The Worst Health Insurance Company of 2013

The 2013 Award for Profiteering and Deceit in the Private Health Insurance Industry goes to… UnitedHealth for paying its CEO, Stephen Hemsley, $49 million in 2012. We want to thank everyone who participated. We’re planning to send the award to UnitedHealth’s world headquarters in Minneapolis, MN soon. We’ll also include all of the reasons you…

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Central Labor Council Breakfast Builds Support for Single Payer, HR 676

From UnionsForSinglePayer.org – U.S. Congressman John Conyers (D MI), chief sponsor of HR 676, was honored at a December 6th Labor Breakfast co-hosted by the New York City Central Labor Council and the Progressive Democrats of America in celebration of the endorsement by the 1.3 million member NYC CLC of HR 676, Expanded and Improved…

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Mass. Gov. hopeful: Consider “single payer” care

From the AP – Democratic candidate for governor Donald Berwick is pushing Massachusetts to take a second look at creating a truly universal health care system. The former top Obama administration health care official said Thursday that the state should “seriously explore the possibility of a single payer system in Massachusetts” – a system which…

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21 Ways the Canadian Health Care System is Better than Obamacare

By Ralph Nader – Dear America: Costly complexity is baked into Obamacare. No health insurance system is without problems but Canadian style single-payer full Medicare for all is simple, affordable, comprehensive and universal. In the early 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson enrolled 20 million elderly Americans into Medicare in six months. There were no websites. They…

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The Single-Payer Alternative

By Nancy Folbre for the New York Times – Rush Limbaugh’s take on the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act could, ironically, warm the hearts of those at the other end of the political spectrum. He contends that President Obama knew all along that the Affordable Care Act would crash and burn, but pushed…

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NJ Resident Struggles for Long-Term Care, Calls for Medicare for All

From the Courier-Post – Mike Pollock calls himself a squeaky wheel. Since 2002, the Atco resident has fought with insurance companies, medical agencies and doctors after his wife, Kathy, 61, survived a brain tumor and later two debilitating strokes that left her partially paralyzed. After their private insurance and savings were exhausted, the Pollocks needed…

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The Shutdown is Over. Now What?

Government employees returned to work yesterday, and the price of averting a default on the country’s debts was the creation of a bi-partisan committee instructed to develop a long-term plan, by December 13, to reform Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal programs. Here at Healthcare-NOW! we have a prediction: As always, talks over this “grand bargain”…

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Is Obamacare Enough?

Without Single-Payer, Patchwork U.S. Healthcare Leaves Millions Uninsured From Democracy Now – Despite helping expanding affordable insurance, “Obamacare” maintains the patchwork U.S. healthcare system that will still mean high costs, weak plans and, in many cases, no insurance for millions of Americans. We host a debate on whether the Affordable Care Act goes far enough…

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