What is Single Payer? Watch the OneCareNow Video

Watch the OneCareNow Video to understand single payer insurance (21 minutes).

Short on time? View the 3 minute version.

 

Health Insurance Penalizes Women, Middle-Aged Adults and Children!

April 2, 2007 – - A recent Harvard study showed the median health-care costs for various age groups: $463 for men ages 18-44; $1,266 for women that same age; $1,849 for men ages 45-64; and $2,871 for women ages 45 to 64.

The research is being published in the April issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Read the entire article here.

 

Health care is breaking our hearts and emptying our pockets

Good op/ed by California Senator Sheila Kuehl (D-23)

HEALTH CARE IS BREAKING OUR HEARTS

“Let’s be honest. What we’ve been doing about health care in this country just isn’t working.”

“Over the last decade, our health-care “system” has become trapped in a continuous downward spiral: declining patient-care quality, unaffordable yearly jumps in premiums and reduced benefits. Insurance companies report record profits while salaries for primary-care doctors are largely frozen and hospital emergency rooms operate in the red. Every year we pay more, get less, and insurance companies make off with the difference. Our past efforts at reform are like a failed relationship that we can’t seem to let go. We give up more and more in the hope that something will change.

(snip snip)

“Real universal health care is demonstrably possible. SB 840 (the California Universal Healthcare Act), a bill I am carrying in the California Legislature, covers every California resident with comprehensive, affordable health benefits, and contains the growth of health-care spending while improving quality. Most importantly, it gives patients total choice of their doctors and hospital.”

MORE AT The Sacramento News & Review

For more information on SB 840 (California Universal Health Care Act),
visit OneCareNow.org

 

How to get to health care reform: Beat the Republicans in 2008

Corporate power fuels political corruption. With Clean Elections, citizens can take back America to stop the corporate/political revolving door.

Until we can get Clean Elections in every state, we have to choose between two major parties, The Repugs who support “Big Insurance” and “Big Drugs” and The Democrats who are willing to go to the mat for health care reform. With all the corruption in the current administration, there’s no doubt we need to get a Democrat in the White House.

“The Republicans raise $10 million every month from corporate interests and lobbyists. The Democratic Party will never be able to compete in the traditional ways with a party that has abandoned the people and taken selling access and influence to a new level.

But we can do it if half a million people are giving $20 a month to change the way our political process works.”
(or one million people are giving $10/mo; two million giving just $5/mo).

Buy a Democracy Bond Today!

 

SFO to Start Universal Care!

California Political Desk
April 4, 2007

San Francisco, CA – Mayor Newsom announced Thursday that it had received a three-year $73.1 million award from the State Department of Health Services for the City’s Health Access Program (HAP). The funding, which was made available under the State’s Health Care Coverage Initiative, will be apportioned annually over three years. The funding will help implement the City’s innovative plan to provide universal healthcare access for San Francisco’s uninsured. Funding will be used to provide a comprehensive set of health services to HAP participants.

Information on the Health Access Program can be obtained from www.sfhap.org
Source here

 

Lack of health insurance can KILL YOU

The lack of health insurance is now associated with increased rates of stroke and death, researchers have concluded in a study published in the April 2007 issue of the Journal of the Society of General Internal Medicine. Article here.

 

Some Call It Health Care

Some Call It Health Care
(Commentary By Lee Russ)
Posted Monday, April 02, 2007 on Watching the Watchers

“Dedicated free marketeers continue to do their best to muddy the waters in the health care debate, dragging the debate out as more and more people find themselves unable to afford health insurance or health care. But every now and then you get some information that really clarifies exactly how bad our current system is.” Full story here

 

Students Bust “Socialized” Medicine Myth

The AMSA SeaCouver Project busts the myth that Canadian health care is inferior to our system.

In 2004 and 2005, American Medical Student Association students traveled to Seattle and Vancouver to study the healthcare systems of American and Canada. During the trip, students interviewed Americans and Canadians about their perceptions of both their own healthcare system and the healthcare system of the bordering country. This project-in-a-box contains everything you need to understand that national health insurance in America would rock.

 

Doctor Helps Uninsured Patients

From Life and Times:

Toni Guinyard went to Chinatown to meet Dr. Ma.

Dr. Ma is an internist, Chinese-born, California educated and, at times, frustrated with the very health care system he cares so much about. High health insurance rates and low Medicare reimbursements are taking a toll.

Dr. George Ma: I have patients with no insurance or lack of adequate insurance. We want to prescribe a drug. They can’t afford it. We want to do a blood test. They can’t afford it because someone denied it or somewhere along the way, there are roadblocks.

Toni Guinyard: His practice gives us a glimpse inside the world of health care for the uninsured and under-insured. It’s a world forcing physicians to become creative to make sure patients get the care they need.

Dr. George Ma: I do my own billing. My wife chases the bills because most insurance just doesn’t pay.

Visit KCET Life & Times to read the full transcript