Healthcare-NOW

NARH Nurses Vote to Authorize Strike

PATIENT SAFETY AND QUALITY OF LIFE AT STAKE The registered nurses of the North Adams Regional Hospital (NARH) voted overwhelmingly July 19 to authorize their union leadership to call a strike if necessary in their ongoing negotiations with hospital management. In a unified show of strength, 99% of the voting members voted in favor of…

Health Law May Cost Children Coverage as UnitedHealth Ends Plans

By Alex Nussbaum for Bloomberg – UnitedHealth Group Inc. and insurers in Florida and Oklahoma stopped offering children-only health coverage because of the potential added costs of sick youngsters under the new U.S. health-care law, state officials said today. UnitedHealth’s Golden Rule subsidiary won’t sell new policies that cover only children, foreclosing an option for…

Don’t Gamble with Our Social Security

Andy Stern, a key member of the president’s deficit commission, proposes to invest a part of our Social Security funds in the stock market. Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank, has expressed approval for Stern’s proposal. “I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea,” said Baker.…

Insurers Push Plans That Limit Choice of Doctor

New York Times – As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals. The plans, being tested in places like San Diego, New York and Chicago, are likely…

Social Security Cuts Eyed by Deficit Commission ‘Especially Painful,’ Report Finds

by Mike Hall for AFL-CIO NOW Blog – Next month, Social Security, one of the nation’s most successful and important government programs, turns 75. It is the cornerstone of retirement security for tens of millions of Americans. (Today, the U.S. House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security will examine the success of Social Security…

Town Hall Meetings Say No to Cutting Social Security

By Al Benchich for Labor Notes – I can’t help but think that the folks behind the “America Speaks” town hall meetings, held June 26 in 19 cities across the country, were shell-shocked by the results. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and, principally, the foundation of Wall Street financier Peter Peterson had spent…

Obama’s Health Care Bill Is Enough to Make You Sick

By Chris Hedges for Truthdig – A close reading of the new health care legislation, which will conveniently take effect in 2014 after the next presidential election, is deeply depressing. The legislation not only mocks the lofty promises made by President Barack Obama, exposing most as lies, but sadly reconfirms that our nation is hostage…

Vermont health reform panel recommends analyst

By Nancy Remsen for Burlington Free Press – MONTPELIER — The Health Care Reform Commission recommended Monday that the Legislature hire the Harvard economist who helped Taiwan revamp its health-care system for a six-month, $300,000 health research project for Vermont. The consultant’s task: Give lawmakers three roadmaps the state could follow to achieve a more…

America Speaks Back: The Effort to Gut Social Security and Medicare Takes a Hit

By Dean Baker for TPM – The opponents of Social Security and Medicare are getting in high gear. After all, it makes perfect sense that after the collapse of a housing bubble has just destroyed the life savings of near retirees that we would cut their Social Security and Medicare. Okay, at least in Washington…

I Can See Healthcare From Here

By Donna Smith – DETROIT – As I wake each morning here in Detroit at the US Social Forum, I glance just a few hundred yards across the way, and I know people have healthcare without regard to financial or other barriers. And it hurts like hell to see the cars “over there” winding along…