health insurance industry

Is Public, Quality Healthcare Possible In The United States?

December 18, 2024 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Strategize! Brian Thompson, health insurance industry, Medicare for all, single-payer healthcare, United States, UnitedHealthcare, universal healthcare

People in the US pay billions towards the health insurance industry, yet many in the healthcare field believe that this industry does little to ensure quality care to patients. While US healthcare spending is by far the highest of any country in the world, the country has the lowest life expectancy among other nations with a similar GDP. In recent weeks, the rage against the for-profit healthcare industry in the United States has intensified. The reality faced by many in the US, of avoiding seeking medical care in an emergency for fear of costs, or having health insurance claims repeatedly denied despite paying thousands to private insurers, has become too much to bear.

Why Exposing Evils Of Medical Debt Doesn’t Fix The Problem

May 11, 2023 John Canham-Clyne, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Connecticut, Health Care, health insurance industry, Medical Debt, Medicare for all

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont proposed on February 2 to purchase and forgive roughly $2 billion in medical debt owed by state residents. Along with similar proposals in other jurisdictions, the plan offers desperately needed relief from stress and fear to thousands of people who are struggling to pay their current outstanding medical bills. Unfortunately, these programs will do nothing to prevent millions more Americans from falling into the country’s healthcare financial meat grinder. Meanwhile, three major credit reporting agencies have decided to expunge paid-off medical debts and outstanding debt less than $500 from credit reports, and provide people a year’s grace period before adding new medical debt to credit reports.

Biden Lifts Health Care Plan From Insurance Lobbyists

January 20, 2021 Andrew Perez and Julia Rock, Daily Poster. Educate! health insurance industry, Joe Biden, Medicare for all, Public option

President-elect Joe Biden’s new COVID relief plan does not adopt existing Democratic legislation to expand government sponsored medical coverage nor does it propose a promised public health insurance option. Instead, it adopts proposals from health insurance lobbying groups’ recent letter to lawmakers demanding lucrative new subsidies for insurance companies, at a moment when those corporations have recorded record profits as millions lose coverage and many face claims denials. Biden’s plan would shovel billions of dollars to private health insurers by providing subsidies for Americans to buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces, which are far more expensive than government health care programs and have at times been plagued by high rates of claim denials.

DCCC Takes Money From Insurance Lobbyist As They Oppose Single Payer

May 10, 2018 By Alex Kotch, Tytnetwork.com Educate! Congress, Electoral Politics, health insurance industry, Lobbying, Single payer health care

In April 2017, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) wanted to find out the best way for its candidates to address the topic of health care, so it hired two research firms to conduct internal polling focused on 52 battleground districts expected to be close races in 2018. Stan Greenberg, a pollster and founding partner with Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQR), presented his findings at the offices of the Democratic National Committee and suggested that Democratic candidates should focus on the flaws of Republican plans and offer “Proactive Solutions (only if asked),” as The Intercept reported. While “single-payer” never made it into the proposed talking points compiled in its memo, GQR listed numerous “likely Republican lines of attack” against Democratic House candidates over Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill...

Newsletter: Is Health Care A Commodity Or Right?

September 23, 2017 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter ACA, Big Pharma, health insurance industry, Healthcare, Medicare for all, National Improved Medicare for All, Single payer health care, universal healthcare

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. With just a week left before Congress' budget reconciliation process ends, the Senate is once again peddling a poorly-thought out plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). And once again, people are rising up in opposition to the plan, making it unpopular and unlikely to pass. At the same time, support for a National Improved Medicare for All single payer healthcare system is increasing and there are bills in both the House and Senate with record numbers of co-sponsors. Will the United States finally join the long list of countries that provide healthcare to everyone? Overall, it is a time to be optimistic.

Officials Overseeing Health Care Overhaul Lobbied For Health Insurance Firms

June 17, 2017 Lee Fang, www.theintercept.com Educate! health insurance industry, Lobbyists, Trump Administration

By Lee Fang for The Intercept - THE POLITICAL APPOINTEES tapped by President Donald Trump to oversee federal health care programs — including the potential transition to a new Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act — joined the government just after working as lobbyists and attorneys for the largest health care interests in America. Several senior Health and Human Services Administration appointees previously worked for insurers seeking to influence the consumer regulations mandated by the ACA, according to new political appointee financial disclosures obtained by The Intercept. The appointees work closely under HHS Secretary Tom Price — a former member of Congress and longtime ACA opponent who has pushed his old colleagues on the Hill to repeal the ACA. Eric Hargan, the nominee for deputy secretary at HHS, and Paula Stannard, Price’s senior counselor, previously worked in the lobbying and government affairs departments of their respective law firms, Greenberg Traurig and Alston & Bird. Hargan and Stannard both disclosed serving health insurance giant UnitedHealth as a client. UnitedHealth, which prompted worries about the ACA’s tenability when it exited most of the health exchanges that underpin President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform law, has lobbied the federal government on a number of issues.

