Healthcare-NOW

Get Them Out: Rotten Apples in Congressional Witness Bushel on Health Reform

By Donna Smith– Many know by now that a single payer healthcare system is the type of reform most widely supported by the American people and a majority of nurses, doctors and healthcare professionals. Many also know that Congress has so far deftly and purposely shunned most expert witnesses who would offer evidence in favor…

A funeral dirge for private health insurance?

Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry is Dying, and How We Must Replace It By John Geyman, M.D. Common Courage Press, 2008 Softcover, 251 pp. Book review by A.R. Strobeck Jr. Dr. John Geyman, a longtime physician and professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington, has written several books about…

“Dems Have Super-Majority To Demand Single-Payer Universal Health Care”

On The Ed Show, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders talks about the Arlen Specter defection to the Democrats, and how the grassroots now has to rise up and demand single-payer universal health care if they want it.

Health care reform with no reform

By Marie Cocco for the Denver Post— Every so often, I remember Ronald Reagan fondly – not for his policies but for his skill at the art of persuasion. Right now, for example, I’d like to call the Gipper back to cock his head, give us that quizzical look, and say “there you go again.”…

Montanans for Single Payer forms to promote universal coverage

A new statewide group has formed to affect the current national debate on health care reform. Montanans for Single-Payer is committed to true universal health care, a Medicare-type system where everyone is in and no one is out, according to the group’s spokesman, Phil Campbell. Campbell said that Montanans for Single-Payer is convinced the only…

Big health insurer’s calls to members draws criticism

By Bobby Caina Calvan for The Sacramento Bee— WellPoint, the nation’s largest health insurer, has launched what could be the start of a campaign for the hearts and minds of the American public as the country prepares for debates over reshaping its much-maligned health care system. The company, which operates in California as Anthem Blue…

Cost control, universal care impossible without single-payer health system

Policy expert challenges effectiveness of lesser reforms at House panel With President Obama and congressional leaders vowing to pass a health reform bill by the end of the year, a prominent Harvard-based health policy analyst warned a House subcommittee Thursday that the leading incremental models for reform, including those patterned after the Massachusetts plan, are…

Belly Dancers Rally for Universal Health Care

By Scott Hershberger for Your4State.com— MARTINSBURG, WV – It may have looked like a party in Martinsburg: belly dancers and loud, festive music, but the people involved weren’t celebrating. The group is hoping to see “single payer” health insurance in the United States, and they want some support from a local lawmaker. They’re hoping to…

Testimony of David U. Himmelstein, M.D. Before the HELP Subcommittee

By David U. Himmelstein from PNHP.org— Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. My name is David Himmelstein. I am a primary care doctor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and associate professor of medicine at Harvard. I also serve as national spokesperson for Physicians for a National Health Program. Our 16,000 physician members support nonprofit, single-payer national health…

Healthcare Lifeboats

By David U. Himmelstein & Steffie Woolhandler— Massachusetts’s 2006 healthcare reform plan, often cited as a model for the nation, is sailing through choppy waters. Governor Deval Patrick is keeping it afloat by throwing away the lifeboats: public hospitals and clinics. Freighted with tax-funded windfalls that brought private insurers and hospitals on board, the reform…