September 2012 – Healthcare-NOW

What President Obama isn’t saying about Medicare

By Jonathan Martin for Politico – President Barack Obama wanted to make the differences with his GOP opponents crystal clear at a rally in senior-heavy Melbourne, Fla., earlier this month. “Here’s the bottom line,” Obama said: “Their voucher plan for Medicare would bankrupt Medicare. Our plan strengthens Medicare. No American should have to spend their…

Healthcare-NOW! Seeking an Office Manager/Bookkeeper

Healthcare-NOW!, a national grassroots advocacy organization supporting single-payer healthcare that formed in 2004, is accepting applications for a part-time (15 to 20 hours a week) Office Manager and Bookkeeper. The Office Manager and Bookkeeper will mostly maintain daily office operations and finances, but there are opportunities to support national organizing work as well. We are…

Bargaining Under the New Health Law

By Peter Knowlton for Labor Notes – Now that the Affordable Care Act has been blessed by the Supreme Court, will it help us at the bargaining table? Probably not. Much as NAFTA legitimized cross-border corporate exploitation of workers, the Affordable Care Act confirms the domination of health care in the U.S. by private insurance…

Life Spans Shrink for Least-Educated Whites in the U.S.

By the New York Times – For generations of Americans, it was a given that children would live longer than their parents. But there is now mounting evidence that this enduring trend has reversed itself for the country’s least-educated whites, an increasingly troubled group whose life expectancy has fallen by four years since 1990. Researchers…

Obamacare tax penalty to hit nearly 6M uninsured people

By the AP – Nearly 6 million Americans – significantly more than first estimated – will face a tax penalty under President Barack Obama’s health overhaul for not getting insurance, congressional analysts said Wednesday. Most would be in the middle class. The new estimate amounts to an inconvenient fact for the administration, a reminder of…

One battle in the war against health-insurer insensitivity

By David Lazarus for the LA Times – It would be so easy for health insurers to avoid ill will if they’d just listen to what customers are saying and do their best to respond in a reasonable fashion. Unfortunately, that’s just not how the industry seems to be programmed. Kevin Roberts, 36, has been…

Raise the eligibility age for Medicare?

By Aaron E. Carroll, M.D. for The Wall Street Journal – Whenever a debate begins on how to cut Medicare spending, someone “sensibly” suggests raising the eligibility age to 67 from 65. The reasons for this are always presented as obvious “facts”: People are living so much longer than they did when Medicare was enacted…

How Paul Ryan enslaves Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom

The Republican VP nominee claims Hayek as hero. Did he miss the libertarian economist’s advocacy of universal healthcare? By Bernard Harcourt for the Guardian – Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the…

Obama More Flexible on Medicare Privatization Than Rhetoric Suggests

By Margot Sanger-Katz for NationalJournal – In his convention speech in Charlotte, President Obama vowed to block the Republican Medicare reform plan because “no American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies.” But back in Washington, his Health and Human Services Department is launching a pilot program that…

Obama Excludes Immigrants From Health Care Law

By Robert Pear for the New York Times – The White House has ruled that young immigrants who will be allowed to stay in the United States as part of a new federal policy will not be eligible for health insurance coverage under President Obama’s health care overhaul. The decision — disclosed last month, to…