From Robert Reich's blog:
The House: Tax the Wealthy to Keep Everyone Healthy
It's the most blatant form of Robin-Hood economics ever proposed. The universal health care bill reported by the House yesterday pays for the health insurance of the 20 percent of Americans who need help affording it with a surtax on the richest 1 percent.
I don't recall the last time Congress came up with such a direct redistribution. Occasionally Congress closes a few tax loopholes at the top and offers a refundable tax credit to workers at the bottom, or it creates a poor people's program like Medicaid, paid for out of general revenues from a progressive income tax. But to say out loud, as the House has just done, that those in our society who can most readily afford it should pay for the health insurance of those who cannot is, well, audacious.
There's another word for it: fair. According to the most recent data (for 2007), the best-off 1 percent of American households take home about 20 percent of total income -- the highest percentage since 1928. Yes, I know: Critics will charge that these are the very people who invest, innovate, and hire, and thereby keep the economy going. So raising their taxes will burden the economy and thereby hurt everyone, including those who are supposed to be helped.
Read more...
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Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Socializing medicine: Attacks on insurance carrier rationing
Health Services and "Rationing": A Progressive View
by Phil E. Benjamin
Last Saturday's NY Times had two letters to the editor that are worth noting.
The first was from Virginia. The writer said that the better conversation concerning health care would be health services and not buying and using health insurance.
Sounds simple, right. Well, that is what basic Medicare is. Our government, since 1965, pays most of the cost for most of the health services for hospital and doctors visits for people over 65 years old. True it is a reimbursement system. That is, hospitals and doctors are reimbursed for their services.
In most of Europe where the hospitals are government administered and run and doctors are either on salary [like in Great Britain] or accept a fee schedule for their services as in the rest of Europe, the aim is delivering services, not finding some insurance plan through which to gain services.
That insurance company step costs the health care system billions of dollars every year. It costs the federal government and individuals billions, that is.
Simple said, it puts the market system and profits ahead of health services.
The writer says, "Actually, I don't understand why America is still talking about providing all of its people with health insurance, as opposed to providing them with health services. Health care is a necessity of life, like education and food."
That system would be called socialized medicine as it is practices in Great Britain. The system socializes medical need and removes it from the clutches of profiteers. It almost sounds like the moral and ethical thing to do.
The Josephine Butler National Health Service Act has been introduced, initially by Congressman Ronald V. Dellums, since the late 1970s; and when he retired [he is now the mayor of Oakland, CA]; Barbara Lee has introduced it. That simple piece of legislation would give us exactly what happens in Great Britain. HR 3000 will be its number.
It deserves support and great attention.
Who Does the Rationing?
In another letter from a Californian physician, the writer questions the use of rationing as a way to attacking any government program. Market based health policy people often use the rationing argument to get people to fear and be against a government run program. He says, "Health care is already being rationed. Major health care decisions are already being made every day by insurance companies, not doctors."
He continues: "Any health care provider can tell you about the inordinate amount of time and energy we spend fighting for our patients to get the care that they need and deserve. This result in less physician time with patients, reduced quality of care, increased health care costs for everyone, and – no accident – increased profits for insurance companies' executives and shareholders. ….. shouldn't we be discussing the rationing that for-profit insurance companies do in order to maximize their own bottom?"
Sometimes it is the simple thoughts that cut through the reams of paper and discussions.
Stay Tuned; and, Keep Struggling
by Phil E. Benjamin
Last Saturday's NY Times had two letters to the editor that are worth noting.
The first was from Virginia. The writer said that the better conversation concerning health care would be health services and not buying and using health insurance.
Sounds simple, right. Well, that is what basic Medicare is. Our government, since 1965, pays most of the cost for most of the health services for hospital and doctors visits for people over 65 years old. True it is a reimbursement system. That is, hospitals and doctors are reimbursed for their services.
In most of Europe where the hospitals are government administered and run and doctors are either on salary [like in Great Britain] or accept a fee schedule for their services as in the rest of Europe, the aim is delivering services, not finding some insurance plan through which to gain services.
That insurance company step costs the health care system billions of dollars every year. It costs the federal government and individuals billions, that is.
Simple said, it puts the market system and profits ahead of health services.
The writer says, "Actually, I don't understand why America is still talking about providing all of its people with health insurance, as opposed to providing them with health services. Health care is a necessity of life, like education and food."
That system would be called socialized medicine as it is practices in Great Britain. The system socializes medical need and removes it from the clutches of profiteers. It almost sounds like the moral and ethical thing to do.
The Josephine Butler National Health Service Act has been introduced, initially by Congressman Ronald V. Dellums, since the late 1970s; and when he retired [he is now the mayor of Oakland, CA]; Barbara Lee has introduced it. That simple piece of legislation would give us exactly what happens in Great Britain. HR 3000 will be its number.
It deserves support and great attention.
Who Does the Rationing?
In another letter from a Californian physician, the writer questions the use of rationing as a way to attacking any government program. Market based health policy people often use the rationing argument to get people to fear and be against a government run program. He says, "Health care is already being rationed. Major health care decisions are already being made every day by insurance companies, not doctors."
He continues: "Any health care provider can tell you about the inordinate amount of time and energy we spend fighting for our patients to get the care that they need and deserve. This result in less physician time with patients, reduced quality of care, increased health care costs for everyone, and – no accident – increased profits for insurance companies' executives and shareholders. ….. shouldn't we be discussing the rationing that for-profit insurance companies do in order to maximize their own bottom?"
Sometimes it is the simple thoughts that cut through the reams of paper and discussions.
