Healthcare Resource

The Alliance needs some Health Care!

2011-11-08T18:02:00.000-08:00

Please support the Alliance, attend the Benefit on Sunday at the Bagdad!
Send a donation so we can go to press!

Breaking News!	Brutal Attacks on Peaceful Occupy Oakland gathering! http://www.theportlandalliance.org/occupation	CourageConquers Fear Stand up for the 99%
Breaking News! OccupyPortland	The Portland Alliance and KBOO are sponsoring VOICES IN ACTION: HUMAN RIGHTS ON FILM NWFILM.ORG Download Poster! Download the Schedule! "The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule..." GEORGE ELIOT	Sunday, Nov. 13 Greg Palast at the Bagdad: 702 SE Hawthorne Blvd. ForTheAlliance&KBOO!
		Speaking Truth to Power Since 1981! Support local media! Of, by, & for the people!

Here is a new Alliance Interactive Calendar: add your own events! We are a 501C3 Nonprofit for Public Benefit. (NAAME)

For Email Marketing you can trust

Table of Contents!

Activism

Advertising

Ad Rates

Place Ad!

Arts & Culture

Blog

Cartoons

Calendar

Front Page

Facebook

Flyers!

Jobs

JwJ Updates

Kboo Portal

Letters

Locations

Labor Radio

Links

Live Music & Festivals

Munk

Myspace

News Bytes!

The Occupation

Occupy Portland!

Peace

Progressive Directory

Poetry

Poster!

Previous Issues

Twitter

TLC

Wordpress.org

Writing

Writingresource

Another Blog!

About Us-Subscribe-Contact & Submission info-Volunteer

Portland Alliance Online
News Bytes: http://www.theportlandalliance.org/bytes

Our Community Calendar is where thousands of organizers in the Pacific Northwest discover opportunities for action or submit their own events!
http://www.theportlandalliance.org/communitycalendar

If you want to learn more about the Alliance, please examine the seven issues we have published in 2011 at this address:
http://www.theportlandalliance.org/issues.html

Or visit our Blog and carry on a conversation with our staff.
http://portlandalliancenews.blogspot.com/

We are the news for Occupy Portland, the Occupy Portland Alliance is on site. Check with Andrea Townsend for the Occupation Alliance http://www.theportlandalliance.org/occupyportland send stories, articles pictures for online or print issues!

What about Universal Healthcare, Nonprofit Health Care, and Health?

2011-09-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

This is about who controls health care delivery in America.
The insurance industry should be off the table.

We do not need "reform." We need legislation to eliminate
these companies from the equation. When Medicare took over,
the insurance companies found other investments. When
non-profit health care becomes the law of the land, these
corporate felons will be scurrying under the nearest rock.
And it is about time. They have done enough damage.

Insurance company "underwriters" should not have anything
to do with providing health care in America. It is time we
stopped begging. And it is past time our legislators stopped
taking checks from these economic cartels.

When the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented in 2014,
we will be at the mercy of these thugs by mandate. We will
have a long way to go before we have universal coverage,
because unlike every other developed country in the world,
we allow corporate felons to control access to health care.

Universal coverage, in my view, is not a "goal" we all
"should" share. It is a basic human right we should demand.
Until we take it, your loved ones will face more horror.
We have asked and our legislators have refused.
It is time to take it to the streets and get the job done.

How long must our people suffer?
When will our legislators deliver the nonprofit health care
that is nearly universally available across the planet?
For how long will the richest and most powerful nation
on earth allow our people to suffer and die, while more
responsive nations provide for the health and well-being
of their people? With mandated skyrocketing health care
costs, more and more Americans have lost homes and
futures. Together we can demand accountabilty and
protect our families, friends, neighbors, jobs, and homes...
or we can surrender to this economic warfare and lose our
hopes, dreams, and aspirations. It is time to face facts.

Health, life, & liberty are natural rights

2010-04-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

We have a right to health.
We deserve and can afford to
provide universal health care.

Our citizens, children, seniors,
students, service people, leaders,
and the most vulnerable
among us must be healthy,
fit, secure, and productive
if we hope to move forward
as a nation, people, and planet.

Healthy people build strong families, communities,
and nations. This is not simply a matter of compassion,
morality, and common sense. Our nation's security is at stake.

Sick and unhealthy working people will cripple us at home
and abroad and make it impossible for America to compete in
the global marketplace. We are allowing insurance profiteers
to cripple our businesses so we can no longer compete.
We can't afford to allow private speculators to gamble with
our health and security. We are constitutionally guaranteed life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Too many lives are lost due
to inadequate access to health care. Too many lose their freedom
and are driven into bankruptcy, depression, or early graves due to
profiteering and the machinations of the insurance cartels.
And to many people suffer and are incapable of finding happiness,
because we allow transnational economic cartels to control the
cost of health care, deny services, and marginalize or murder
some of the most vulnerable among us. This must end.

