Medicare for all

Democrats Have Taken Medicare For All Off The Table

October 12, 2021 Russell Mokhiber, Common Dreams. Educate! Democrats, Health Care, Medicare for all, NIMA

Democrats in Congress and their supporters inside the beltway have taken single payer off the table. Instead of pursuing Medicare for All they are pursuing incremental improvements in Medicare—also known as Medicare for Some. They are also pursuing single payer at the state level. Long time national single payer advocates, like Dr. Anne Scheetz of the Illinois Single Payer Coalition, feel betrayed by both efforts. Has any single payer group come out against Medicare for Some? "There is a new group called National Single Payer," Dr. Scheetz told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last month. "It's just getting started. But we understand that incremental improvements in Medicare are not going to move us closer to single payer and we also understand that working for state based single payer is not going to get us closer to national single payer."

Movements In The US Call To Expand Healthcare Access

September 25, 2021 Zoe Alexandra, People's Dispatch. Resist! Health Care, Human Rights, Medicare for all, Poverty

Organizations across the United States organized protests, cultural activities, community kitchens, teach-ins, and other actions about the issue of healthcare access in the US from September 13-20 as part of the Nonviolent Medicaid Army Week of Action. The diverse actions had the goal of uniting people directly impacted by healthcare denial and linking the different issues related to healthcare such as housing, police violence, access to clean water, and economic inequality. Actions were organized in the states of Alabama, California, Florida, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Vermont. The week of action organized by the Nonviolent Medicaid Army (NVMA) was cosponsored by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, the National Union Of The Homeless, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation – PSL.

Report: Among Richest Countries, US Last in Healthcare

September 11, 2021 Joseph Guzman, The Hill. Educate! Health Care, Medicare for all, United States

The U.S. health care system ranked last among 11 wealthy countries despite spending the highest percentage of its gross domestic product on health care, according to an analysis by the Commonwealth Fund. Researchers behind the report surveyed tens of thousands of patients and doctors in each country and used data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Health Organization (WHO). The report considered 71 performance measures that fell under five categories: access to care, the care process, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes. Countries analyzed in the report include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

Democrats Propose Medicare For A Few More Instead Of Medicare For All

August 8, 2021 Ana Malinow, Truthout. Create! Democrats, Health Care, Joe Biden, Medicare for all

Health care activists were uniformly disappointed, albeit not surprised, when President Joe Biden, in initially proposing the American Families Plan, failed to include in the legislation his major campaign promise to prioritize expanding Medicare. The response from Democrats was as swift as it was tepid. Instead of fighting for real health care reform, the House and Senate wrote letters respectfully requesting the administration to tweak the plan around the edges: lower the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60; decrease prescription drug costs; place an out-of-pocket cap on health care costs; and expand coverage to include dental, vision and hearing. The letter failed to acknowledge the administration’s own desire to make increases to the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchange subsidies permanent, not to mention expanding Medicare to cover everyone, and include all medically necessary services, prescription drug coverage and long-term care.

Medicare For All Movement To File Human Rights Violation Complaint

August 8, 2021 March For Medicare For All, Popular Resistance. Resist! Health Care, Human Rights, Medicare for all, United Nations

The March for Medicare for All Movement released a statement today that the group is filing a human rights violation complaint with the United Nations and will hold a public UN panel discussion later this month. On July 24, thousands of people across the United States in 56 marches and vigils demanded the United States Federal Government to take immediate action on three (3) demands by August 6, 2021. The demands 1) Pass Improved & Expanded Medicare for All Immediately; 2) Recognize Healthcare as a Human Right for all people Regardless of sex, age, creed, race, religion, gender identity, citizenship, disability, geographic location, income, and employment status; and 3) Prioritize Healthcare First in the Federal budget. The failure of the United States to fully protect the health of its population during a pandemic is a violation of basic human rights and dignity.

Time For Medicare For All

August 6, 2021 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Educate! Corporatism, Health Care, Human Rights, Medicare for all

The United States spends far more of its GDP on healthcare than other rich countries yet still has the highest infant and maternal mortality rates, the lowest life expectancy at age 60, and the most glaring inequities, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Commonwealth Fund. Using a range of criteria to evaluate the healthcare systems of 11 countries—Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and U.S.—the Commonwealth Fund's latest analysis (pdf) shows that the U.S. once again "ranks last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes." The lone bright spot for the for-profit U.S. healthcare system, according to the new report, is in a category dubbed "care process," which includes "measures of preventive care, safe care, coordinated care, and engagement and patient preferences."

Happy Birthday, Medicare

July 30, 2021 F. Douglas Stephenson, PNHP.org. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, Medicare, Medicare for all

2021 is also a very special year in the history of single-payer health insurance and public health in the U.S. because Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) introduced the modern Medicare for All Act of 2021 (H.R. 1976) in Congress. M4A 2021 is new legislation establishing a cutting edge single-payer national health program in the United States that addresses decades of health/mental health-related injustices that have been made even more painfully apparent by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Medicare For All Rallies In 50 Cities

July 24, 2021 C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout. Resist! AIDS, Health Care, Medicare for all, Single-Payer

Why is the U.S. an outlier with regard to health care? What keeps the country from adopting a universal health care system, which most Americans have supported for many years now? And what exactly is Medicare for All? On the eve of scheduled marches and rallies in support of Medicare for All, led by various organizations such as the Sunrise Movement, Physicians for a National Health Program, the Democratic Socialists of America and concerned citizens throughout the country, the interview below with Peter S. Arno, a leading health expert, sheds light on some key questions about the state of health care in the United States.

