Health Care For America Now

NEWS

Transition hosts health care meetings - Politico

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is starting to collect political intelligence it could use to sway lawmakers and special interest groups in the upcoming health care reform debate.

Health execs, advocates brainstorm reform ideas for Obama - Business First Columbus

A group with seemingly competing interests – hospital executives, government health officials, private physicians, an insurance salesman, a consumer advocate – found plenty of common ground Tuesday when discussing health-care reform ideas to send to President-elect Barack Obama.

High medical costs, low pricing hurts managed care - Associated Press

Managed care stocks were hammered in 2008, as higher-than-expected medical costs burned up health insurers' profits and skittish investors wrung their hands over the companies' potential exposure to failed investment banks.

Sellers of Discount Healthcare Cards Face More Regulation - Fort Worth Star-Telegram

With the nation's highest rate of uninsured residents, Texas has been a top market for sellers of discount healthcare cards, which claim to offer lower prices for doctors and other services in exchange for an annual fee.

Health Plan Influx Awaited: Unemployment is Expected to Spur Use of the State's High-Risk Insurance Program - The News & Observer

With unemployment rising, more people with high-risk health problems are expected to turn to state-subsidized insurance that takes effect Thursday.

OPINION

WSJ Continues To Fear Monger Against Health Care Reform - Think Progress

The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal took another shot at President elect Barack Obama’s health care proposal yesterday, warning readers that Obama’s appointed health care leaders — incoming Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Daschle and Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council Melody Barnes — “will ration your health care."

The Economic Crisis Is the Health Care Crisis, Cont'd - The New Republic

A few weeks ago, when President-Elect Obama introduced his health care advising team, he addressed critics who say dealing with the economic crisis necessarily means postponing health care reform. The economic crisis and the health care crisis are not separate, he explained. They are closely related. Among other things, when people lose jobs, they frequently lose their health insurance.

What Will Obama Do About Health Care? - Crooks and Liars

This is a subject close to my heart, since I've spent at least half of the past decade as a member of the uninsured class. Right now, I'm unemployed again and paying COBRA out of reader donations - donations which run out next month, with no job in sight. Oh well!

CANNON: Avoiding health-care chaos - Washington Times

To hear the media tell it, comprehensive health care reform is a done deal. Democrats control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Business, labor and the insurance industry are on board. The lion has lain down with the lamb.

Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up - Daily Kos

Sally Pipes: Horrors! Obama will ration your health care! As if the insurance companies don't do that now.