We must demand real change. Americans deserve good
health, rewarding jobs, safe and affordable housing, functioning
schools, and well-maintained infrastructure and services. This is
the very least that we should expect. If Republicans are too
corrupt and Democrats to cowardly to deliver... it is time to
explore other options. Past time. We have too much at stake.

best regards, Tim Flangan http://www.unionresource.org/
http://www.writingresource.info/healthcare
http://health-careresource.blogspot.com/

Box 22/Lake Oswego,OR/97034-0003
503-697-1670 editor@writingresource.org
www.WritingResource.info:
www.ResourceResource.org
Writing, Activism, & Creative Arts
http://writingresource.blogspot.com/2010/02/writingresources.html
add events to the Interactive Calendar http://www.brownbearsw.com/freecal/thewordsmithcollection
PDX ActivismNewsletter: http://sites.google.com/site/pdxactivismnews/

US Health care is not the best..

2010-04-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

The United States does not
have the "best" health care system
in the world.

Not even close.

"Americans pay more for health care
than any other country in the world
and yet the health care Americans
receive is ranked by the World Health
Organization (WHO) as 37th in overall
performance and 72nd in overall level of
health of the 191 nations
included in the 2000 study...

...a report by the Commonwealth Fund
ranked the U.S. last in the quality of health
care among the 19 countries compared.
The United States has the highest infant
mortality rate of all develped countries.

...The United States is the only wealthy,
industrialized, developed country in the
world that does not offer health care
to all of its citizens.

...the facts show that that
the United States
has one of the worst
health care systems of

all the developed countries
in the world...

The United States ranks only
27th in life expectancy of 189
countries. Of the 30 OECD
(Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Develop-
ment) nations, the United
States ranks only 22nd in life
expectancy.

The United States ranks 25th in infant
mortality rates among the 30 OECD
nations.

The United States does not have
the best health care system in the world.
Far from it.

The World Health Organization's ranking
of the world's health systems.

Source: WHO World Health Report -
The World Health Organization's ranking
1 France

2 Italy

3 San Marino

4 Andorra

5 Malta

6 Singapore

7 Spain

8 Oman

9 Austria

10 Japan

11 Norway

12 Portugal

13 Monaco

14 Greece

15 Iceland

16 Luxembourg

17 Netherlands

18 United Kingdom

19 Ireland

20 Switzerland

21 Belgium

22 Colombia

23 Sweden

24 Cyprus

25 Germany

26 Saudi Arabia

27 United Arab Emirates

28 Israel

29 Morocco

30 Canada

31 Finland

32 Australia

33 Chile

34 Denmark

35 Dominica

36 Costa Rica

37 United States of America

Do we have a right to health?

2010-04-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

We have a right to health.
We deserve and can afford
to provide universal
health care.

Our citizens, children,
seniors, students,
service people, leaders,
and the most vulnerable
among us must be
healthy, fit, secure,
and productive if we hope
to move forward and meet
the challenges
we face.

Healthy people build healthy families,
communities, and nations.

This is not simply a matter of compassion,
morality, and common sense. This is a matter
of national (and international) security.
Sick and unhealthy working people can cripple
a community and incapacitate a nation.

The profiteers have made it impossible for the USA
to compete in the global marketplace. And the
insurance cartels, by treating health like a commodity.
cripple our businesses so we can no longer compete.

We can't afford to allow private speculators to
gamble with our health and security. We are
constitutionally guaranteed life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.

Too many lives are lost due to inadequate access
to health care. Too many lose their freedom and
are driven into bankruptcy, depression, or early
graves due to profiteering and the machinations
of the insurance cartels. And to many people suffer
and are incapable of finding happiness, because we
allow transnational economic cartels to control the
cost of health care, cripple this nation, deny health
care, and marginalize or murder our family members,
neighbors, or friends. This creeping fascism must stop.

We must demand real change. Americans deserve
good health, rewarding jobs, safe and affordable housing,
functioning schools, and well-maintained infrastructure
and services. This is the least that we should expect.

If Republicans are too corrupt and Democrats to cowardly
to deliver... it is time to explore other options.

Past time. We have too much at stake.

Tim http://www.unionresource.org/

So-Called Healthcare Reform

2010-03-22T15:41:00.000-07:00

The Healthcare reform promised was a far cry from the
health insurance reform passed by the congress...

The watered-down reform is a gift to the insurance industry.
They still call the shots, set the prices, and have retained
their exemption from laws which prohibit monopolies.
We, the richest nation on the planet, still will have
18 million Americans with no access to healthcare.
The bill also contains inappropriate language that
may restrict a woman’s access to reproductive health services.
Federally funded abortion coverage for people purchasing
insurance through the exchanges will be banned under the
bill now passed by Congress.

The public option was stripped out at the demand of insurers,
and the provision that the president wanted to establish a federal
board to oversee premium hikes was also stripped by insurance
companies. Now there is nothing to control costs. This president
and Congress "settled" for a privately run, for-profit system
through which insurers can’t wait to gain 31 million new customers.
And they will set whatever price the market will bear.

We still need single payer to make real headway.
Kucinich is one of the co-authors of H.R. 676, which would create a
single-payer, Medicare-for-all health care system. It currently has 78
co-sponsors. We must continue to advocate for such a system. The
profiteering must end. The bill which was just passed will not make
that happen.

Here is what the doctors say:

"...the president's proposal would ship hundreds of billions of
taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry in the
form of subsidies," Young said. "And to help finance this, it
would impose a new tax on health benefits of workers,
especially those in high-cost states. Its individual mandate
would force millions of middle-income uninsured Americans
to buy insurers' skimpy products - insurance policies full of gaps
like ever-rising co-pays, deductibles and premiums. Such policies
already leave middle-class American families vulnerable to
economic hardship and medical bankruptcy in the event of a
serious illness like cancer...Even so, at least 23 million people
would remain uninsured. We know that being uninsured raises
your chance of dying by about 40 percent," he continued,
citing another recent study. "That translates into about 23,000
unnecessary deaths each year. As physicians, we find this
completely unacceptable...In short, this proposal is an
insurance company bonanza, not good, evidence-based
health reform. The president would do better by abandoning
the insurance and drug companies and instead taking up
the single-payer approach."
http://pnhp.org/

Why Dennis held his nose and supported the bill..

2010-03-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

http://health-careresource.blogspot.com/
Dennis Kucinich is one of few
leaders in Washington who is on
our side. (working Americans)
He supports single-payer,
non-profit, healthcare for
Americans... so that we can
provide quality healthcare
for our people.
      By acting from compassion, we can improve
our health while restoring an ability to compete in the global marketplace.
     (It would be good if the naysayers and those who indulge in
the politics of NO and fearmongering would try to comprehend.)
      Dennis does not support the current health insurance
reform bill under consideration, since it represents a gift to the
corporate transnationals who have robbed us blind for decades...
But he is voting yes because he understands this health insurance
reform will be a faltering step in a direction towards actual healthcare reform.
     If Americans really want to begin to understand the machinations
which drive congress, or alternatively move this country forward,
in fits and starts, they should attempt to learn from this short man
with a towering intellect and courage to spare.
in solidarity & with best regards,
Tim
http://health-careresource.blogspot.com/
http://www.thewordsmithcollection.org/

Media Matters: Health Care Myths

2010-02-22T20:08:00.000-08:00

Myths and falsehoods about health care reformhttp://mediamatters.org/print/research/200911130002

As Congress continues to debate health care reform legislation,
Media Matters for America presents the latest in a series of reports
identifying and debunking myths and falsehoods
in the media's coverage of the issue.

MYTH 8: Health care reform legislation will provide coverage to undocumented immigrants
REBUTTAL: The House bill specifically forbids federal dollars from going to the health insurance policies of undocumented workers residing in the United States, saying no federal payments will be allowed to benefit those
"who are not lawfully present in the United States."

MYTH 9: Public option would be financed by tax hike
REALITY: Public option financed by premiums -- not taxes. Although the Senate has not released the text of its compromise bill, both the House bill and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee's bill require their public options to charge premiums sufficient to cover administrative costs as well as the cost of enrollees' benefits.

       Bills' tax revenues are used to cover expansion of coverage, with or without public option. The Senate Finance Committee's bill, which does not include a public option, requires a tax on high-cost plans to cover the expansion of Medicaid and subsidies for lower- and middle-income Americans purchasing insurance. Similarly, CBO's July 2 analysis of the Senate HELP bill shows that the bulk of cost is for subsidies for lower- and middle-income Americans purchasing insurance. And CBO found that the House bill's proposed Medicaid expansion and subsidy provision for some families to purchase insurance through the exchanges would cost roughly $891 billion over 10 years, which would be "more than offset by the combination of other spending changes, which CBO estimates would save $427 billion, and receipts resulting from the income tax surcharge on high-income individuals and other provisions, which JCT and CBO estimate would increase federal revenues by $594 billion over that period."

MYTH 10: Public doesn't support public optionREALITY: Numerous recent polls on public option found widespread support. Several recent polls found that at least a plurality -- but more often a majority -- of respondents support a public option. An October 30-November 1 CNN/Opinion Research poll found that 55 percent favor "creating a public health insurance option administered by the federal government that would compete with plans offered by private health insurance companies." This finding aligns with polls taken throughout October. For instance, an October 15-18 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 57 percent support a government plan "to compete with private health insurance plans"; an October 8-15 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 57 percent favor "[c]reating a government-administered public health insurance option"; and an October 16-19 USA Today/Gallup poll found that 50 percent support a "public, government-run insurance plan.

MYTH 12: Democrats are to blame for excessively partisan health reform legislative process
REALITY: Senate bills included numerous GOP amendments, reflected bipartisan meetings. According to a HELP Committee document about bipartisan aspects of the health reform bill the committee passed July 15, the final bill included "161 Republican amendments," including "several amendments from Senators [Mike] Enzi [R-WY], [Tom] Coburn [R-OK], [Pat] Roberts [R-KS] and others [that] make certain that nothing in the legislation will allow for rationing of care," and reflected the efforts of "six bipartisan working groups" that "met a combined 72 times" in 2009 as well as "30 bipartisan hearings on health care reform" since 2007, half of which were held in 2009. [HELP Committee document, 7/09] And according to the Senate Finance Committee's document detailing the amendments to the Chairman's Mark considered, at least 13 amendments sponsored by one or more Republican senators were included in the bill.

       GOP senators made clear they didn't intend to negotiate with Democrats in good faith. For instance, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) asserted during a July 17 conference call organized by the anti-health care reform group Conservatives for Patients Rights while discussing health care reform: "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Similarly, Minority Whip Jon Kyl (AZ) reportedly admitted August 18 that "almost all Republicans" will oppose Democratic health care reform efforts, regardless of the compromises Democrats might make in attempting to win their support. And Senate Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley during an August town hall meeting told the audience they "have every right to fear" the end-of-life counseling provision in the House bill, adding that the "government-run plan" could " could lead to "decide when to pull the plug on grandma." During an August interview, Grassley also admitted he wouldn't vote for his own bill if the GOP remained opposed.

MYTH 13: Health reform is unconstitutional
REALITY: Legal experts have disputed claim that the reform bill is unconstitutional. Legal scholars -- including George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr, who recently served as a special counsel to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) during Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation proceedings -- have pointed out the flaws in conservatives' arguments, including the facts that regulation of the health care sector falls under Congress' broad power to regulate interstate commerce and that Congress has repeatedly passed laws regulating health care and health insurance.
Fox example, Kerr said Napolitano's op-ed was "filled with so many errors, misstatements, and plainly weak claims that the mere number of those becomes far more interesting than the argument of the op-ed itself." And assessing the whether such a mandate is constitutional, Cornell law professor Michael C. Dorf wrote that he "rejected" what he described as the "libertarian" "objection that an individual mandate would be an unprecedented burden on liberty because it would affirmatively direct conduct, rather than either forbidding conduct or imposing affirmative obligations on only those who engage in conduct that the government has the power to forbid." He added that there are substantial precedents for such affirmative obligations and even if there were not, there is no reason in principle why an affirmative duty is a greater restriction on liberty than a prohibition or condition." He also assessed the "federalism objection" to the mandate's constitutionality, writing, in part, that "the individual mandate is 'plainly adapted' to the undoubtedly legitimate end of regulating the enormous and enormously important health-care sector of the national economy. It is therefore constitutional."

MYTH 15: Prominent opponents of health reform are credible
CLAIM: Betsy McCaughey is a credible health care expert.

REALITY: McCaughey recently exposed as Big Tobacco shill during 1994 health care debate. Rolling Stone revealed that in 1994, tobacco giant Philip Morris implemented a "strategy to derail Hillarycare," which included an "effort to 'work on the development of favorable pieces' with 'friendly contacts in the media' " -- specifically mentioning the company's collaboration with McCaughey on her 1994 New Republic hit piece on the Clintons' health care reform bill. McCaughey has described as "outrageous and fictional" the charge that she "worked for a tobacco company in writing my critique of the dangers of the Clinton Plan. I did not." McCaughey asserted that she "did no fundraising or conferring with corporations."
       McCaughey is a serial misinformer who has perpetuated numerous falsehoods about health care reform. McCaughey has repeatedly published op-eds in the New York Post and Wall Street Journal advancing falsehoods about health reform. Notably, she falsely claimed that a prior version of the House health care reform bill would "absolutely require" end-of-life counseling for seniors on Medicare "that will tell them how to end their life sooner" -- a claim that many in the media repeated. McCaughey repeatedly falsely claimed that the Senate HELP committee's bill "basically" "pushes everyone into an HMO-style plan." Additionally, McCaughey concocted the false claim, which was nonetheless widely repeated in the media, that a health IT provision in the economic recovery act enabled government bureaucrats to "monitor treatments" or restrict what "your doctor is doing" with regard to patient care. On multiple occasions, after being challenged on her false claims about health care legislation, McCaughey reportedly insisted that she was right about the ultimate effect (if not the literal wording) of a bill.

CLAIM: Newt Gingrich is a credible health care expert.
REALITY: Newt Gingrich has a financial stake in opposing Democrats' reform proposals. Numerous media outlets have provided Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich a forum to discuss his opposition to the inclusion of a public option and increased insurance regulations in health care reform legislation. But those media have not noted that that his Center for Health Transformation -- a for-profit entity that Gingrich founded and reportedly profits from -- receives annual membership fees from several major health insurance companies, which have a financial interest in preventing the implementation of those policies. Recently, NBC's Meet the Press hosted Gingrich, who attacked proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage programs under Democratic health reform legislation, but neither he nor host David Gregory disclosed his position as head of the Center for Health Transformation, which receives fees from insurance companies that sell Medicare Advantage plans. Gingrich has also repeatedly spread misinformation about health care reform.

CLAIM: AAPS-affiliated members are credible health care experts.
REALITY: AAPS is a conservative-leaning group that has promoted and endorsed controversial views on medicine and health. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a conservative-leaning group that has promoted and endorsed controversial views on medicine and health, including urging doctors not to serve as Medicare providers and supporting a "moratorium on vaccine mandates." AAPS also filed an amicus brief pressing for the public release of photos of former Clinton deputy counsel Vince Foster -- whom AAPS described as "the attorney assigned by Hillary Clinton to 'fix' the AAPS lawsuit against the Health Care Task Force" -- taken following his 1993 death, which numerous investigations have determined a suicide. The group also published an article falsely claiming that "in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy" and tying the increase to illegal immigration. Despite these facts, Fox News' Glenn Beck has hosted AAPS director Richard Amerling, as well as AAPS-affiliated David McKalip, the doctor who notoriously emailed a racist image depicting Obama as a witch doctor to his fellow "tea party" activists, to weigh in on the health care reform debate.

MYTH 16: Health care reform will impose rationingREALITY: Insurance companies already ration care. Insurance companies acknowledge that they ration care, restricting coverage of procedures and tests like MRIs and CAT scans and denying coverage for pre-existing medical conditions.

       Sanjay Gupta: "I can tell you, as a practicing physician ... who deals with this on a daily basis, rationing does occur all the time." As Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, explained: "[P]eople always say, 'Is there going to be rationed care?' And I can tell you, as a practicing physician, as someone who deals with this on a daily basis, rationing does occur all the time. I mean, I was in the clinic this past week. And I -- you know, at the end of clinic, I get all this paperwork that basically says, 'Justify why you're doing such and such procedure. Justify why you're ordering such and such test.' And if the justification is inadequate, the answer comes back, 'Well, that's not going to be covered.' Which basically is saying that the patient is going to have to pay for it on their own, which is, in essence, is what rationing is, in so many ways." [CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, 8/12/09]
       Insurance companies ration care by rescinding coverage. As former senior executive at CIGNA health insurance company Wendell Potter explained in June 24 Senate testimony, insurance companies restrict or deny coverage by rescinding health insurance policies on the grounds that people had undisclosed pre-existing conditions.

MYTH 17: Obama, Dems pushing "socialized medicine"REALITY: Conservatives have trotted out "socialized medicine" smear for 75 years. Numerous conservative media figures have revived the "socialized medicine" smear to undermine the efforts of Obama and congressional Democrats, most recently by promoting Ronald Reagan's 1961 attacks on a legislative precursor to Medicare. But as the Urban Institute wrote in an April 2008 analysis, "socialized medicine involves government financing and direct provision of health care services," and therefore, recent progressive health care reform proposals do not "fit this description." The analysis also noted: "Similar rhetoric was used to defeat national health care reform proposals in the 1990s and, with less success, to argue against the creation of Medicare in the 1960s." Indeed, a Media Matters analysis found that dating as far back as the 1930s -- with respect to at least 16 different reform initiatives including President Franklin D. Roosevelt's consideration of government health insurance when crafting the 1935 Social Security bill; President Lyndon Johnson's 1965 legislation establishing Medicare; and the health care initiative by President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton in 1993 and 1994 -- conservatives have attempted to smear those proposals by calling them "socialized medicine" or a step toward that purportedly inevitable result.

Was Joe Wilson right?

2009-09-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

Joe Wilson was out of line.

Hollering at the president
during his congressional
address was improper.

Kind-a like Dick Cheneys'
famous string of profanities
on the floor.

But regardless of who Joe
Wilson is or what he meant...
he was in some perverse way correct.

The president lied.

His program for mandatory contributions
to the insurance industry is untenable and
unworkable. Forcing Americans to pay
insurance companies who have been
denying coverage, refusing to pay claims,
raising rates, and increasing co-payments
at will is insanity.

Even IF congress passes such a bill...
and IF insurance companies are forced
to insure people and pay claims...
those same self-interested companies
will still control the costs.

And they will continue to over-pay
corporate CEO s and waste resources
on marketing and advertising which could
be used to save American lives and provide
health care for the 46 million Americans who
have no health care access.

The president speaks well,
but his abject surrender is not acceptable.

We need Single-payer:
Nobody out, Everybody in.
Obama was elected to deliver it.

Here is what he said:
"I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the
history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on
health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s
what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single
payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like
to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first
we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and
we have to take back the House.”

Well... we took back the White House, we took back the Senate and
we took back the house.Now it is time for Mr. Obama to deliver.

But after hearing his capitulation to the insurance industry on September
9th, 2009, Joe Wilson was right. While Joe was out of line hollering at
the president... he cannot be faulted for accuracy. Barack lied to us.

He betrayed those who elected him.
And now it is up to us to make him tell the truth.
tmf

Ted Kennedy on Healthcare

2009-08-26T12:17:00.000-07:00

At the 2008 Democratic Convention,
after being diagnosed with a brain
tumor, Sen. Ted Kennedy said:

This is the cause of my life -
new hope that we will break
the old gridlock and guarantee
that every American - north, south, east,
west, young, old - will have decent, quality
health care as a fundamental right
and not a privilege.

Kennedy chaired the Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).
On July 15, Kennedy's committee passed the
Affordable Health Choices Act,
which "will reduce health costs,
protect individuals' choice in doctors and plans,
and assure quality and affordable heath care for Americans."

It also includes a "strong public option that responds
to the wishes of the American people to have a
clear alternative to for-profit insurance companies."

Tell your Representatives to honor Sen. Kennedy
by passing real health reform:
http://www.democrats.com/
|honor-ted-kennedy?cid=ZGVtczU3MjcwNmRlbXM=

Senator Kennedy was too ill to vote for this bill,
but he praised its passage:

Americans are an extraordinary people.
We have created a nation of liberty and justice.
We have defeated forces of oppression,
and we have spread prosperity and progress
across the globe. When the American people
are on the march, there is no barrier that can
resist them, no obstacle that can block their path.
The American people are on the march once more,
and they will not stop until quality, affordable health
care is the birthright of every American.
And we are with them every step of the way.

We, the American people, are "on the march."
As my Representative, I urge you to act quickly to
honor Senator Ted Kennedy by passing real health reform -
including a strong public option that offers "a clear
alternative to for-profit insurance companies."

www.Writingresource.info/healthcare

2009-08-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

Health Care Update!

Health care reform
won’t kill your grandma
or outlaw private health
insurance.

These are just two of
the 14 big and bizarre lies
that fringe and mainstream
opponents of health care reform
are spreading.

Click here to get the real facts
from the watchdog group Media Matters.
http://mediamatters.org/research/200908200002
Follow the AFL-CIO at:
http://www.facebook.com/aflcio
http://www.twitter.com/aflcio

Got comments? Post them at http://www.aflcio.org/blog
.

Refuting the Lies Pushed by Health Care Reform Opponents
Universal Health Care Issues & Options
Universal health care gains traction

Health Care is a constitutional right, not a privilege.

Healthcare... What's the real skinny?

2009-08-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

The best plan is single payer,
where everyone is included, nobody is
excluded, and profiteers are out of the picture.

Paul Krugman
A new blog from The New York Times
tracks the health care debate as it unfolds.

More Health Care Overhaul News

The Conscience of a Liberal: The Public Option as a Signal

Here are extracts from Payl Krugmans ideas...

"Let’s talk about health care around the advanced world."

Every wealthy country other than the United States
guarantees essential care to all its citizens.

There wide variations in the specifics, with three main approaches.

First, In Britain, the government runs the hospitals and employs the doctors.
Like every system, the National Health Service has problems, but it
provides good care while spending only about 40 percent as much per person
as we do in America. The Veterans Health Administration, which is run
somewhat like the British health service, combines quality care with low costs.

The second route to universal coverage leaves the actual delivery of
health care in private hands, but the government pays most of the bills.
This is how Canada and, in a more complex fashion, France do it. This is a
system familiar to many Americans, since even those of us not yet on
Medicare have parents and relatives who are. French health care is excellent.
Canadians with chronic conditions are more satisfied with their system than their
U.S. counterparts. And Medicare is highly popular.

Finally, the third route to universal coverage relies on private insurance
companies, using a combination of regulation and subsidies to ensure that
everyone is covered. Switzerland offers the clearest example: everyone is
required to buy insurance, insurers can’t discriminate based on medical
history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizens get government
help in paying for their policies. The Massachusetts health reform more or
less follows the Swiss model; costs are running higher than expected, but
the reform has reduced the number of uninsured.

So where does Obamacare fit into all this? Basically, it’s a plan to Swissify
America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.

If we were starting from scratch we probably wouldn’t have chosen this route.
True “socialized medicine” would undoubtedly cost less, and a straightforward
extension of Medicare-type coverage to all Americans would probably be cheaper
than a Swiss-style system. That’s why many believe a true public option competing
with private insurers is important: otherwise, rising costs could all too easily
undermine the whole effort.

But a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on
what we have now. We already know that such systems can work.

We can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in
America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing
propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

Krugman also has some critical commentary regarding "off the table" Single Payer

Why Americans hate single-payer insurance

Because they don’t know they have it.
A commenter points me to this:
At a recent town-hall meeting in suburban Simpsonville,
a man stood up and told Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.) to “keep
your government hands off my Medicare.”
“I had to politely explain that, ‘Actually, sir, your health care
is being provided by the government,’ ” Inglis recalled. “But
he wasn’t having any of it.”

One of the truly amazing and depressing things about the health
reform debate is the persistence of fear-mongering over
“socialized medicine” even though we already have a system in
which the government pays substantially more medical bills
(47% of the total) than the private insurance industry (35%).

In a way, this is the flip side of the persistent belief that
the free market can cure healthcare, even though there a
re no places where it actually has; people also believe that
government-provided insurance can’t work, even though
there are many places where it does
— and one of those places is the United States of America.

Here is what Doctors have to say about Single-Payer:
Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which
a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing,
but delivery of care remains largely private.

Currently, the U.S. health care system is outrageously expensive,
yet inadequate. Despite spending more than twice as much as the
rest of the industrialized nations ($7,129 per capita), the United
States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators
such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates.
Moreover, the other advanced nations provide comprehensive
coverage to their entire populations, while the U.S. leaves 45.7 plus
million completely uninsured and millions more inadequately covered.

The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is
because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers.
Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have
nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and
marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive
pay. Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs
to deal with the bureaucracy. Combined, this needless administration
consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars.

Single-payer financing is the only way to recapture this wasted money.
The potential savings on paperwork, more than $350 billion per year,
are enough to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone without
paying any more than we already do.

Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all
medically necessary services, including: doctor, hospital, preventive,
long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision,
prescription drug and medical supply costs. Patients would regain free
choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would regain autonomy over
patient care.

Physicians would be paid fee-for-service according to a negotiated formulary
or receive salary from a hospital or nonprofit HMO / group practice. Hospitals
would receive a global budget for operating expenses. Health facilities and
expensive equipment purchases would be managed by regional health planning boards.

A single-payer system would be financed by eliminating private insurers and
recapturing their administrative waste. Modest new taxes would replace premiums
and out-of-pocket payments currently paid by individuals and business. Costs would be
controlled through negotiated fees, global budgeting and bulk purchasing.
The links below will lead you to more specific information on the details of single-payer:

Single-Payer Overviews
The Physicians Proposal for National Health Insurance
“Proposal of the Physicians’’ Working Group for Single-Payer
National Health Insurance,” JAMA 290(6): Aug 30, 2003

Key Features of Single-Payer
A useful handout detailing the main features of single-payer.
Statement of Dr. Marcia Angell: U.S. National Health Insurance Act
A great overview of the need for and logic of a single-payer system.
Perfect as an introductory handout.

Liberal Benefits, Conservative Spending
Another great introductory handout.

The case for eliminating the private health insurance industry
By Don McCanne, MD and Leonard Rodberg, PhD

Public Citizen's Response to the Citizens' Health Care Working
Groups Interim Recommendations (En Español)
A great overview on the benefits of a single-payer system
by Public Citizen.Rep. Dennis Kucinich Tackles Health Care

Rep. Kucinich talks with Truthdig about the health care crisis
in America.Financing single-payer national health insurance:
Myths and facts Download PNHP's Brochure

and Howard Dean, a physician and former
head of the Democratic Party weighs in...
he says co-ops and abandoning a public
option would do more harm than good.

with video

Dean: We will have a public option

Aug. 17: Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean explains why
he believes a public option is likely be included in the health
bill during the reconciliation process between the House and Senate.

