by Charley James
Six months ago, in a long-forgotten article, I quoted a Cleveland physician complaining that health care reform will cut his income so sharply he will be forced to curb his lush standard of living.
… a physician acquaintance in Ohio who is a highly regarded specialist with a seven figure income … complains to [...]

by Robert Reich
The health-insurance industry has finally revealed itself for what it is.
Background: The industry hates the idea that’s emerged from the Senate Finance Committee of lowering penalties on younger and healthier people who don’t buy insurance. Relying on an analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers, insurers say this means new enrollees will be older and less healthy [...]

By Denis Campbell
(Political Satire Warning) In 1605 Catholic dissident Guy (Guido) Fawkes planted 36 barrels of gunpowder beneath the UK House of Parliament intent on blowing it and King James 1 up on its opening day. The plot was foiled by a Member, liked by Guido and told to stay home that day. Fawkes and [...]

by Charley James
Here’s a special note to the Republican Party, its Congressional leadership, fellow-travellers like Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh, big Pharma and the insurance industry as the Senate Finance Committee prepares to debate the public option on Tuesday: Every 12 minutes, you kill a fellow American who doesn’t have access to health [...]

by Robert Reich
How is it that a decision next week by a single Senator from Maine will almost certainly determine whether America’s future healthcare system is still in the hands of private for-profit insurance companies and Big Pharma or enables more Americans to get better health care at lower cost? Bear with me, because you [...]

by Charley James
It’s time for a truth-and-reality check on conservative crazies in Congress, on Fox and loose in the country who keep using the Canadian national health system as their example of why they object to making major reforms to America ’s medico-insurance complex.
I’ve experienced health care on both sides of the 49th parallel and [...]

by Denis Campbell
Living abroad these last 12-years, I said I did not recognise my country after its reaction to 9-11. Now that has been surpassed. The real threats to the American Empire are not 9-11, Afghanistan or Iraq. They are: polarisation, isolationism, greed and fear.
The blind anger, racism and lack of human compassion in the [...]

by Charley James
Dear Mr. President:
According to a senior White House staff member who attended Wednesday’s lunch with the Senate Democratic caucus, you told progressives to “back off” attacking Blue Dogs and ConservaDems for their opposition to meaningful health care reform including the desperately needed public option.
Say what?
No, Mr. President, I will not back off – [...]

by Robert Reich
Without a public option, the other parties that comprise America’s non-system of health care — private insurers, doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and medical suppliers — have little or no incentive to supply high-quality care at a lower cost than they do now.
Which is precisely why the public option has become such a lightening [...]

by Robert Reich
Yesterday the American Medical Association came out against a public option for health care. And yesterday the President reaffirmed his support for it. The next weeks will show what Obama is made of — whether he’s willing and able to take on the most formidable lobbying coalition he has faced so far on [...]