Key House Democrat Wimps Out of Holding Medicare for All Hearings
By Libby Watson for Splinter News Earlier this month, Nancy Pelosi signaled her support for House Democrats holding hearings on Medicare for All in the Rules and Budget committees. But those aren’t the major committees that would consider Medicare for All. So it was significant news when the Hill reported yesterday that Rep. Anna Eshoo, […]
Single Payer Gold Standard HR 676 Rest in Peace
By Russell Mokhiber for Single Payer Action HR 676, the gold standard single payer legislation for the past sixteen years, is no longer. The House Democrats have decided that their single payer Medicare for All bill will not carry the HR 676 number. They let that number go this week to a bill that reiterates […]
Removing investor-owned hospitals is not a bail out– it’s the right thing to do.
By Kay Tillow for HOPE Rep. Pramila Jayapal has been re-writing HR 676, the model improved Medicare for all legislation that has united and advanced a growing single payer movement since it was introduced into Congress in 2003. HR 676 is evidence-based and written to enact the Physicians Proposal for a National Health Program. […]
Trump’s Under-the-Radar Push to Dismantle Veterans Health Care
New legislation threatens to dismantle the most successful American experiment in government-delivered health care. By Suzanne Gordon and Jasper Craven for The American Prospect Last June, President Trump signed the VA Mission Act, commonly considered the biggest overhaul of veterans’ health care in a generation. Mission was designed to replace the hastily enacted Veterans Choice […]
Insurance companies are supposed to be heartless. That’s why we need single-payer
Letters to the Editor in the Los Angeles Times To the editor: Michael Kinsley is arguably correct when he writes regarding the denial of coverage for people with preexisting conditions: “The insurance companies are not behaving like heartless monsters. They are behaving like insurance companies.” Well, they may or may not be monsters, but insurance […]
Group backing private Medicare is funded by insurance giants
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Richard Lardner for Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A group gaining influence in Washington as a champion for Medicare beneficiaries is bankrolled by major health insurance companies that are trying to cash in on private coverage offered through the federal health insurance program. The Better Medicare Alliance claims a far-flung network […]
Big Pharma shells out $20B each year to schmooze docs, $6B on drug ads
Persuading doctors and direct-to-consumer ads land 1-2 punch for knockout sales. By Beth Mole for Ars Technica Talk with your doctor… It’s a common refrain at the end of any drug advertisement or disease awareness campaign. Ostensibly, it seems like a responsible suggestion. Talking with your own trusted doctor can help determine if a new […]
VA to shift billions of dollars to private care for veterans
By Jennifer Steinhauer and Dave Philipps for The New York Times, republished on Rise Up Times WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs is preparing to shift billions of dollars from government-run veterans’ hospitals to private health care providers, setting the stage for the biggest transformation of the veterans’ medical system in a generation. Under […]
Memorial Sloan Kettering Curbs Executives’ Ties to Industry After Conflict-of-Interest Scandals
The cancer center will now bar top officials from sitting on outside boards of for-profit companies, and is conducting a wide-scale review of other policies. By Katie Thomas and Charles Ornstein for ProPublica This article was reported and written in collaboration with The New York Times. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, one of the world’s […]
6 Reasons Why a Medicare Buy-In Won’t Benefit Young People
By Brittany Shannahan for Healthcare is a Human Right Maryland What is the buy-in? The Medicare buy-in is one of many “moderate” alternatives to Medicare for All proposed by centrist House Democrats that offer no solutions for millennials. Led by Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY), the legislation would allow people between the ages of 50 and […]