July 24: National Marches For Medicare For All

July 18, 2021 Popular Resistance. Resist! Congress, Health Care, Medicare for all, National Improved Medicare for All

We are a coalition of groups that are coming together to march for Medicare for All. Who is in that coalition depends on which city you are talking about. There is no one single group behind this. The list seems to grow every day. Some people are even politically homeless and simply focused on doing what they can to move #M4A forward. We are nonpartisan, but some local parties have joined in the fight! We are proud to say that this type of coming together hasn't happened in recent memory, if ever. Our movement was founded from a place of compassion and love. We came together out of frustration with the lack of action from the powers that be. Many of us have our own personal stories as to why we are in this fight. All of us know that healthcare is a right, not a privilege.

Defense Of For-Profit Health Care Hasn’t Changed In Decades

July 10, 2021 Luke Savage, Jacobin Magazine. Educate! Health Care, Medicare for all, Propaganda, Socialism

This month marks the fifty-sixth anniversary of Medicare, signed into law by president Lyndon Johnson on July 30, 1965. The effects of the program were expansive and immediate: three years after its creation, some 96 percent of those sixty-five and older had hospital insurance, up from only 54 percent in 1963. Today, despite decades of attempts to undermine it, it remains among the most popular of all government programs — vastly outperforming private alternatives in a huge survey recently published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. A June poll also identified high, and in some cases stratospheric, levels of support for various proposed enhancements currently being debated in Congress, including one which would lower the age of eligibility to sixty.

How One Union Uses Kitchen Table Economics To Advance Medicare For All

July 8, 2021 Kari Thompson, Labor Notes. Organize! Education, Health Care, Labor Unions, Medicare for all

Using kitchen table economics is critical for winning workers over to Medicare for All. Before this training, members may be wary of trading something they’re familiar with for something that’s unknown. But in the workshop, they see for themselves that what they have now is robbing them blind—and that Medicare for All would bring them real economic gains. What threads its way through much of our conversation is that the insurance companies are a big part of why we pay so much for health care. For example, a Center for American Progress study shows that more than 8 percent of U.S. health care spending goes to administrative costs. However, the study put out by the Congressional Budget Office last year indicated that administrative costs under a single-payer system would be 1.8 percent or even less.

Liberals And Congress Retreat Rather Than Fight For Medicare For All

July 3, 2021 Ed Grystar, Counterpunch. Strategize! Congress, Health Care, Medicare for all, Single payer health care

At a Bernie Sanders healthcare town hall last year, Rep. Pramila Jayapal glibly stated that the problem to enacting Medicare for All was not more education of the public, but a question of “political will” necessary to actually push it forward. Yet, despite a pandemic, which has laid bare the inequalities and deficiencies of our healthcare system coupled with Democrat majorities in three branches of government, Medicare for All seems off the table. Where is the political will?

Louisville And 20 Other Cities Plan March For Medicare For All, July 24

June 20, 2021 Kay Tillow, KY Healthcare. Organize! Health Care, Medicare for all, Single-Payer

We will begin at 11 AM in the park in front of the Federal Building where we have permission from the city to use the site. We will have speakers (brief) and music then march and/or caravan to Breewayy, the square at 6th between Liberty and Jefferson. There we will place flowers in honor of Breonna Taylor, to connect with her profession as a healer, and to link the struggle for health care with the fight to end systemic racism. We will return to where we began and share refreshments and socialize. We will also be celebrating Medicare’s 56th birthday. We hope you will join with us in demanding that Congress take action by passing a national single payer, improved Medicare for All plan. Such a plan would end the tragic denial of care that causes so much suffering and unnecessary loss of life.

46 Million People In The US Are Not Able To Afford Needed Health Care

April 2, 2021 Jake Johnson, Commondreams. Educate! Democrats, Health Care, Medicare for all

A new study released Wednesday morning shows that nearly 50 million Americans would be unable to afford quality healthcare should the need for treatment suddenly arise, a finding seen as further evidence of the immorality of a for-profit insurance system that grants or denies coverage based on a person's ability to pay. "People can't afford their goddamn healthcare," Tim Faust, a proponent of single-payer healthcare, tweeted in response to the new report. "Families spend less on food so they can make insurance payments. This problem is felt by all, but concentrated among poor people and black people. The American model of health reform—throwing money at private insurers—can not solve it."

How Many More People Have To Die Before We Pass Medicare For All?

March 26, 2021 Phil Ateto, Commondreams. Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance, Medicare for all

I recently joined Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Debbie Dingell (D-MI) as they introduced the Medicare for All Act of 2021 in Congress. For me and millions of Americans, this bill’s passage would not only be life-changing—it could be life-saving. In 2010, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer that affects the bone marrow and makes it harder for my body to fight infections. Before I was diagnosed, I was an average 30-something guy who went to the gym and ate right. Today, after 11 years with this disease, I’m still fighting for my life.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources