Healthcare-NOW

Health care cuts proposed in deficit negotiations

Congress reconvenes this week to consider options in budget talks From the New York Times – Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit, but the depth of the cuts depends on whether Republicans are willing to accept any…

Universal Health Care: Can We Afford Anything Less?

By Gerald Friedman for Dollars and Sense – America’s broken health-care system suffers from what appear to be two separate problems. From the right, a chorus warns of the dangers of rising costs; we on the left focus on the growing number of people going without health care because they lack adequate insurance. This division…

U.S. Spent $8,100 Per Person On Health Care In 2009

By ThinkProgress – The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation’s new report finds that annual American health care spending is now at $8,100 per person in 2009, for a total $2.5 trillion dollars or 17.6 percent of the GDP in 2009. “Higher utilization of medical technology, rising treated prevalence rates for chronic diseases, and…

Should universal care advocates bite their tongues on single-payer?

By Mike Alberti for Remapping Debate – It was not so long ago that a universal, single-payer health insurance program administered and financed by the federal government looked like a viable policy option. Barack Obama supported a single-payer system on the campaign trail in 2008, and, in the early stages of the subsequent battle over…

Support for ‘Medicare-for-all’ Continues in US Congress

By Healthcare-NOW! – Sen. Bernie Sanders [I VT] introduced a revised version of the “American Health Security Act,” a national single-payer “Medicare-for-all” healthcare bill, calling for the right to healthcare for all. The Bill, designated as S 915 is an updated version of S 703, submitted in 2009, and joins Rep. Jim McDermott’s [D WA] companion bill in the…

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…

Health Justice Advocates Win on Immigrant Rights Issue

By Katie Robbins – Days after thousands of healthcare rights advocates rallied in Montpelier, Vermont, the Vermont Workers’ Center’s Healthcare is a Human Campaign was successful in forcing the state Senate to strike a harmful amendment from the universal healthcare bill that would have excluded undocumented immigrants from the state’s proposed universal healthcare system. Among…

April Newsletter – Nobody Wants to Cut Medicare

We just sent out our latest email newsletter to our list of supporters. If you don’t already get our email newsletters (sent about twice per month), you can sign up for them here. In this latest newsletter we highlight four important articles/issues from the past few weeks: Demand Pres. Obama Protect Medicare Thank you to…

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…

America Needs a Single Payer Health Care System

Even if Obama’s overhaul works as planned, there will still be 23 million Americans lacking health insurance in 2019. By Kay Tillow for OtherWorlds.org – More than a year after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, our nation’s health care delivery and coverage remain the disgrace of the…