Articles of Interest
These articles highlight many of the health care related stories in the news--ranging from single-payer op-eds by PNHP members to reports by newspapers on corporate health care.Dr. Sidney Wolfe's Testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce at Hearing on Health Insurance - July 2, 2009
Testimony of Sidney M. Wolfe MD
What if you picked up the morning paper tomorrow and saw the following headline: "50 People Died Yesterday Because they Lacked Health Insurance"? The next day, the same headline--and the next as well. This is the average number of people in the United States who, according to a 2004 report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, die each day--more than 18,000 a year--because they lack health insurance. How should we respond to this unacceptable and embarrassing finding?Single-payers crashing the gates - July 2, 2009
By Marcy Winograd | L.A. Progressive
One of the many frustrations for advocates of single-payer health care is the relentless drive to marginalize us, not only by conservatives but also by members of our own party.Medical debt increasingly cited as factor in bankruptcies - July 2, 2009
By Doug Trapp | AMNews
Nearly two-thirds of bankruptcies in early 2007 were due in part to medical debt -- an increase of more than 20% since 2001 -- according to a national study of more than 2,000 cases.Middle class battles illness, medical bills - July 2, 2009
BY COLLEEN LAMAY | Idaho Statesman
In the movies and in country music, spunky people dying of cancer take exotic vacations, jump out of airplanes, spend quality time with people they love - all the things they never had time to do before their diagnoses. The reality is very different for growing numbers of middle-class families who lack health insurance or have skimpy coverage.Democratic party chairman favors single-payer health care - July 1, 2009
The Associated Press
The head of the Montana Democratic Party, also a candidate for Congress, is coming out in favor of universal health coverage.Puerto Rican doctors rally at White House, urge Obama to create pilot single-payer system on island - June 30, 2009
Public Citizen | News release
The Puerto Rico College of Physicians and Surgeons urged President Obama today to create a single-payer pilot program on the island, saying it is the best way to provide universal coverage to all of Puerto Rico's 4 million residents.State cuts its health coverage by $115m - June 29, 2009
By Kay Lazar | Boston Globe
Overseers of Massachusetts’ trailblazing healthcare program made their first cuts yesterday, trimming $115 million, or 12 percent, from Commonwealth Care, which subsidizes premiums for needy residents and is the centerpiece of the 2006 law.Let Medicare cover all Americans - June 29, 2009
Greg M. Silver, M.D. | Letter to the Editor | St. Petersburg Times
We already spend enough to insure everyone right now and it's 2 1/2 times what the average industrialized country spends. To pump additional monies into a system that over the last 50 years has proven itself wasteful, expensive, complicated and which produces poorer health outcomes than other countries is as absurd as it is reckless.Health care vs. sick care - June 29, 2009
By Dr. M. Joycelyn Elders | United Methodist News Service
The United States has the best "sick-care" system in the world, but our "health-care" delivery system is lacking. We have the best doctors, the best hospitals, best academic health centers, best nurses, the best drugs, and we are leaders in research. Our problem is that the system is not available to all of our citizens.The Prescription From Obama's Own Doctor - June 28, 2009
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF | Op-Ed Columnist | New York Times
I hope President Obama tunes out the A.M.A. and reaches out instead to somebody to whom he's turned often for medical advice. That's Dr. David Scheiner, a Chicago internist who was Mr. Obama's doctor for more than two decades, until he moved into the White House this year.Universal health care is near at hand - June 26, 2009
By Richard C. Dillihunt | Guest column | Bangor Daily News
I have been a proponent of universal health care and single payer since retiring from the practice of surgery more than 10 years ago. During this decade I have never waffled on my conviction that our nation should transition to a system in which every citizen has an equal opportunity to obtain their health care from practitioners of their choice.Oliver Fein, of Physicians for a National Health Program, at St. Kate's: Give single-payer a chance - June 26, 2009
By Kathlyn Stone | TC Daily Planet
The American Medical Association has come out against President Obama’s “public option” for health care reform, but the AMA doesn’t represent all physicians. Some physicians’ groups support the public option but others think it doesn’t go far enough to fix changes in a badly broken system. Dr. Oliver Fein, president of the progressive Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), found a warm welcome in the Twin Cities last week. Fein was here to present PNHP’s vision for a national single payer health program. PNHP has 16,000 members, including 300 in Minnesota.Obama's Doctor Knocks ObamaCare - June 25, 2009
By David Whelan | Forbes
Scheiner, 71, was Obama's doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House; he vouched for the then-candidate's "excellent health" in a letter last year. He's still an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but he worries about whether the health care legislation currently making its way through Congress will actually do any good, particularly for doctors like himself who practice general medicine. "I'm not sure he really understands what we face in primary care," Scheiner says.Paul Starr and Steffie Woolhandler on the public option - June 25, 2009
The heated debate over the proposal to offer a public plan option is certainly warranted, but the much of the debate misses the point. While most people are arguing over the design of the public option, they are neglecting the fundamental flaws of our multi-payer system.Will a Public Plan Bring Better Care? - June 25, 2009
Steffie Woolhandler | Letters | New York Times
A public plan option that competes with private insurers won't fix health care. Competition in health insurance involves a race to the bottom, not the top. Insurers compete by not paying for care: by seeking out the healthy and avoiding the sick; by denying payment and shifting costs onto patients. These bad behaviors confer a decisive competitive advantage; a public plan would either emulate them -- becoming a clone of private insurance -- or go under.Senate Report Finds Insurers Wrongfully Charged Consumers Billions - June 25, 2009
By David S. Hilzenrath | Washington Post
Health insurers have forced consumers to pay billions of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid, according to a report released today by the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee.The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform - June 24, 2009
By Wendell Potter | Center for Media and Democracy
I'm the former insurance industry insider now speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the health care reform legislation members of Congress are now writing.Testimony of Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., to the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee - June 24, 2009
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. I'm Steffie Woolhandler. I am a primary care doctor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and associate professor of medicine at Harvard. I also co-founded Physicians for a National Health Program. Our 16,000 physician members support nonprofit, single-payer national health insurance because of overwhelming evidence that lesser reforms -- even with a robust public plan option - will fail.Testimony of Quentin Young, M.D., to the House Ways and Means Committee - June 24, 2009
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment on the proposal that has emerged from the three key House committees and to articulate the single-payer alternative. I am national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of 16,000 American physicians who support single-payer national health insurance. Our organization represents the views of the majority of U.S. physicians, 59 percent of whom support national health insurance.Medicare 2.0: Doctors group urges health care for all - June 23, 2009
By Casey Selix | MinnPost.com
Dr. Oliver Fein, president of the 16,000-member Physicians for a National Health Program, thinks the civil rights movement of the 21st century will be health care. As health policy reform moves up the domestic agenda of the president and Congress, a single-payer, government-run program appears to be off the table. But Fein, who was in the Twin Cities last week to launch the Hazardous to Your Health! series at St. Catherine University, thinks the single-payer concept is gaining momentum in the United States.