Healthcare-NOW

Republicans for Single-Payer?

You wouldn’t know it from the candidates’ debates or reports on the major television networks, but a majority of Americans favor a government-run health insurance system similar to Canada’s. Those lining up to support single-payer health care include medical professionals, business people, and many Republicans. Dr. Rocky White has been all of those things. White…

Uninsured Give but Rarely Receive Organs for Transplant

Call it the ultimate inequity in health care. A team of Harvard researchers finds that people without health insurance are about 20 times more likely to donate a liver or kidney than to receive one. The results of the study, which appear in the current issue of International Journal of Health Services, looked at U.S.…

Man emerges as uninsured advocate after sick wife was denied coverage

Jack Conaway was laid off last year. A few weeks later, his wife was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer. Then the Amherst couple lost their health insurance. Faced with possibility of having to chip away at their savings to pay out of pocket for cancer drugs that cost $6,500 every three weeks, they scrambled to…

Single-Payer Healthcare Alliance Forms in Washington, D.C.

By David Swanson With Barack Obama about to assume the presidency and take up the healthcare issue, leaders of single-payer healthcare organizations met for two days, November 11 – 12, at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C. The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), Healthcare-NOW! , and…

Learn all you can about health care alternatives

The following editorial is from www.Courier-Journal.com. By now it is almost a cliche to say that America’s health care system is broken. In response, many politicians who are calling for “reform” and “universal health coverage” are not, in fact, clarifying the situation because they include in their new plans the very elements that have busted…

Single-payer system is the way to go

By Ray Bellamy Millions of families are struggling with economic hardship. Health-care costs are weighing on more Americans, contributing to about a million bankruptcies a year, and are a major factor in many home foreclosures. Distressed companies are struggling with the rising costs of providing health coverage for their employees, and there is evidence of…

Doctors Call on Obama, Congress to ‘Do The Right Thing’ on Health Reform

This article was posted at www.PublicAffairs.net. 15,000 physicians urge enactment of single-payer system A group of over 15,000 U.S. physicians has called on President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress to “do the right thing” and enact a single-payer national health insurance plan, a system of public health care financing frequently characterized as “an improved…

Big 3, UAW Ask for Health Trust Help

The following article is from DetNews.com. Cash-crunched automakers state need for payment help in their bid for federal financing. By David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau WASHINGTON — Detroit’s Big Three and the United Auto Workers are pressing the case for low-cost government loans to help automakers make required payments to trust funds to…

What Obama’s Next Steps Should Be on Health Care

The following article is from AlterNet. AlterNet asked dozens of writers, experts and activists on key issues to write about where the country needs to go, and the priorities for Barack Obama’s early days in office. By Sara Robinson, fellow, Campaign for America’s Future The most important thing for incoming Obama policy makers to remember…

Massachusetts Voters Say YES to Single-Payer Healthcare, and NO to Mandates

From MassCare.org: Dear Single Payer Supporters – In an election that has brought out the highest voter turnout in Massachusetts probably since 1928, local ballot initiatives supporting single payer and opposing individual mandates passed by landslide margins in all ten legislative districts where they appeared. With almost all precincts tallied, roughly 73 percent of 181,000…