Stay Tuned; and, Keep Struggling
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Building Bridges with Cuba
Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes
Political Affairs #102 - Building Bridges with Cuba
On this episode, we talk with Elena Mora and John Bachtell, both members of the National Board of the Communist Party and who traveled this month to Cuba for meetings with the Communist Party there and with leaders of various Cuban social and cultural institutions.
Political Affairs #102 - Building Bridges with Cuba
On this episode, we talk with Elena Mora and John Bachtell, both members of the National Board of the Communist Party and who traveled this month to Cuba for meetings with the Communist Party there and with leaders of various Cuban social and cultural institutions.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Podcast #98 – Fight for democracy and reform ramps up
Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes
Political Affairs podcast #98 - Change is coming to America
On this episode, the House of Representatives passed a landmark hate crimes prevention bill this past week, and April 28th was Equal Pay Day. President Obama wants you to join a union, and Vice President Biden comments on the Employee Free Choice Act and universal health care reform.
Political Affairs podcast #98 - Change is coming to America
On this episode, the House of Representatives passed a landmark hate crimes prevention bill this past week, and April 28th was Equal Pay Day. President Obama wants you to join a union, and Vice President Biden comments on the Employee Free Choice Act and universal health care reform.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Daschle's Withddrawal
by Norman Markowitz
Tom Daschle's withdrawal as President Obama's choice for Health and Human Services Secretary is a setback, one that shows that the GOP and much of the media (including those sections of the media that can't decide whether they want Obama to follow Roosevelt or Clinton) are doing everything they can to push the new administration back, force it to retreat on both appointments and issues.
Tom Daschle's withdrawal as President Obama's choice for Health and Human Services Secretary is a setback, one that shows that the GOP and much of the media (including those sections of the media that can't decide whether they want Obama to follow Roosevelt or Clinton) are doing everything they can to push the new administration back, force it to retreat on both appointments and issues.
In a half hour I will go to listen to a scholarly talk on rightwing legal groups and foundations which sued the Department of the Interior during the Carter years in attempts to cripple its regulatory activities. A key figure in those groups was James Watt, whom Ronald Reagan appointed to head the Department of Interior with limited opposition in spite of his record. I mention this because it provides a bit of context for today's events. Reagan's deregulation and privatization policies also led to an exponential increase in both lobbying government and in private consulting contracts for government. Reagan and later Bush tax policies also made both legal and not so legal tax evasion a lot easier, along with, of course, sharply reducing taxes on the wealthy and glorifying the pursuit of wealth. There is more than a little hypocrisy to be very charitable in the Republican attacks on lobbies, private consultants, and of course, close scrutiny of individual's tax returns.
If I were President Obama I would immediately nominate a candidate clearly associated with the rapid establishment of a universal health care program. I might nominate, if he were willing to accept the position Representative John Conyers, the most important advocate of HR 676, the best of the universal health care proposals.
Now is the time for President Obama to make it clear to the Republicans and to his own party that he will not retreat on policy or on appointments---if they force out a cabinet member that they don't like on these kinds of issues, he will give them another candidate without these problems but one even less to their liking. Franklin Roosevelt often did that when he had the votes and it worked. Obama, while his majority is not as great or as clear as Roosevelt's was, does have the votes. And, the enactment of policies like Universal Health Care, the Employee Free Choice Act, a national economic rescue plan that provides jobs and protections the living standards of working people will get him, his policies, and the progressive members of his party many more votes while constructing a new politics in a more secure more humane and more advanced nation.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Tell Congress to Pass Single Payer Health Care
From the National Organization for Women:
Take Action NOW! Call their district or state offices on Monday, Dec. 22 and ask them to provide real health care reform by supporting single-payer, publicly-financed health care.
NOW's call for real reform heats up on Dec. 22 when we kick off the campaign along with our coalition partners to advance the dream of universal, single-payer public financing of health care reform.
NOW activists called for single-payer health care 15 years ago, and now with reform possible in this new administration, it's the perfect time to urge those who will lead our country and our states (as well as the general public) to take the positions that are best for women and families. Please call your senators and representatives on Dec. 22, and form or join local coalitions in support of a single-payer solution--and encourage others to do the same. Read the background information below, or go to our website and enter your zip code to see our call-in talking points and your senators' and representative's district phone numbers.
Monday, November 24, 2008
My 15 Minutes of Fame on the Internet
by Norman Markowitz
To my surprise, my article "Obama's Mandate for Change" has been picked up by a wide variety of right-wing and more serious conservative sources. They are running with a quote from the article which they are interpreting in odd ways. Some of the right-wing stuff is ugly and has given me some hate mail from what I consider gutter fascist sources, and some "anarcho-fascist" combining the politics of Nazi newspapers like Der Angriff with the language of Screw magazine, but others, from the CATO Institute, and a U.S. News and World Report journalist have been more serious, although very odd in the argument that they are making.
I made the argument in my article for a single payer health care program. That is for me as necessary a benchmark for a modern industrial civilized country in the 21st century as the abolition of slavery was the 19th. Throughout the world that is called socialized medicine. That is not what President Elect Obama is advocating at the moment. My article meant to encourage him to move in that direction, not in the direction that Bill Clinton took in 1993 (regulated insurance company based HMO's) In making my argument I contended that the British Labor Party won over workers who had traditionally supported the Conservative Party for a variety of reasons (provincialism, nationalism, the belief that the elites should rule) by establishing the National Health Service and other important social welfare state policies for all people. I could have mentioned that the Roosevelt administration's enactment of Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Minimum Wages, the Forty-Hour Week and other major reforms in the 1930s had a similar effect in consolidating the political gains of the New Deal administration and making the Democratic party, with all of its flaws, the majority party of the country for at least the next half century, whereas the Republicans had been the majority party from the Civil War to the Depression.
To my surprise, my article "Obama's Mandate for Change" has been picked up by a wide variety of right-wing and more serious conservative sources. They are running with a quote from the article which they are interpreting in odd ways. Some of the right-wing stuff is ugly and has given me some hate mail from what I consider gutter fascist sources, and some "anarcho-fascist" combining the politics of Nazi newspapers like Der Angriff with the language of Screw magazine, but others, from the CATO Institute, and a U.S. News and World Report journalist have been more serious, although very odd in the argument that they are making.
I made the argument in my article for a single payer health care program. That is for me as necessary a benchmark for a modern industrial civilized country in the 21st century as the abolition of slavery was the 19th. Throughout the world that is called socialized medicine. That is not what President Elect Obama is advocating at the moment. My article meant to encourage him to move in that direction, not in the direction that Bill Clinton took in 1993 (regulated insurance company based HMO's) In making my argument I contended that the British Labor Party won over workers who had traditionally supported the Conservative Party for a variety of reasons (provincialism, nationalism, the belief that the elites should rule) by establishing the National Health Service and other important social welfare state policies for all people. I could have mentioned that the Roosevelt administration's enactment of Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Minimum Wages, the Forty-Hour Week and other major reforms in the 1930s had a similar effect in consolidating the political gains of the New Deal administration and making the Democratic party, with all of its flaws, the majority party of the country for at least the next half century, whereas the Republicans had been the majority party from the Civil War to the Depression.
Let me say that the conspiratorial sources don't deserve an answer. Anyone who thinks that I am a "top strategist" for the CPUSA, a leading member "planning" the course of the Obama administration would need the psychiatric services that a National Health Care system would provide (it would be open of course to all people, including these far rightists). The more serious arguments though deserve some answers.
First, my article in no way supports the view that President Elect Obama's present plan is a move in the direction of socialized medicine, no more than his plan represents the status quo, which is what the conservative "free market" publications want to scare him into accepting, which was done with Clinton. The contention that the "survival of the GOP" depends on their defeating Obama's health care plan (with the selected quote from me as evidence) also strains logic and is fairly callous. In fact, there have been a number of intelligent responses on progressive websites that these arguments amount to an understanding that the people would support socialized medicine because it would be good for them and that Republicans must fight to the last conservative to defeat it, even if that means sacrificing a few years of life expectancy for U.S. citizens, not to mention continuing to saddle them with the financial stress of the present private insurance based system, which pushes drugs on them at high prices and, like all private insurance based systems, seeks to pay the least in benefits and get the most in premiums. Some have written that the "at last" the Republicans are being honest. They would fight against a single payer health care system (as they would fight, I would say against the Employee Free Choice Act) because they realize that a stronger labor movement and a citizenry that comes to see health care as a public right, not a private commodity, would over time cost them a lot of votes
Let me quickly make a few more points. One conservative writer adds to my comment that Britain was changed through the National Health Service with the suggestion that the change was not for the better. There is enormous evidence that the NHS saw people who had postponed operations and avoided necessary medical treatment because the did not have the money receiving corrective surgery, living longer, fuller lives. My own father had a hernia for over a quarter of a century until it was finally operated on an emergency in a New York Public Hospital in 1970. Like many people who come from the lower strata of the working class, I grew up with people whose lives were demonstrably shortened by the absence of socialized medicine in the U.S.
There are many thoughtful analytical articles in Political Affairs and the Peoples Weekly World, articles that represent the views of a serious and responsible left, every day on the PA website. It is time that the liberal and progressive websites and blogs begin to disseminate them more directly if they wish to help create a more inclusive peoples movement.
P.S. as a postscript, a friend of mine, commenting on the Internet traffic, suggested that I should try to contact blogs and write for fees, a compliment of sorts in a capitalist society.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Support the Employee Free Choice Act
From Jobs with Justice:
As this Labor Day approaches, quality employment opportunities and paychecks are shrinking, the cost of fuel and health care continue to skyrocket, and working families are struggling to make ends meet. In these tough times, workers and our communities need fair opportunities to get ahead.
It's no coincidence that as union membership has declined, the gap between rich and poor has widened. Workers in unions earn 28% higher wages, and are 62 percent more likely to have employer-covered health coverage, and they are 386% more likely to have guaranteed pensions. Allowing more workers to freely join unions and bargain with their employers will help rebuild
the middle class by expanding health care, improving retirement security, and raising the standard of living for all working families.
Sign up to support the Employee Free Choice Act: http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/c11zzQE15cHw/
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
McCain's Health Plan: Raises Taxes, Cuts Coverage
Today in Tampa, Fla., Sen. John McCain gave an address his advisers claimed would “unveil” his health care proposal—but he essentially offered the same tired proposal he’s been touting for months.
read the whole story here...
read the whole story here...
Friday, April 4, 2008
Discontent with Bush-McCain Policies on the Rise
A new poll by CBS/ NY Times shows that 81% of Americans see the country as on the wrong track.
A majority, about 7 in 10, identified the Iraq war, the economy, health care, and the energy crisis as the most pressing issues. Most said the government needs to play a larger role in the economy to help homeowners and to stem the loss of jobs rather than big banks. About 2 out of 3 people identified "free trade" as a problem for the country.
Only about 28% approve of the job of George W. Bush.
These poll numbers do not bode well for Republican nominee John McCain who has so closely identified himself with staying the course on George W. Bush's policies that a McCain presidency would be little more than a third Bush term.
On the major issues, McCain offers no new course in Iraq and prefers an extended occupation. He rejected any government role in the reversing the economic crash course toward recession and essentially blamed homeowners for the subprime mortgage crisis.
