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Contact Information
Mass-Care
Website: http://www.masscare.org/
E-mail: info@masscare.org
Cape Care Coalition
Website: www.capecare.info
E-mail: capecare@earthlink.net
Phone: 1-877-700-8070
Media Contacts
David Himmelstein, M.D.
(617) 665-1032
DHimmelstein@challiance.org
Dr. Himmelstein practices and teaches primary care internal medicine at the Cambridge Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard. He is a co-founder of PNHP and one of two National Coordinators for the first five years of the organization. Dr. Himmelstein co-authored PNHP’s original proposal, its long-term care proposal, and its proposal for financing a national health program. He recently co-founded the Center for a National Health Program Studies at Harvard. His research focuses on problems in access to care, administrative waste, and the advantages of a national health program.
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., MPH
(617) 665-1032
swoolhandler@challiance.org
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard and co-director of the Harvard Medical School General Internal Medicine Fellowship program. She worked in 1990-91 as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation health policy fellow at the Institute of Medicine and the U.S. Congress. Dr. Woolhandler is a frequent speaker and has written extensively on health policy. A co-founder of PNHP and current Board member, she co-edits PNHP’s Newsletter and is a principal author of PNHP articles published in the JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Woolhandler is also co-author of the PNHP slide show and chartbook.
Rachel Nardin
(617) 665-1017
rnardin@challiance.org
Dr. Nardin is the chair of the MA chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. Dr. Nardin is a staff neurologist at Cambridge Hospital and Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.
Gordon Schiff, M.D.
(617) 732-4814
gschiff@partners.org
Gordon Schiff is currently Associate Director of the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He was Professor of Medicine at Rush University and senior attending physician at Cook County Hospital where he worked for more than 30 years as Director of Clinical Quality Research and Improvement for the Department of Medicine, and during the 1990’s director Cook County’s large General Medical Clinic for nearly a decade. His was PI and Director of AHRQ-funded Rush-Cook County Developmental Center for Research in Patient Safety (DCERPS, Diagnosis Errors and Evaluation Research (DEER) Project, whose activities and recommendations are summarized in a chapter in the AHRQ Advances in Patient Safety monograph (on AHRQ website). He is Clinical Director of the recently awarded TOP-MED (Tools for Optimizing Prescribing, Monitoring and Education) CERT (Center for Education and Research in Therapeutics) based at the UIC College of Pharmacy.
Dr Schiff has published numerous patient safety and medication prescribing improving articles in Annals of Int Med, JAMA, Arch Intern Med, Medical Care, Am J Health System Pharm. He is editor of Getting Results: Reliably Communicating and Acting on Critical Test Results published by Joint Commission Resources in 2006, and author of the section on Diagnostic Error in the forthcoming WHO monograph Current Issues in Patient Safety: A Global Perspective published the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety. He is a member of the editorial Boards of Medical Care, Journal of Public Health Policy, and the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. He is recipient of the 2005 Institute of Medicine Chicago (IOMC) patient safety leader of the year award, the Institute for Safe Medical Practices (ISMP) 2006 Lifetime Achievement award, and in 2006 was selected by Modern Healthcare as one of the top “30 people likely to shape health care in the years and decades ahead.”
Dr. Schiff is a founding member and past president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), author of the PNHP JAMA paper on quality health care reform, and is guest editor the October 2008 special issue of Medical Care devoted to the topic of health insurance in the U.S.
Pat Downs Berger, M.D. | (617) 566-6847 | patberger@yahoo.com
Dr. Berger is the Co-Chair of Mass-Care, the Single Payer organization in MA sponsoring the Single Payer Health Care Trust bill (S 703). Dr. Berger is retired internist who worked for 14 years at the Harvard St. Neighborhood Health Center in Dorchester, MA, the Harvard Community Health Plan for two years, and then in private practice in Brookline for 9 years.
Local Unions Endorsing HR676
- UAW Local 2322, Holyoke, MA
- IBEW Local 2222, Boston, MA
- Local 2321, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), North Andover, MA
- Local 2322, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Middleboro, MA
- Local 2324, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Springfield, MA
- Local 2325, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Northborough, MA
- Massachusetts State CAP Council, United Auto Workers (UAW)
- Local 2313, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Hanover, MA
- Massachusetts Nurses Association
Massachusetts State News
It is difficult to reduce this complex 211 page report on the very high level of spending by Massachusetts' hospitals into a few paragraphs, but the title and subtitle alone deliver the dominant messages. For those who would like more insight without reading the full report, there is an excellent 30 page summary at the beginning the report.
By Susanne King | The Berkshire Eagle
Aetna, Cigna, Humana, United Health, and Wellpoint scored record profits totaling $12.2 billion. In 2008, Ron Williams, CEO of Aetna, received over $24 million in compensation, about $450,000 per week. His weekly compensation would be enough to pay the yearly salary of three family doctors, whose median income in the United States is $159,000 per year.
From Ben Day, Executive Director, Mass-Care
Dear Single Payer Supporters - At 10AM [on Monday], the White House released the outlines of President Obama's health reform proposal "incorporating and improving on ideas from the House and the Senate, along with some new ones," in anticipation of a summit this Thursday with Congressional Republicans.
By Russell Mokhiber | Single Payer Action
Single payer activists David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler are moving to New York City. In the fall of 2010, they will become full professors at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health at Hunter College.
By Marcia Angell, MD | Huffington Post
Well, that was a game-changer! But don't misinterpret it (and don't blame Martha Coakley's lackluster campaign). Scott Brown's victory was not about the principles of either party, nor was it about the size of government, nor even about health reform, except indirectly. It was about disillusionment and anger with government.
By Sylvia Thompson and Iyah Romm | The Huffington Post
If Massachusetts is going to be a model for reform, we must consider both the successes and failures of the past three years. It has become painfully obvious both in our studies and clinical practice that coverage does not equal care. Despite boasting the strongest primary care workforce in the country, the newly-insured in Massachusetts report waiting months for appointments. Meanwhile, the Connector has added 4.5 percent overhead to the already crushing administrative costs of our private insurance companies.
Massachusetts Joint Comittee on Public Health
Thank you, Madame Chair and Members of the Committee for the opportunity to testify this morning. My name is Iyah Romm, and I am a medical student at Boston University School of Medicine. I also serve as a national leader of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), where I am the New England Regional Director and Co-Chair of the Health Care for All Steering Committee.
Editorial | Berkshire Eagle
On Veterans Day, America honors those who fought in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other war zones, as well as World War I, which is passing deeper into history and is represented by only one surviving American veteran. America should also take this opportunity to assess if current veterans are being well-treated by the nation they serve, which means sending them to fight only in justifiable wars and providing them whatever health care they require. In this area, we can and must do a lot better.
By Jason Pramas | Editorial | Open Media Boston
I think it would behoove small business organizations to think hard about this issue. Because, even as I write, a really bad national plan that leaves giant insurance companies firmly in the drivers seat of American health are policy has been pushed through the House of Representatives and is on its way to the Senate for a vote - where it very well may get shot down.
PNHP Press Release
In a half-page advertisement appearing in Wednesday's (tomorrow's) Boston Globe, 196 Massachusetts physicians and physicians-in-training call the state's 2006 health reform plan "bad medicine" and warn against adopting the state's plan nationwide. The health bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives is closely modeled after the Massachusetts reform.