Thanks Maggie, I feel passionately about this issue! 

First of all such programs about single payer system should be shown on regular network channels like cbs,nbc,fox so that millions of Americans can see the truth about how insurance companies are robbing people and make them bankrupt.

Of course not, because these networks and congressmen are paid by the insurance companies not to air such programs.
I do not understand the fact that if you lose your job you lose your health benefits.
That’s absurd. How can health benefits and employment be linked together. And then you start looking for private insurances, and they reject you because of your pre-existing condition, or your premiums and deductibles are sky rocketing.

Even if the Obama plan says the insurance companies cannot reject people based on pre-existing conditions, the insurance companies have lot of other ways to make money by denying more claims and making the process more difficult for patients and doctors.
There is no set standard and there is nobody to oversee these companies.

I am a pharmacist so I know how people are frustrated everyday with their health plans. Most of the time they do not cover the medications that they need, and higher copay for brand medications. In this country, with these private insurance companies running the lives of people, as long as you are healthy no problem. But for average middle class Americans, if you fall sick, you are buried with huge medical bills, leaving you stressed, anxious, more sick and bankrupt. You think that you will be covered for the most part if you have a serious illness because you paid your premiums regularly every month. But when the time comes, I don’t know what happens to all the money that you paid all the years where did it go? You are slapped with thousands of dollars in medical and insurance bills.

Washington has used tax payer money to bail out wall street companies, but they do not feel the health of American people is important, they don’t care. Shame on the congress that they are getting paid by the insurance companies to keep their mouth shut. There has been so much discussion and analysis about wall street, bail outs, car companies etc on prime time television But why not about universal and single payer health care system and its benefits. The government is bailing out wall street companies with tax payer money despite of their foolishness but who is going to bail out people who are bankrupt because of the insurance companies. The media is also to blame because they get money from drug companies and insurance companies.

I did believe in Obama when he said universal healthcare, but he is not keeping his promises by suggesting public/private plan which is not going to work. Why is Washington making it complicated. This is the 21st century, U.S is the wealthiest and industrialized nation in the world with a broken health care system and no president is doing anything about it. Are other countries in the world stupid or fools to have single payer system? Isn’t it odd that only U.S in the entire world has private insurance system despite of the fact it doesn’t work. Single payer system is not perfect but it works.

I am amazed at the growing responses from doctors and nurses who can see clearly that the current health care system does not work and growing number of people dying because of it. It is the responsibility of the American people to speak up because the congress does not care ( they are taken care of by the private insurance company ).

I am overwhelmed by the support of the people for single payer, and yet the congress does not see it. How can that happen? Let us join hands and make this happen. This is the year of change.

Posted by: J.I | June 5, 2009

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/05/singlepayer_is_nationalized_he.html

With more than 47 million Americans without health insurance coverage, it is clear that we need major changes in our country’s health care system. But, health care coverage will not be enough to assure access to care. Over 55 million Americans, insured and uninsured, have trouble finding a primary care provider. That is why Senator Sanders has proposed a comprehensive set of proposals that will assure not just insurance coverage, but will increase the number of health professionals and community health centers to enable all Americans to receive affordable medical, dental, and behavioral health services. Senator Sanders is a strong advocate of a single-payer health insurance system that would be administered at the state level. He has introduced legislation that would provide funding and incentives for five states to experiment with a variety of methods to cover all state residents. Through these experiments, Sanders believes the single-payer approach will be proven to be the most cost-effective program and will expand nationally. Senator Sanders would also like to see a community health center in every county of Vermont. Health centers are community-based, non-profit organizations that provide medical, dental, and behavioral health services and prescription drugs on a sliding scale basis and are open to the whole community. In his first year in the Senate, Sanders was a leader in securing Senate committee reauthorization of this program for five years with record increases in their funding level. Finally, Senator Sanders will continue his fight in the Senate for lower cost prescription drugs. He will support legislation that will allow re-importation of drugs and that will require Medicare to negotiate lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries.. http://www.sanders.senate.gov/issues/healthcare.cfm

