Obamacare

Single Payer And The Case Against Clicktivism

October 1, 2015 Staff, www.singlepayeraction.org Resist! Health Care, Obamacare

By Staff for Single Player Action - Obamacare, with its promise of healthcare reform, took the wind out of the sails of the single payer movement. In the House of Representatives, the number of co-sponsors of the single payer bill, HR 676, today is at 53 — down from a high of about 100. Under Obamacare, 30 million Americans are still uninsured and tens of millions more are underinsured. It’s a down year for single payer and activists are asking — what to do? What’s the next step? Single Payer Now’s Don Bechler says we have to hit the streets. He’s been doing it for years — building a database of about 25,000 people — mostly in California — who support HR 676.

Obamacare Enrollees Highly Dissatisfied With Health Coverage

August 10, 2015 Kate Randall, www.wsws.org Educate! ACA, Health Insurance, Medicare, Obamacare, Single payer health care

By Kate Randall for WSWS - A new study, however, shows that those enrolled through Obamacare are more dissatisfied with their coverage than any other group of insured Americans. The poll from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, research arm of the consulting firm, finds that only 30 percent of people with insurance through the ACA exchanges are satisfied with their plans, mainly due to cost. By contrast, 58 percent of Medicare enrollees are satisfied, while 42 percent of those with insurance through their employer are satisfied. The most affordable plans offered for sale on the ACA exchanges come with deductibles in excess of $5,000 annually and other out-of-pocket costs. Data from the Deloitte poll shows that enrollment in an Obamacare plan is no guarantee that health care coverage will be affordable or accessible. Researchers surveyed 3,887 people who had purchased health insurance on either the state exchanges or the federal web site, HealthCare.gov. The poll found that only 24 percent of ACA enrollees felt they could get affordable care when they needed it, and an abysmal 16 percent felt fully prepared to handle future health care costs.

Obamacare? Wall St. Suddenly Scrambles To Buy Doctors

July 29, 2015 Wolf Ritcher, www.wolfstreet.com Educate! ACA, Capitalism, Insurance, Medicine, Obamacare, Public Health

By Wolf Ritcher in Wolf Street - For PE firms, the fracking boom was nirvana. An eternal-growth industry. A big part of the money they poured into the scrappy oil & gas companies is now going up in smoke. Other industries are mired in a no-growth or shrinking environment. Chaos keeps breaking out in the international markets, most recently over Greece and China. So, healthcare, which accounts for nearly one-fifth of US GDP, “is really the growth opportunity,” Tom Banning, CEO of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, told The Texas Tribune: “The forces are aligned to force consolidation, and frankly, how those independent doctors are able to compete against well-heeled, deep-pocketed systems or networks is going to be a problem,” Banning said. “

The Fight Over Obamacare Was A Giant Political Charade

July 5, 2015 Sonali Kolhatkar, www.truthdig.com Educate! ACA, Health Insurance, Healthcare, Obamacare

By Sonali Kolhatkar for Truthdig. The constant attacks on the ACA, including this last attempt, were less ideological than political, and in the end, the Supreme Court ruling was an affirmation of the supremacy of capitalism over human needs. It is true that 6.4 million Americans currently receiving subsidies for insurance would have lost their coverage had the court not voted to preserve the ACA. The vote was 6-3, with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joining swing voter Anthony Kennedy and the four liberal stalwarts (Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer). The fact that Roberts voted for it, and wrote the majority opinion, speaks volumes about what the ruling really means. According to him, “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them.” That single sentence clearly lays out the problem with what the right has sardonically named “Obamacare.” In voting to preserve the health care reform law, the court sought to “improve health insurance markets,” not access to health care.

Health Law Hasn’t Cut Insurers’ Rate Of Overhead Spending

March 13, 2015 PNHP, www.pnhp.org Educate! Corporatism, Health Care, Obamacare

Despite claims by the Obama administration that the Affordable Care Act will reduce health insurance companies’ spending on overhead, thereby channeling a greater share of consumers’ premium dollars into actual patient care, insurers’ financial filings show the law had no impact on the percentage of insurer expenditures on such things as administration, marketing and profits. That’s the chief finding of a team of researchers, including two prominent physicians on the faculties of the City University of New York’s School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, in an article published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Health Services. The ACA sets limits on insurers’ overhead, mandating an MLR of at least 80 percent in small-group markets and 85 percent in the large group market. However, the Obama administration changed the traditional yardstick by which the MLR is measured.

Obamacare Counselor: “People Have Choices. But It’s A Complete Farce”

January 10, 2015 Rebecca Burns, www.truth-out.org Educate! Health Care, Obamacare

It’s a complete farce. On the surface, individuals have all these choices, but I can’t really predict what will be best, and the patient can’t either. That’s one of the problems with the fact that all this is privatized. The people who actually have the useful information aren’t in the room. Some patients are frustrated at me, which I understand because I’m the nearest target. Some patients don’t think it’s my fault, but they’re like, “This is what everyone’s talking about?” Some patients are just disgusted at that moment. Some people I talk to about my job have heard about navigators on the news, and if they’re Democrats who buy into the message that this is a first step towards an improved system, they say, “Oh, that’s so great.”

Single Payer Advocates Should Bring Constant Pressure On Dems

July 26, 2014 Ted Van Dyk, www.crosscut.com Organize! Democrats, health, Obamacare, Politics, Single-Payer

The Western Washington Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates for a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health program, held its annual public meeting last Saturday evening at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. The event provided a useful snapshot of things to come in healthcare politics nationally, but also here in Washington State. The meeting, held before a nearly full house that included numerous practicing doctors and nurses, also provided its share of surprises. Here are some highlights: There was consensus that a single-payer plan is at least several years away and that state- rather than national-level organizing efforts to institute one would bear the most fruit over the next two years. The Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) allows states, beginning in 2017, to seek exemptions from its provisions provided they present a credible alternative plan to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. The meeting’s speakers agreed that between now and 2017 lobbying efforts to enact single-payer alternatives should focus on governors and state legislators. (Such HHS approvals, Rep. Jim McDermott pointed out, would likely occur only during the administration of a President sympathetic to the idea).

The Struggle For Healthcare Justice

July 6, 2014 Mickey Z., www.worldnewstrust.com Educate! ACA, Health Care, Obamacare, Single payer health care

This is the first time I realized I had a real battle on my hands -- not only to fight to save my own life but also the lives of tens of millions of other Americans who are experiencing the same injustice. We have been made to feel so desperate for health care in this country, because of the actions of Big Insurance, or "the Health Insurance Industry," in collusion with the U.S. government. I mean, we have literally had to watch our children die, when methods and doctors were standing by that could have saved their lives, all because an insurance company decided that it did not want to take the financial loss to pay for our health care. Because that is what our health care needs are to Big Insurance -- a loss to their bottom line, to their profits. And Obamacare puts this industry, by law, between us and our doctors.

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.

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