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Make Medicare 'Big as Americans Want It to Be'

Judy Dugan — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:44:00 PST

Health care reform is fantastically messy. No matter how bad and cruel the current U.S. system, it won't be tossed out for something sleek and efficient. The latest carrier of that message is surgeon and writer Atul Gawande, in a can't-stop-reading essay in the New Yorker, "Getting From There to Here." It's bad news for full-blown single-payer healthcare. But as Consumer Watchdog's Jamie Court argues persuasively in an OpEd in the Los Angeles Times, it's all the more reason to allow anyone to buy into Medicare--the familiar and comfortable choice.

U.C. Berkeley Study Confirms the Value of a "Public Option"

Jerry Flanagan — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:10:00 PST

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 to Obama: Open Medicare to All Americans, Oppose Health Insurance Mandate

Jerry Flanagan — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 07:28:38 PST

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...

AARP's Idea of Health Insurance is Junk

dugan — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:09:49 PST

It wasn't a big shock to me when AARP announced that it would be "investigating" deceptively marketed "health insurance" carrying the AARP brand, in response to a U.S. Senate investigation. AARP may technically be a nonprofit, but it also aggressively and profitably markets commercial services that appear at first to be an AARP benefit. AARP's "insurance,", from partner company United Health, is just a capped flat payment for certain medical services. Anyone who fell seriously ill wouldn't be "covered" and would be left deeply in medical debt. So why should we trust AARP's self-proclaimed role in national health reform?

Disaster With a Silver Lining

Judy Dugan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:09:17 PST

It's a tough year for health care reformers in California, especially since a year ago it still seemed like a plan for universal health care was possible. At a meeting this week of statewide health care advocates (in Tahoe--tough duty, eh?), the discussion is focused on stopping wholesale cuts in health care for children, low-income families and the disabled--all of which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger...

Poll Shows Baucus Individual Mandate To Buy Health Insurance Unpopular

Jerry Flanagan — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:18:00 PST

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.

Another huge medical data breach is mishandled

Judy Dugan — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:44:00 PST

Both president-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain backed electronic medical records during their campaign. Computerizing patient data, which could increase efficiency and cut costs, is part of every major federal health reform proposal. But what are the rules for this data? An extortion threat reported today, involving up to 50...

Two Stories That Insurance CEOS Hated

dugan — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:07:14 PDT

A pair of great newspaper stories this week measures the health care crisis better--and way more readably--than any spreadsheet or white paper. I sure hope the next president has read them. One, in the New York Times, offers the news that women pay 20% to upwards of 40% more for identical health care insurance, even when the policy doesn't cover maternity care. The other, in the Los Angeles Times, is the story of a middle-class truck driver essentially sentenced to death by private insurers, then failed by the state's own health care safety net.

Greenspan Admits "Mistake" in Regulation-Free Market

Jerry Flanagan — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:14:00 PDT

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...

Mass. enrollment numbers dropping?

Carmen Balber — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:39:00 PDT

Here's another interesting piece of information about the health insurance mandate out of Massachusetts.

New enrollment numbers for the state-subsidized Commenwealth Care health plans show that the number of people enrolled fell from July to September to lower than the six months preceeding.