The ABCs of Improved Medicare-for-All A Primer for the Kingston City School District Here’s an example of how HR 676 could benefit just one school district. Following national trends, each year a larger share of the budget of the Kingston City School District (Ulster County, NY) is needed to meet health benefit costs, which have nearly tripled over the last ten years. In 2007-2008 the Kingston City School District paid out $65.6 million in wages and $22.6 million for health benefits, including basic hospital, medical, dental and vision care and a 1.45% payroll tax for Medicare. Under HR 676, the school district would have paid only $3.9 million for health benefits, resulting in a savings of $18.7 million for the 2007-2008 school year. Under HR 676, the average school district employee with an annual wage of $44,700 would pay only $123/month in a new 3.3% payroll tax—eliminating co-pays and deductibles. The savings could: • support 200 new teachers • fund major capital improvements to every school • reduce class size and provide a teaching assistant for every class The Kingston City School District is just one of 87,850 state and local government jurisdictions in the U.S. Imagine the impact of replicating these savings over the entire country! ——————————- * Rebuild 30,000 lane miles of road? * Build 560,000 units of affordable housing? * Hire 1 million teachers, firefighters, police and other critical employees? * Renovate 7,000 schools? ——————————- Healthcare Savings for Healthier Cities For far too long, rising healthcare costs have drained local and state budgets of the resources they need to rebuild, renovate and restore the vitality of their communities. • Our employees are paying more in premiums, co-pays and deductibles, yet too many are denied needed care. • Increasing health benefits costs—averaging 11% a year since 1999—consume city and county budgets, leaving more and more of our residents uninsured. (Currently, 48 million Americans lack health insurance.) • Tax revenues cannot fill the gap, especially during an economic downturn. • As state and local government debt increases, bond ratings go down. • With state and local coffers bleeding, residents face cuts in needed services such as police and fire protection, medical services for the uninsured, parks and recreation. The passage of HR 676—Improved Medicare-for-All—is a win-win situation. It could transform this bleak picture, providing guaranteed health care for all while helping financially-strapped state and local governments find new monies to underwrite growing challenges. Indeed, estimates show that they could realize at least $70 billion in annual health care savings. —————————— Healthy Cure for Ailing Cities State legislatures and the US Congress have proposed reform measures to address the health insurance crisis. Because most do not change the way we finance health care, they fall woefully short. HR 676—Improved Medicare-for-All—is the best cure for the American health care crisis because: • It saves money and controls costs by replacing multiple public and private payers with a single national health insurance program. The national program will negotiate fees with providers, purchase drugs and medical supplies in bulk, and monitor budgets and capital plans for hospitals and other medical facilities. • It minimizes risk, combining the whole US population into one large pool of over 300 million people. • It eliminates private insurance. Private insurance eats up 30% of every dollar in profits, marketing and administration. Medicare operates on less than 5% overhead. • It simplifies health care. One program will cover all health issues for everyone. • It guarantees quality care for all. No one can be denied care or forced to use an emergency room because s/he has no doctor or coverage. Healthy Cure for Ailing Cities State legislatures and the US Congress have proposed reform measures to address the health insurance crisis. Because most do not change the way we finance health care, they fall woefully short. Winning HR 676 is Up to You • Have your city, town or state pass a resolution supporting HR 676 and send it to your Congressional representatives and state legislators. Go to www.healthcare-now.org to download a sample municipal resolution. • If you are a Mayor, Governor, Commissioner or other local elected official, call a press conference and declare your support for HR 676, Improved Medicare for All. Explain that it is the only health insurance solution that will save your local jurisdiction money, eliminate bureaucracy and guarantee quality health care for everyone. Healthcare-NOW will help you identify other leaders and organizations in your area who support HR 676 and who will stand with you before the press. • Form a delegation of local elected officials in your Congressional District. Meet with your Congressperson and ask that s/he endorse HR 676. Explain that it is critical to restore fiscal health to local government. • Win endorsements from national bodies that represent you, such as: The National League of Cities The Council of State Governments The United States Conference of Mayors The National Governors Association National Conference of State Legislatures The National Urban League The National Association of County Administrators The International City/County Management Association • Be an effective advocate about HR 676. Learn more at: www.healthcare-now.org www.house.gov/conyers www.pnhp.org www.calnurses.org

