Congress – Healthcare-NOW

Action Alert: Ask Congress to Attend Important Briefing

This Thursday, September 23rd an important Congressional briefing is scheduled on Capitol Hill to address changes to Medicare–which could weaken the program–that the Deficit Commission is exploring. The briefing’s panelists will describe the strengths of our current Medicare program, in particular how it reduces poverty and health disparities, and how a single-payer, or “improved Medicare…

Healthcare Memo: Don’t Mourn, Escalate

By Deborah Burger, R.N., President of the California Nurses Assn. – There’s a fundamental lesson in collective bargaining that seems to have been lost on the White House, and those in Congress who devised their failing strategy on healthcare reform: Don’t make all your compromises before you walk in the room. For all those now…

Former Capitol Hill Staff Hired by Healthcare Companies to Lobby Congress

The Washington Post produced a graphic on how the Congressional committees working on health reform legislation are being lobbied by people who use to work for them. According to the graphic, “nearly half of the former Capitol Hill aides hired by major health-care companies to lobby Congress during the first quarter of 2009 previously worked…

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)…

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…

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…

An Open Letter to Congress: Help Me or I Will Die

By Donna Smith– U.S. Representative Eric Massa of New York said this week that in the 86 days since he took office, he has received many letters from his constituents. Some are general letters supporting him or proposed legislation; some letters express disagreement with some of what Congress is working on. Other letters begin with…

Action Alert: “National Lessons for Health Reform”

The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, along with Healthcare-NOW!, is preparing for the third Congressional briefing in Washington, DC titled “National Lessons for Health Reform: An Examination of US Health Insurance.” Thanks to the phone calls, faxes, and emails, the last briefing on Feb. 25 had an unprecedented number of healthcare staffers in the…

Americans Should Not Stand for Lock-down on Single-Payer Discussion

By Laura Bonham– As an ardent advocate of single-payer healthcare for many years, I am more than a little frustrated by Washington insiders—beholden to healthcare corporations—telling the American people that passing single-payer healthcare reform, specifically HR. 676, the United States National Health Care Act, can’t happen. The fact is they are standing in the way…

Plan Congressional Visits During Presidents’ Day Recess

Congressman John Conyers re-introduced HR 676 into the 111th Congress on January 26th. The bill keeps the same number, HR 676, as it has since it was first introduced in 2003. Because this is a new Congress, representatives who co-sponsored HR 676 in the 110th Congress need to sign on again. Plus we need to…