Healthcare-NOW

When Medicare Isn’t Medicare

By Wendell Potter for the Huffington Post – Let’s say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford? That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright…

Mentally ill flood ER as states cut services

From Reuters – On a recent shift at a Chicago emergency department, Dr. William Sullivan treated a newly homeless patient who was threatening to kill himself. “He had been homeless for about two weeks. He hadn’t showered or eaten a lot. He asked if we had a meal tray,” said Sullivan, a physician at the…

Un-Happy Holidays for Seniors and the Disabled – Here’s Your Donut

by Donna Smith – It isn’t sugar plums dancing in their dreams for America’s seniors and disabled who are covered by the Medicare program. It’s donuts. Donut holes into which many fall at this time of the year as they reach the maximum limits of the first tier of “Part D” prescription drug benefits. I…

Video: Health costs killing us

From Newsday – Imagine a health insurance system with runaway costs, millions left without coverage, administrative headaches galore and unhealthier people than in many other countries spending less. Actually, you don’t have to bother imagining such a system. You’re already living with it. And it’s bankrupting our country. Curing the ills of our health care…

House Dems look to exempt Medicare from automatic spending cuts

From the Hill – While some Republicans are taking heat for seeking to mitigate $600 billion in sequestration cuts to the Defense Department, a handful of House Democrats this week put forward their own proposal to spare Medicare from spending cuts triggered by the August debt deal. Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) introduced H.R. 3519, along…

The Fight to Preserve Medicare Continues

In less than three months, the Occupy Wall Street movement has changed public discourse. Because of Occupy, countless organizations and individuals voiced their opposition to any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and opposition to the very existence of the Super Committee. In the end, the Super Committee was not able to come up…

Doctors again face steep Medicare cuts unless Congress acts before Jan. 1

From the Washington Post – It’s become a symbol of sorts for the federal government’s budget dysfunction: Unless Congress acts before Jan. 1, doctors will again face steep Medicare cuts that threaten to undermine health care for millions of seniors and disabled people. This time it’s a 27.4 percent cut. Last year, it was about…

For Debt Committee, No Final-Hour Deal Apparent

From NPR – Monday is the last day the congressional supercommittee can reach a deficit-reduction deal and still make its Wednesday deadline. The legislation has to be publicly available for 48 hours before a vote, and the clock is ticking. But instead of announcing an agreement, the committee is widely expected to admit it has…

Supercommittee Dems offer $350 billion in Medicare cuts

From Politico – Supercommittee Democrats quietly floated details late Wednesday of a $2.3 trillion tax-and-cut proposal that includes $400 billion in Medicare and Medicaid reductions, but also clears the way for a new physician payment formula. The framework — a counterproposal to one offered by Republicans on Monday — calls for $350 billion in savings…

Occupiers plan epic New York to Washington march

Their target: The congressional supercommittee and the Bush tax cuts for the rich By Justin Elliott for Salon – Persistent criticism of Occupy Wall Street for failing to specify demands has helped obscure the fact that groups of people within the movement have been mobilizing around concrete political goals. The latest example is a small…