Healthcare-NOW

GOP Launches Bid To Repeal Health Care Law

By Julie Rovner for NPR – The formal title of the two-page bill the House is scheduled to vote on Wednesday is “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” But in the wake of the recent shootings in Arizona that killed six people and critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), the phrase “job-killing” was barely…

Update on Single Payer from Dr. Margaret Flowers

An interview with Dr. Margaret Flowers from OpEdNews.com by Joan Brunwasser – My guest is Dr. Margaret Flowers, congressional fellow of Physicians for a National Health Program [PNHP]. Welcome back to OpEdNews, Margaret. Republican lawmakers, fresh from their November victory, are pledging to move immediately in the new Congress to dismantle the health care law…

Nation Conversations: Wendell Potter on the Health Insurance Industry’s Lock on Congress

From The Nation – Listen below. Wendell Potter, author of Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans, stopped by The Nation’s offices this week to explain how insurance companies are manipulating the conversation surrounding healthcare legislation. Potter was a health insurance executive for…

Oh, For Civil Healthcare in America

by Donna Smith – Ah, we must be more civil. No more taunts. No more tirades. No more gun crosshair targets, no matter how innocently placed on our graphics (though I am not sure gun crosshairs are ever really innocent in placement). We’ll be more civil in our discourse. In light of the tragedy in…

Two Dead Since Arizona Medicaid Program Slashed Transplant Coverage

From ABC News – Hospital Confirms Former Patient Died While Awaiting Liver Transplant Two Arizona Medicaid recipients denied potentially life-saving organ transplants have died, even as Arizona doctors, transplant survivors and some lawmakers push to restore health care benefits slashed last fall. On Oct. 1, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System stopped paying for…

Let’s stop pretending it was a government takeover of healthcare

By Deborah Burger for The Hill – If the Obama healthcare bill is just a “government takeover,” why are healthcare industry CEOs being rewarded with so much money? The alleged expropriation of healthcare by big government is, of course, a major story line of the right and the new leadership of the House which is…

Poll: To Reduce Deficit, Most Americans say Tax the Rich More

From CBS News – As Washington gears up for a fight over federal spending and the national debt, lawmakers may want to consider some new polling figures. A survey from CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and Vanity Fair magazine shows that most Americans, given a set limited choices for balancing the national budget, would prefer to…

Census: Number of poor may be millions higher

1 in 6 Americans — many of them 65 and older — are struggling in poverty By HOPE YEN – Associated Press – WASHINGTON — The number of poor people in the U.S. is millions higher than previously known, with 1 in 6 Americans — many of them 65 and older — struggling in poverty…

Kay Tillow: Civil Rights, Union Organizing Mark Decades of Activism

By Berry Craig for AFL-CIO Blog – Kay Tillow, a veteran union activist from Louisville, can inspire us all as we start the New Year. “Set a stout heart to a steep hillside” is an old Scottish proverb that reminds me of Tillow, who’s executive director of the Nurses Professional Organization. She and the NPO…

Push Renews for Vermont Health Reform

By Peter Hirschfeld – Vermont Press Bureau – MONTPELIER – Advocates for universal health care will descend on the Statehouse on Wednesday as they look to forge legislative support for broad reforms to the way Vermonters receive medical coverage. A rally being staged by the Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign aims to draw hundreds…