Health Care Reform: Good for Patients, Good for Workers, Good for Women By Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check
Posted on January 5, 2009, Printed on June 5, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/117406/

In my last column of 2008, I built on Linda Hirshman’s idea that an economic stimulus package offered under the Obama administration should focus on making sure that job creation equally benefits men and women.  We should applaud the Presidential transition team for embracing the idea of green jobs, but, as Hirshman points out, the jobs that have been proposed are mostly blue collar jobs in industries dominated by men.  Hirshman suggests that the Obama administration additionally prioritize building our educational system, which would employ more women.  I suggest that the country should view health care reform as an economic investment that can create jobs women are likely to take. 

Forty-six million Americans currently go without health insurance, and most of them have patchy access to health care, avoiding preventive services and only seeing a doctor when lack of prevention lands them in an emergency room — perversely, this creates the very long lines we’re told to fear if said people instead receive basic health care.  Under most universal health care proposals, these 46 million would be able to purchase health insurance, dramatically elevating the labor demand for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care providers.  With doctors alone, this improves women’s employment prospects, since female medical school applicants outnumber male applicants.  But with the increasing emphasis on prevention, the demand for nurses and other medical staff will rise even faster.  These are professions in which women are predominant.

Obviously, the incoming administration has an opportunity to kill two birds with one health care reform stone.  Applying the green job reform model to health care — creating a demand for labor and creating a means to fill it — will work nicely for health care.  We have a nursing shortage in America, but it’s not for a real lack of actual human beings who need the jobs.  Most of the women who might find nursing a good job can’t quite seem to get into it, because cobbling together the time and money for the training falls just outside of their means.   

Making the leap from a minimum wage service industry job into a higher income nursing job means, for many women who would like to make that transition, finding money to pay for it, and dealing with increased child care costs to cover their hours working their normal job and the hours at school.  For many women, these are costs they simply cannot afford. But our federal government can easily provide both the tuition money and the child care.  It’s been demonstrated in this country’s past, that if need be, the federal government can create child care programs to free up women’s time so they can take jobs that must be done. During World War II, the federal government set up 24 hour day care centers for female shipyard workers taking jobs that men couldn’t fill. This would have the added benefit of employing more women, since child care workers are largely female.  

Should the demand rise high enough, the government might even invest in on-the-job training programs for female health care workers, so they can start drawing a salary immediately, reducing their need to hold down an outside job while receiving the training to be a nurse.  Right now, one of the biggest barriers between the many women (and men, too) who would like nursing jobs is the long waiting lists at nursing school.  Again, the federal government can attack this problem, funding an expansion of the educational apparatus to increase the number of graduates coming out of school and meeting the growing demand for this kind of health care.

Just a couple of years ago, the idea of widespread federal investment in infrastructure for the purpose of investment and job creation seemed a marginal idea that had been abandoned once we recovered from the Great Depression.  That changed in pretty short order, and if things go as planned, historians will mark this as a time of a great paradigm shift.  And thank goodness. If this is a country that really is committed to the equality of all, the federal government should consider the needs of the working class to obtain and maintain decent work to be at least as important as the desires of the wealthy to keep their stock holdings from plummeting precariously when the latest economic scheme collapses.   

Federal job creation is a good unto itself, so long as the work is real and dignified, but we have a unique opportunity to create jobs that really do pay us back tenfold.  Green jobs that set the standard for a modern environmentalist society are one way to get our investment back beyond just the standard good of full employment, and health care job creation does the same thing.  Everything in our society will improve when our citizens are as healthy as possible. 

And we can do all this without compromising feminist principles that advocate for an economy where women don’t depend on men, and aren’t forced, as I argue in this week’s podcast, to make compromises like staying in abusive marriages because they can’t afford to escape.  In opposition to the New Deal of the 1930s, which glorified the nuclear family and female dependence, we really can create a new New-er Deal that supports female independence and truly healthy families formed out of full consent, economic and otherwise.

