AmericanHealthPlan.org

A new public health insurance plan that competes directly with private insurers is essential to controlling health care costs and improving quality of care, according to a new report released yesterday by the U.C. Berkeley Center On Health, Economic & Family Security. President-elect Obama, his health care point person Tom Daschle, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-MT, and House Ways and Means Health...

Letter Sent By Consumer Watchdog

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Dear President-elect Barack Obama,

The public wants, and the economy needs, an overhaul of America’s health care system that guarantees affordable and high quality health care to all Americans.  Patients, employers and the American economy simply cannot continue to pay so much more for health care and receive so much less...

Today Senator Max Baucus (D-Mt) announced a health care plan that includes a requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance. Its worth remembering that voters overwhelmingly reject requiring proof of private health insurance when they are told they might have to pay some of the premium costs.

Last week, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan admitted flaws in his free-market ideology.  Flaws that are now eroding our health care system.

Greenspan told a Congressional committee, "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

The ideology that Greenspan discarded Thursday is that...

The Los Angeles Times report today—about patients getting caught in the middle when doctors and insurers fight over who should pay medical bills—raises some interesting issues that we have been talking about for years about lack of competition in the health care "market" and corresponding inefficiency and high costs.  Case in point:

* 20 years ago 10...

Play "Nurse Avenger," a first-person shooter game that allows you to stick it to the black-hatted minions of the health insurance industry.  At each level, you receive a new “tool”–weapons against insurance company waste and denials of care.  These are the tools that government should be using to make health care more affordable and accessible.
 
Level 1 - Special Weapon: Waste Whacker. HMOs and health...

A key component of the American Health Plan is that all Americans, regardless of age, should have access to a pubic insurance pool that bypasses insurers and pays doctors and hospitals directly.  Everyone would have their choice of sticking with their existing insurance, if they have coverage, or joining the public pool.   For those that opted for the public pool the only thing that would change is the price: the American Health Plan provides a choice of doctors and...

Need a break from steep health care rates and insurance companies' excuses for not providing coverage when you get sick?  Take a look at this animation by our friends at Consumer Watchdog. (Music and lyrics by the Austin Lounge Lizards).

 

AmericanHealthPlan.org is dedicated to providing high quality and affordable health care by giving all Americans an option to buy into Medicare regardless of age.
 
Insurance companies argue, like banks have for a decade, that government oversight is unnecessary and that the industry is "more efficient" with less regulation.  The turmoil on Wall Street has made it abundantly clear that corporations cannot be counted upon to self regulate and that...

Universal health care could be achieved in the U.S. with a fraction of the cash handed to failing banks.  The solution–bulk purchasing of prescription drugs through a public health care system that bypasses insurers and pays doctors and hospitals directly–is good for the economy because it moves capital by giving more Americans a stake in the system.

Arthur Garson's piece this week in the ...

Senator John McCain has been talking about allowing Americans to buy health insurance "across state lines."  That might seem innocuous, but to me it sounds a lot like a proposal pushed by Senator Enzi (R-WY) a few years back that would have allowed health insurers to avoid state regulation and sell bare-bones, junk coverage.  

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An adviser for Senator Obama recently told ABC News that Obama might be willing to move toward Hillary Clinton's heath care plan to require all Americans to buy private health insurance policies.  Read Consumer Watchdog's analysis of the problems of the individual mandate.

Stay away from the mandate,...