His health care plan is nothing more than a scheme to raise taxes on working families by requiring that health care benefits be taxed as income. In fact, he declined to meet with workers in Jacksonville, Florida who wanted to discuss their problems with the health care system. Perhaps if they had been wealthy lobbyists for the health care industry like his campaign strategist Thomas Loeffler who works for the McCain campaign and the pahrmaceutical lobby, he wouldn't have blown them off.
He is a staunch supporter of free trade and even stated that losing more jobs to free trade is alright with him.
A majority, about 7 in 10, identified the Iraq war, the economy, health care, and the energy crisis as the most pressing issues. Most said the government needs to play a larger role in the economy to help homeowners and to stem the loss of jobs rather than big banks. About 2 out of 3 people identified "free trade" as a problem for the country.
Only about 28% approve of the job of George W. Bush.
These poll numbers do not bode well for Republican nominee John McCain who has so closely identified himself with staying the course on George W. Bush's policies that a McCain presidency would be little more than a third Bush term.
On the major issues, McCain offers no new course in Iraq and prefers an extended occupation. He rejected any government role in the reversing the economic crash course toward recession and essentially blamed homeowners for the subprime mortgage crisis.
His health care plan is nothing more than a scheme to raise taxes on working families by requiring that health care benefits be taxed as income. In fact, he declined to meet with workers in Jacksonville, Florida who wanted to discuss their problems with the health care system. Perhaps if they had been wealthy lobbyists for the health care industry like his campaign strategist Thomas Loeffler who works for the McCain campaign and the pahrmaceutical lobby, he wouldn't have blown them off.
He is a staunch supporter of free trade and even stated that losing more jobs to free trade is alright with him.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Cost of War Harms Children, Health Care
By Joel Wendland
The National Priorities Project estimates the cost of war in treasure has harmed the US in ways that are only now becoming clear.
In Pennsylvania, for example, the people of that state have so far paid close to $20 billion for the war. This bill has come at the expense of health care, educational, public safety and other crucial needs.
NPP reports that this same amount of money could have provided close to 5 million people with health care or could have built more than 1,000 elementary schools. It could have created more than 3 million slots in Head Start for pre-school aged children or hired 315,000 elementary school teachers.
In Indiana, the money the taxpayers of that state have spent on the war could have paid for provide more than 7 million homes with renewable energy resources or provided 3.7 million children with free health care.
North Carolina taxpayers could have hired more than 360,000 public safety officers or more than 200,000 port container inspectors with the money they have contributed to the Bush-Mc Cain war in Iraq.
West Virginians could have funded more than 20,000 affordable housing units for low-income working families or provided 650,000 children with health care if the war had not been launched.
The National Priorities Project estimates the cost of war in treasure has harmed the US in ways that are only now becoming clear.
In Pennsylvania, for example, the people of that state have so far paid close to $20 billion for the war. This bill has come at the expense of health care, educational, public safety and other crucial needs.
NPP reports that this same amount of money could have provided close to 5 million people with health care or could have built more than 1,000 elementary schools. It could have created more than 3 million slots in Head Start for pre-school aged children or hired 315,000 elementary school teachers.
In Indiana, the money the taxpayers of that state have spent on the war could have paid for provide more than 7 million homes with renewable energy resources or provided 3.7 million children with free health care.
North Carolina taxpayers could have hired more than 360,000 public safety officers or more than 200,000 port container inspectors with the money they have contributed to the Bush-Mc Cain war in Iraq.
West Virginians could have funded more than 20,000 affordable housing units for low-income working families or provided 650,000 children with health care if the war had not been launched.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Web MD on a Harvard survey on "Socialized Medicine"
From WebMD Medical News
Feb. 14, 2008 -- A new poll shows that U.S. voters are divided on the issue of socialized medicine, which is a single-payer, government-run health care system.
The poll comes from the Harvard School of Public Health and Harris Interactive. More than 2,000 people took part in the poll, conducted by phone in January and February.
First, people were asked how well they understood the term "socialized medicine."
About two-thirds -- 67% -- said they understand the term "very well" or "somewhat well." Thirty percent said they don't understand the term very well or at all. The rest said they didn't know or didn't answer that question.
Read the full story here...
Feb. 14, 2008 -- A new poll shows that U.S. voters are divided on the issue of socialized medicine, which is a single-payer, government-run health care system.
The poll comes from the Harvard School of Public Health and Harris Interactive. More than 2,000 people took part in the poll, conducted by phone in January and February.
First, people were asked how well they understood the term "socialized medicine."
About two-thirds -- 67% -- said they understand the term "very well" or "somewhat well." Thirty percent said they don't understand the term very well or at all. The rest said they didn't know or didn't answer that question.
Read the full story here...
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Republican Policies Put 759,000 Children with Asthma at Risk
According to Science Daily, 759,000 children who suffer from asthma are at risk each year of suffering an attack while they have no health insurance.
759,000.
About 114,000 of them lacked insurance the entire year, and were 14 times as likely to go without needed medical care.
According to the article, 70% of the 759,000 were eligible for S-CHIP. George W. Bush and and a handful of Republicans in the House of Representatives twice blocked the S-CHIP reauthorization bill which would have expanded the program to cover as many as 4 million additional uninsured children.
Childhood asthma disproportionately affects African American children in lower income families. According to a Boston University study published in 2005, African American children in poor families were at a "substantially higher risk of asthma" than white or Latino children.
Objectively, the Republican Party's successful fight to block S-CHIP expansion was a racist attack on Black children. And in my mind there is no doubt, given the Republican Party's and the Bush administration's history on these questions, that their lack of concern and even hatred is subjective too.
Also disturbing is that 30% of children with asthma who lacked health insurance at some point last year live in families above the 200% federal poverty threshold for S-CHIP eligibility. Now Republicans tried during the S-CHIP fight last summer and fall and will try to tell you these folks are rich. But they're not.
