Healthcare-NOW

Policing the Debate on Health Reform

By Isabel Macdonald for FAIR – ABC’s Diane Sawyer claimed (CNN, 6/22/09) the network’s June 24 forum on President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan would feature “questions from every single vantage point.” Yet, ignoring calls from FAIR (Action Alert, 6/22/09) and advocacy groups such as Health Care Now!, the special did not include a single question…

LabCorp Denies Blood Test for Heart Attack Patient Due to $7 Debt

By Donna Smith OK, if this wasn’t personal enough just yet for me, it just got a whole lot more so. And if you think for one instant that in this nation at this point in history and with this popularly elected President and Democratic Congress you will be treated for a heart attack simply…

The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform

By Wendell Potter for prwatch.org – I’m the former insurance industry insider now speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not)…

Mass. cuts its health coverage by $115m

By Kay Lazar of the Boston Globe – Overseers of Massachusetts’ trailblazing healthcare program made their first cuts yesterday, trimming $115 million, or 12 percent, from Commonwealth Care, which subsidizes premiums for needy residents and is the centerpiece of the 2006 law. The board of the Connector Authority made the cuts as officials confronted two…

Health care a human right?

From The Real News – A single payer rep finally testifies to Congress; insurance industry steps up attack on any public plan June 21 – “Our decades’ reliance on the market and efforts to patch together a system to use a public and private mix has failed to carry a quality health care to all…

The Policy That Dare Not Speak Its Name

By Robert Kuttner for Huffington-Post – I’m sure I’m not the only reader who noticed the juxtaposition of two front page stories in Sunday’s New York Times dealing with health care. The first article cited a new Times-CBS poll showing that 72 percent of Americans favored a government run health plan comparable to Medicare, which…

Health care costs to rise 9% in 2010

By the AP – Employers who offer health insurance coverage could see a 9% cost increase next year, and their workers may face an even bigger hit, according to a report Thursday from consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Costs will rise in part because workers worried about losing their jobs are using their health care more while…

Canadian health care: Fact vs. fiction (Video)

From the Real News – As the debate over health care reform heats up in the United States, a sub-debate of increasing significance is that of the Canadian system. Natalie Mehra, a critic of the current health care system in Canada, is an even stronger critic of those Canadians in the US decreeing the failure…

Well, Well… Going to Healthcare Hell

By Donna Smith – We’ve learned some remarkable things over the past few weeks about healthcare reform in these United States. Remarkable, tragic, sad, disgusting and unacceptable truths about what we’ve put up with for decades and what we are about to see written into law unless we rise up. It was Jesus Christ who…

Lawmakers Reveal Health-Care Investments

By Paul Kane for the Washington Post – Almost 30 key lawmakers helping draft landmark health-care legislation have financial holdings in the industry, totaling nearly $11 million worth of personal investments in a sector that could be dramatically reshaped by this summer’s debate. The list of members who have personal investments in the corporations that…