Rationing of Health Care: Private Gain vs. The Common Good
Rationing, the hated R-word, evokes widespread resentment and debate whenever mentioned in connection with health care in the U. S. There are many who hold that we don’t ration care now, never want to,...
View ArticleHigh Deductibles and Narrow Networks: The Achilles Heel of the ACA’S Health...
Most people who have explored options or purchased health insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges learned quickly that premiums and deductibles are closely related—the lower the premiums, the...
View ArticleWhat Role Should the Government Have in U. S. Health Care?
We have a private health care system in this country, right? But that belief is way off target. Here are some of the ways that the federal government dominates the financing of U. S. health care, over...
View ArticleHillary’s Unsurprising and Disingenuous Opposition to Real Health Care Reform
Here we go again. Hillary touting her long experience in government, claimed knowledge of health care, and ability to “get things done” as she affirms her support of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and...
View ArticleSingle-Payer NHI: The Only Way the U. S Can Ever Get Affordable Health Care
Now that Bernie Sanders has brought forward his progressive agenda, including real health care reform through a single-payer universal Medicare for all program, the knives are out from the Republicans...
View ArticleGROWING SUPPORT FOR A NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM AND HEALTH CARE AS A HUMAN RIGHT
We can thank Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign for putting single-payer national health insurance (NHI) on the front burner of today’s national political discussion. This is long overdue and...
View ArticlePoor Coverage of Health Care by the Corporate Media: How Can the Electorate...
During this election season, with health care one of the serious issues, the mainstream media are missing in action. As they posture coverage of contentious issues, they deliver disinformation and...
View ArticleHillary's Public Option Proposal: Could It Work?
A recent article in the New York Times highlighted a proposal by Hillary Clinton to bring back the public option as part of the Affordable Care Act, described as a move to the left toward Bernie...
View ArticleCorporate Social Responsibility in Health Care: No Such Thing
We have some long unanswered questions in U. S. health care—Is health care in the public interest based on medical need, not ability to pay? Is it a commodity on an unfettered for-profit, largely...
View ArticleCost Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) in U. S. Health Care—Long Overdue
Cost effectiveness analysis (CEA), as applied to health care, attempts to estimate the value of expenditures on procedures or treatments that is returned to patients, such as longer life, better...
View ArticleWhy Single-Payer Must Be Part of the Democratic Platform
Single-payer national health insurance (NHI) is one of the important differences in the current discussion between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate....
View ArticleDoes the Private Health Care Marketplace Provide Efficiency and Value?
Conservatives have long held that U. S. health care should be based on the “free market,” that the role of government should be minimal, and that a deregulated marketplace can resolve issues of access,...
View ArticleThe Weak And Defeatist Democratic Platform On Health Care
At its Orlando, Florida meeting two days ago, the DNC platform committee voted down a proposed amendment to include single-payer health care in the Party Platform by a vote of 92 to 62, even though...
View ArticleCan Overuse of Health Care Be Managed By Giving Consumers More Choice And...
This has been the mantra of market advocates for many years under the theory of consumer-directed health care (CDHC), which posits that patients will be more judicious in their use of health care if...
View ArticleDoes More Technology Bring Us Better Health Care?
It is a common misperception that the U. S. has the best health care in the world, another example of “American exceptionalism.” By constant repetition over many years, this myth has become a meme, a...
View ArticleDoes The U. S. Ration Health Care?
It is a widespread myth, long a meme, among conservatives and many in the public that national health insurance would be “government run” health care with rationing of services, as opposed to the free...
View ArticleIs National Health Insurance (Medicare For All) Socialized Medicine?
When President Harry Truman brought forward a proposal for national health insurance in 1945, he emphasized that this was only a financing mechanism, and that the delivery of health care would remain...
View ArticleThe Health Insurance Industry’s Last Ditch Holdup
Two mergers of health insurance giants in the U. S.—Anthem/Cigna and Aetna/Humana—are in process, although now being challenged in the courts. If approved, they will collectively cover more than 132...
View ArticleTPP and the Dire Threat to Affordable Drug Prices
Drug prices in the U. S. are already approaching a crisis point for many patients unable to afford their prices, often despite being insured. These examples indicate how serious this problem has...
View ArticleWould Single-Payer National Health Insurance Break the Bank?
A common myth among opponents of single-payer national health insurance (NHI) is that it would cost too much and break the bank. This belief is based in part upon an assumption that patients would...
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