April 2014 – Healthcare-NOW

Tim Carpenter’s Politics of Radical Inclusion: In the Streets and in the Polling Booths

By John Nichols for the Nation – Tim Carpenter never lost faith in the very real prospect of a very radical change for the better. And he never lost his organizer’s certainty that the tipping point that would make the change was just a few more phone calls, a few more rallies, a few more…

Save the Date: Healthcare-NOW!’s 10th Anniversary Strategy Conference

This year marks our 10th anniversary! Marilyn Clement founded Healthcare-NOW! in 2004 originally under the title “Campaign for a National Health Program NOW.” We are doing something extraordinary for our National Strategy Conference to mark this occasion: we will be hosting a mega single-payer conference jointly with the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Health Care and…

Single-Payer System Would Be a Boon to the Economy, Public Citizen Report Says

New System Would Boost Economy, Reduce Costs and Eliminate Unfair Burdens on Companies That Provide Health Insurance Benefits WASHINGTON, D.C. – A publicly funded, universal health care system would aid businesses by engendering a more dynamic economy, taming costs and freeing businesses that provide health insurance of the costs of administering benefits and subsidizing the…

Forget Obamacare

Vermont wants to bring single payer to America By Sarah Kliff for Vox – Saskatchewan is a vast prairie province in the middle of Canada. It’s home to hockey great Gordie Howe and the world’s first curling museum. But Canadians know it for another reason: it’s the birthplace of the country’s single-payer health-care system. In…

The Neoliberal Turn in American Health Care

By A.W. Gaffney for Jacobin – The failings of the Affordable Care Act are rooted in a long shift away from the idea of a truly universal health care. Last year’s three-ring Congressional shutdown circus — for many little more than a desperate rearguard action by an isolated rightwing fringe to undo the fait accompli…

A Pro-Single Payer Doctor’s Concerns About Obamacare

By Adam Gaffney for Salon – As a single-payer advocate who is also a doctor, I was concerned after the Affordable Care Act was passed that it didn’t do enough to combat rising underinsurance. A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund, which used new data to demonstrate that in 2012 some 31.7 million Americans were…

Listen: Health Care for All – Texas Open Journal April Episode

Health Care for All – Texas’s Open Journal radio series on healthcare reform was today, Wednesday, April 9th on KPFT 90.1FM (Houston) at 9:30am. Their guest this month was Dr. Gerald Friedman. Listen here: [audio:http://archive.kpft.org/mp3/kpft_140409_093000ojcs.mp3] Here’s a direct link to the mp3 file (right click to save). Dr. Gerald Friedman, Professor of Economics at the…

As Vermont Goes, So Goes the Nation?

By Molly Worthen for The New York Times – When most liberals hear the words “third party,” they have nasty flashbacks to Ralph Nader’s spoiler campaign in 2000. The history buffs among them might think of the populist Greenback Party’s feckless protests against the gold standard in the 19th century or the five presidential campaigns…

Action Alert: Don’t Eliminate Thousands of Immigrants’ Medicare Benefits

President Obama’s 2015 budget proposal would “involuntarily disenroll” some (fewer than 5,000) undocumented immigrants currently receiving some Medicare benefits–even those who have been paying into Medicare for decades–in order to realize minimal savings that will be offset by the costs to hospitals for treating the elderly uninsured. Tell President Obama that his proposal to cut…

Maine House OKs Bill to Study Single-Payer System

By the AP – Maine’s Democratic-controlled House has given initial approval to a proposal to have the state examine whether to implement a universal health insurance coverage system. The House voted 91-52 in favor of the bill Tuesday that would direct the state to contract with a consultant who would study options for establishing a…