Healthcare-NOW

Baucus to Meet with Single Payer Advocates

By Single Payer Action – Guess who’s coming to dinner. After months of proclaiming that single payer is off the table, Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) has invited five key single payer advocates to meet with him in Washington, D.C. this week. On Wednesday June 3, Senator Baucus will meet with Dr. David Himmelstein, Associate Professor…

Rep. Conyers urges single-payer system

By Laura Ungar for Courier-Journal.com – Despite resistance from President Barack Obama and some members of Congress, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan said yesterday he’ll keep fighting for a publicly financed, privately delivered “single payer” health-care system that covers all Americans. “All who are ready to fight for what they believe is right in health…

Thousands hit Seattle streets seeking changes to health care

Thousands joined a health-care rally and later a mellow, slow-moving parade in downtown Seattle, complete with belly dancers, drums, air horns, children, bicycles and lots of signs, both mass-produced and hand-drawn. Many said they wanted a single-payer national health-insurance system — the type of insurance that’s widely used in Europe and Canada. By Katherine Long…

Everything is on the table except what’s not (video)

Sen. Max Baucus, Chair of the Finance Committee announced last week: “single-payer option is not on the table because it cannot pass”. A week earlier, a rally, co-sponsored by one of the main advocates of single-payer system, CNA/NNOC took place on Capitol Hill. Hundreds of nurses, doctors and health care reform advocates gathered to express…

Really, Mr. President

By Andrew Coates, MD – The Democratic National Committee (DNC), at its Organizing for America website, barackobama.com, has initiated nationally coordinated local events in June, the “Health Care Organizing Kickoff.” Organizers will call local contacts using an “Invite Call Script:” “For decades, health care reform has been blocked by special interest lobbying and political point-scoring…

Single-Payer Actions Planned in over Fifty Cities

Activists of every stripe take to the streets to support single-payer As the Obama administration calls for health reform to be done this year, people in support of improved Medicare for all, a single-payer national health system, take to the streets in over 50 cities around May 30th. Single-payer advocates support the removal of for-profit…

Baucus 8 Charged: It’s an Outrage Outdone Only by Their Humanity

By Donna Smith – They arrived on May 26 to the DC courthouse in business dress and on time. The single payer supporters now known as the Baucus 8 who were arrested on May 5, 2009, in your United States Senate hearing chambers came ready to be arraigned on Tuesday morning and to find out…

Disruption of Congress or Corruption of Congress?

Single Payer Trial for the Baucus 13 By Single Payer Action – Seven of the Baucus 13 were arraigned in Washington, D.C. Superior Court this morning. The Baucus 13 are doctors, nurses, lawyers and other single payer advocates who stood up before Senator Max Baucus and the Senate Finance Committee during hearings on May 5…

Single-payer mentions draw cheers at Baucus-sponsored health care talk

By Michael Moore of the Missoulian – Steve McArthur is a management consultant. Read self-employed. That means he has to buy his own insurance, a Blue Cross Blue Shield policy that costs him $584 a month and carries a $10,000 deductible. On Tuesday morning, he listened for a long time as Missoulians discussed health care…

Held hostage by the health system

By Dr. Marcia Angell – The Senate Finance Committee’s hearings on health reform earlier this month did not include testimony from any advocate for single-payer insurance. Physicians for a National Health Program, which represents 16,000 doctors, asked the committee to invite me to testify, but it chose not to. If I had been invited, this…