Healthcare-NOW

Praying for Health Care Sanity

By Donna Smith – I admit it. I pray. I know there are intellectuals who are above such frivolity and for whom the showing of any belief in a power greater than one’s self and one’s intellect is the ultimate sign of weakness and inferiority. I don’t care. I am not weak, and just because…

Legislation May Enable States to Offer Universal Healthcare

To make universal coverage work at the state level, you’d need to channel federal healthcare funds into the system. A bill being drafted by Rep. Jim McDermott would allow that to happen. By David Lazarus for the LA Times – Universal coverage, Medicare for all, single payer — call it what you will. It’s clear…

Constitutional or Not, It’s a Win-Win for the Health Insurance Industry

By Katie Robbins for the People’s Tribune – The recent Supreme Court hearing on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or “ObamaCare,” has reopened the false debate surrounding the President’s signature legislation. Whether to uphold or strike down the ACA isn’t about how to provide truly universal healthcare in a sustainable way. Common…

It’s Up to Us

The politics of the current moment are clear: the Democrats are desperate to hold onto the White House at any cost and Republicans are fervently working to dismantle our social safety net to further uplift the private market. And meanwhile it’s us — the workers, mothers, fathers, students, nurses, patients, and physicians — that are…

RoseAnn DeMoro on the Robin Hood Tax, Single-Payer

From Moyers and Company – Bill talks to RoseAnn DeMoro, who heads the largest registered nurses union in the country, and led a Chicago march protesting economic inequality on May 18. DeMoro is championing the Robin Hood Tax, a small government levy the financial sector would pay on commercial transactions like stocks and bonds. The…

Single Payer Amendment Narrowly Defeated in Mass.

From Benjamin Day, Executive Director of Mass-Care – This Tuesday, after an hour and a half floor debate, the Massachusetts Senate narrowly voted down a single payer amendment to a broader cost control bill, on a 15 to 22 vote. The amendment would have instructed the state to, every year, measure our actual health care…

Medical students embrace Medicare for all

By Dr. Ed Weisbart for STLToday.com – If you ever want to rekindle your hope for American medicine, spend time with medical students. These bright, energetic minds are going into medicine for all the right reasons — to help people, relieve suffering and find new ways to cure illness and eradicate disease. Their idealism is…

Oregon Activists Look to Grassroots Approach to Win Universal Health Care

By Peter Shapiro for Labor Notes – With health care premiums rising three times faster than workers’ income, more and more unions have come to see the existing health care system as unsustainable, despite their best efforts at the bargaining table. In Oregon, activists are responding by rejuvenating a dormant campaign to win a health…

Mental Health and the Call for Single-Payer Healthcare

By Isobel Wohl, Healthcare for the 99% Working Group, Occupy Wall Street – Join Healthcare for the 99% in recognizing Mental Health Awareness Month this May. Mental health is an integral part of overall health, and its prevalence and severity are yet another reason to demand single-payer healthcare. About one in six adults lives with…

Healthcare for My Neighbors?

By Ron du Bois, Prof. Emeritus – Our medical and medical insurance ethos sadly is that sick people are good for business. That health care should be a money making machine is the mentality of a nation tricked into believing for-profit health care and medical insurance are superior to national health care as practiced in…