Healthcare-NOW

Action Alert: Get Single-Payer into Congressional Hearings

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) announced that the Committee will hold another hearing in a series on reforming the health insurance market. The hearing will take place at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 22, and will focus on strategies to reform the health insurance market to ensure greater accessibility and affordability.…

Top Ten Enemies of Single Payer

By Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action— Most people, when they arrive in Washington, D.C., see it for what it is – a cesspool of corruption. Two reasonable reactions to the cesspool. One, run away screaming in fear. Two, stay and fight back and bring to justice those who have corrupted our democracy. Unfortunately, many…

Why Has the Press Failed Us In Reporting on Health Care Reform?

An Open Letter to Bill Keller, Executive Editor, New York Times, and Clark Hoyt, Public Editor, New York Times by Benjamin Day— Dear Bill Keller and Clark Hoyt, For the first time in the span of a generation, national health care reform is back on the horizon, and I’m writing to you to step back…

City of Santa Monica Endorses Single-Payer Healthcare

On April 14, the Santa Monica City Council voted unanimously to support both SB810 and HR676, endorsing universal single-payer healthcare at the state and national levels. Public speakers included nurse Geri Jenkins, co-president of the California Nurses Association National Nurses’ Organizing Committee; Progressive Democrats of America member Dr. Jo Olson, pediatrician at Children’s Hospital, assistant…

Protesters tell PBS – Put Single Payer Back on the Table

From Private Health Insurance Must Go!— Earlier today, PHIMG members gathered in front of WNET-PBS TV’s 33rd street office to voice displeasure over Frontline’s Sick Around America program. Sick Around America treated mandatory for-profit insurance coverage as the only alternative to the current U.S. health care system and perpetuated the media’s longstanding pattern of ignoring…

Single-Payer Debate on NPR

Yesterday, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, of Physicians for a National Health Program, debated Robert Moffit, of the Heritage Foundation, on single-payer healthcare and healthcare reform on NPR’s Radio Times. Here’s the NPR description and an MP3 of the hour-long debate. When Barak Obama outlined his proposal for reforming the health care system, the concept of a…

Action Alert: Today is a National Call-In Day for Single-Payer

Today is a nationwide call-in day for single-payer national healthcare. Our message is clear: “Tax payer dollars should go to people, not profits. Support single-payer national health care now.” So today, we ask that you join with thousands of others to call Congress, to support single-payer legislation in both the House (HR 676) and the…

PBS Ombud Sides with Frontline Critics

By FAIR— PBS ombud Michael Getler is siding with critics of a Frontline documentary that failed to examine single-payer national health insurance as a possible alternative to the U.S. healthcare system. Citing FAIR’s study “Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare,” which documented that single-payer advocates were all but shut out of the media discussion about healthcare…

Frontline Responds on Sick Around America

By FAIR— In the wake of a FAIR Action Alert (4/6/09), Frontline has responded to critics of its documentary Sick Around America, defending the film’s focus on mandatory private health insurance and its exclusion of the single-payer option. (Frontline’s full response follows.) In an email response to FAIR (4/7/09), Frontline characterized FAIR’s charge that the…

Two California Labor Councils Endorse HR 676

Two more California Labor Councils have endorsed HR 676, single payer health care legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI). One hundred and twenty-five labor councils and/or area labor federations have now endorsed the Conyers legislation. More than fifty per cent of the labor councils in California have endorsed HR 676. In Merced, California, the…