Healthcare-NOW

Health care plan explained

Universal care, guaranteed coverage touted in proposal By Charles McMahon for SeaCoastOnline.com – PORTSMOUTH — A national push to create a single-payer health care system that would allow all citizens the right to affordable health insurance was presented before Seacoast residents Wednesday night at the public library. More than 50 people attended the Health Care…

In Pa., Low-Income Adults Soon May Be Uninsured

By Jenny Gold for NPR – When Paula Michele Boyle first received the letter earlier this month explaining that her health insurance coverage was being terminated, she took it personally, thinking maybe the insurer had discovered something in her history to make her ineligible. But then the Philadelphia resident read on and realized that it…

Government more efficient?

A Milford Daily News Editorial – A [Massachusetts] official may have gone off-script last week, but what he had to say is an important contribution to the state’s ongoing debate over reining in health care costs. Terry Dougherty, director of MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program, was addressing a budget hearing in Boston Friday, State House…

Obama administration unlikely to block Arizona plan to cut 250,000 from Medicaid rolls

By N.C. Aizenman for the Washington Post – The Obama administration would permit a controversial plan by Arizona’s governor to cut an estimated 250,000 impoverished adults from Medicaid, despite a provision in the new health-care law barring states from tightening their eligibility standards for the program, federal officials said Wednesday. Gov. Jan Brewer (R) formally…

The Insurers’ Real Agenda for Change

By Wendell Potter for the Huffington Post – The media had lots of health care news to obsess about last week. A federal judge ruled the health care reform law unconstitutional, and Senate Republicans tried in vain to repeal the law. But most of the press paid virtually no attention to a potentially much more…

Conyers Reintroduces “Expanded & Improved Medicare For All” Bill (HR 676)

Citing Rising Health Care Costs & Other Systemic Problems With For Profit Health Care As Reason To Move Forward With Non-Profit, Publicly-Financed Health Care Download HR 676 here (.pdf). Download a summary of HR 676 here (.doc). See the full list of Congressional cosponsors here. Washington DC- Representative John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), a long-time national…

Single-payer is still needed to ensure health care for all

By Madeline Zevon for LoHud.com – By 2019, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will improve health-care access by extending health insurance to 32 million more people than are now covered — 16 million through Medicaid starting in 2014, and the rest through subsidies to help lower-income people to afford health insurance. Although the…

Enrollment in high-risk insurance pools lagging behind predictions

By Amy Goldstein for the Washington Post – More Americans have been signing up for special health plans designed for people with medical problems that caused them to be spurned by the insurance industry, according to new government figures. But enrollment continues to lag significantly behind original predictions. The number of people who have bought…

February Single-Payer Newsletter

We just sent out our latest email newsletter (see it here). If you’re not on our email list, you can sign up for them here. February’s single-payer newsletter includes these articles: Dr. King and Health Reform By Claudia Fegan, M.D. – “There are 50 million Americans who are uninsured. African Americans are represented disproportionately among…

State Budget Cuts Are Bad for Your Health

By Bill Boyarsky for Truthdig.com – The budget cuts being proposed in state capitals around the country may sound vague and abstract, but what they boil down to are many scenes of misery. Picture, for example, an asthmatic kid waiting several hours in an emergency ward for treatment that will allow her to resume normal…