 

Amanda Marcotte co-writes the popular blog Pandagon. She is the author of It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments.

© 2009 RH Reality Check All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/117406

Real people are being denied access to health care every day…read their stories…

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/stories

This has got to stop…

Home Falling Access to Care — 46.8 million Americans are uninsured

• Uninsured, national — 46.8 million (15.9% of the population), 2005, up from 45.3 million in 2004. Hispanics highest rate of uninsured – 32.7%; African-Americans, 19.6%; Asians, 17.9%; whites, 15%; children, 11.2%; middle-income ($50k–$75k), 14.1%; work full-time, 17.7% (U.S. Census Bureau). 82 million, or one in three non-elderly Americans, went without health insurance during 2003–2004 (Washington Post, Dec. 13, 2006).
• Lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year (Institute of Medicine, January 14, 2004), the equivalent of six times the number who died in 9/11. (Louisville Courier-Journal, Jan. 30, 2006)
• Among Americans with colorectal cancer, those without insurance are 70% more likely to die within three years than those with insurance (Paul Krugman, Robin Wells, New York Review of Books, March 23, 2006) Uninsured lung cancer patients are less likely to receive surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation treatment; heart attack victims are less likely to receive angioplasty; people without pneumonia are less likely to receive X-rays or consultations (Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker,Aug. 29, 2005).
• Uninsured patients receive less preventive care, are diagnosed at more advanced disease stages, and receive less therapeutic care (drugs and surgical interventions). Having insurance would reduce mortality rates for the uninsured by 10%-15%. Better health would improve annual earnings and educational attainment (Kaiser Family Foundation report, May, 2004).
• The number of Americans covered by Medicaid rose by eight million between 2000 and 2004, nearly matching the number of people covered by Medicare, 37.5 million to 39.7 million, reflecting how much higher the number of uninsured would be without Medicaid (Krugman,Wells).
• Underinsured, national — 17.1 million people under 65 in 2003 (JAMA, Dec. 13, 2006). “Underinsured” person defined as someone with health expenses exceeding 10% of his or her income. Among the underinsured, 38% did not fill prescriptions due to cost, 32% went without seeing a doctor when needed, 30% avoided medical tests, treatment or follow-up care. 18% declined care from specialists. 46% reported being contacted by a collection agency about unpaid medical bills. 35% reported changing their lifestyle to cover medical
  expenses (Health Affairs, June 14, 2005).
• 929 poor counties (more than half of all poor counties) lacked a health center, survey by the National Association of Community Health centers and George Washington University. In 2004, 90% of qualified applications for new centers to gain funding were denied. (National Association of Community Health Centers, March 2005).

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/fact/falling-access-care-46-8-million-americans-are-uninsured

Home The Cost of Healthcare — More Americans Priced Out of Care

National healthcare expenditures — $2 trillion (2005). Healthcare is 16% of the GDP (2005), expected to rise to 20% by 2015 (Modern Healthcare, Dec. 18, 2006). Healthcare costs doubled from 1993 to 2004, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Washington Post, Jan. 10, 2006)

■ One-fifth of all Americans, 48.8 million individuals, were in families spending more than 10% of their family income on healthcare in 2003, an increase of 11.7 million persons since 1996. Of these, 18.7 million (7.3%) were spending more than 20% of family income, a figure normally associated with home ownership. The percent of middle-income Americans (22.7%) spending over 10% of their income on healthcare was almost identical to the percent of low-income Americans (23.7%) on healthcare (JAMA, Dec. 13, 2006).

■ Half of all personal bankruptcies are caused by illness or medical bills. The number of medical bankruptcies has increased by 2200% since 1981 (Health Affairs, February, 2005). Two-thirds of people with a medical bill or debt problem went without needed care due to cost (Commonwealth Fund,Aug. 2005).

