No Time to ‘Wait and See’ on Health Law – April 14, 2010
Dr. Quentin Young | The Huffington Post
Having just gone through a grueling, frequently raucous debate on health reform, capped by the narrowest of votes to pass the Obama administration’s bill, many activists are now tempted to adopt a “wait and see” attitude on how the new law plays out.
Pro-single-payer doctors: Health bill leaves 23 million uninsured – March 22, 2010
PNHP statement on the House’s passage of the health bill
Detailed Summary of New Health Reform Law – April 8, 2010
Kaiser Family Foundation – 13 pages
Summary of Coverage Provisions in the New Health Reform Law – April 5, 2010
Kaiser Family Foundation – 2.5 pages
Frontline Fronts for Corporations, Not the Public – April 16, 2010
By Margaret Flowers, M.D. | Counterpunch
It was with a sense of dĂ©jĂ vu that I watched the latest Frontline documentary about health care. “Obama’s Deal” endeavored to reveal the significant influence of health industry dollars on our political process; however, as in Frontline’s “Sick Around America,” the producers did a disservice by the failure to educate the public about the bigger picture of the health care situation in this nation and the range of possible solutions.
Chart: Single Payer Legislation vs. Reconciliation Bill – March 22, 2010
From PNHP
Research by Physicians for a National Health Program – Updated March 22, 2010
From PNHP
Talking points on HR 3962 with some comparisons to the Senate (Reid) bill and Obama’s proposal – Updated February 24, 2010
By Ida Hellander, M.D.
State single payer waiver provisions in the Senate healthcare bill – legislative language and fact sheet – Updated March 5, 2010
From Sen. Bernie Sanders Office
Evidence based talking points on single payer
Seventeen talking points on single-payer national health insurance.
Pro-single-payer physicians call for defeat of Senate health bill – December 22, 2009
Message from Massachusetts – January 21, 2010
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
Single-Payer Amendment Needs Debate and a Vote In the Senate – December 10, 2009
Time to let Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid know that the American people want a debate and a vote on Medicare for all, single-payer healthcare during this Congressional effort. And it’s crunch time for the Sanders/Brown/Burris Medicare for all, single-payer amendment in the Senate.
‘The health bills in Congress are not real reform’ – January 5, 2010
We recently interviewed Dr. David Himmelstein and Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), about the health bills emerging in Congress and the status of the movement for single-payer Medicare for All. Both are faculty members at Harvard Medical School and primary care physicians at Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts. The telephone interview took place on Nov. 30, several weeks before the Senate adopted its version of the bill. On the eve of the Senate vote, PNHP called for the defeat of the bill, saying it would do more harm than good and that it would make genuine reform more difficult in the future.
PNHP co-founder Dr. Steffie Woolhandler on the passage of House Bill 3962 – November 11, 2009
Democracy Now!
An analysis of H.R. 3962 – November 15, 2009
By Carol Miller | Albuquerque Journal
A very complex, mandatory private insurance scheme recently passed the U.S. House. The public is being overwhelmed by sound bites on one hand about how great it is, on the other, how terrible. We are hearing few of the details that are actually in the bill. Having read the bill, it is clear now that what started as health reform has emerged from the political process as health “deform,” building on the worst, not the best of the current system.
Better to Start Over Than to Pass These Bills – December 17, 2009
By Athena Godet-Calogeras, Peter Mott and Andrew Coates | The Buffalo News
You might think that all of us who have worked so long and so hard for comprehensive and affordable health care would be jumping with joy at the recent passage of a House bill and the opening of the Senate debate on health insurance reform. Not so.
Talking points on the Sanders’ single-payer amendments – December 3, 2009
From the office of Sen. Bernie Sanders
Is the House Health Care Bill Better than Nothing? – November 9, 2009
By Marcia Angell, M.D. | The Huffington Post
Well, the House health reform bill — known to Republicans as the Government Takeover — finally passed after one of Congress’s longer, less enlightening debates. Two stalwarts of the single-payer movement split their votes; John Conyers voted for it; Dennis Kucinich against. Kucinich was right.
The Affordable Health Care For America Act (HR 3962): Enough Reform To Succeed? – November 16, 2009
By John Geyman, M.D. | Tikkun Magazine
This bill, while well intentioned, is fatally flawed. It would not effectively address the three major system problems demanding urgent reform, and would delay real reform by letting much of our population falsely think that reform is at hand. It would leave in place an inefficient, exploitive insurance industry that is dying by its own hand, even as it props it up with enormous future profits through often subsidized individual and employer mandates.
