Anthem customers protest proposed rate increases
Posted March 14, 2011, at 9:07 p.m
Published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com)
Vermont's Struggle for Single-Payer Healthcare
Steve Early | March 10, 2011
After years of political frustration, Earl Mongeon had to see it to believe it. Often, when he finishes his twelve-hour night shift at IBM in Essex Junction, Mongeon heads home for breakfast and a few hours of brush clearing on his sixty-acre lot in Westford. In mid-January, the 55-year-old microprocessor assembler and workers’ rights advocate hopped into his car and drove in the opposite direction, to Montpelier. There, at the state Capitol, Mongeon and other supporters of single-payer healthcare gathered to hear Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy, Congressman Peter Welch and new Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin explain that last year’s national healthcare bill—a costly mix of subsidies to private medical plans, some insurance market reforms, Medicaid expansion and a mandate that people buy coverage if they don’t already have it—isn’t good enough for the Green Mountain State. The top state and federal officeholders pledged to work together for something better. “We firmly believe we can be the state that passes the first single-payer system in the country,” Shumlin declared.
http://www.thenation.com/print/article/159158/vermonts-struggle-single-payer-healthcare
Hospital Chief Facing U.S. Charges Is Fired
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
A hospital executive who has been accused of bribery in a federal corruption investigation has been ousted by his board and replaced by his second in command, the board announced on Tuesday.
The executive, David P. Rosen, 63, chief executive of MediSys Health Network, was among eight people, including two state legislators, charged last week by federal authorities in Manhattan with participating in bribery schemes. In his case, prosecutors said the scheme revolved around getting favorable treatment from state officials for his health care organization.
Immune to Cuts: Lofty Salaries at Hospitals
By JIM DWYER
At Bronx-Lebanon, a hospital that exists only by the grace and taxed fortunes of the people of New York State, the chief executive was paid $4.8 million in 2007 and $3.6 million in 2008, records show. At NewYork-Presbyterian, a hospital system that receives nearly half a billion dollars annually in public money, the chief executive was paid $9.8 million in 2007 and $2.8 million in 2008.
In an urgent search to cut the state’s health care costs and lift revenue, a task force came up with a plan to increase the cost of a hospital stay by $5 and to limit housekeeping services for the disabled in their homes.
One area of plump costs, however, remained undisturbed: executive suites where salaries and compensation run into the millions of dollars, even at the most financially struggling hospitals.
Meanwhile, in Oregon:
Rancor over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul has largely overshadowed some states' efforts to use the law to help them move as fast as possible to insure more people and increase control over insurance companies.
Minnesota, Connecticut and Washington, D.C., have leveraged more federal dollars to expand coverage of childless adults. Vermont is exploring a single-payer health care system that would phase out most private insurance, a strategy rejected by Congress as too radical for the rest of the nation. Oregon is focusing on preventive care and providing proven treatments.
http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/national/article_0edd4ab4-2f58-5daa-baea-b6e934557066.html?print=1
Bennett Hall's Sunday story about House Bill 3510, the legislation to establish a single-payer health care system in Oregon, explained how even the bill's backers believe it's got virtually no chance of passing this session.
Rather, its supporters say, the bill is meant to advance the discussion about health care alternatives.
That's fine, as far as it goes - we need to continue to have statewide and national discussions about health care, but you can sense an increasing urgency to those talks.
That's because more and more people believe that our current health care system is not sustainable.
http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_b1c20058-4eb2-11e0-a9f0-001cc4c03286.html?print=1
It’s 8 o’clock in the morning, and Betty Johnson and Mike Huntington are huddled around a cordless phone set up on a folding table in Johnson’s Corvallis living room. The two veteran health care activists listen intently to the voices coming over the speaker.
A caller from Portland is talking about an upcoming hearing for a single-payer health care bill in the Oregon Legislature.
Someone from Minnesota reports on the prospects for a similar measure there.
A man from Colorado discusses some of the other health care reform bills that are competing with a single-payer plan in his state.
Johnson, who’s been jotting notes on a steno pad, puts down her pen and jumps into the conversation.
http://www.gazettetimes.com/article_293b0727-8e88-5506-b375-3b863fe96841.html?print=1
Shortly after noon on Friday, state Rep. Michael Dembrow stepped to the microphone and addressed a crowd of about 150 people gathered on the steps of the Oregon Capitol in Salem.
“You look so healthy,” he told his audience. “You must all have good health insurance.”
The line got a big laugh for the Portland Democrat, as he must have known it would. Dembrow is the chief sponsor of House Bill 3510, the Affordable Health Care for All Oregon Act, which would all but eliminate private health insurance in Oregon and replace it with a taxpayer-funded system covering everyone in the state: single-payer health care.
States put their own spin on Obama health care law
Posted: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 12:47 pmRancor over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul has largely overshadowed some states' efforts to use the law to help them move as fast as possible to insure more people and increase control over insurance companies.
Minnesota, Connecticut and Washington, D.C., have leveraged more federal dollars to expand coverage of childless adults. Vermont is exploring a single-payer health care system that would phase out most private insurance, a strategy rejected by Congress as too radical for the rest of the nation. Oregon is focusing on preventive care and providing proven treatments.
http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/national/article_0edd4ab4-2f58-5daa-baea-b6e934557066.html?print=1
Editorial: On health care, everyone knows the clock is ticking
Gazette-Times | Posted: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 9:15 amBennett Hall's Sunday story about House Bill 3510, the legislation to establish a single-payer health care system in Oregon, explained how even the bill's backers believe it's got virtually no chance of passing this session.
Rather, its supporters say, the bill is meant to advance the discussion about health care alternatives.
That's fine, as far as it goes - we need to continue to have statewide and national discussions about health care, but you can sense an increasing urgency to those talks.
That's because more and more people believe that our current health care system is not sustainable.
http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_b1c20058-4eb2-11e0-a9f0-001cc4c03286.html?print=1
Conference calls keep movement alive
By BENNETT HALL, Corvallis Gazette-Times | Posted: Saturday, March 12, 2011 11:45 pmIt’s 8 o’clock in the morning, and Betty Johnson and Mike Huntington are huddled around a cordless phone set up on a folding table in Johnson’s Corvallis living room. The two veteran health care activists listen intently to the voices coming over the speaker.
A caller from Portland is talking about an upcoming hearing for a single-payer health care bill in the Oregon Legislature.
Someone from Minnesota reports on the prospects for a similar measure there.
A man from Colorado discusses some of the other health care reform bills that are competing with a single-payer plan in his state.
Johnson, who’s been jotting notes on a steno pad, puts down her pen and jumps into the conversation.
http://www.gazettetimes.com/article_293b0727-8e88-5506-b375-3b863fe96841.html?print=1
‘Single payer’ still their goal
By BENNETT HALL, Corvallis Gazette-Times | Posted: Saturday, March 12, 2011 11:40 pmShortly after noon on Friday, state Rep. Michael Dembrow stepped to the microphone and addressed a crowd of about 150 people gathered on the steps of the Oregon Capitol in Salem.
“You look so healthy,” he told his audience. “You must all have good health insurance.”
The line got a big laugh for the Portland Democrat, as he must have known it would. Dembrow is the chief sponsor of House Bill 3510, the Affordable Health Care for All Oregon Act, which would all but eliminate private health insurance in Oregon and replace it with a taxpayer-funded system covering everyone in the state: single-payer health care.
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