Healthcare-NOW

Gupta Ends Surgeon General Candidacy

By Gardiner Harris for the New York Times— Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent and a practicing neurosurgeon, has withdrawn from being considered for surgeon general, CNN reported on Thursday. Several other candidates are now under serious consideration, including Dr. Irwin Redlener, the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University,…

White House Healthcare Summit: Today 1PM

Watch the White House Summit live at 1pm today (March 5) at c-span.org. Click “Live TV/Radio” on the top right. Click “C-SPAN 3” under “Live Streams.”

Howard Dean: ‘I Don’t Think We Should Impose Single-Payer On Everybody’

Some political pundits have portrayed former Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT) as a wacky liberal caricature, whose online supporters spam blog comment sections in favor of single-payer health care. But during an exclusive interview with ThinkProgress, Dean described parts of his own health care philosophy as conservative. Rather than advocating for a broad overhaul of the…

Mass. healthcare reform is failing us

By Susanne L. King— Massachusetts Has been lauded for its healthcare reform, but the program is a failure. Created solely to achieve universal insurance coverage, the plan does not even begin to address the other essential components of a successful healthcare system. What would such a system provide? The prestigious Institute of Medicine, part of…

Sen. Baucus: We Need Accurate Numbers not “Creative” Figuring

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), who ruled single payer “off the table” before he even started considering healthcare reform, is now trying to pressure the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to judge the Baucus health plan financially sound. Baucus held a Finance Committee hearing last Wednesday (2/25/09) at which the sole witness was CBO…

Can the US Achieve Meaningful Healthcare Reform Within a For-Profit System?

Democracy Now hosted a debate between Dr. David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program and Len Nichols of the New America Foundation about their views on the most feasible healthcare plans available. The full video can be found on DemocracyNow.org. Here’s the full transcript: JUAN GONZALEZ: President Obama has unveiled a $3.6 trillion…

Video: National Lessons from State Health Reform

The following video was taken on February 25, 2009 at the “National Lessons from State Health Reform: The Massachusetts Case Study” forum in Washington, DC. National Lessons from State Health Reform: The Massachusetts Case Study from New Words on Vimeo. Speakers include: David Himmelstein, MD, Cambridge Hospital Physician, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical…

Bluegrass Central Labor Council Endorses HR 676

At its February meeting the Executive Board of the Bluegrass Central Labor Council voted to endorse HR 676, single payer health care legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI). Council President Barbara Pierce said: “The Board of the CLC endorsed HR 676, single payer universal health care, because we firmly believe that it’s the best…

Economist Joseph Stiglitz A Single-Payer Supporter

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, after being asked if he supported single-payer healthcare, that, “I think I’ve reluctantly come to the view that it’s the only alternative. You know, we’ve tried a lot of other things. And we’ve been — you know, I was in the Clinton administration, and…

Massachusetts Is No Model for National Health Care Reform

Public Interest Groups Urge Sen. Kennedy to Introduce Single Payer Legislation The Massachusetts health care system, widely regarded as an example of how to provide universal coverage and keep costs low, is in fact faltering badly and should not be held up as a national model for reform, according to a study released today by…