Posts All of our commentary in one spot. You can also browse by topics or search. 436 posts in this category Posts pagination Newer 1 … 13 14 15 16 17 … 44 Older Moral Crisis for US Physicians June 22, 2023 The corporate takeover of medicine has forced doctors to deviate from their healing mission to attend to financial optimization for their employers. This is indeed a moral crisis. Harkening back to the huge benefit that Medicare offered seniors 57 years ago reminds us of the universal medical access and health focus we would achieve with Medicare for All. Learning from Other Countries June 15, 2023 An excellent op-ed in the New York Times properly highlights lessons from other wealthy nations. Diving deeper into those examples reveals that single payer is the only plausible path to achieving efficient and equitable health care financing in the US. CMS Primary Care Fiddling Instead of Real Reform June 10, 2023 CMS is proposing a 10-year comparison of primary care payment models (fee-for-service and capitation, with support for care delivery systems). At first glance, why not? On closer scrutiny, this is another delay for an experiment in our current flawed system that will yield limited and equivocal results. Let’s focus on real reform. Efficiency Gone Astray in Health Care June 3, 2023 Our medical system defines efficiency as maximizing revenue-generating care. This compromises clinical interactions and indeed access to care, as highlighted in today’s excerpts. Single payer defines efficiency as eliminating wasteful non-clinical tasks and paying fair prices … to achieve universal access to high quality care. De-Sickening America May 30, 2023 The author of Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It trenchantly describes the fiscal and health damage done to the US from the medical-industrial complex. He calls for transcending ideologies and parties to fix the problems. We say, yes, let’s join in a middle way to provide all with health care and fund it collectively. 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? Posts pagination Newer 1 … 13 14 15 16 17 … 44 Older