Many of these families live in places where the cost of living is so high that being at 210% or 250% or even 300% of the federal poverty level is meaningless. Try living in New York City (or San Francisco or Newark or Chicago or DC) and caring for a family of four with an income of $26,000 dollars. That is above 200% of federal poverty. But it doesn't mean you can afford private insurance.
It's time for a change. People want to know what "change" means. This is it.
The Science Daily article also provides one key piece of information that can put to rest claims by the extremist Republicans who blocked the S-CHIP bill and the insurance companies about the quality of public versus private insurance:
You can read more about S-CHIP in the January print edition of Political Affairs – coming soon!
759,000.
About 114,000 of them lacked insurance the entire year, and were 14 times as likely to go without needed medical care.
According to the article, 70% of the 759,000 were eligible for S-CHIP. George W. Bush and and a handful of Republicans in the House of Representatives twice blocked the S-CHIP reauthorization bill which would have expanded the program to cover as many as 4 million additional uninsured children.
Childhood asthma disproportionately affects African American children in lower income families. According to a Boston University study published in 2005, African American children in poor families were at a "substantially higher risk of asthma" than white or Latino children.
Objectively, the Republican Party's successful fight to block S-CHIP expansion was a racist attack on Black children. And in my mind there is no doubt, given the Republican Party's and the Bush administration's history on these questions, that their lack of concern and even hatred is subjective too.
Also disturbing is that 30% of children with asthma who lacked health insurance at some point last year live in families above the 200% federal poverty threshold for S-CHIP eligibility. Now Republicans tried during the S-CHIP fight last summer and fall and will try to tell you these folks are rich. But they're not.
Many of these families live in places where the cost of living is so high that being at 210% or 250% or even 300% of the federal poverty level is meaningless. Try living in New York City (or San Francisco or Newark or Chicago or DC) and caring for a family of four with an income of $26,000 dollars. That is above 200% of federal poverty. But it doesn't mean you can afford private insurance.
It's time for a change. People want to know what "change" means. This is it.
The Science Daily article also provides one key piece of information that can put to rest claims by the extremist Republicans who blocked the S-CHIP bill and the insurance companies about the quality of public versus private insurance:
No differences were found between children with private and public insurance, when it came to unmet needs, discontinuity in care or poor access. This suggests that consistency of coverage for children with asthma is more important than the source of insurance. [emphasis added]
You can read more about S-CHIP in the January print edition of Political Affairs – coming soon!
Monday, November 12, 2007
Thoughts on Veterans Day
Today, hundreds of events around the country honor military veterans. Politicians will give speeches, smile, and congratulate themselves on their patriotism.
Right-wing pundits and supporters of Bush's war will use the day to push their pro-war agenda. From their air-conditioned offices, they will urge the continued sacrifice of those who serve and their families.
But what of America's veterans? According to a recent study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 195,827 veterans were homeless on a given night in 2006, and almost twice that number of veterans went without a home at some point in 2006.
The scandal at Walter Reed hospital showed the impact of privatization (and the right-wing ideology of the free market at all costs) on the declining care provided veterans. Thousands wait for months at a time for needed care. A Bush administration policy of raising fees for services and of simply not telling vets about their eligibility for various programs may have saved money but it has hit veterans hard.
Poverty among vets is on the rise as well. Almost half a million vets pay more than half their income in housing costs. Most of these fall below the federal poverty line, and more than 4 in 10 survive on food stamps.
Veterans returning home from Bush's war are finding it hard to get their old jobs. Many suffer from unemployment or are forced into lower-paying positions.
A Harvard study finds that 1.8 million vets lack health care insurance and close to four million members of veterans families also lack coverage.
It is good that the Democrats in Congress have begun the fight to change this situation by passing laws the expand eligibility and help cover more health problems of returning vets. More funding has been found to improve hospital care.
But until there is an administration that actually cares for people and cares to fund services to protect the health and well-being of those people who selflessly sacrificed their lives, fortunes, and the well-being of their families – even if it was for a lie in Iraq – veterans will get the short end of the stick.
It is utterly offensive that the Bush administration – full of men and women who refused to serve when they were called upon to do so – now demands the continued sacrifice of the men and women who didn't shrink from what they saw as their duty.
On this Veterans Day, let's remember the people who served. Let's remember their needs. Forget smiling politicians with their cynical agendas.
Right-wing pundits and supporters of Bush's war will use the day to push their pro-war agenda. From their air-conditioned offices, they will urge the continued sacrifice of those who serve and their families.
But what of America's veterans? According to a recent study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 195,827 veterans were homeless on a given night in 2006, and almost twice that number of veterans went without a home at some point in 2006.
The scandal at Walter Reed hospital showed the impact of privatization (and the right-wing ideology of the free market at all costs) on the declining care provided veterans. Thousands wait for months at a time for needed care. A Bush administration policy of raising fees for services and of simply not telling vets about their eligibility for various programs may have saved money but it has hit veterans hard.
Poverty among vets is on the rise as well. Almost half a million vets pay more than half their income in housing costs. Most of these fall below the federal poverty line, and more than 4 in 10 survive on food stamps.
Veterans returning home from Bush's war are finding it hard to get their old jobs. Many suffer from unemployment or are forced into lower-paying positions.
A Harvard study finds that 1.8 million vets lack health care insurance and close to four million members of veterans families also lack coverage.
It is good that the Democrats in Congress have begun the fight to change this situation by passing laws the expand eligibility and help cover more health problems of returning vets. More funding has been found to improve hospital care.
