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

A model grassroots organizing campaign mobilizes public opinion for universal coverage in a state long dominated by private insurers.

Marc Caplan | April 21, 2008

Connecticut — still known as the insurance capital of the United States even with takeovers and significant layoffs in the industry — might be the last state conventional wisdom would expect to break new ground in the fight for universal health care. But it could well happen. Strong advocates and legislative proponents, significant business support for real change, and an innovative health-care foundation implementing a well-funded broad-based organizing campaign are positioning Connecticut to provide national leadership on the issue. Read the rest of this entry »

UHCEF Article of Interest

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

The cost crisis of Medicare gets a lot of attention. The program can be fixed only by universalizing the larger health system in which Medicare resides.

Jonathan Cohn | April 21, 2008

When Lyndon Johnson signed the law creating Medicare in 1965, he promised that it would transform the lives of America’s senior citizens. “No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine,” Johnson proclaimed. “No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years.” As ambitious as those goals were, some of Medicare’s architects had even loftier hopes. Many were veterans of Harry Truman’s crusade to provide insurance to every single American; it was only after that effort failed that they decided to concentrate on covering the elderly, whom they knew to be a politically sympathetic group. But in focusing on senior citizens, they didn’t give up on bringing insurance to the rest of the country. Medicare, they fervently hoped, would be a stepping stone to universal coverage — and perhaps a model for how to achieve it. Read the rest of this entry »

UHCEF Article of Interest

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

Addressing the whole range of behaviors that affect health is the key to a healthier society. This requires a universal health care system.

Neal Halfon | April 21, 2008

The case for universal health-insurance coverage is becoming universally acknowledged. To make a real difference in health outcomes, cost, and system performance, we need to cover the whole person, with a full continuum of appropriate care, and ensure continuity over a person’s entire life. Anything less will perpetuate inefficiencies and poorly coordinated coverage, which engender fragmented and poor-quality care. But universal coverage alone is not sufficient to reduce the remarkable 35-year difference in life expectancy across different classes of Americans. Universal coverage alone is also not likely to greatly improve the United States’ ranking of 46th in life expectancy and 42nd in infant mortality among 192 nations. A high-performing national health-care system must also focus on the prevention of disease and promotion of optimal health for all its citizens. Read the rest of this entry »

UHCEF Article of Interest

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

What the Massachusetts experiment teaches us about incremental efforts to increase coverage by expanding private insurance.

Marcia Angell | April 21, 2008

For all their promise of change, Democrats are remarkably timid about changing the health-care system. The system now costs twice as much per person as those of other advanced countries and delivers worse average outcomes. It prices tens of millions of people out of health coverage altogether and limits care for countless others. Yet leading Democrats are clinging to this system, proposing to cover more people but not changing the system itself except at the margins. The timidity extends to choice of words. No one is supposed to say “single-payer” or “national health insurance” anymore, because that is “politically unrealistic”; the most we are allowed is to talk of reforming the system incrementally so that someday it will morph into “Medicare for all.” Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

UHCEF Article of Interest

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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. Read the rest of this entry »

Join Mass-Care and the Universal Health Care Education Fund on MARCH 29 for:

• Jamie Eldridge and John Bonifaz speaking on the future of health care reform
• Honoring single payer advocates Senator Pat Jehlen,Dr. Bernard Lown, and Tim Macchio
• Participatory workshops on health care activism

Click here to learn more about the Ben Gill annual fundraiser.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

UHCEF Article of Interest

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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. Read the rest of this entry »

UHCEF Article of Interest

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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. Read the rest of this entry »