health insurance

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Universal Health Care: We Already Gave it to Iraq

Constitution America fought to give Iraq guarantees its citizens health care

(Newser) - Many US lawmakers opposing health care reform need to be asked why it's OK for Iraqis but not Americans, Mark Dorlester writes for the Huffington Post. Article 31 of the Iraqi Constitution—made possible by the war, and hailed as a victory by the Bush administration—guarantees every Iraqi state-funded...

Fresh-Faced Prez Scores His Jimmy Stewart Moment

Mr. Obama goes to Washington

(Newser) - A joint session of Congress might not have been the perfect setting for Barack Obama's health care reform speech last night, writes Washington Post critic Tom Shales. All that "pomp, circumstance, and folderol," including 16 minutes just to get to the lectern, may have led voters to change...

Critics Say Insurers Cutting Sick People Loose

(Newser) - Insurance companies are being hit from all sides on at least one issue—in industry jargon, it's called rescission. In the real world, it's when insurers cancel coverage because they say a customer has lied to them about a preexisting condition or some other issue. It's not clear how many...

Baucus Fleshes Out New Health Reform Compromise

To curb costs, plan would offer stripped-down coverage, add fees to health industry

(Newser) - With President Obama’s much-anticipated health care speech to Congress on the horizon, the head of the Senate Finance Committee has rolled out a new proposal for a compromise bill, the New York Times reports. Sen. Max Baucus’ plan would offer scaled-down coverage to some, and, to cover the $880...

Firefighters Play ER Docs to Uninsured

Medical calls have more than doubled since 1980

(Newser) - Operating in a poor area where many lack health insurance, a DC firehouse battles far more than just flames: Some 80% of its calls are for medical emergencies. Because it is believed to respond fastest, Washington’s fire department zooms to almost all the city’s emergency calls alongside EMS,...

Daschle: Leave Whiny GOP in the Dust if Necessary

Democrats may need to use reconciliation

(Newser) - It’s essential that Congress act on health care, and if that means working without bipartisan support, so be it, writes Tom Daschle in the Wall Street Journal. If we fail, 60 million people will be uninsured in 10 years, and typical families will have to pay $25,000 a...

Young Adults Biggest Fans of Health Care Reform

Also top supporters of public option: survey

(Newser) - Making up 30% of the uninsured population, young adults are the biggest supporters of health reform and the public option, a poll finds—but they're also among the quietest. Only 53% of working young adults qualify for employer-based insurance, and they usually can’t afford to take out their own...

Health Care Is a Public Good; It's Time Dems Explain Why

'The health of each of us depends on the health of the rest of us'

(Newser) - The Democrats are in danger of losing the health care reform battle over an argument "that a novice debater would have no trouble putting down," writes Thomas Frank for the Wall Street Journal. Reformers need to directly address the role of government in health care, Frank writes, and...

Pelosi Willing to Deal to Win Back House Dems

They plan more flexible approach, postponed public option

(Newser) - House Democrats got whipped on health care over the August recess, and party leaders now have to win back some of their own shaky members, reports Politico. The push starts at a caucus meeting in the Capitol basement next week as Nancy Pelosi and other top leaders will try to...

Current Care Kills More Than 'Army of Death Panels'

System 'takes lives and breaks apart families'

(Newser) - Despite screeches that a government-run health care program will bump people into an early grave, "it’s a good bet that our existing dysfunctional health system knocks off far more people than an army of ‘death panels’ could, even if they did exist," writes Nicholas Kristof in...

How the Dems Can Save Obamacare
 How the Dems Can 
 Save Obamacare 
OPINION
Aug 28, 2009 9:41 AM CDT

How the Dems Can Save Obamacare

Keep plans private, creating gov't care 'by proxy'

(Newser) - Amid “widespread national revulsion,” Obamacare as it stands “is dead,” but the Democrats can revive it if they’re willing to make some key concessions, writes Charles Krauthammer—a nonpracticing physician in addition to pundit—in the Washington Post. What they must do:
  1. Dump the public
...

Angry Crowd Greets McCain at Ariz. Town Hall

(Newser) - John McCain met with an angry crowd at a town hall meeting about health care reform yesterday, sometimes having to fight to talk and telling one woman who wouldn't stop shouting that she had to leave. The senator hadn't yet opened the meeting to questions when one audience member continuously...

Health Reform's New Frontline: Abortion

(Newser) - We've had the birthers, the deathers, and now here come the right-to-lifers to cast their two cents on the health reform debate, reports the Wall Street Journal. Democrats are bracing for protests from anti-abortion advocates, who are preparing a major push against what they call taxpayer subsidies for pregnancy termination....

Health Care Bills Don't Offer Real Choice
Health Care
Bills Don't Offer
Real Choice
ANALYSIS
Aug 26, 2009 1:22 PM CDT

Health Care Bills Don't Offer Real Choice

Legislation in Congress seem to settle for status quo

(Newser) - Health insurance firms are essentially monopolies because employers, not individuals, choose which plans to offer. This freedom from competitive forces has allowed insurance to become flaky and opaque—and the reform currently being debated in Washington would do little about it, writes David Leonhardt for the New York Times. Even...

Health-Care Reform Holds 'Bonanza' for Insurers

(Newser) - Regardless of how health-care reform eventually shakes out, one industry will likely reap a windfall: health insurance companies, reports the Los Angeles Times. All the leading overhaul proposals would require all citizens to have health insurance, which would guarantee tens of millions of new customers. "It's a bonanza,"...

Obama on Right-Wing Radio: 'We're Going to Get It Done'

(Newser) - President Obama brought his case for health reform to talk radio today, telling a largely conservative audience that a public option is only a small part of his goal and expressing skepticism that any deal with Republicans is possible. On the public option, "what we've said is we think...

To Cure Health Care, See This Doctor
 To Cure Health Care, 
 See This Doctor 
OPINION
Aug 20, 2009 10:25 AM CDT

To Cure Health Care, See This Doctor

Mayo Clinic boss could be reform's 'Petraeus'

(Newser) - To fix health care, we need a commander like Gen. David Petraeus: “a professional who can break through the political chaff and describe a strategy for reform that can unite the country,” writes David Ignatius in the Washington Post. He nominates Mayo Clinic CEO Dr. Denis Cortese, who’...

Let's Make Health Insurance Policies Readable

Legal mumbo-jumbo means patients can't tell what they're covered for

(Newser) - There’s one important health care issue that’s generated little chatter: the oft-inscrutable language of insurance policies, writes Rhode Island health official John Cogan in the New York Times. Policies are penned at a grad-school level, which led his state to require, as of next year, that they be...

Insurer Urges Employees to Protest Health Care Reform

UnitedHealth Group lays down AstroTurf

(Newser) - UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s second-biggest health insurance firm, has been encouraging employees to attend events protesting health-care reform, Talking Points Memo reports. In a clear-cut example of “Astroturf”—fake grassroots action—a memo to employees urges them to call an “advocacy specialist” who can provide talking...

Face It: the Public Option's a No-Go
 Face It: the Public 
 Option's a No-Go 
OPINION
Aug 19, 2009 8:31 AM CDT

Face It: the Public Option's a No-Go

'Political litmus test' wouldn't be effective anyway

(Newser) - The public health care option is simply a “political litmus test” pushed by left-wingers to represent their side of an “ideological war”—and it’s time to give it up, writes Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post. “There is nothing about having one government-owned health insurance...

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