Summary: Our medical system defines efficiency as maximizing revenue-generating care. This compromises clinical interactions and indeed access to care, as highlighted in today’s excerpts. Single payer
The McCanne Health Justice Monitor is produced by a team of health policy experts and single-payer champions. For more information, and a complete archive of entries, visit the HJM website. For an archive of Quote of the Day entries from Dr. Don McCanne, click here.
De-Sickening America
Summary: The author of Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It trenchantly describes the fiscal and health damage done to the
Amazon Primary Care Financializes Health Data & Threatens Privacy
Summary: With the acquisition of One Medical, Amazon becomes a primary care middleman. It wants to access your medical records and sell the data, sacrificing
Ady Barkan’s Alert on Medicare Advantage
Summary: Mr. Barkan, a resolute and articulate advocate for single payer / Medicare for All, warns us about privatization of Medicare via Medicare Advantage. We must
Medicare-for-All Legislation in the Senate & House
Summary: Senator Bernie Sanders & Representative Pramila Jayapal re-introduced their Medicare-for-All bills on May 17th. Although prospects for passage are low this Congress, enthusiasm for organizing
Insane Drug Prices & Gaming = Huge Profits for Pharma & PBMs
Summary: Two news items this week lay bare US drug cost problems. The underlying cause is prices several-fold higher than elsewhere. Exacerbating that is convoluted gaming
Primary Care Corporate Takeover a Challenge for Single Payer
Summary: The large-scale corporate appropriation of primary care reflects and enables the profiteering that now dominates US health care. The doctor-patient relationship suffers. Single payer financing
Single Payer Would Radically Transform Health Policy Research
Summary: The May 2023 issue of Health Affairs, the leading health policy journal, has 20 articles. In our assessment, 9 of them would be unnecessary and
Call for a National Health System
Summary: PNHP founders Woolhandler and Himmelstein propose that progressive health reform needs updating to respond to the widespread takeover of providers by for-profit corporations. The original
Suing for Inflated Bariatric Surgery Fees
Summary: Aggressive collection tactics by a large bariatric surgery practice exemplify widespread problems with our health insurance: complex payment arrangements, confusing and misleading financial contracts, widely
Oracle Health Data Profit Fantasies
Summary: Oracle Health, acquired by Cerner, is pursuing a global cloud-based health records repository. Except that they can’t even succeed in five Veteran’s Administration hospitals. And
Rescuing Primary Care, Part 2
Summary: In Part 1, we discussed how primary care is being acquired and distorted by huge corporations pursuing massive profits. Today, we present a competing vision: a broad
