Healthcare-NOW

Health Law to Be Revised by Ending a Program

By Robert Pear for the New York Times – The Obama administration announced Friday that it was scrapping a long-term care insurance program created by the new health care law because it was too costly and would not work. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said she had concluded that premiums would…

Stop the Super Committee, Support Healthcare-NOW!

The Super Committee does not represent us. Operating in secret with no public accountability while laden with ties to special interests, the Super Committee is tasked with identifying $1.2 trillion in cuts to federal spending by November 23rd. Co-chair Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington) has said cuts to everything, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, are…

Why Wall St. and Corporate Insurance Should Get Out of Healthcare

The October 2011 movement brings us these two powerful videos. We need Wall Street, the health insurance industry and investors out of healthcare; replaced by a publicly financed single-payer, improved Medicare-for-all system. Doctors, health providers and patients should decide healthcare–not Wall Street. Adara Scarlet’s story. Dr. Flowers explains why Wall Street should be ashamed of…

Single-payer healthcare: better care, lower cost

By Josh Starcher – Healthcare has already been proclaimed the central issue of the 2012 Presidential election, just like it was hailed the central issue of Obama’s presidency. It was also a central issue during the 2010 election, and the 2008 campaign. So why don’t we ever hear the end of it? Our leaders still…

Montana Gov. Seeks Waiver To Establish Single Payer In His State

By Zaid Jilani for ThinkProgess – As ThinkProgress previously reported, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) made history earlier this year when he signed into law legislation that would make his state the first state to lay the groundwork for a single payer health care system. In order to enact this system, the state needs a…

Administration Asks Supreme Court to Rule Quickly on Health Law

By Adam Liptak for the New York Times – The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to hear a case concerning the 2010 health care overhaul law. The development came unexpectedly fast and makes it all but certain that the court will soon agree to hear one or more cases involving challenges to…

A Difficult Pill to Swallow

The path to single payer health care through challenging concentrated wealth By Margaret Flowers, M.D. The efforts in recent years to pass health care reform at the state and national levels have provided important lessons for the single payer movement. Corporate control of the political process and media message has proven to be a primary…

The Devilish Detail of Obama’s Speech

By John Nichols for NPR – President Obama has erected what is likely to be the left flank in the debates of the Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction—the so-called “super-committee” that will define so much of this fall’s fiscal and economic discourse. That flank is sturdier than some of the president’s critics on…

Vt. governor picks panel for single-payer health plan

From Boston.com – MONTPELIER – A health care policy specialist will lead Vermont’s Green Mountain Care board, the panel that will be responsible for implementing the state’s single-payer health care system, Governor Peter Shumlin said yesterday. Advocates for the plan say the single-payer system will help control health care costs and guarantee coverage for Vermonters…

Number of Uninsured Up Another Million

By John Gever for MedPage Today – A record 49.9 million Americans were without health insurance during 2010, up almost 2% from the 49.0 million uninsured in 2009, the Census Bureau reported. The percentage of the population without insurance rose 0.2 percentage points, from 16.1% to 16.3%, though this was not significant at the P