Single-Payer News
50 doctors for single payer urge Supreme Court to strike down individual mandate
By Single Payer Action – WASHINGTON — Fifty medical doctors who favor a single-payer health insurance system today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the individual mandate. In a brief (pdf) filed with the Court, the 50 doctors and two nonprofit groups – Single Payer Action and It’s Our Economy – said that…
Read MoreHal Sanders – Advocate of Single-Payer Healthcare
By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – Hal Sanders was the epitome of the small-town boy who makes good, except he wasn’t even from a small town. He grew up poor, surrounded by cornfields in rural Illinois, and went on to become a hospital executive who, in retirement, became a champion of single-payer health care…
Read MoreAHIP Hooray!
From the Harvard Crimson – If you were anywhere near Harvard Business School last Saturday you might have seen a 12-foot tall puppet dancing to accordion music while a merry band of “Congresspeople” and “health insurance executives” swilled champagne, showered each other in cash and sang round after round of “For She’s A Jolly Good…
Read MoreEven Critics of Safety Net Depend on It Increasingly
From the New York Times – LINDSTROM, Minn. – Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government. He says that too many Americans…
Read MoreLawrence O’Donnell on Single-Payer and the Birth Control Mess
From MSNBC – MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell explains how President Obama’s healthcare bill traded old problems for new problems by keeping the employer-based insurance system in place. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Read MoreHealth Insurers Remain in Many “Socially Responsible” Funds
From the Wall Street Journal – Mention “socially responsible investing” and most people think of a stock-picking strategy that involves abstinence—that is, avoiding industries or companies whose ethical, environmental or governance practices fall short of certain standards. The mutual-fund industry began offering products based on this idea in the 1970s, and Morningstar Inc. recently identified…
Read MoreNew Coalition to Advocate for Universal Health Care in Oregon
From Salem-News.com – “Oregon’s current health care system is neither humane nor cost-effective.” (PORTLAND, Ore.) – Delegates from 28 unions, nonprofits and grassroots organizations gathered in Portland on Friday, January 27, to form a new coalition that will advocate for universal health care in Oregon and the U.S. Seven labor unions joined with 21 community…
Read MoreInsurance firms seeking to sow doubt about single-payer in Vermont
By Wendell Potter for IWatchNews.org – You can’t see them. They’re hidden from view and probably always will be. But the health insurance industry’s big guns are in place and pointed directly at the citizens of Vermont. Health insurers were not able to stop the state’s drive last year toward a single-payer health care system,…
Read MoreWhy Are US Health Costs So High? Follow the Bills
By Ralph Nader – Looking at millions of individual bills that makeup the 2.7 trillion dollars of annual health care costs opens a gigantic window on the massive waste, redundancy, profiteering, fraud and sometimes criminal over-billing. Here is a partial example of what I mean, in the words of Philip M. Boffey, the estimable science…
Read MoreMessage from Senator Leno on California Single-Payer Setback
By Senator Mark Leno, from PDACommunity.org – Most of you have likely heard the disappointing news that our bill, SB 810, the California Universal Health Care Act, failed to move off the Senate Floor by January 31st, meaning it cannot advance further in the legislative process this year. Despite our unwavering advocacy, too few members…
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