■ Nearly 30% of low and middle-income households with credit card debt cite medical debt as a contributing factor; 69% of those had a major medical expense in the previous three years (Borrowing to Stay Healthy: How Credit Card Debt Is Related to Medical Expenses, Demos,The Access Project, January, 2007)

■ The potential economic value to be gained in better health outcomes from uninterrupted coverage for all Americans is estimated to be between $65 and $130 billion each year. (Institute of Medicine, June 17, 2003)

■ Over 30% of every healthcare dollar is spent on administrative overhead in private insurance compared to just 3.2% inMedicare administrative costs. (Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy)

■ About one-third of medical spending is now devoted to services that don’t appear to improve health or the quality of care, meaning the U.S. wastes more than $650 billion per year (IHSP), more than is being spent on the war in Iraq (John Abramson, Harvard Medical School, column, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 3, 2006).

■ From 2000 to 2005, health insurance premiums rose by 73%, compared to an aggregate increase in workers’ income of just 15%. (Chicago Tribune, Jan. 31, 2006) Premiums rose three times faster than wages and inflation in 2005 (UC Berkeley Center for Labor research and Education, Dec. 2006).

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/fact/cost-healthcare-more-americans-priced-out-care

Home Top 10 Reasons For Enacting a Single Payer Healthcare System

1. Everybody in,nobody out. Universal means access to healthcare for everyone, period —
the desire of 81% of all Californians, as reported in a January, 2007 Field Poll.

2. Portability. Even if you are unemployed, or lose or change your job, your health coverage
goes with you.

3. Uniform benefits. No Cadillac plans for the wealthy and Pinto plans for everyone else,
with high deductibles, limited services, caps on payments for care, and no protection in the
event of a catastrophe. One level of comprehensive care no matter what size your wallet.

4. Prevention. By removing financial roadblocks, a single payer system encourages preventive
care that lowers an individual’s ultimate cost and pain and suffering when problems are
neglected, and societal cost in the over utilization of emergency rooms or the spread of
communicable diseases.

5. Choice of physician. Most private plans restrict what doctors, other caregivers, or hospital
you can use. Under a single payer system, patients have a choice, and the provider is assured
a fair reimbursement.

6. Ending insurance industry interference with care. Caregivers and patients regain the
autonomy to make decisions on what’s best for a patient’s health, not what’s dictated by the
billing department or the bean counters. No denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions
or cancellation of policies for "unreported" minor health problems.

7. Reducing administrative waste. One third of every health care dollar in California goes
for paperwork, such as denying care, and profits, compared to about 3% under Medicare,
a single-payer, universal system.

8. Cost savings. A single payer system would produce the savings needed to cover everyone,
largely by using existing resources without the waste. Taiwan, shifting from a U.S. healthcare
model, adopted a single-payer system in 1995, boosting health coverage from 57% to 97%
with little if any increase in overall healthcare spending.

9. Common sense budgeting. The public system sets fair reimbursements applied equally
to all providers while assuring all comprehensive and appropriate health care is delivered,
and uses its clout to negotiate volume discounts for prescription drugs and medical equipment.

10. Public oversight. The public sets the policies and administers the system, not high priced
CEOs meeting in secret and making decisions based on what inflates their compensation
packages or stock wealth or company profits.

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/fact/top-10-reasons-enacting-single-payer-healthcare-system

What a refreshing change, watching my president in action!  Instead of the last oen who didn’t even know how to exit a stage, let alone stand on one.

Great interview as always Leslie!  I had no problem with the length, if I were interviewing this facinating woman it would very easy turned into a novel!  Thanks, this is the kind of content I look for on your site, l look forward to more, more, more…

Thanks for reminding me how old I am…I also hate the cover of Esquire…I like to be able to quick peruse what’s inside and frustrated by the “artsy” statement.

Debbie Harry is the epitome of your not getting older your getting better! 

NBC will be running additional footage Friday night…what a treat…I’ll be watching!

 

Ah late night guilty pleasure…I remember being awaken by laughter…my dad would watch Steve Allen and laughed so loud it would wake me.  I would sneak out to figure out what was going on…always getting caught when I laughed along.