Our health care system is killing us
By Jennifer Perkins, MD for Juneau Empire How much longer are we going to tolerate incremental approaches to fix a broken health care system that feeds off disease and profits on the sick? Extremely high health care costs have become so common place that we rarely question them. News headlines flash “Plan to control […]
Providence Medical Group CEO: We’re 5-10 years out on single payer system
By Morgan Haefner for Becker’s Hospital Review Payer mix changes, like a shift toward more patients in government programs, coupled with rising healthcare costs, mean change is likely coming for America’s healthcare payment system, according to the Beaverton Valley Times. Doug Koekkoek, MD, chief executive of Portland, Ore.-based Providence Medical Group, said a possible result […]
When credit scores become casualties of healthcare debt
By Shefali Luthra for Modern Healthcare After a devastating horse-riding accident in 2017 landed him in the hospital for a month, requiring trauma care and hospital-based therapy, Jeff Woodard considered himself lucky. The bills amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. But Woodard’s employer-sponsored health insurance limited his out-of-pocket maximum payment to $5,000. He reached […]
4 Takeaways From Trump’s Plan To Rescind CHIP Funding
By Phil Galewitz for Kaiser Health News President Donald Trump wants to employ a rarely used budget maneuver called “rescission” to eliminate $15 billion in federal spending, including $7 billion from the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Administration officials insist the cuts wouldn’t negatively affect any programs — rather, they would merely return money […]
Socialists Push Phoenix Mayor Stanton to Support Single-Payer Health Care
By Joseph Flaherty for Phoenix New Times Local leftists are pushing Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton to support single-payer health care before he resigns to run for Congress. The Phoenix chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America submitted a citizen petition to the City Council on May 2, urging Stanton and the council to support a universal system […]
Andrew J. Cohen: The VA is working just fine, thank you very much
By Andrew J. Cohen for The Spokesman-Review “A government-run, single-payer, bureaucratic health-care system that doesn’t work.” That’s how Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., described the Department of Veterans Affairs last month on “Meet the Press.” Johnson’s remarks are typical of Republicans in Congress, who have made no secret of their intention to privatize the department. President […]
Single-payer: Healthcare 10 times better than you ever dreamed of
By Chris Graham for Augusta Free Press I’m not here to give you chapter, verse and footnotes on single-payer, why we need to join the rest of the industrialized world in making access to healthcare a basic human right. You don’t need the data to tell you what’s right. If you’re of the mindset that […]
Why does the U.S. spend so much more on healthcare? It’s the prices
By Harris Meyer for Modern Healthcare “It’s an incredible bureaucratic mess to get anything done for patients,” said Cullen, president-elect of the American Academy of Family Physicians. In contrast, Dr. Trina Larsen Soles’ 12-physician general practice in Golden, British Columbia, has one full-time staffer assigned each day to billing the province’s public medical services plan, […]
Medicare Advantage vs. Medicare for All
By Brittany Shannahan for Healthcare Is A Human Right Maryland A new twitter campaign led by The Coalition for Medicare Choices promises to mobilize two million seniors to “preserve and strengthen” Medicare Advantage. But who is the Coalition for Medicare Choices? With Medicare Advantage now covering 33% of Medicare enrollees, what does the state of Medicare Advantage […]
Ten Million Americans Could Bring H.R. 676 into Reality Land—Relief for Anxiety, Dread and Fear
By Ralph Nader for Counterpunch Polls show that over 125 million adults in our country already favor full Medicare for all, with free choice of doctor and hospital without stifling networks. I say ‘already’ because, as of yet, there is no major national campaign underway showing that an ‘everybody in, nobody out’ system of health […]