Healthcare-NOW

Interview: Robert Kuttner on single-payer health care

By Vermont Public Radio— Two nationally known health care policy thinkers will be in Vermont this week, engaging in a debate over health care organized by the Janus forum at UVM. Yesterday we heard from Arnold Kling of the Cato Institute, who argues that while our current system of health insurance is broken, a universal…

Astroturf Lobby Charged With Tricking Old Folks Into Writing Letters To Editors

By Ryan Grim for the Huffington Post— Medicare Advantage plans — publicly funded but privately administered Medicare plans — are regularly accused of tricking the elderly into giving up their Medicare coverage for an Advantage plan that doesn’t suit them. In response, are they now tricking old folks into signing letters to local newspapers, hoping…

TNRtv: The Case for Single-Payer Health Care

From the New Republic— At the 2009 World Health Care Congress, TNR senior editor Jonathan Cohn sat down with Dr. Michael Chen, Vice President and CFO of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Bureau, to discuss the results of Taiwan’s switch to a universal health care system.

Top Ten Enemies of Single Payer

By Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action— Most people, when they arrive in Washington, D.C., see it for what it is – a cesspool of corruption. Two reasonable reactions to the cesspool. One, run away screaming in fear. Two, stay and fight back and bring to justice those who have corrupted our democracy. Unfortunately, many…

Why Has the Press Failed Us In Reporting on Health Care Reform?

An Open Letter to Bill Keller, Executive Editor, New York Times, and Clark Hoyt, Public Editor, New York Times by Benjamin Day— Dear Bill Keller and Clark Hoyt, For the first time in the span of a generation, national health care reform is back on the horizon, and I’m writing to you to step back…

Protesters tell PBS – Put Single Payer Back on the Table

From Private Health Insurance Must Go!— Earlier today, PHIMG members gathered in front of WNET-PBS TV’s 33rd street office to voice displeasure over Frontline’s Sick Around America program. Sick Around America treated mandatory for-profit insurance coverage as the only alternative to the current U.S. health care system and perpetuated the media’s longstanding pattern of ignoring…

Single-Payer Debate on NPR

Yesterday, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, of Physicians for a National Health Program, debated Robert Moffit, of the Heritage Foundation, on single-payer healthcare and healthcare reform on NPR’s Radio Times. Here’s the NPR description and an MP3 of the hour-long debate. When Barak Obama outlined his proposal for reforming the health care system, the concept of a…

Obama sets up formal office for healthcare reform

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama set up an executive office for healthcare reform at the White House on Wednesday, saying the overhaul was one of the biggest priorities for the first year of his presidency. Obama issued an executive order that says the U.S. healthcare system “suffers from serious and pervasive problems.” The White…

PBS Ombud Sides with Frontline Critics

By FAIR— PBS ombud Michael Getler is siding with critics of a Frontline documentary that failed to examine single-payer national health insurance as a possible alternative to the U.S. healthcare system. Citing FAIR’s study “Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare,” which documented that single-payer advocates were all but shut out of the media discussion about healthcare…

Frontline Responds on Sick Around America

By FAIR— In the wake of a FAIR Action Alert (4/6/09), Frontline has responded to critics of its documentary Sick Around America, defending the film’s focus on mandatory private health insurance and its exclusion of the single-payer option. (Frontline’s full response follows.) In an email response to FAIR (4/7/09), Frontline characterized FAIR’s charge that the…