Health Care For America Now

NEWS

Americans Skip Care - New York Times

More than half of Americans with chronic health problems like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and depression skip pills and doctors’ appointments because of their costs, according to a new survey by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund.

Kennedy creates healthcare working groups - Boston Globe

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who made clear that universal healthcare is his top priority when he returned to work Monday in the Senate, announced today that three working groups of the committee he heads will explore key issues.

Health Care Group Holds Obama To Promises With Ad - Huffington Post

The push to pass the Obama agenda has begun, months before the president-elect even takes office.

Emanuel Sets a Challenge - Wall Street Journal

President-elect Barack Obama's incoming White House chief of staff challenged chief executives and other business leaders Tuesday night to join the new administration in a push for universal health care, saying incremental increases in coverage won't be acceptable.

Employer Sponsored Health Insurance – A Comparison of the Availability and Cost of Coverage for Workers in Small Firms and Large Firms - Kaiser Family Foundation

The majority of businesses in the United States are small businesses. Of the over three million firms with three or more workers, roughly 98% have between three and 199 employees. Small firms employ about 40% of all workers and about 34% of workers who receive health insurance through their own job.

Obama Is Said to Have Chosen a Budget Director - New York Times

President-elect Barack Obama is set to hire Congress’s budget director, Peter R. Orszag, to be his own as he seeks to quickly build an economic team with the experience to deal with the recession he will inherit.

OPINION

The Wrong Place to Be Chronically Ill - New York Times

Chronically ill Americans suffer far worse care than their counterparts in seven other industrial nations, according to a new study by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based foundation that has pioneered in international comparisons. It is the latest telling evidence that the dysfunctional American health care system badly needs reform.

The Auto Makers And The Health Care Crisis - Think Progress

The Big Three automakers are scheduled to appear before the Senate Banking Committee today to ask Congress to bail-out the struggling industry. America’s car companies are in trouble and the health care crisis is at least partly to blame.

Employers still want to be involved in health care - Health Populi

While the front pages of U.S. and business newspapers are featuring the story of the health-cost hampered Big (and increasingly smaller) 3 automakers looking for a mega-loan, most employers still want to play a key role in the U.S. health system.

Why do we tolerate our immoral and ineffective health care system? - Bleeding Heartland

Via nyceve at Daily Kos I learned about a new study called "Class and Race Inequalities in Health and Health Care." The three authors found that very few Americans lacking health insurance receive organ transplants, although the uninsured often become organ donors.

THE REMINDER. - Ezra Klein

Health Care For America Now will be running this ad in the DC market for the next week or two.

Is big pharma preparing to shoot itself in the foot? - Health Business Blog

Big pharma has big problems. The root cause is a lack of R&D productivity, which means a dearth of new products to make up for looming patent expirations. Something like half of big pharma’s revenues will be threatened by generic competition within the next three to four years, and that will radically change the face of the industry.