Single-payer health advocate tells Congress: ‘Start from scratch’
Statement of Dr. Margaret Flowers on the House and Senate health bills
Talking Points: Why the mandate plans won’t work, and why single-payer “Medicare for All” is what we need
By Len Rodberg, Ph.D.
Why the mandate plans won’t work, and why single-payer “Medicare for All” is what we need.
Meet the New Health Care Reform, Same as the Old Health Care Reform – October 27, 2009
By Aaron E. Carroll, M.D. | The Huffington Post
We’re so close to health care reform! Even Paul Krugman is starting to talk about what comes next. Me? I’ve been thinking about what comes next for a long time. I think this bill will pass. We will get the incremental reforms we were promised. Things will likely get better in the short term. Then, since we didn’t contain costs, we’ll need to enact real reform. Or, things will go right back to the status quo.
Why Obama’s Public Option Is Defective, and Why We Need Single-Payer – July 22, 2009
By Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein | The Progressive
Once Congress finishes mandating that we all buy private health insurance, it can move on to requiring Americans to purchase other defective products. A Ford Pinto in every garage? Lead-painted toys for every child? Melamine-laced chow for every puppy? Private health insurance doesn’t work.
Health Reform: Where Obama Went Wrong – October 27, 2009
By Leonard Rodberg | Tikkun Magazine
President Obama’s health reform plan is in trouble. Public support for it is only lukewarm; both Left and Right oppose it. Pundits and editorial writers complain that Obama has turned the issue over to Congress, or that he hasn’t explained the plan well enough. He and his staff have been working closely with many members of Congress from the very beginning, and he has described his plan repeatedly and in many forums — and no one questions that he is a superb communicator. And yet disquiet and confusion persist. What has gone wrong?
Reproductive choice and a common lifeboat – November 18, 2009
By Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler | The following letter was submitted to the Washington Post
The constituency for maintaining reproductive choice will be broad if middle-class women rely on the same system as the poor and near-poor. Because the new Medicaid and subsidized coverage will go to lower-income people, the middle class has little reason to be threatened by restrictions on abortions in that coverage. The lifeboat is kept in better repair if everyone — rich and poor alike — must rely upon it.
The public option ain’t what it used to be – November 19, 2009
By Robert Reich | Salon
First there was Medicare for all 300 million of us. But that was a nonstarter because private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn’t hear of it, and Republicans and “centrists” thought it was too much like what they have up in Canada — which, by the way, cost Canadians only 10 percent of their GDP and covers every Canadian. (Our current system of private for-profit insurers costs 16 percent of GDP and leaves out 45 million people.)
Statement by CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro on the House bill on healthcare – November 10, 2009
Of all the torrent of words that followed House passage of its version of healthcare reform legislation in early November, perhaps the most misleading were those comparing it to enactment of Social Security and Medicare.
Healthcare-NOW Statement on HR 3962 – November 13, 2009
Healthcare-NOW!
On Saturday, November 7, 2009, the House passed H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, to much celebration by the Democratic party. Healthcare-NOW!’s view, however, is that the House bill is a gift to the insurance industry at the further expense of the people of this nation.
CNA/NNOC Statement On The Withdrawal Of The House Single Payer Amendment – November 9, 2009
The California Nurses Association/The National Nurses Organizing Committee
On the eve of what would have been the first national vote on single-payer legislation Rep. Anthony Weiner’s single-payer/Medicare for all amendment was withdrawn Friday, November 6.
Another Doctor Mad As Hell – November 12, 2009
By Dr. Susie Baldwin | Published on RHRealityCheck.org
The House health care reform bill, the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” won’t actually create affordable health care for America. It will perpetuate our existing inefficient, often inhumane health care system, one that spends twice as much as any other nation on earth yet fails to meet the basic needs of many individuals and communities. The convoluted logic of our existing health insurance-based system is echoed in the cumbersome pages of HR 3962.
What next for the single payer movement? – November 12, 2009
By National Nurses Movement | Daily Kos
Does passage of a bill that funnels millions of additional Americans into the private insurance system, and the decision of House leaders to shut down debate on one single payer amendment and scuttle another, mean the end of the years of efforts by single payer activists to win the most comprehensive reform of all? For the nation’s nurses and the many grassroots activists, the answer is clearly no.
