The most underrated argument for single-payer health care
By Ryan Cooper for The Week If there’s one constant in modern American life, it’s paperwork and bills — and it’s rarely worse than it is for health care. If you need some medical procedure, you are virtually guaranteed several hours of tedious form-filling, made much worse by the knowledge that if you mess up, […]
Media Embrace New ‘Reform’ Group as Bulwark Against Guaranteed Healthcare
By Justin Anderson for FAIR In recent years, there has been rapid growth in support for Medicare for All, a single-payer healthcare system that would guarantee the universal medical coverage that the Affordable Care Act failed to achieve with its passage in 2010. Sixty-four percent of Democrats support single-payer healthcare, while over half of Americans […]
Failing Health of the United States
By Steven H Woolf and Laudan Aron for The BMJ Life expectancy in the US has fallen for the second year in a row.1 This is alarming because life expectancy has risen for much of the past century in developed countries, including the US. The decline in US health relative to other countries, however, is not […]
A Long Era of Low Health Care Inflation May Be Coming to End
By John Tozzi for Bloomberg Since the late 2000s Great Recession, historically low increases in health-care prices have helped hold down inflation. That may be about to change. Hospital prices increased 2.2 percent in December, the fastest rate in four years, according to an analysis by Altarum, a nonprofit health-care research organization. The group analyzes data […]
California launches investigation following stunning admission by Aetna medical director
By Wayne Drash for CNN California’s insurance commissioner has launched an investigation into Aetna after learning a former medical director for the insurer admitted under oath he never looked at patients’ records when deciding whether to approve or deny care. California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones expressed outrage after CNN showed him a transcript of the […]
Medicare for All Advocates Rip ‘Cynical and Dishonest’ Healthcare Initiative as Ploy to Undermine Single Payer
“The path already exists. The movement already exists. The political will exists. What’s lacking is a willingness to stand up for values that people already agree with for fear of alienating people like Bill Frist.” By Julia Conley for Common Dreams Medicare for All advocates on Wednesday denounced a new healthcare initiative introduced by a […]
Physician-industry relationships further cloud hypertension guideline
NOTE: Dr. Romano demonstrates the conflict that arises when health care is a for-profit industry. The bottom line is profit and one way to make a profit is to create more demand for your product. This is another reason that we need a national health program that has health as the bottom line so that […]
Amazon’s health care experiment shows exactly why we need Medicare for All
By Richard Master for USA Today We have to remove profit from the health care equation, just like Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase intend to do. Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase announced last week that they would be forming a new company aimed at reducing employee health care costs. This decision was a response to what […]
Lottery Winner Dies 23 Days After Being Able to Afford Health Care
By Elizabeth Cassidy for The Mighty. Note: This article highlights once again the cruelty of a market-based healthcare system. In any other country that has a universal healthcare system, people like Donald wouldn’t have to wait until they win the lottery in order to get health care. Health conditions could be caught earlier and outcomes […]
How To Not Die In America
By Molly Osberg for Splinter News. Photo: by the author “A photo I took the first time I picked up my phone.” On the second Tuesday in June, I start to feel fluish. If this is 2016 and I’m still a freelance writer, I’m losing money immediately on the assignments I can’t complete because my […]