Newsletter: Elections Expose the Oligarchs

October 9, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Austerity, Banking and Finance, Big Banks, Big Pharma, Corruption, Democracy, Donald Trump, health insurance industry, Healthcare, Hillary Clinton, Neoliberalism, oligarchy, Sexism, Single payer health care, Tax Evasion, Wikileaks

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The 2016 presidential election has shown how the duopoly, the two parties that represent big business interests and the wealthiest, are corrupted in ways that prevent the people’s voices from being heard, their necessities being met and the planet being protected from human greed. During the campaigns, leaks have given people a behind-the-scenes look at how the parties operate and research on the candidates shows their personal failures. They give voters an image of elites who behave as if the law does not apply to them and who put themselves ahead of the public interest. Last Friday was a day of embarrassment for both the Republican and Democratic Parties. A tape showing Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault in lewd ways has gotten the bulk of attention, but Wikileaks also released thousands of pages of The Podesta Emails, 2,060 emails and 170 attachments. John Podesta is the ultimate insider.

Health Insurance Industry Eats Competition

July 26, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Educate! ACA, Health Care, health insurance industry, Single payer health care

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. Many have argued, though we have not, that the federal health law, the ACA, is a 'step in the right direction' or a 'step towards single payer.' Our analysis is that the ACA is a step in the wrong direction because it further entrenches and empowers the private health insurance industry. Since its passage in 2010, the ACA has led to greater privatization of our public insurances Medicaid and Medicare and greater consolidation of health insurers and health facilities. As you will read in the article below, we are moving in the direction of a single payer health system, but one in which the single payer (or perhaps there will be a few payers) are the private health insurance industry. In this system, the costs of health care will continue to sky rocket and those who cannot afford care will go without it.

Shummy’s Surrender: Vermont Governor Goes South On Single Payer

December 19, 2014 Steve Early, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! health insurance industry, Healthcare, Single payer health care, Vermont

On Wednesday, December 17, the governor called a statehouse press conference to make a “major announcement.” That turned out to be good news for single payer foes locally and nationally—and bad news for campaigners to make “health care a human right.” Shumlin declared that “now is not the right time” to proceed with any fundamental overhaul of health care financing and delivery in Vermont. He claimed that the latest cost estimates for what’s known locally as Green Mountain Care (GMC) were higher than the $2 billion originally projected. GMC would create an “enormous” additional tax burden and high “risk of economic shock,” in a period when a “slower recovery from the great recession has tightened our state budget.” The governor has framed his push for Green Mountain Care, quite conservatively, as a boon for business, declaring at a re-election rally in September that “we are moving forward on the nation’s first single payer health care system that contains costs, takes the burden off of employers, and simplifies the system for all Vermonters.” Later that month, he sounded a bit more tentative, telling a radio audience: “If we come up with a financing plan that doesn’t grow jobs, economic opportunity, and make Vermont more prosperous, trust me, we’re not gonna do it.” In the same interview, he declared himself to be “one of the most pro-business, anti-tax governors that you’ve seen in a long time.”

Saying ‘Hell No’ To Obamacare

April 23, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report ACA, Affordable Care Act, Conscientious Objector To Obamacare, Dr. Margaret Flowers, Health Insurance, health insurance industry, Healthcare.gov, Margaret Flowers, Obama health insurance, Obamacare, Single payer health care, universal healthcare

Recently, Dr. Margaret Flowers initiated an online petition declaring herself a consciences objector to the Affordable Care Act and asking others to send a message to President Obama that the ACA is a scam. Dr. Margaret Flowers (MFlowers8) is a pediatrician from Baltimore who is an organizer at PopularResistance.org, co-directs ItsOurEconomy.us and co-hosts Clearing the FOG on We Act Radio. She is adviser to the board of Physicians for a National Health Program and is on the steering committee of the Maryland Health Care is a Human Right campaign.

Daily movement news and resources