New York

New York Information

November 3, 2008

Universal health insurance now
Editorial | The Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY)
Americans will survive a protracted economic downturn if they have to forgo luxuries like daily lattes at Starbucks or new flat-screen TVs. But many will not make it if they continue to skimp on health care, as a story in last Friday’s Gazette indicated they’ve been doing. Stories like that — another one appeared on the front page of Wednesday’s New York Times — make the best argument yet for the government to provide universal health insurance. Left to their own devices and dwindling resources, too many Americans can’t or won’t buy it themselves.

September 9, 2008

Single-payer health reform
Albany Catholic Blog
Saturday, September 13th, in Albany, we will launch Single Payer New York, a grassroots coalition of organizations and individuals to work together in New York state for single-payer health reform, both state and federal. An amazing diversity of single-payer advocates have responded with plans to attend.

September 4, 2008

A feasible health care plan
By ALWIN STEINMANN | Albany Times Union
A number of medical professional societies, have called for health care reforms to provide universal coverage including the possibility of a single-payer system. An article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that the majority of polled physicians (59 percent) supported the notion of a single-payer system. Given that 15 percent of our population lacks health insurance, and our overall expenditures on health care is in excess of $2.1 trillion, a single-payer system is no longer a fringe idea to be thought of as a dream. It’s instead a realistic solution to a health care system that rewards excessive care and administrative infrastructure while ignoring the real needs of its patients and providers.

September 3, 2008

Single-payer health care would benefit all
By JAMES J. BARBA | Albany Times Union
Multiple payers have multiple rules for authorizing services, billing and the supply of requested data on the care actually delivered. A single set of rules, which everyone in the provider community follows, will eliminate most of this costly bureaucratic expense.

August 29, 2008

Make U.S. healthier and wealthier
James V. Bertolone | Guest essayist | Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
This coming Labor Day, working people from coast to coast will be working for candidates who are ready to turn around our health care system, turn around our economy, turn around the decline of the middle class and turn around America.

August 6, 2008

Single Payer New York’ to be founded on Sept. 13
Albany Catholic
On Saturday, Sept. 13, single payer advocates from across New York will meet here to form a new statewide organization. Our aim: to build an unbeatable movement for a single payer public system that would fully fund comprehensive health care, including prescription drugs, for all. We invite all single-payer supporters to join us!

June 19, 2008

State Assembly points the way forward on health care
Andrew D. Coates, MD | Poughkeepsie Journal
Our critics smile at us and say that national health insurance a great idea, but they add a wink, for they believe the insurance companies are simply too rich and too powerful. The not-so-subtle message: give up and prepare for compromise with the private insurance industry. Enter the New York State Assembly, not known as a den of starry-eyed idealists, with an overwhelming vote of support for single-payer health reform.

May 12, 2008

Advocates asking for health coverage for all New Yorkers
By MARIA BRANDECKER | Legislative Gazette Staff Writer
Supporters of a single-payer health care system held a rally outside the Capitol in Albany last Tuesday urging state and federal leaders to ensure all Americans get coverage.

May 12, 2008

A New Health Care Plan…Physicians for national health program finds willing ears in Ithaca
By Karen Gadiel | Ithaca Times
A group of area physicians, frustrated by the limitations of providing health care to all who need it, recently formed a regional chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, or PNHP. “We think the time has come,” said Dr. John Paul Mead, doctor of internal medicine.

May 7, 2008

Labor, Faith, Seniors, Consumer Groups Rally at New York State Capitol in Support of Single Payer Universal Health Care
Media Release
Single payer universal health care advocates rallied today at the [New York] State Capitol in support of action at both the national and state level.

May 2, 2008

Events to target health care reform
Cathleen F. Crowley | Albany Times Union
Single-payer health care is the topic of two upcoming events in the Capital Region. Tonight, the Hudson-Mohawk May Day Committee will mark International Workers Day at Troy’s Prospect Park. The theme of the event is single-payer health care, a system where the government is the main payer for health costs, also called Medicare for all.

April 2, 2008

Health care changes sought
By CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY | Albany Times Union
A majority of doctors now think the federal government should pay for health care, according to a study in Tuesday’s Annals of Internal Medicine. Doctors and student doctors at Albany Medical College held a news conference on Tuesday to draw attention to the study and show support for a single-payer system.

February 5, 2008

GHI/HIP change could hurt health care
By RICHARD PROPP | Albany Times Union
When a health insurance company seeks for-profit status, it appears it has made a decision to fundamentally change how it operates to acquire a large infusion of cash. This fundamental change will logically result in a shift from a consumer-satisfaction priority to a shareholder-satisfaction focus.

November 29, 2007

Reforming Healthcare
WALB News
“What this movie does is really show that middle class people are in trouble too and upper middle class people. That no one is safe from the horrors of our healthcare system and the for-profit nature of the insurance companies,” Seigele says. So they’re asking Congressman Sanford Bishop to co-sponsor House Resolution 676 to guarantee health insurance to everyone and expand Medicare.

November 6, 2007

Single solution
By TIM JOSEPH | Times Union
As an elected county leader, I find that a tremendous amount of my time, and my county’s budget, is devoted to one or another aspect of health care for some segment of our citizens. Nearly all of that time is devoted not to delivering health care, but to sorting out who will pay for it. A big advantage of a single-payer system, compared with our current patchwork, is that it resolves this issue once and for all, and thus offers substantial savings in administrative costs.

August 14, 2007

Open doors to medical care to all; adopt single-payer system in U.S.
Dr. Laurence Jacobs | Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | Guest essayist
The movie Sicko has stimulated discussion of health care costs and access in the United States. Our patchwork nonsystem of competing health care insurances, with its profit motive driving denial of care and of physician choice, is clearly failing. It needs to be replaced by a more rational and humane method of assuring universal coverage and care for all our citizens.

May 1, 2007

Lack of insurance puts too many at risk
By Dr. Richard G. Younge | The Journal News
How could the health-care system change to improve care? For a start, we could make the treatment and preventive services of modern health care available to everyone. A national health insurance program that replaced our current system based on private insurers would improve access to care for the 47 million uninsured people in the United States.