Healthcare-NOW

House Republicans Propose $4 Trillion in Cuts Over Decade

By Carl Hulse for the New York Times – House Republicans plan this week to propose more than $4 trillion in federal spending reductions over the next decade by reshaping popular programs like Medicare, the Budget Committee chairman said Sunday in opening a new front in the intensifying budget wars. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,”…

‘Deficit gurus’ launch assault on women’s health

By Claudia Chaufan – March is Women’s History Month. But this year, for the vast majority of women in America, there is little to celebrate. Over the past months, “deficit gurus” in the U.S. House of Representatives have unleashed the most devastating assault on women’s health in our nation’s history. If legislation already passed in…

Wisconsin Union Battle Masks Medicaid Tensions

By Christopher Weaver for Kaiser Health News – Hiding out at a secret location in Illinois, Wisconsin state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout ends every media interview with the same warning: Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s attack on public employee unions is overshadowing another part of his budget plan that could shred the state’s health care safety net.…

Obama administration unlikely to block Arizona plan to cut 250,000 from Medicaid rolls

By N.C. Aizenman for the Washington Post – The Obama administration would permit a controversial plan by Arizona’s governor to cut an estimated 250,000 impoverished adults from Medicaid, despite a provision in the new health-care law barring states from tightening their eligibility standards for the program, federal officials said Wednesday. Gov. Jan Brewer (R) formally…

Action Alert: State of the Union

Tonight, President Obama will deliver the State of the Union Address to those who are anxiously waiting to hear what he will say about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. While President Obama has stated he will not urge cuts to Social Security in his speech tonight, a narrowly defeated proposal by the Deficit Commission to…

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…

Medicaid Cuts Hurt At The State Level

From Huffington Post – CHICAGO — In Illinois, a pharmacist closes his business because of late Medicaid payments. In Arizona, a young father’s liver transplant is canceled because Medicaid suddenly won’t pay for it. In California, dentists pull teeth that could be saved because Medicaid doesn’t pay for root canals. Across the country, state lawmakers…

Not Just Simpson, but Entire Deficit Commission Must Go

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Katie Robbins, National Organizer, Healthcare NOW!, katie@healthcare-now.org, 330-618-6379 Kay Tillow, All Unions for Single-Payer Health Care, nursenpo@aol.com, 502-636-1551 Not Just Simpson, but Entire Deficit Commission Must Go September 8, 2010 (Philadelphia, PA) – After months of meetings behind closed doors, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, aka the Deficit…

A Cloward-Piven Strategy for Single Payer?

By Chris Maisano for The Activist – With yesterday’s passage in the House of the Obama administration’s health care reform bill, it would seem at first glance that the movement for national, single-payer health insurance has been seriously derailed. After all, if all of the hype and adulation surrounding the bill’s passage is to be…