The American Prospect May 2008 (Click here for original article)

Hospitals are getting more aggressive about sending debt collectors after under-insured consumers.

Tamara Draut | April 21, 2008

As health-care costs continue to climb, the trend to more “cost sharing” continues, and the ranks of the uninsured keep swelling, more and more Americans are finding that paying for medical care means going into debt. The latest study by the Commonwealth Fund found that one out of five Americans have medical debt — a population that includes many individuals with health insurance. In fact, nearly two-thirds of people who reported being in debt or having problems with medical bills had health insurance at the time the bill was incurred. Medical debt doesn’t discriminate by race or class either, though like other economic forces, it disproportionately impacts lower-income individuals and individuals of color. (more…)

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel (click here for link to original article)

April 3, 2008

Reflecting a shift in thinking over the past five years among U.S. physicians, a new study shows a solid majority of doctors — 59 percent — now supports national health insurance. (more…)

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Steffie Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein
Boston Globe (click here for link to original article)
17 September 2007

N 1966 - just before Medicare and Medicaid were launched - 47 million Americans were uninsured. By 1975, the United States had reached an all time low of 21 million without coverage. Now, according to the Census Bureau’s latest figures, we’re back where we started, with 47 million uninsured in 2006 - up 2.2 million since 2005. But this time, most of the uninsured are neither poor nor elderly. (more…)

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Benjamin Day
Boston Globe, Op-Ed (click here for link to original article)
30 August 2007

AFTER EXTENDING healthcare coverage to more than 150,000 previously uninsured residents over the past year, Massachusetts health reform took a turn for the worse this month with the Patrick administration’s proposal to limit the state’s Free Care Pool. (more…)

Promises, Promises in Healthcare Reform

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Laura Gilcrest
United Press International (click here for link to original article)
27 April 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 26 (UPI) — In the second part of an interview with United Press International, Democratic congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio claims he is the only contender for the Democratic ticket with a plan for truly “universal” healthcare, because the plans of his rivals still allow private health insurance companies to run the show. (more…)

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Boston Globe (click here for link to original letters to the editor)
Letters to the Editor
March 17, 2007

PEOPLE OF all stripes are closely following the state health reform plan as it is rolled out. Many are beginning to feel that in fact it will be rolling over quite a few in need of affordable quality healthcare (”State OK’s 7 low-cost health plans for uninsured,” Business, March 9).

The utter irony of the quote from Jon Kingsdale, a former Tufts HMO executive and the executive director of the Commonwealth Connector board, is as tragic as it is absurd: “We want to get everybody in the Commonwealth using health insurance, but we also want to be humane and recognize the exceptions.” (more…)

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STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE (cllck here to visit State House News)
Priscilla Yeon

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, FEB. 27, 2007?..A group of activists and legislators are pushing health care cost control initiatives to slow double-digit inflation rates that have been placing businesses, governments and residents under increasing pressure.

At an event sponsored by the organization Mass-Care, speakers today talked about how a portion of state spending on health care, as well as spending by private companies and residents, pays for ?administrative waste? and ?price gouging.?

Cost control proponents have been making the case that the state?s new health insurance law won?t work, despite the best efforts of many, unless steps are taken to curb escalating health care costs. (more…)

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The New Standard (click here for link to the original article)
Megan Tady
January 26, 2007

Less than a year after Massachusetts’s controversial healthcare initiative was first revealed, evidence is accumulating to bolster critics who said the system is faulty by design.

Members of a panel charged with implementing the Massachusetts “universal” healthcare plan redirected some insurers this week to make their premiums more affordable. But critics of the plan say it’s the government that needs to go back to the drawing board. (more…)

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Berkshire Eagle (click here for link to original article)
Editorial
January 24, 2007

The state’s new mandated health insurance plan has gotten favorable reviews in the early going, in particular from people earning 100 percent or less of the poverty level ($9,800 a year). As the program expands, however, unanticipated glitches are emerging, and the results of a study on the method many Americans are employing to deal with increasing health care costs testifies to the myriad problems of a system that requires an overhaul, not tinkering. (more…)

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Jim O’Sullivan and Priscilla Yeon
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JAN. 2, 2007….An effort to enshrine in the state constitution guarantees of affordable and comprehensive health coverage died in the Legislature Tuesday, with legislators reluctant to impose statutory prods on themselves while they experiment with a first-in-the-nation law.

Lawmakers voted, by a count of 101 to 92, to keep bottled in a special committee the citizen-driven amendment, which advocates said would have anchored the moves toward universal health care contained in a landmark reform law passed last year. (more…)