Health Care For America Now

NEWS

Health Insurance Premiums More Than Doubled Since 1999, Report Finds - PND News

Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose a modest 5 percent this year, to $12,680 annually for family coverage, but they have more than doubled since 1999, when total family premiums stood at $5,791, a new report from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust finds.

Federal Health Official to Step Down - New York Times

Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, who shook up the agency when he barred scientists from consulting for drugmakers, announced that he would leave at the end of October.

OPINION

Access to Quality and Affordable Health Care for Every American - John McCain

Americans deserve leadership for real health care reform that provides access to high-quality medical care and ends spiraling costs. But the road to reform does not lead through Washington and a hugely expensive, bureaucratic, government-controlled system. We have all tangled with the existing bureaucracy enough to know that such an approach would diminish, not improve, quality. Our challenge is to protect and improve the care that doctors, nurses, and hospitals deliver, while increasing the availability and affordability of health insurance for Americans. I believe we can do this in a simple but powerful way: restoring doctors and patients to the center of health care decisions.

A Bail Out For The Health Care Industry - Colorado Health Insurance Insider

So Wall Street is going to get a government bail out. So much for the free market. To put $700 billion into perspective, that would equal about $144,000 for every person in the state of Colorado. It’s a massive move aimed at saving the American financial system (and that of the world, since American markets are so entrenched in global economics). Nobody likes to see it happen, but it does appear to be the lesser of two very bad choices when you consider the collapse of the financial industry as the alternative.

Hitting The Iceberg Of Higher Health Care Costs - Think Progress

The latest Kaiser Family Foundation survey of employer health benefits concludes that “workers are shouldering higher health care costs as more employers demand bigger out-of-pocket payments from employees before their insurance kicks in.”

Health Care…I Mean…The Financial Markets Are Too Big To Fail - DMIBlog

Just outside DMI’s conveniently located office in the heart of the Financial District and just a short time before agreement on an enormous Wall Street buyout was announced, union workers – with hardhats in hand, protective glasses pushed high on their heads, and boots laced up – rallied against the $700 billion plan to buy up troubled financial assets. Their slogan: “Why isn’t health care (or education or infrastructure) too big to fail?”