health care – Healthcare-NOW

America’s Healthcare Crisis is Getting Worse

By Roger Bybee for In These Times – “I don’t think the American people want shared sacrifice. I think that they want shared prosperity.”—John Watson of Chevron, testifying this month against a proposed $2 billion cut in oil-companies’ annual tax breaks in a year when they are on track to make $100 billion in profits…

Republican and Democratic Plans for Medicare and Medicaid Misguided

Push for Privatization will Accelerate Costs and Deaths By Margaret Flowers, M.D. for FireDogLake – Leadership in Washington recognizes the damage our soaring health care spending is doing to our entire economy. Although their rhetoric differs, recent budget proposals from both Republicans and Democrats mistakenly place the blame on Medicare and Medicaid. Cuts to and…

Ryan Turns Knife on Medicare, Medicaid

By Margaret Flowers – Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee, unveiled two proposals this week which if enacted would constitute a mortal threat to our nation’s health – particularly to the health of our seniors and our most vulnerable populations. The first proposal, Senate Joint Resolution 10,…

Riding the Wave

Why the HIV community (and everybody else) should support single-payer health care. By Sue Saltmarsh for Positively Aware – As a peer-led agency, the Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN) has always been staffed by many HIV-positive people, as well as others who have diabetes, heart problems, sleep disorders, cancer, and a variety of other ills…

The Budget Battles: The Threat to Medicaid and Medicare

A New York Times Editorial – Representative Paul Ryan’s proposals to reform Medicare and Medicaid are mostly an effort to shift the burden to beneficiaries and the states. They have very little reform in them. Related in Opinion They certainly won’t solve the two most pressing problems in the nation’s health care system: the relentlessly…

House Republicans Propose $4 Trillion in Cuts Over Decade

By Carl Hulse for the New York Times – House Republicans plan this week to propose more than $4 trillion in federal spending reductions over the next decade by reshaping popular programs like Medicare, the Budget Committee chairman said Sunday in opening a new front in the intensifying budget wars. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,”…

Video of the Student Rally in Vermont for Single Payer

By PNHP NY Metro Chapter – Medical, nursing, and public health students from around the country organized a rally to support universal, single-payer health care in Vermont. The March 26, 2011 event was led by student members of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and co-sponsored by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA).

GAO Examines Individual Mandate Alternatives – Well, Some of Them

By Jon Walker for FireDogLake – At the request of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), the Government Accountability Office put out a report examining several alternatives to the individual mandate that could be used alone or in combination to increase the number of insured if there were no mandate. Nine of the possibilities looked at by…

Obama administration delaying some rules for appealing health insurance denials

By Susan Jaffe for Kaiser Health News – The Obama administration is delaying until next January its enforcement of some new rules designed to protect patients who appeal insurers’ decisions to deny or reduce health care benefits. In the meantime, the Labor Department said in a posting on its website that it will revise the…

Maternal Mortality in the United States: A Human Rights Failure

By Francine Coeytaux, Debra Bingham, and Nan Strauss for ARHP – With 99% of maternal deaths occurring in developing countries, it is too often assumed that maternal mortality is not a problem in wealthier countries. Yet, statistics released in September of 2010 by the United Nations place the United States 50th in the world for…