Healthcare – Healthcare-NOW

Inequality Is (Literally) Killing America

By Zoë Carpenter for the Nation – Only a few miles separate the Baltimore neighborhoods of Roland Park and Upton Druid Heights. But residents of the two areas can measure the distance between them in years—twenty years, to be exact. That’s the difference in life expectancy between Roland Park, where people live to be 83…

The U.S. Lags in Life Expectancy Gains

From Bloomberg Businessweek – Life expectancy in the U.S. has been growing more slowly than in other developed countries and is now more than a year below the developed-country average, according to a new report (PDF) from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Even though Americans, on average, live to be almost 80, this…

Immigrants Contribute More To Medicare Than They Take Out

By Jordan Rau for Kaiser Health News – As Congress mulls changing America’s border and naturalization rules, a study finds that immigrant workers are helping buttress Medicare’s finances, because they contribute tens of billions a year more than immigrant retirees use in medical services. “Immigrants, particularly noncitizens, heavily subsidize Medicare,” the researchers wrote in the…

Healing Wounds After Boston Bombings

By Benjamin Day, Director of Organizing, Healthcare-NOW! – The Boston area, where I live and grew up, has been feeling smaller and smaller since the Marathon bombings and unprecedented manhunt for those responsible. When the names of victims were gradually released to the public, I was astonished by how many I knew or were known…

Strike Debt Abolishes $1.1 Million of Medical Debt

By Allison Kilkenny for the Nation – Strike Debt, a group that emerged from the Occupy Wall Street movement, has planned a week of actions in multiple cities across the country to mark the abolition of $1.1 million in medical debt belonging to 1,064 people as part of the “Rolling Jubilee” project. While that may…

Action Alert: Should School Workers Earn $2 An Hour?

The cooks, custodians, and maintenance workers at the Old Rochester School system in Massachusetts are facing an impossible healthcare situation. You can help by signing their change.org petition asking their employer to do the right thing and raising awareness about the need for single-payer healthcare reform. Here’s what happened: the Old Rochester School Committee is…

U.S. Health Worse Than Nearly All Other Industrialized Countries

U.S. citizens suffer from poorer health than nearly all other industrialized countries, according to the first comprehensive government analysis. By Carey L. Biron for Alternet – U.S. citizens suffer from poorer health than nearly all other industrialised countries, according to the first comprehensive government analysis on the subject, released Wednesday. Of 17 high-income countries looked…

For Americans Under 50, Stark Findings on Health

By Sabrina Tavernise for the New York Times – Younger Americans die earlier and live in poorer health than their counterparts in other developed countries, with far higher rates of death from guns, car accidents and drug addiction, according to a new analysis of health and longevity in the United States. Researchers have known for…

The Biggest Myth in Obama-GOP Showdown is the “Fiscal Cliff” Itself

By Democracy Now – As negotiations continue between the White House and House Speaker John Boehner, leading economist Dean Baker joins to discuss the myths about the so-called fiscal cliff. With little more than two weeks before the deadline, President Obama insists on an immediate increase in the top two income-tax rates as a condition…

The Grim Consequences of Closing Urban Hospitals

By Emily Badger for the Atlantic – In 1995, Philadelphia had 19 hospitals with obstetric units, places where local women – about half of them on Medicaid – could go for prenatal care and, ultimately, to deliver their babies. Then these hospitals started closing, not one or two as occasionally happens in the life of…