Healthcare-NOW

Why we risked arrest for single-payer health care

By Margaret Flowers, M.D.– On May 5, eight health care advocates, including myself and two other physicians, stood up to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the Senate Finance Committee during a “public roundtable discussion” with a simple question: Will you allow an advocate for a single-payer national health plan to have a seat at the…

Cost control, universal care impossible without single-payer health system

Policy expert challenges effectiveness of lesser reforms at House panel With President Obama and congressional leaders vowing to pass a health reform bill by the end of the year, a prominent Harvard-based health policy analyst warned a House subcommittee Thursday that the leading incremental models for reform, including those patterned after the Massachusetts plan, are…

Testimony of David U. Himmelstein, M.D. Before the HELP Subcommittee

By David U. Himmelstein from PNHP.org— Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. My name is David Himmelstein. I am a primary care doctor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and associate professor of medicine at Harvard. I also serve as national spokesperson for Physicians for a National Health Program. Our 16,000 physician members support nonprofit, single-payer national health…

Healthcare Lifeboats

By David U. Himmelstein & Steffie Woolhandler— Massachusetts’s 2006 healthcare reform plan, often cited as a model for the nation, is sailing through choppy waters. Governor Deval Patrick is keeping it afloat by throwing away the lifeboats: public hospitals and clinics. Freighted with tax-funded windfalls that brought private insurers and hospitals on board, the reform…

Debate: Single-Payer Vs. Public Option

Change.org is hosting a blog debate between Dr. Don McCanne, a retired family physician now serving as Senior Health Policy Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program, and Jason Rosenbaum, a writer and activist, and the Deputy Director of Online Campaigns for Health Care for America Now. Dr. McCanne is representing the single-payer model,…

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…

Oppose Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General

The following letter was sent to members and supporters of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) by Dr. Quentin D. Young. Dear PNHP members and friends, The report this week that President-elect Obama is considering Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, for the position of U.S. surgeon general is deeply troubling. Among our…

Doctors Call on Obama, Congress to ‘Do The Right Thing’ on Health Reform

This article was posted at www.PublicAffairs.net. 15,000 physicians urge enactment of single-payer system A group of over 15,000 U.S. physicians has called on President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress to “do the right thing” and enact a single-payer national health insurance plan, a system of public health care financing frequently characterized as “an improved…