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Fix the system with Medicare for all
By Marcia Angell
The United States is the only advanced
country in the world with a health care system based on avoiding sick
people. We need to change the system completely and get the
insurance industry, as well as employers, out of it. Private insurance
companies offer little of value, yet skim off 15 to 25 percent of the
health care dollar for profits and overhead. It would make much more sense
to extend Medicare to everyone. Read
more...
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Mass. 'Universal' Health Plan Already Falling Short
by Megan Tady
Less than a year after Massachusetts’s controversial healthcare initiative was first revealed, evidence is accumulating to bolster critics who said the system is faulty by design.
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Seeking
Coverage for All
In April, 2006 a government-sponsored task force came to Hartford to hear citizens' views on how to improve our distressed health care system. As in nearly all states visited, Connecticut citizens overwhelmingly said they wanted high-quality, cost-effective health care funded through a national health program - single payer health insurance. Yet, such a recommendation would threaten the profits of powerful interests - insurance and drug companies known more for their political contributions than for their consideration of public interest. So in its final report of Sept. 27, the Citizens' Health Care Working Group simply ignored the citizens.
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Passing the Buck
Paul Krugman writes: "The United States spends far more on health care than other advanced countries. Yet we don't appear to receive more medical services. And we have lower life-expectancy and higher infant-mortality rates than countries that spend less than half as much per person. How do we do it?"
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Health
Economics 101
By PAUL KRUGMAN
- Several readers have asked me a good
question: we rely on free markets to deliver most goods and
services, so why shouldn't we do the same thing for health care?
Some correspondents were belligerent, others honestly curious.
Either way, they deserve an answer. It comes down to three things:
risk, selection and social justice. Read
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Interview
with David Himmelstein
- David Himmelstein is the co-founder
of Physicians for a National Health Program and an associate
professor of medicine at Harvard Medical. He is the author of
the Question 5 Massachusetts ballot initiative that, if passed
in November, 2000 , would have delivered universal health care for
the citizens of Massachusetts. Read his interview with
Multinational Monitor: The
Campaign for Single-Payer Health Insurance in Massachusetts and the
United States
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Landmark
Paper on Universal Healthcare
A LANDMARK PAPER:
The Physicians' Working Group on Single-Payer National Health Insurance
presented their Proposal for Health Care Reform
to the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
on May 1, 2001
"A National Health Insurance Program is the only affordable option for universal, comprehensive coverage. Under the current system, expanding access to health care inevitably means increasing costs, and reducing costs inevitably means limiting access. But an NHI could both expand access and reduce costs. It would squeeze out bureaucratic waste and eliminate the perverse incentives that threaten the quality of care and the ethical foundations of medicine."
This landmark white paper (27 pages) as well as the videocast and
audiocast of the entire hearing is available at is available at:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=202
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United
States Spends Most On Health, But France No. 1 In Treatment
By Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press, 6/20/2000
The United States spends more per person on health care than any
other country, yet in overall quality its care ranks 37th in the world,
says a World Health Organization analysis. It concluded that France
provides the globe's best health care.
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Medical Money Pit
Medical costs are once again rising
rapidly, and our health care system is once again in crisis. So now is a
good time to ask why other advanced countries manage to spend so much less
than we do, while getting better results. Read
more...
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Massachusetts Democrats
Endorse Single Payer in Platform
Date: August 3, 1999
The Massachusetts Democratic Party Action Agenda 2000 adopted the
following amendment to their platform:
"Health care is a right, not a privilege; a necessity not a luxury.
Therefore, we will work to make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to institute a single payer health care system that will provide
all of the residents of Massachusetts: first-class health care including
prescription drugs; free choice of doctor, nurse or other clinician; and
the power to make health decision with the clinician. There should be a
strong consumer voice in the publicly funded management and costs should
be controlled by cutting profit, paperwork and advertising and not by cutting care. We reaffirm our belief that a single payer health care
system is the only cost effective way to provide universal health care."
Bravo Massachusetts Democrats. Let's get a similar statement in the
Connecticut Democratic Platform for the year 2000.
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American Nurses Association Endorses Single Payer
On June 19, 1999 the American Nurses Association endorsed the following
statements:
1. Health Care is a fundamental human right.
2. The single payer mechanism is the most desirable option for financing
a reformed health care system.
Bravo to the American Nurses Association!
As reported by sandy Eaton, RN, ANA delegate from Massachusetts in
Action For Universal Health Care Newsletter, Volume 8, Number 1,
July/August, 1999
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