Single-Payer News
Vermont Senate expected to take up health reform legislation this week
From the Republic.com – MONTPELIER, Vt. — A committee of the Vermont Senate is expected to work an extra day Monday — and a long one at that — as lawmakers push to finish work on a bill that would move the state toward Gov. Peter Shumlin’s goal of universal, single-payer health care. Lawmakers usually…
Read MoreRepublicans dodge downside of Medicaid plan
By David Nather for Politico – Republicans talk a lot about how Medicaid block grants could help governors bring down their costs, but they don’t talk as much about what, exactly, the states would do with them. It’s not that they have no answers. Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi has said he’d like to provide…
Read MoreCBO Says GOP Medicare Plan Would Double The Cost Of Health Care For Seniors
By Rick Ungar for Forbes – Despite Rep. Paul Ryan’s suggestion that the independent and bi-partisan Congressional Budget Office had signed off on the numbers he has presented in his 2012 budget proposal, it is now emerging that Rep. Ryan has failed to tell us the entire story. One of the key provisions contained in…
Read MoreRyan Turns Knife on Medicare, Medicaid
By Margaret Flowers – Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee, unveiled two proposals this week which if enacted would constitute a mortal threat to our nation’s health – particularly to the health of our seniors and our most vulnerable populations. The first proposal, Senate Joint Resolution 10,…
Read MoreRiding the Wave
Why the HIV community (and everybody else) should support single-payer health care. By Sue Saltmarsh for Positively Aware – As a peer-led agency, the Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN) has always been staffed by many HIV-positive people, as well as others who have diabetes, heart problems, sleep disorders, cancer, and a variety of other ills…
Read MoreThe Budget Battles: The Threat to Medicaid and Medicare
A New York Times Editorial – Representative Paul Ryan’s proposals to reform Medicare and Medicaid are mostly an effort to shift the burden to beneficiaries and the states. They have very little reform in them. Related in Opinion They certainly won’t solve the two most pressing problems in the nation’s health care system: the relentlessly…
Read MoreHouse Republicans Propose $4 Trillion in Cuts Over Decade
By Carl Hulse for the New York Times – House Republicans plan this week to propose more than $4 trillion in federal spending reductions over the next decade by reshaping popular programs like Medicare, the Budget Committee chairman said Sunday in opening a new front in the intensifying budget wars. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,”…
Read MoreVideo of the Student Rally in Vermont for Single Payer
By PNHP NY Metro Chapter – Medical, nursing, and public health students from around the country organized a rally to support universal, single-payer health care in Vermont. The March 26, 2011 event was led by student members of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and co-sponsored by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA).
Read MoreGAO Examines Individual Mandate Alternatives – Well, Some of Them
By Jon Walker for FireDogLake – At the request of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), the Government Accountability Office put out a report examining several alternatives to the individual mandate that could be used alone or in combination to increase the number of insured if there were no mandate. Nine of the possibilities looked at by…
Read MoreObama administration delaying some rules for appealing health insurance denials
By Susan Jaffe for Kaiser Health News – The Obama administration is delaying until next January its enforcement of some new rules designed to protect patients who appeal insurers’ decisions to deny or reduce health care benefits. In the meantime, the Labor Department said in a posting on its website that it will revise the…
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