An Open Letter to Bill Keller, Executive Editor, New York Times, and Clark Hoyt, Public Editor, New York Times

Dear Bill Keller and Clark Hoyt – For the first time in the span of a generation, national health care reform is back on the horizon, and I’m writing to you to step back for a moment into the history of the Times’s reporting on health care reform. Last year I began a research project with two researchers from Harvard Medical School, Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, to look at the history of major state health reforms such as TennCare, the Oregon Health Plan, MinnesotaCare, and many others. A sweeping health reform bill had been passed into law in Massachusetts in 2006 that was being hailed as a unique, first-of-its-kind bipartisan strategy to achieve universal or near-universal health coverage without raising taxes or adding new regulations on the health care industry. We initially set out to find how unique the Massachusetts health reform law really was compared to previous state efforts, and to see if by analyzing the outcomes of those earlier reform efforts we could learn some lessons about what to expect in Massachusetts.

What we found surprised us (more…)

UHCEF Article of Interest

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Sandy Eaton, RN

Labor Notes (click here for original article)

Massachusetts pays the most in the nation for its health care, and yet it’s plagued by an ongoing crisis of access, affordability, and quality. Although our experiment in health care reform already has deep problems, policy wonks influencing the country’s health care debate tout Massachusetts as the model for universal health care nationwide. . . .

Leaving the bloated insurance industry in place perpetuates the pain and cost of the current health care system. (more…)

UHCEF Article of Interest

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Wall Street Journal Editorial (click here for original article)

July 29, 3008

Gearing up for 2009, liberals are eager to claim Massachusetts as a Valhalla of health reform. Their enthusiasm is apparently evidence-proof.

Even Mitt Romney, who should know better, took to these pages recently to proclaim, “Health-care reform is working in Massachusetts.” Shortly after Mr. Romney’s self-tribute, Governor Deval Patrick wheeled out a new $129 million tax plan to make up for this year’s health spending shortfalls. Yet partisans are cheering the cost overruns as a sign of success. (more…)

UHCEF Article of Interest

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Rachel Nardin
Boston Globe, Op-Ed (click here for link to original article)
11 November 2007

EVEN AS our government puts members of our armed services in harm’s way, it is failing to care for them once they return home. Soldiers get excellent acute care when injured on active duty, but as revelations of poor conditions for soldiers receiving ongoing outpatient care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center highlighted, service members often have trouble getting the care they need once active duty ends.

According to a study by some of my colleagues at Harvard Medical School, to be published in next month’s American Journal of Public Health, nearly 1.8 million veterans had no health insurance in 2004, up 290,000 since 2000. An additional 3.8 million members of their households were also uninsured and ineligible for care at hospitals and clinics run by the Veterans Health Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The 2006 data released this year show little change in these numbers. (more…)

The Lively Liver Levy
Boston Globe, January 23, 2007
Dan Wasserman
(click here for Dan Wasserman’s editorial cartoons)

>>> DID YOU KNOW THAT:

• Most uninsured people will now have to buy their own insurance, without any or with very little financial support?
• The Bill will not help the underinsured or those with poor quality insurance, including those on Medicare paying high out-of-pocket costs?
• It will not attempt to reduce the costs of health insurance for individuals and businesses paying the highest prices in the world? (more…)