But until there is an administration that actually cares for people and cares to fund services to protect the health and well-being of those people who selflessly sacrificed their lives, fortunes, and the well-being of their families – even if it was for a lie in Iraq – veterans will get the short end of the stick.
It is utterly offensive that the Bush administration – full of men and women who refused to serve when they were called upon to do so – now demands the continued sacrifice of the men and women who didn't shrink from what they saw as their duty.
On this Veterans Day, let's remember the people who served. Let's remember their needs. Forget smiling politicians with their cynical agendas.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Bush and GOP Not Making Sense on S-CHIP
1. Republicans have repeatedly described the S-CHIP program as "socialized medicine," with Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) calling it "garbage" and "secret socialized medicine" and "an international socialized medicine program." (Wow!). But its main co-sponsors are Republicans, it was originally authored by Republicans.
2. Republicans and the White House insist they don't want to raise taxes to fund S-CHIP, but the House GOP alternative to the Democratic plan, which House Republicans insist the President would sign, raises the cigarette tax (the same as the Democratic plan) but covers fewer children.
3. The Republicans ranted and raved that allowing states to enroll children in families who earn up to $83,000 as the original S-CHIP program and the reauthorization bill allowed, went to far and too many rich people were on the program. They couldn't prove that argument, but now that the second S-CHIP bill caps the enrollment at 300 percent of poverty, and the Republicans are still opposed. Can they make up their minds about what they want?
4. They oppose the current bill because they want to eliminate benefits for childless adults and want a citizenship requirement. But the second S-CHIP includes those conditions. But the Republicans still oppose it. And Bush says he'll veto it again. They are like children, and they need to sit in the corner.
When it comes right down to it, the Republicans want to exclude children from the program. That is the simple fact. And it appears that some House Republicans are willing to exchange their jobs for a vote that is in lock-step with a failed president and his failed ideology, not the interests of their constituents.
2. Republicans and the White House insist they don't want to raise taxes to fund S-CHIP, but the House GOP alternative to the Democratic plan, which House Republicans insist the President would sign, raises the cigarette tax (the same as the Democratic plan) but covers fewer children.
3. The Republicans ranted and raved that allowing states to enroll children in families who earn up to $83,000 as the original S-CHIP program and the reauthorization bill allowed, went to far and too many rich people were on the program. They couldn't prove that argument, but now that the second S-CHIP bill caps the enrollment at 300 percent of poverty, and the Republicans are still opposed. Can they make up their minds about what they want?
4. They oppose the current bill because they want to eliminate benefits for childless adults and want a citizenship requirement. But the second S-CHIP includes those conditions. But the Republicans still oppose it. And Bush says he'll veto it again. They are like children, and they need to sit in the corner.
When it comes right down to it, the Republicans want to exclude children from the program. That is the simple fact. And it appears that some House Republicans are willing to exchange their jobs for a vote that is in lock-step with a failed president and his failed ideology, not the interests of their constituents.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Campaigners raise alarm as ‘Sicko’ corporations target NHS
RELEASE DATE: Monday 22 October, 00:01
Campaigners raise alarm as ‘Sicko’ corporations target NHS
The Keep Our NHS Public campaign is calling for an investigation into the probity of three American corporations given a key role in the NHS under new government reforms.
The corporations, Humana, Aetna and UnitedHealth, are featured heavily in Michael Moore’s new film Sicko, to be launched at the London Film Festival on 24 October, which exposes the practices used by healthcare companies to deny treatments in the US.
Former Health Secretary Frank Dobson is tabling questions in Parliament tomorrow (22 October), which ask Alan Johnson if he “will ensure that no healthcare organisations indicted for fraud against the federal or state governments in the US are given contracts to provide services for the NHS or NHS patients.”
The government this month published a list of 14 companies, including Humana, Aetna and UnitedHealth, that it wants to see take over the role of ‘commissioning’, or buying healthcare for NHS patients. These companies will gain control over which treatments patients receive and who provides them.
But experience from the US suggests they may not be as “trusted” as health minister Ivan Lewis has claimed.
UnitedHealth has repeatedly been fined for defrauding the American healthcare system. For example, in August 2004, UnitedHealthCare Insurance agreed to settle civil Medicare fraud charges with the US Attorney for $9.7 million. The US government claimed the company had inflated its costs under the state Medicare program in order to obtain higher reimbursement and greater performance incentive payments.
The NHS Support Federation - one of the groups behind the Keep Our NHS Public campaign - has written to the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee requesting independent assessments of these companies, to establish whether they are fit to work in the NHS.
Meanwhile, a key scene in Moore’s film shows US doctor Linda Peeno testifying before Congress that she caused the death of a man by denying him care in order to save Humana half-a-million dollars. In a separate landmark case in Florida, Humana were fined $79.6 million in 2000 for wrongly denying care to a 5-year-old girl, Caitlyn Chipps, with cerebral palsy.
Alex Nunns of Keep Our NHS Public said:
“Anyone who goes to see Michael Moore’s film will question health minister Ivan Lewis’ assertion that these corporations are ‘trusted’. It’s astonishing to see our government inviting companies that have been fleecing the Americans to come and fleece the NHS.
“This will see private sector giants at the heart of the health service, with huge power over the care patients receive. If we don’t stand up and stop the gradual privatisation of the health service, then what we see in Sicko is what we are in for here.”
For further information please contact Alex Nunns on 07763 607 528, Keep Our NHS Public on 01273 234 822, or email konp.press@virgin.net
NOTES TO EDITORS:
1. The Department of Health has published the Framework for Procuring External Support for Commissioners (FESC), which confirms that PCTs can outsource their key commissioning roles. The document states: “the areas covered by the commissioning function will be: Assessment & Planning; Contracting & Procurement; Performance Management, Settlement & Review; and Patient & Public Engagement.”
