Posts All of our commentary in one spot. You can also browse by topics or search. 421 posts in this category Posts pagination Newer 1 … 12 13 14 15 16 … 43 Older Amazon Primary Care Financializes Health Data & Threatens Privacy May 27, 2023 With the acquisition of One Medical, Amazon becomes a primary care middleman. It wants to access your medical records and sell the data, sacrificing your privacy. Ady Barkan’s Alert on Medicare Advantage May 21, 2023 Mr. Barkan, a resolute and articulate advocate for single payer / Medicare for All, warns us about privatization of Medicare via Medicare Advantage. We must unite to battle the corporate takeover of our premier public insurance program. Medicare-for-All Legislation in the Senate & House May 18, 2023 Senator Bernie Sanders & Representative Pramila Jayapal re-introduced their Medicare-for-All bills on May 17th. Although prospects for passage are low this Congress, enthusiasm for organizing is high. By including everyone in health care, we save money. If only the Right and Left could unite on this eminently practical solution to our health care mess. Insane Drug Prices & Gaming = Huge Profits for Pharma & PBMs May 13, 2023 Two news items this week lay bare US drug cost problems. The underlying cause is prices several-fold higher than elsewhere. Exacerbating that is convoluted gaming – moving money around to boost and retain profits. Who wins? Pharma and Pharmacy Benefit Managers (partnered with insurers). And loses? The rest of us. Primary Care Corporate Takeover a Challenge for Single Payer May 9, 2023 The large-scale corporate appropriation of primary care reflects and enables the profiteering that now dominates US health care. The doctor-patient relationship suffers. Single payer financing may falter if corporations own the vast majority of providers. What are our reform options? Single Payer Would Radically Transform Health Policy Research May 6, 2023 The May 2023 issue of Health Affairs, the leading health policy journal, has 20 articles. In our assessment, 9 of them would be unnecessary and another 7 simplified if the US had truly universal and standard health insurance. These health policy resources could be redirected to critical non-insurance issues in access, equity and disparities, and outcomes. Call for a National Health System May 4, 2023 PNHP founders Woolhandler and Himmelstein propose that progressive health reform needs updating to respond to the widespread takeover of providers by for-profit corporations. The original vision of insurance reform should be expanded to include ownership of provider organizations. Suing for Inflated Bariatric Surgery Fees April 29, 2023 Aggressive collection tactics by a large bariatric surgery practice exemplify widespread problems with our health insurance: complex payment arrangements, confusing and misleading financial contracts, widely variable prices, medical debt, expensive litigation, and rising private equity. Oracle Health Data Profit Fantasies April 26, 2023 Oracle Health, acquired by Cerner, is pursuing a global cloud-based health records repository. Except that they can’t even succeed in five Veteran’s Administration hospitals. And their grand vision fails to address core healthcare financing challenges. When will we turn our attention from profit-seeking business models to health coverage basics? Rescuing Primary Care, Part 2 April 21, 2023 In Part 1, we discussed how primary care is being acquired and distorted by huge corporations pursuing massive profits. Today, we present a competing vision: a broad social movement to reclaim primary care as a “common good” focused on public benefit. Posts pagination Newer 1 … 12 13 14 15 16 … 43 Older
