Healthcare-NOW

Held hostage by the health system

By Dr. Marcia Angell – The Senate Finance Committee’s hearings on health reform earlier this month did not include testimony from any advocate for single-payer insurance. Physicians for a National Health Program, which represents 16,000 doctors, asked the committee to invite me to testify, but it chose not to. If I had been invited, this…

Bill Moyers Journal on Single-Payer

On May 22nd, Bill Moyers Journal interviewed Donna Smith, of California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Dr. Sidney Wolfe, of Public Citizen, and Physicians for a National Health Program’s Dr. David Himmelstein. See Donna Smith’s interview here. See the interview with Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Dr. David Himmelstein here.

Put single-payer on the table

Editorial: Times Union (Albany, NY), May 19th, 2009 Earlier this month, eight courageous doctors, lawyers and other activists interrupted a Senate Finance Committee meeting on health care reform to ask why there wasn’t one advocate of a single-payer health care system at the table. Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, had them arrested. Shame on…

Bill Moyers’ Journal Discusses Single-Payer

This Friday, Bill Moyers’ Journal discusses single-payer healthcare. Guests include Donna Smith (California Nurses Association), Dr. Sidney Wolfe (Public Citizen) and Dr. David Himmelstein (Physicians for a National Health Program). You can look up the dates/times for your area here.

Nation needs health care plan based on Social Security, Medicare models

By Helen Thomas – Americans can be thankful for two humanitarian presidents whose legacies stand as emblems of caring values that enrich us as a nation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt won passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare legislation in 1965. Social Security and Medicare work beautifully…

Middle Class Healthcare Reform? Bend Over…

By Donna Smith – It’s coming. You and me and every middle class, working person in this nation is about to start handing over more and more of their hard earned cash to the private insurance industry, courtesy of our own elected members of Congress and our very popular President. Fire up those Treasury Department…

Open Letter to the President from the Canadian Health Coalition

Dear Mr. President: As the national voice for Canadians who want to protect and expand our national public healthcare system, the Canadian Health Coalition would like to encourage your efforts to make health care available and affordable for all Americans. Canada’s national Medicare system is one that all Canadians value and depend on for quality…

Diane Rehm Show on Single-Payer

Proponents of a single-payer plan argue it is the best solution for the nation’s health-care system. But chances of such a program making it into law appear remote. How a single-payer plan might work and why it faces an uphill battle in Congress. Guests Roger Hickey, Co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future Dr. David…

Baucus’ Raucous Caucus

By Amy Goodman for Truthdig— Barack Obama appeared this week with health-industry bigwigs, proclaiming light at the end of the health-care tunnel. Among those gathered were executives from HMO giants Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Health Net Inc., and the health-insurance lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans; from the American Hospital Association and the American…

Obama for Single-Payer Before He Was Against It

By David Sirota for AlterNet— How Political Elites Have Made Single Payer “Politically Impossible” In light of the White House’s big hand-holding session today with the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries today, let me take this moment to note that a cynic – or, perhaps, a realist – might look at President Obama’s statements on…