Healthcare-NOW

Many Medicaid Patients Could Face Higher Fees

By Robert Pear for the New York Times – Millions of low-income people could be required to pay more for health care under a proposed federal policy that would give states more freedom to impose co-payments and other charges on Medicaid patients. Hoping to persuade states to expand Medicaid, the Obama administration said state Medicaid…

Labor Campaign Pushes Healthcare as a Human Right

By Micah Uetricht for The Nation – As most American progressives know, nearly every industrialized country in the world has a government-funded health care program—except the US. Not as many of us know, however, that in nearly all of those countries, organized labor was a central player in fighting for and defending those systems. The…

McDermott Lands Top Dem Spot on Healthcare Panel

By Sam Baker for The Hill – Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) snagged the top spot on a key healthcare subcommittee, House Democrats announced Tuesday. McDermott is now the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health. The top spot opened up after former Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) lost his reelection bid in November,…

For Americans Under 50, Stark Findings on Health

By Sabrina Tavernise for the New York Times – Younger Americans die earlier and live in poorer health than their counterparts in other developed countries, with far higher rates of death from guns, car accidents and drug addiction, according to a new analysis of health and longevity in the United States. Researchers have known for…

Health Care and Profits, a Poor Mix

By Eduardo Porter for the New York Times – Thirty years ago, Bonnie Svarstad and Chester Bond of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered an interesting pattern in the use of sedatives at nursing homes in the south of the state. Patients entering church-affiliated nonprofit homes were prescribed drugs roughly as…

Health Insurers Raise Some Rates by Double Digits

By Reed Abelson for the New York Times – Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers. Particularly vulnerable to the…

Washington’s Revolving Door Is Hazardous to Our Health

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship for Common Dreams – We’ve seen how Washington insiders write the rules of politics and the economy to protect powerful special interests, but now as we enter the holiday season, and a month or so after the election, we’re getting a refresher course in just how that inside game…

The Biggest Myth in Obama-GOP Showdown is the “Fiscal Cliff” Itself

By Democracy Now – As negotiations continue between the White House and House Speaker John Boehner, leading economist Dean Baker joins to discuss the myths about the so-called fiscal cliff. With little more than two weeks before the deadline, President Obama insists on an immediate increase in the top two income-tax rates as a condition…

Raising Medicare age could leave hundreds of thousands uninsured

By Greg Sargent for the Washington Post – It looks increasingly possible that lawmakers will reach a fiscal cliff deal that includes a hike in the Medicare eligibility age — a concession to those on the right who seem determined to see very deep entitlement cuts, even if they take benefits away from vulnerable seniors.…

Is Obama Selling Us Out on Medicare?

Hiking the eligibility age is such a terrible idea Obama can’t possibly be considering it. Or can he? By Joan Walsh for Alternet – I want to put a public service announcement on top of this post: The fiscal cliff scenarios discussed here may never become reality. The worst sell-outs of liberal principles allegedly under…