Blogs
MN Progressive Projects reports on MUHCC
by Dan Burns
2-14-2010
The Blog comments on MUHCCC efforts to pass sinlge-payer health caer in Minnesota and on other states' efforts.
Slouching Toward Health Care Reform
Posted by Robert Reich
December 17, 2009
Huffington Post
...Real reform has moved from a Medicare-like public option open to all, to a public option open to 6 million without employer coverage (still in the House bill), to a public option open only to those same people in states that opt for it, or about 4 million (the original Harry Reid version of the Senate bill), to no public option but expanded Medicare (the Senate compromise) to no expanded Medicare at all (the deal with Joe "I love all the attention" Lieberman).
In other words, the private insurers are winning and the public is losing...
Read the entire post
Bob Cesca: The Health Insurance You Have Sucks
The president likes to say, "If you like the health insurance you have now..." The problem is that much like your utter lack of financial security in a system that's been gamed by corporate criminals, the health insurance you have now... sucks.
Lessons on Health Reform From Latin America
Posted on Truthout
September 16, 2009
Carmelo Mesa-Lago
from El Pais
...The intensity of this (the U.S. Health Care) debate, and the degree of anxiety provoked by the alleged threat of a government takeover, is surprising to Spaniards, other Europeans, Canadians and Latin Americans, many of whom are covered by public health care or social insurance programs in which the government plays a predominant role in the administration of health care provisions and regulation of the increasingly marginal private sector...
Bob Cesca: "Healthcare Reform Named After Kennedy Must Not Suck"
If they're going to name the final healthcare reform bill after Senator Kennedy, we ought to be demanding with voices as powerful and booming as the late senator's...
The bill must not suck.
But if it does, perhaps they should name it after Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley. The Blame Baucus and Grassley for This Sucky Act...
...Without a public plan, mandates would transform what would otherwise be a landmark reform bill into a massive and perpetual handout to the healthcare industry. You and I would have no choice but to pay a monthly tribute to the worthless bastards at UnitedHealth, CIGNA, Aetna and Blue Cross every month until we died, went broke or reached the age of 65.
Top Health Care Companies Spent More than Half Million on Congressional Trips
Sam Stein, Huffington Post
June 26, 2009
Over the past eight years, some of the largest and most politically active pharmaceutical and health care companies have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on private trips for members of Congress and their staffs...
...The pharmaceutical and health products industry as a whole has, in 2009 alone, already spent more than $66.5 million lobbying Congress. PhRMA, in particular, has come out against plans for a public option for insurance coverage. And as these groups with a vested interest in the outcome of the debate gear up for a summer of legislative combat, groups who follow money in politics worry that sponsorship of congressional travel may give some a leg up on the competition.
Baucus Tells Single-Payer Advocates No
By David Swanson
June 3, 2009
AfterDowningStreet.org
Senator Max Baucus met Wednesday with advocates for single-payer healthcare, including Senator Bernie Sanders, and told them that he might drop criminal charges against 13 people arrested for speaking up in his hearings, but that he would not include any supporters of single-payer health coverage in any future hearings. According to one report, Baucus suggested that he'd been mistaken to exclude single-payer but asserted that the process of creating healthcare reform legislation was too far along now to correct that omission.
Physicians for a National Health Program
PNHP has a new blog post daily- great news, great commentary. Read it here
Here Come the Big Lies- AFL-CIO Blog
by Mike Hall
May 28th 2009
We noted a few days ago how the private insurance industry was set to unleash its attack dogs on health care reform to try to kill a public health insurance plan option as part of President Obama's health care reform initiative. Those dogs have started to bark.