If you want Medicare-for-all, prepare for a long and bloody fight

By Paul Waldman for The Washington Post Over the last two years, the idea of government-guaranteed universal health coverage, often shorthanded as Medicare-for-all (I’ll refer to it as M4A from here) has grown from a minority belief within the Democratic Party to a majority belief, and one that is on its way to becoming consensus. […]

US spending too much, getting too little out of health care

By Stu Alderman for Reno Gazette Journal I had to laugh at Sam Kumar’s Sunday article regarding “Medicare for All” (“Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez have a math problem,” Dec. 9). It was either that or cry. On the basis of two loosely defined numbers, Kumar comes to the conclusion that moving our medical system from its current hodgepodge of […]

The Cost of Employer Insurance Is a Growing Burden for Middle-Income Families

NOTE: This study is helpful because it shows what an increasing burden the current healthcare system is for families. Sadly, the policy recommendations leave out the elephant in the room. The problem with our healthcare system is the profit motive of health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and others. We can’t address the healthcare crisis until […]

Three ways to cut — and improve — Medicare

By Ed Weisbart for STAT News The Republicans are right. We should cut Medicare. And I know how: Keep Medicare’s funding for actual health care but eliminate bureaucratic waste, profits, and the expensive and preposterous ban on negotiating drug prices. In other words, get rid of Part C and Part D and absorb the extra […]

Importance of Aligning House and Senate Single-Payer Bills the Right Way

Aligning House And Senate Single-Payer Bills: Removing Medicare’s Profiteering Incentives Is Key By Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein for PNHP Single-payer reform is in the news — and in the U.S. House and Senate. One hundred twenty-three Congresspeople have signed on as co-sponsors of H.R. 676, the single-payer legislation in House of Representatives, and 16 […]

Single-payer health care is better than ObamaCare

By Dr. Louise Marie Roth for The Hill I was in Canada this past June when I broke my wrist and had to go to the ER. They were fast and professional and the bill was much lower than what American ERs charge you just for walking in the door. Under single-payer health care, you […]

Hospital Refuses Procedure, Prescribes ‘Fundraising Effort’ for Heart Transplant

By Jack Crosbie for Splinter News Here is an American story. Hedda Martin needs a heart transplant. She applied for a heart transplant. Shortly before Thanksgiving, the Spectrum Health Richard Devos Heart and Lung Transplant Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, got back to her to say that she could not have a heart transplant, because […]

Taking the Fight to the Insurance Industry

NOTE: While this protest was focused on a state bill, the tactics are similar to what we will need to use to pressure members of Congress to pass a strong National Improved Medicare for All single payer healthcare system. By Sofia Arias for SocialistWorker.org Forty single-payer health care activists braved freezing temperatures and an impending […]