Healthcare-NOW

Listen: The Threats to Dismantle Medicare and Medicaid

Thanks to everyone who participated in the national discussion on the threats to privatize Medicare and Medicaid on Monday, April 11th. If you missed the call, you can listen to it here. [audio:https://www.healthcare-now.org/wp-content/uploads/mp3/privatizemedicare.mp3] Or download an MP3 file of the call here (right click and save as). Featured speakers included: DeAnn McEwen, California Nurses Association/National…

Vermont Senate expected to take up health reform legislation this week

From the Republic.com – MONTPELIER, Vt. — A committee of the Vermont Senate is expected to work an extra day Monday — and a long one at that — as lawmakers push to finish work on a bill that would move the state toward Gov. Peter Shumlin’s goal of universal, single-payer health care. Lawmakers usually…

Discussion on Threats to Privatize Medicare

The Republican 2012 budget eliminates Medicare. If successful, Medicare will change from a guaranteed set of benefits to limited vouchers to buy private insurance, as well as reduce Medicaid funding by turning it into a block grant system. This is outrageous. Healthcare-NOW! and Physicians for a National Health Program invites you to join a national…

Ryan Turns Knife on Medicare, Medicaid

By Margaret Flowers – Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee, unveiled two proposals this week which if enacted would constitute a mortal threat to our nation’s health – particularly to the health of our seniors and our most vulnerable populations. The first proposal, Senate Joint Resolution 10,…

Riding the Wave

Why the HIV community (and everybody else) should support single-payer health care. By Sue Saltmarsh for Positively Aware – As a peer-led agency, the Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN) has always been staffed by many HIV-positive people, as well as others who have diabetes, heart problems, sleep disorders, cancer, and a variety of other ills…

The Budget Battles: The Threat to Medicaid and Medicare

A New York Times Editorial – Representative Paul Ryan’s proposals to reform Medicare and Medicaid are mostly an effort to shift the burden to beneficiaries and the states. They have very little reform in them. Related in Opinion They certainly won’t solve the two most pressing problems in the nation’s health care system: the relentlessly…

House Republicans Propose $4 Trillion in Cuts Over Decade

By Carl Hulse for the New York Times – House Republicans plan this week to propose more than $4 trillion in federal spending reductions over the next decade by reshaping popular programs like Medicare, the Budget Committee chairman said Sunday in opening a new front in the intensifying budget wars. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,”…

GAO Examines Individual Mandate Alternatives – Well, Some of Them

By Jon Walker for FireDogLake – At the request of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), the Government Accountability Office put out a report examining several alternatives to the individual mandate that could be used alone or in combination to increase the number of insured if there were no mandate. Nine of the possibilities looked at by…

Obama administration delaying some rules for appealing health insurance denials

By Susan Jaffe for Kaiser Health News – The Obama administration is delaying until next January its enforcement of some new rules designed to protect patients who appeal insurers’ decisions to deny or reduce health care benefits. In the meantime, the Labor Department said in a posting on its website that it will revise the…

Students Rally for Single-Payer System in Vermont

By Daniel Staples, Staff Writer Times-Argus (Barre-Montpelier, Vt.), March 27, 2011 MONTPELIER, Vt. — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Gov. Peter Shumlin spoke before health profession students who gathered Saturday at the Statehouse in support of single-payer health care. The Vermont House passed a version of the universal health care bill, which is being championed…