Dean, a physician, argued that a public option is fair and said there
must be such a choice in any genuine shake up of the existing system.

"You can't really do health reform without it," he said.
Dean maintained that the health insurance industry has
"put enormous pressure on patients and doctors" in recent years.

He called a direct government role "the entirety of health care reform.
It isn't the entirety of insurance reform ... We shouldn't spend $60 billion
a year subsidizing the insurance industry."

His remarks were echoed by lawmakers as well as a top labor union
official, John Sweeney, who said the option was the only way to force
"real competition" on the insurance industry.

The United States is the only developed nation that does not have a
comprehensive national health care plan for all its citizens. About
47 million of America's 300 million population are without health
insurance.

And for the most up-to-date info.... on healthcare
reform,current trends, best options, and how to get there...

listen to this show:KBOO Labor Radio Fifth Monday:

The Truth About Healthcare in America:

90.7FM, KBOO Radio, August 31st at 6 pm

http://laborradiocollective.blogspot.com/

Call in and join the conversation:
ttp://www.writingresource.info/laborradio/

Single Payer Healthcare: The Only Real Option

2009-05-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

Single Payer vs "Public Option"

What is at stake?

Is there a single payer option?

HOME: www.WritingResource.info/singlepayer

May 13, 2009
"In sum, a single payer reform would make
universal, comprehensive coverage affordable
by diverting hundreds of billions of dollars
from bureaucracy to patient care.

Lesser reforms - even those that include a
public plan option - cannot realize such savings.
While reforms that maintain a major role for
private insurers may be politically attractive,
they are economically and medically nonsensical"
David U. Himmelstein, M.D.
(For a transcript of Dr. Himmelstein’s
testimony click here). For video and audio
clips of the hearing click here)

for more info see: www.WritingResource.info/healthcare

www.Writingresource.info/healthcare.html

www.WritingResource.info/healthcareupdate.html

American Healthcare: Life & Dealth Issue

2009-05-11T16:28:00.001-07:00

So far, Obama seems unwilling to go the distance unless we do
the groundwork. If we raise enough ruckus he may attend to the
concerns of working America.

If we do not hold his feet to the fire, he will compromise,
condone, and surrender to the status quo. We HAVE seen
that he is willing to listen and able to make course corrections.
But he is unlikely to get behind single-payer healthcare.

The "public plans" offered are a step in the right direction,
but they ignore the elephant in the room. As long as
transnational insurance companies keep defining our health
care delivery system, setting the costs, and proactively refusing
to provide coverage or care.. our costs will continue to rise and
millions of Americans will remain at risk.

The ONLY way to solve the problem is to move to a single payer system wherein
the costs are spread across a larger pool and the money wasted on denial of benefits,
advertising, and profiteering can be invested in people instead of illicit profits.
The rest of the planet has figured this out.

We are the last western industrialized nation which allow private firms, many
not even American companies,to put our people at risk. It is time to nationalilze
healthcare so that we can have healthy citizens whose businesses are not crippled
by the insurance industry's greed.

Some claim we "owe" the insurance industry something for taking away their
"business," but this is a crock. Public health is not a business. Their only
business is betting against working Americans and denying benefits and coverage.

When Medicare evaporated their market, they invested elsewhere. They need to
do the same right now so that working families and small businesses can endure,
survive, and prevail.

Obama may be willing to challenge the machinations of the banking industry...
although so far, he has quietly surrendered our cash to them and seem reluctant to
stand up to them. But it is more critical that we persuade him to do the right thing
with healthcare. I hope we can, but it remains to be seen.

Tim

Try the animated version of "What Is Single-Payer" first.
What is Single-Payer?
If you'd like to learn the basics about what all this "single-payer" talk
is all about, we've got the answers.
How Would It Work?
This section describes what a single-payer system might look like in the United States.
Compare
Compare a single-payer system to the current health care non-system.
Financing
How would we pay for all this?
Other Questions?
Heard something about single-payer? Want an answer? We've got it,
or we'll get it for you.

Single-Payer News

Healthcare is a Human Right

2009-05-02T12:06:00.001-07:00

Healthcare matters!
Is Healthcare a Constitutional Right?
Healthcare pressrelease!

"36 poorer and less-developed
countries take better care of their people."

We can do better.

Take a look at this Healthcare Press-release

Universal Health Care Issues & Options at Onward Oregon

www.WritingResource.info/healthcare
www.InternationalPeaceresources.org/healthcare

Helathcare is and investment in People

2009-05-02T11:31:00.000-07:00