Single-Payer News
Health Care CEO’s Lavish Pay Package Shows How the 1% Get Paid
John Hammergren, the CEO of health-care giant McKesson Corp., made $46 million last year thanks to one of the most generous executive pay packages in his, or any other business. Gary Rivlin of The Daily Beast has a breakdown of some of the outrageous provisions that contribute to Hammergren’s outrageous wealth including some figures that…
Read MoreWhen Medicare Isn’t Medicare
By Wendell Potter for the Huffington Post – Let’s say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford? That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright…
Read MoreMentally ill flood ER as states cut services
From Reuters – On a recent shift at a Chicago emergency department, Dr. William Sullivan treated a newly homeless patient who was threatening to kill himself. “He had been homeless for about two weeks. He hadn’t showered or eaten a lot. He asked if we had a meal tray,” said Sullivan, a physician at the…
Read MoreUninsured use Groupon, other daily deal sites, for healthcare
From MSNBC.com – The last time Mark Stella went to the dentist he didn’t need an insurance card. Instead, he pulled out a Groupon. Stella, a small business owner, canceled his health insurance plan more than three years ago when his premium rose to more than $400 a month. He considered himself healthy and decided…
Read MoreFewer Americans get health insurance through job
Employer-sponsored coverage is growing more expensive and covering less. From AMA-ASSN.org – Findings by the Commonwealth Fund and polling by Gallup show that fewer workers are getting health insurance, and those who have it are paying more for less. Polling released in November by Gallup showed the smallest percentage of American adults covered by employer-sponsored…
Read MoreUn-Happy Holidays for Seniors and the Disabled – Here’s Your Donut
by Donna Smith – It isn’t sugar plums dancing in their dreams for America’s seniors and disabled who are covered by the Medicare program. It’s donuts. Donut holes into which many fall at this time of the year as they reach the maximum limits of the first tier of “Part D” prescription drug benefits. I…
Read MoreMass. Legislature Considers Eldridge Single-Payer Healthcare Bill
From nashobapublishing.com – Legislation would “dramatically reduce” health care costs, improve access to care BOSTON — Touting dramatic reductions in health care costs, improved access to health care for all residents, and a boost to local businesses, state Sen. Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton) and state Rep. Jason Lewis (D-Winchester), along with health care advocates, providers, employers,…
Read MoreMeet the new 1%: healthcare CEOs replace bankers as America’s best paid
No bankers in top 10 of America’s best-paid executives, but those in charge of healthcare and drugs firms are in the money By Dominic Rushe for The Guardian – Pity Wall Street’s bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the…
Read MoreSpeakout lets locals voice views on health care
From Gainesville.com – Dr. Lynn Chacko put her money where her philosophy is. Chacko told those gathered at a speakout on health care Saturday that she gave up a profitable job as a private physician in South Florida to work for the Veterans Administration in Gainesville. “I had a wonderful group of patients, but I…
Read MoreHealth Reform Devolves Into ‘Unaffordable Under-Insurance’
From In These Times – Healthcare reform in the shape of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) was supposed to relieve working Americans of the burdens of rising healthcare costs as they struggle to survive the jobless recovery. Instead, working Americans are being confronted with the emergence of a new stage in America’s downward…
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