Health Care for All
Health Care for All
Quality, affordable health care should be a right for everyone in America, not a privilege for the few. But the number of people in this country without health insurance is growing. And the likelihood of losing—or not being able to afford—good health care is striking fear in the hearts of many family breadwinners.
The number of uninsured Americans has shot up to 47 million, including 9 million kids, as skyrocketing health care costs are pricing care out of reach. Many families are one layoff or medical emergency from bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the CEOs of private insurance and drug companies are raking in huge profits.
The time is now to fix the system and guarantee that everyone has the choice of quality, affordable health insurance.
Blogs and Opinion
THE LATEST
BLOGS AND OPINION
What Is Social Insurance? by James Kwak, baselinescenario.com | January 24, 2013
12 Ways Obama Smacked Down the Tea Party and the Right in Inauguration Speech by Adele M. Stan, alternet.org | January 22, 2013
Remember the Children by Robert B. Reich, robertreich.org | December 18, 2012
Unreason On Health Care by E.J. Dionne, truthdig.com | December 17, 2012
Washington’s Revolving Door Is Hazardous to Our Health by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, commondreams.org | December 14, 2012
Three Progressive Ways To Reduce Medicare Costs By Billions Without Cutting Anyone’s Benefits by Zaid Jilani, boldprogressives.org | December 14, 2012
The “Yes, Minister” Theory of the Medicare Age by Paul Krugman, krugman.blogs.nytimes.com | December 13, 2012
Obamacare Begins by Bill Boyarsky, truthdig.com | December 13, 2012
The Obama Administration Plays Hardball On Medicaid by Paul Waldman, prospect.org | December 11, 2012
The GOP May Have Some Real Leverage Here by Steve Kornacki, salon.com | December 11, 2012
Tepid Reforms Mean Progressives Must Mobilize
April 1st, 2010
Health-care reform is historic, surely the most significant social legislation passed since Medicare. But it is a flawed and conservative bill, akin to the reforms Mitt Romney championed as the Republican governor of Massachusetts. It gives the insurance companies millions of new customers with no public option or Medicare buy-in to help put a lid on costs. It sustains the outrageous law that prohibits Medicare from negotiating bulk discounts for prescription drugs. It sustains the exemption of insurance companies from antitrust laws. This reality — a historic reform that isn't strong enough to get the job done — is characteristic of the Obama administration, a progressive-centrist government in a moment that demands fundamental reform.
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Taking the Long View on Health Care Reform
March 24th, 2010
How historic is the health-care reform bill that President Obama signed into law? The bill only begins the long task of taking back control of the health-care system from rapacious insurance and drug companies. We must work to include a real public option and to eliminate the insurance industry's antitrust exemption. Leaders, activist groups and citizens must continue the fight to improve the health-care legislation's protections and fix its flaws.
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Yes, They Made History
March 22nd, 2010
Yes, we did. Finally, President Obama can use those words. The passage of health care reform provided the first piece of incontestable evidence that Washington has changed. Congress is, indeed, capable of carrying through fundamental social reform. No longer will the United States be the outlier among wealthy nations in leaving so many of its citizens without basic health coverage. In approving the most sweeping piece of social legislation since the mid-1960s, Democrats proved that they can govern, even under challenging circumstances and in the face of significant internal divisions.
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Defining Moment
March 22nd, 2010
At long last, we saw this president leading, as only a president can. And we saw him leading as a progressive Democrat, finally admitting that no common ground with today's Republicans is possible, narrating stories we all can recognize about the human tragedy that is our current health care system. We watched Obama master the mechanics of legislative politics, cobbling together a majority one vote at a time. And we observed the Republican right reduced to sputtering frustration. What a splendid shift from the Obama who less than a month ago went imploringly to reason with the House Republican Caucus.
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