Healthcare

What Happened To Universal Healthcare In Vermont

January 11, 2015 Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H., and David U. Himmelstein, M.D., www.pnhp.org Educate! Healthcare, Single payer health care, Vermont

Gov. Peter Shumlin’s Dec. 17, 2014, announcement that he would not press forward with Vermont’s Green Mountain Care (GMC) reform arose from political calculus rather than fiscal necessity. GMC had veered away from a true single payer design over the past three years, forfeiting some potential cost savings. Yet even the diluted plan on the table before Shumlin’s announcement would probably have lowered total health spending in Vermont, while covering all of the state’s uninsured. It’s a misnomer to label Vermont’s Green Mountain Care plan “single payer.” It was hemmed in by federal restrictions that precluded including 100 percent of Vermonters in one plan, and its designers further compromised on features needed to maximize administrative savings and bargaining clout with drug firms, and improve health planning. But even the watered-down plan that emerged could have covered the uninsured, improved coverage for many who currently face high out-of-pocket costs, and actually reduced total health spending in the state – albeit far less than under a true single payer plan. A true single payer plan would have made covering long-term care affordable, and allowed the elimination of all copayments and deductibles. Vermont’s experience holds important lessons for single payer advocates.

Newsletter: Breaking The Spell Of The Corporate State

January 10, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Climate Change, Climate Justice, Democracy, Extreme Energy, Healthcare, Internet, KXL pipeline, Living Wage, Minimum Wage, Net Neutrality, Racism, TPP, Trade, Vermont, Zapatistas

The democracy crisis grows deeper. Analysis of the mid-term elections shows voting levels lower than the era of Andrew Jackson, when the requirement of owning property to vote was removed. People are rejecting both political parties as 42% of Americans are registered independents compared to 30% Democrats and 25% Republicans. Nozomi Hayase writes people are breaking the spell of the corporate state, recognizing the elites who govern are not smarter than the rest of us, that they fit the characteristics of psychopaths for their endless war, debt-ponzi schemes and that the ongoing financial crisis exposes their agenda of hoarding wealth for themselves. At the same time Hayase writes: “Civil disobedience against the corporate state demands that we disobey their commands and instead begin listening to our hearts that know what is right and wrong.”

Vermont Healthcare Advocates Disrupt Legislature

January 8, 2015 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Healthcare, Human Rights, Vermont

Protesters occupied the chambers of the Vermont Statehouse Thursday afternoon, saying they refuse to leave until legislators meet their demands to respect the first-ever U.S. law for universal, publicly-funded health care, won by social movements nearly four years ago yet stymied by the governor last month. The Vermont Workers Center is pushing the legislature to proceed to funding the universal health care plan even without Governor Shumlin. The Burlington Free Press reported: The protesters, organized by the Vermont Workers’ Center through the Health Care is a Human Right Campaign, demanded that House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, schedule a public hearing on single-payer financing by Jan. 29.

FairPoint Worker Speaks Out For Universal Healthcare

December 21, 2014 Kris White, www.workerscenter.org Organize! Healthcare, Strikes, Worker's Rights

My name is Kris White and I live in Grand Isle. I am a mother, a Fairpoint worker and a steward in my union, Communication Workers of America Local 1400, which along with our sister union, IBEW Local 2326, is striking against a shameful anti-human trend in this country that puts profits over people. The majority of FairPoint stock is owned by five Wall Street hedge funds. Angelo, Gordon & Co. is the single largest shareholding hedge fund with 20 percent of outstanding stock. These firms have no interest in maintaining and improving a quality communications company. They are in business to make massive profits. Fairpoint does not have to pay those investors by stripping the retired and active employees of the jobs and benefits we have invested our lives in earning. They are choosing to do so.Their goal was to get us to agree to changes that would increase their profits by $600 million per year or force a strike. We know this because they have been unwilling to negotiate. They came to the bargaining table with one proposal and have not entertained a single compromise.

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.”