2. One method of payment for the companies contracted will be as a share of the savings they make to the NHS, offset against health improvement targets. As it is impossible to contract for all eventualities in healthcare, there is the potential for perverse incentives and gaming, which could result in a decline in the standard of care for patients. Corporations have proved adept at maximising profits in the US, both within and outside the rules.
3. Parliamentary questions to be tabled by Frank Dobson on Monday 22 October:
Frank Dobson (Holborn & St Pancras): To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will ensure that no healthcare organisations indicted for fraud against the federal or state governments in the US are given contracts to provide services for the NHS or NHS patients.(159277)
Frank Dobson (Holborn & St Pancras): To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will ensure that no healthcare organisations found by US federal audits to have practised deceptive sales tactics on Medicare or Medicaid recipients will be given contracts to provide services for the NHS or NHS patients.(159278)
Campaigners raise alarm as ‘Sicko’ corporations target NHS
The Keep Our NHS Public campaign is calling for an investigation into the probity of three American corporations given a key role in the NHS under new government reforms.
The corporations, Humana, Aetna and UnitedHealth, are featured heavily in Michael Moore’s new film Sicko, to be launched at the London Film Festival on 24 October, which exposes the practices used by healthcare companies to deny treatments in the US.
Former Health Secretary Frank Dobson is tabling questions in Parliament tomorrow (22 October), which ask Alan Johnson if he “will ensure that no healthcare organisations indicted for fraud against the federal or state governments in the US are given contracts to provide services for the NHS or NHS patients.”
The government this month published a list of 14 companies, including Humana, Aetna and UnitedHealth, that it wants to see take over the role of ‘commissioning’, or buying healthcare for NHS patients. These companies will gain control over which treatments patients receive and who provides them.
But experience from the US suggests they may not be as “trusted” as health minister Ivan Lewis has claimed.
UnitedHealth has repeatedly been fined for defrauding the American healthcare system. For example, in August 2004, UnitedHealthCare Insurance agreed to settle civil Medicare fraud charges with the US Attorney for $9.7 million. The US government claimed the company had inflated its costs under the state Medicare program in order to obtain higher reimbursement and greater performance incentive payments.
The NHS Support Federation - one of the groups behind the Keep Our NHS Public campaign - has written to the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee requesting independent assessments of these companies, to establish whether they are fit to work in the NHS.
Meanwhile, a key scene in Moore’s film shows US doctor Linda Peeno testifying before Congress that she caused the death of a man by denying him care in order to save Humana half-a-million dollars. In a separate landmark case in Florida, Humana were fined $79.6 million in 2000 for wrongly denying care to a 5-year-old girl, Caitlyn Chipps, with cerebral palsy.
Alex Nunns of Keep Our NHS Public said:
“Anyone who goes to see Michael Moore’s film will question health minister Ivan Lewis’ assertion that these corporations are ‘trusted’. It’s astonishing to see our government inviting companies that have been fleecing the Americans to come and fleece the NHS.
“This will see private sector giants at the heart of the health service, with huge power over the care patients receive. If we don’t stand up and stop the gradual privatisation of the health service, then what we see in Sicko is what we are in for here.”
For further information please contact Alex Nunns on 07763 607 528, Keep Our NHS Public on 01273 234 822, or email konp.press@virgin.net
NOTES TO EDITORS:
1. The Department of Health has published the Framework for Procuring External Support for Commissioners (FESC), which confirms that PCTs can outsource their key commissioning roles. The document states: “the areas covered by the commissioning function will be: Assessment & Planning; Contracting & Procurement; Performance Management, Settlement & Review; and Patient & Public Engagement.”
2. One method of payment for the companies contracted will be as a share of the savings they make to the NHS, offset against health improvement targets. As it is impossible to contract for all eventualities in healthcare, there is the potential for perverse incentives and gaming, which could result in a decline in the standard of care for patients. Corporations have proved adept at maximising profits in the US, both within and outside the rules.
3. Parliamentary questions to be tabled by Frank Dobson on Monday 22 October:
Frank Dobson (Holborn & St Pancras): To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will ensure that no healthcare organisations indicted for fraud against the federal or state governments in the US are given contracts to provide services for the NHS or NHS patients.(159277)
Frank Dobson (Holborn & St Pancras): To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will ensure that no healthcare organisations found by US federal audits to have practised deceptive sales tactics on Medicare or Medicaid recipients will be given contracts to provide services for the NHS or NHS patients.(159278)
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Bush Vetoes Children's Health
Behind closed doors and with the TV cameras off, Bush just vetoed the S-CHIP bill. With one stroke of his pen, he said tax cuts for the rich, loopholes for big oil, and the war on Iraq based on lies are matter more than children who need shots, their teeth fixed, expensive medicines for chronic illnesses like asthma, diabetes, or allergies.
Bush, in the name of his discredited and despicable conservative ideology, told America what his values are: lucrative private contracts for Blackwater without oversight to kill Iraqis, torture at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and spying on your phone calls rank higher in importance than making sure that working families whose children need to have tubes inserted in their ears to prevent recurring infections or operations to fix their eyesight can afford to do so.
With a stroke of his pen, he said to the children of working families, you don't count in my book, and I don't care about your future.
Bush also lied – surprise, surprise. He explained that he opposed the $5 billion dollar a year S-CHIP bill because he believes in fiscal responsibility. Lie. Over his presidency he has signed spending bill after spending bill paid for with debt mounted on the backs of the very children he scorned today with his veto. The amount he (abetted by the previous Republican-controlled Congress) personally has added to the national debt is in the trillions.
He also called the S-CHIP bill, supported by right-wing members of Congress, private insurance lobbyist, medical associations, and liberal children's advocates alike, was a kind of creeping socialism.
