NEWS

Baucus introduces SCHIP bill as House readies vote - The Hill

The Senate Finance Committee on Thursday will consider legislation to extend and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) announced Tuesday.

The Great Health Care Bailout - ABC News

"Bailout" conjures up an act of desperation to keep a sinking boat afloat. For our financial system, we're all wondering if "bailout" is plugging holes in the hull or just throwing good money after bad.

Stark: Health Care Reform Can Happen This Year - TPM

Just talked to a spokesman for Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), a powerful subcommittee chief in House Ways and Means, who wanted to make the congressman's stance on health care reform crystal clear. Although a report last month suggested that Stark believes a major health care bill could wait until early next year, his spokesman reiterated that the congressman is ready for a reform push before the 2010 midterm elections intrude on the political scene.

Divided We Fail Launches Next Phase Of National Campaign To Fix America's Health And Economic Crises - Medical News Today

Today leaders of the country's top consumer, business and labor groups launched the next phase of Divided We Fail, a national movement to bring health and financial security to every American.

Struggling states cut healthcare for poor before Obama can bolster coverage - Los Angeles Times

The unprecedented reductions come as millions are losing their jobs and insurance. They are so steep that the federal rescue package may not be able to revive them.

Republican Task Force To Lead GOP Health Care Reform Efforts - Kaiser Daily News

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday named a group of senior Republican senators to lead GOP health reform efforts in the 111th Congress, CQ HealthBeat reports (CQ HealthBeat, 1/12). The senators are Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee ranking member Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Budget Committee ranking member Judd Gregg (N.H.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah).

OPINION

Insurers and the Public Plan - GoozNews

New York attorney general Andrew M. Cuomo has forced UnitedHealth Group to give up control of the information databank used to determine reimbursement for patients who go out of their networks for care. The subtext of this story in today's New York Times is that it is crucial to have independent sources of information when it comes to health care, and that's as true in insurance and physician pricing as it is in who writes clinical practice guidelines or delivers continuing medical education.

Insurance Industry’s Rates Found to Be “Unreliable, Inadequate and Wrong.” (Swell.) - Change.org

When it comes to self-regulation, private insurance companies tend to be the Lucy to the Charlie Brown of the American public. It looks like they’ve been swiping the football out from under us more often than we realize. Thanks to an investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and an agreement reached with the United Health Group, we now know that the industry has been shortchanging patients by hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade, using data that is “unreliable, inadequate and wrong.”

Single-Payer Health Care Would Stimulate Economy - The Nation

There is an unhealthy tendency on the part of politicians and journalists to see discussions about economic recovery and health care reform as separate debates. In fact, one of the most important steps on the road to economic recovery – or, more precisely, toward a new, responsible and sustainable prosperity – involves the fundamental reform this country's broken health care system. But it must be the right reform: the establishment of a national single-payer style healthcare reform system by expanding the existing Medicare system to cover all Americans. According to a new "Single Payer/Medicare for All: An Economic Stimulus Plan for the Nation" study releases toady by the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, such a reform would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues into the economy. This reform would, according to the study released today, add $100 billion in wages to the currently sputtering U.S. economy. Indeed, notes the NNOC/CAN, the number of jobs created by a single-payer system, expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone, parallels almost exactly the total job loss in 2008. "These dramatic new findings document for the first time that a single payer system could not only solve our healthcare crisis, but also substantially contribute to putting America back to work and assisting the economic recovery," says NNOC/CAN c o-president Geri Jenkins, RN. Specifically, notes Jenkins, expanding Medicare to include the uninsured, and those on Medicaid or employer-sponsored health plans, and expanding coverage for those with limited Medicare, would….