Protesters Tell Vermont Governor: Career Is Toast Over Healthcare

December 18, 2014 Morgan True, www.vtdigger.org Resist! Healthcare, Single payer health care, Vermont

Protesters from across the state descended on Montpelier Thursday to voice their anger with Gov. Peter Shumlin’s decision to drop his pursuit of single payer health care. More than 60 people stood in front of the Statehouse chanting slogans and singing protest songs. “All people, all care, make the rich pay their share,” they shouted, “The system, let’s stop it, our health is not for profit.” Many shared personal stories of struggles to afford health insurance or medical services, highlighting barriers to care such as high deductibles, copayments and other forms of cost sharing. Several burned medical bills they said they would never be able to pay off. Protesters focused their ire on Shumlin. The governor acknowledged the disappointment of his supporters in remarks Wednesday, but said the economics of single payer wouldn’t allow the program to move forward anytime soon. He called it “the biggest disappointment of my public service so far.” But protesters were unappeased Thursday, asserting that Shumlin supported single payer while it was politically advantageous, but turned his back on the interests of the working class when he encountered resistance from business leaders. They marched up to his ceremonial office in the Statehouse to deliver a platter of toast with the message, “Dear Shumlin, your career is toast.”

Newsletter: Respect Our Human Rights Or We’ll ‘Shut It Down’

December 13, 2014 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Bankers, Climate Justice, Corruption, Education, FCC, Finance and Economy, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, GMOs, Healthcare, Human Rights, Internet Freedom, Monsanto, Net Neutrality, Police abuse, Racism, Torture, TPP, Undercover police, Worker Rights and Jobs

This week we marked the 66th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was signed by the United States at its inception but has never been ratified. Perhaps because we live in a country that does not protect our human rights, many people in the United States lack an understanding that they exist. In the work for justice, important tasks are to learn about our rights, recognize that they are being violated and to stand up with the demand that these rights are honored. Throughout history it has been organized people-power that has won rights. We cannot expect to gain them any other way. We’ll highlight many areas where people are fighting for rights.

Budget 2014 Triggers Harper’s Plan To Dismantle National Health Care

November 3, 2014 Michael McBane, www.healthcoalition.com Educate! Canada, Healthcare

Federal transfer payments to provinces were first used in order to establish national standards in health care delivery across Canada. On Tuesday, February 11th, Prime Minister Harper turned this on its head by tabling a budget that will use federal transfers in order to eliminate national standards in health care. Buried on page 279 of the 2014 federal budget is a measure that will make it next to impossible for provinces to provide health care services on equal terms and conditions. The purpose of this budget item is to strike a blow to the heart and soul of universal health care in Canada. The Harper government is eliminating the equalization portion of the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and replacing it with an equal per capita transfer.

Nurses Union To Stage Strikes Over Ebola Protections

November 2, 2014 Sharon Bernstein, www.Reuters.com Organize! Ebola, Healthcare, Nurses

A nurses union said Thursday it was organizing strikes and other protests against what it views as insufficient protection for nurses caring for patients stricken with the deadly Ebola virus. The nurses have demanded better protection when treating Ebola patients for weeks, ever since two nurses in Texas became infected with the virus while treating Thomas Duncan, a Liberian who fell ill and died while visiting Dallas. "Nurses, who have been willing to stand by the patients whether it's the flu, whether it's Ebola, whether it's cancer, now they're being asked to put themselves in harm's way unprotected, unguarded," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, based in Oakland. National Nurses United and its affiliate, the California Nurses Association (CNA), said nurses would walk off the job on Nov. 12, at 66 Kaiser Permanente facilities in California, and at Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C. In addition to the walkouts, nurses at other facilities nationwide would engage in protests on Nov. 12, including picketing and staging bake sales to raise money for hazmat suits for nurses, DeMoro said.

Ebola In The US: Story Of A Broken Healthcare System

October 17, 2014 Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Ebola, health, Healthcare

The current cases of Ebola in the United States highlight the risk of a serious epidemic that many of us have worried about for a long time. Of all of the industrialized nations, the US is at high risk of an epidemic that could cost hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars due to our fragmented and backwards healthcare system. I quit practicing pediatrics in 2007 because our healthcare system is not designed to improve or protect the health of our population, it is designed to create profit for a few. I decided to try to change that. The three articles below highlight the tragic story of Thomas Eric Duncan who presented to a hospital with obvious risk of Ebola and was mistreated, likely due to being uninsured (he was visiting his son in the US for the first time), the financial picture of the 'non-profit' hospital where he sought treatment and the reality of hospitals run by MBAs rather than health professionals.

Ebola: US Sends Troops, Cuba Sends Doctors

September 17, 2014 Dave Lindorff, www.thiscantbehappening.ne Educate! Cuba, Ebola, Healthcare, Militarization, Wars and Militarism

How’s this for a juxtaposition on how nations respond to a global health catastrophe. Check out these two headlines from yesterday’s news: Cuba to Send Doctors to Ebola Areas [1] US to Deploy 3000 Troops as Ebola Crisis Worsens [2] Reading these stories, which ran in, respectively, the BBC and Reuters, one learns that the Cuban government, which runs a small financially hobbled island nation of 11 million people, with a national budget of $50 billion, Gross Domestic Product of 121 billion and per capita GDP of just over $10,000, is dispatching 165 medical personnel to Africa to regions where there are ebola outbreaks, while the US, the world’s wealthiest nation, with a population of close to 320 million, a national budget of $3.77 trillion, GDP of $17 trillion, and per capita GDP of over $53,000, is sending troops -- $3000 of them-- to “fight” the ebola epidemic.

Privatization Of British Health System Fuels Scottish Independence

September 14, 2014 Staff, www.rt.com Organize! Britain, Healthcare, Scotland, Single-Payer, United Kingdom (UK)

Politicians clashed over the NHS at a Scottish independence debate. “Yes” supporters say independence could save the health service from privatization, while “No” advocates say Scotland can’t afford it alone. Independence is needed to protect against a “nasty, competitive, profit-driven motive” towards the NHS, Scottish Green Party MSP Patrick Harvie said Thursday. Respect MP George Galloway, who is calling for a “No” vote, however, says there would not be an NHS without “a country big enough” to share resources. The debate was held at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro arena before an audience of around 7,500 young people, drawn from secondary schools across Scotland. The 18th September referendum will be the first time 16 and 17 year olds have been entitled to vote. Support for independence is highest among the younger population. Both sides in the referendum race hold strong emotional attachments to the NHS.

Thousands Protest Privatization Of British Health Service

September 7, 2014 Lin Jenkins, www.theguardian.com Resist! Healthcare, Privatization, Single payer health care, universal healthcare

Thousands of people on Saturday joined a protest against the privatisation of health services to mark the end of a 300-mile march organised by a group of mothers from County Durham. About 30 people took three weeks to walk from South Tyneside toLondon in the footsteps of the Jarrow Crusade of 1936 which highlighted unemployment and poverty during the Great Depression. Organisers said 5,000 people took part in the last leg from Red Lion Square in Holborn to Trafalgar Square, where they were addressed by shadow health secretary Andy Burnham.

Governor Jerry Brown Wants To Steal My Home

September 1, 2014 Chris Darling, www.beyondchron.org Educate! California, Governor Jerry Brown, Healthcare, Petition

Due to the expansion of Medi-Cal under ObamaCare, my wife and I am now covered by that program. But because both of us are over 55, Jerry can steal our house after we die to cover Medi-Cal’s expense of paying for our healthcare. A 1993 law gives states the option to take back all the money spent by Medi-Cal for the healthcare of recipients over 55 by billing the estate after the recipient (and spouse) die. Because California is taking advantage of this option, Medi-Cal for older people is effectively a long term loan. SB 1124, a bill to fix the problem, has made its way through most of the legislature. If it passes, which is expected, Jerry has threatened to veto it to protect the state from the financial ruin of losing the $15 million it expects to collect by stealing the homes of other older Medi-Cal recipients who die over the next year. That $15 million is 1/100 of 1% of the state’s budget! At the end of this diary, I will ask you to contact Jerry Brown’s office and tell him to sign, not veto SB 1124. But first, a few important details. My wife and I signed up for Medi-Cal late last year with coverage to start on January 1 of this year. It was not until several months later that I read online that in California Medi-Cal is a long term loan program. Even if we remain healthy, the state will deduct the monthly fee for the managed care program that administers Medi-Cal. I even found a PDF of a brochure produced by the California Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS) that explained the details of how “estate recovery” works. I prefer legal theft to the Orwellian “estate recovery.”

Happy 49th Birthday Medicare; Medicare For All On Its 50th!

August 1, 2014 Staff, www.kyhealthcare.org Organize! Healthcare, Human Rights, Single payer health care

Thousands attending a riverside concert on July 30, 2014, saw the message curving across the city skyline. Louisville joined dozens of cities in celebration of our nation's best health program. We must protect Medicare for it has lifted generations of seniors from poverty, made the hospitals of the South integrate because Medicare could not be collected by those who segregated, brought dialysis to all with kidney failure, and shown that this public program works efficiently and saves money. Yet we must improve Medicare for even with it some cannot afford care--it does not cover dental, nor hearing aids, nor nursing homes, co-pays and deductibles are growing, and some drugs are very expensive. And we must expand Medicare so that every person, regardless of age, has health care. By passing HR 676, national single payer health care, we will secure Medicare, save billions, and make health care a human right.

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