His gesture, by vetoing children's health, is one of the most spiteful, small and despicable acts I can imagine. But then again he led us into a war with lies and now as many as 1 million Iraqis have lost their lives.
Republicans (and any Democrats) who vote to support the president's veto should lose their jobs in 2008. They do not represent America or any version of "family values" and cannot be relied on to care for our future: our children.
Bush, in the name of his discredited and despicable conservative ideology, told America what his values are: lucrative private contracts for Blackwater without oversight to kill Iraqis, torture at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and spying on your phone calls rank higher in importance than making sure that working families whose children need to have tubes inserted in their ears to prevent recurring infections or operations to fix their eyesight can afford to do so.
With a stroke of his pen, he said to the children of working families, you don't count in my book, and I don't care about your future.
Bush also lied – surprise, surprise. He explained that he opposed the $5 billion dollar a year S-CHIP bill because he believes in fiscal responsibility. Lie. Over his presidency he has signed spending bill after spending bill paid for with debt mounted on the backs of the very children he scorned today with his veto. The amount he (abetted by the previous Republican-controlled Congress) personally has added to the national debt is in the trillions.
He also called the S-CHIP bill, supported by right-wing members of Congress, private insurance lobbyist, medical associations, and liberal children's advocates alike, was a kind of creeping socialism.
His gesture, by vetoing children's health, is one of the most spiteful, small and despicable acts I can imagine. But then again he led us into a war with lies and now as many as 1 million Iraqis have lost their lives.
Republicans (and any Democrats) who vote to support the president's veto should lose their jobs in 2008. They do not represent America or any version of "family values" and cannot be relied on to care for our future: our children.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Real Life in the USA
The US ranks 49th in the world in literacy.
According to the World Health Organization, the US ranks 37th in the world in health care, and 54th in fairness of its health care system.
The US is one of only two industrialized countries that does not provide universal health care. (The other being South Africa.)
18,000 people die in the US unnecessarily each year due to the lack of health care.
Among the wealthiest developed countries, the US ranks second to last in childhood poverty.
12 million families have difficulty feeding themselves.
The US ranks 41st among all countries for infant mortality.
900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year the data for this statistic was collected.
For other equally disturbing data about life in the USA, see: www.citypages.com/databank/26/1264/article12985.asp
So what are you going to do about it?
According to the World Health Organization, the US ranks 37th in the world in health care, and 54th in fairness of its health care system.
The US is one of only two industrialized countries that does not provide universal health care. (The other being South Africa.)
18,000 people die in the US unnecessarily each year due to the lack of health care.
Among the wealthiest developed countries, the US ranks second to last in childhood poverty.
12 million families have difficulty feeding themselves.
The US ranks 41st among all countries for infant mortality.
900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year the data for this statistic was collected.
For other equally disturbing data about life in the USA, see: www.citypages.com/databank/26/1264/article12985.asp
So what are you going to do about it?
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
AFL-CIO Presidential Debate
In my view, the longest, most resounding applause at last night's presidential debate sponsored by the AFL-CIO came not when Sen. Obama delivered a clever remark about Washington insiders running amok or when Sen. Clinton accused the Bush administration of misleading the country into war or even when Rep. Dennis Kucinich promised to establish a "workers' White House."
It came when retired steelworker Steve Skvara of Indiana talked about his situation. "After 34 years with LTV Steel," he said, "I was forced to retire because of a disability. Two years later, LTV filed bankruptcy. I lost a third of my pension, and my family lost their health care. Everyday of my life, I sit at the kitchen table across from the woman who devoted 36 years of her life to my family, and I can't afford to pay for her health care. What's wrong with America, and what will you do to change it?"
In that question, in the tremble in Mr. Skvara's voice, one senses the frustrations of working men and women built up over the last few decades as we have seen our wages and benefits eroded, our rights to union protections, good jobs with decent pay, safety and health protections, our access to health care eroded, and our voices unheard. One felt Mr. Skvara's anger and anxiety erupt in the sustained applause of the thousands of workers who attended the event.
Mr. Skvara's is a question that puts to shame the carefully crafted and spun responses of the candidates, the squabbling over he said-she said, and the endless platitudes. It is a question whose answer is based in serious, fundamental policy changes. Do our candidates really care about working families?
I think this debate, the questions and demands of workers presented there, are a watershed moment in US politics. It is a turning point in the public debate about what should be on the agenda of the next president. Get ready for some big changes. Get ready to help make those changes happen.
It came when retired steelworker Steve Skvara of Indiana talked about his situation. "After 34 years with LTV Steel," he said, "I was forced to retire because of a disability. Two years later, LTV filed bankruptcy. I lost a third of my pension, and my family lost their health care. Everyday of my life, I sit at the kitchen table across from the woman who devoted 36 years of her life to my family, and I can't afford to pay for her health care. What's wrong with America, and what will you do to change it?"
In that question, in the tremble in Mr. Skvara's voice, one senses the frustrations of working men and women built up over the last few decades as we have seen our wages and benefits eroded, our rights to union protections, good jobs with decent pay, safety and health protections, our access to health care eroded, and our voices unheard. One felt Mr. Skvara's anger and anxiety erupt in the sustained applause of the thousands of workers who attended the event.
Mr. Skvara's is a question that puts to shame the carefully crafted and spun responses of the candidates, the squabbling over he said-she said, and the endless platitudes. It is a question whose answer is based in serious, fundamental policy changes. Do our candidates really care about working families?
I think this debate, the questions and demands of workers presented there, are a watershed moment in US politics. It is a turning point in the public debate about what should be on the agenda of the next president. Get ready for some big changes. Get ready to help make those changes happen.
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