainable way. Common…

Healthcare CEOs See Biggest Paycheck Bumps

By Karen M. Cheung for Fierce Healthcare – The healthcare industry saw the largest increases in executive pay out of all sectors, according to a Wall Street Journal and Hay Group CEO compensation survey, released yesterday. Although healthcare CEOs saw the smallest pay increases out of all industries in 2010, the tides shifted last year,…

6,000 Nurses Bring Robin Hood to Chicago

From National Nurses United – More than 6,000 nurses and activists gathered at Daley Plaza in Chicago Friday to rock out with musician Tom Morello and call for a tax on financial speculation — a Robin Hood tax. This small sales tax on Wall Street trades could raise up to $350 billion a year in…

It’s Up to Us

The politics of the current moment are clear: the Democrats are desperate to hold onto the White House at any cost and Republicans are fervently working to dismantle our social safety net to further uplift the private market. And meanwhile it’s us — the workers, mothers, fathers, students, nurses, patients, and physicians — that are…

RoseAnn DeMoro on the Robin Hood Tax, Single-Payer

From Moyers and Company – Bill talks to RoseAnn DeMoro, who heads the largest registered nurses union in the country, and led a Chicago march protesting economic inequality on May 18. DeMoro is championing the Robin Hood Tax, a small government levy the financial sector would pay on commercial transactions like stocks and bonds. The…

Single Payer Amendment Narrowly Defeated in Mass.

From Benjamin Day, Executive Director of Mass-Care – This Tuesday, after an hour and a half floor debate, the Massachusetts Senate narrowly voted down a single payer amendment to a broader cost control bill, on a 15 to 22 vote. The amendment would have instructed the state to, every year, measure our actual health care…

Medical students embrace Medicare for all

By Dr. Ed Weisbart for STLToday.com – If you ever want to rekindle your hope for American medicine, spend time with medical students. These bright, energetic minds are going into medicine for all the right reasons — to help people, relieve suffering and find new ways to cure illness and eradicate disease. Their idealism is…