Join Us in Houston! You are invited to join Healthcare-NOW! activists from around the country to plan our strategy to win guaranteed single-payer national health insurance. By learning and sharing with one another we can build on the tremendous successes of the last year and develop the plan to push Congress to implement single-payer national health insurance now. ... National

The Pittsburgh-based insurer, in a dispute with the area's largest hospital system, wants to occupy what it calls the "provider space." Emily Berry, American Medical News, December 26, 2011 Faced with a future where its home region's largest health system could be outside of its network, Pittsburgh-based Highmark plans to buy and affiliate with more hospitals and physician practices. Highmark's June announcement that it would purchase West Penn Allegheny Health System established its first large-scale foray in the clinical side of the health care business. It also contributed to the deterioration of contract negotiations with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center ... Highmark

Wendell Potter, The Center for Public Integrity, December 26, 2011 Let’s say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford? That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright about GOP Representative Paul Ryan’s plan to “save” Medicare, Republicans or Democrats. If you overhaul the Medicare system like you did your Ford and tell the public it’s still Medicare, are you doing so honestly? ... When

Shamus Cooke, Common Dreams, December 25, 2011 Politicians are attacking Medicare and Medicaid on all sides - Democrats and Republicans alike. Obama's national health care bill will slash hundreds of billions from Medicare over the next decade, an act supported by so-called "progressive" Democrats. Soon after this "victory" Obama created the Super Committee to balance the budget, which included automatic  "triggers" - if no decision was reached - that are now slated to cut $600 billion more from Medicare. 

On a state-by-state basis, Medicaid - a program that provides health care to the poor - is being cut in virtually every state ... Uniting

Julie Steenhuysen & Jilian Mincer, Reuters, December 24, 2011 Chicago/New York - On a recent shift at a Chicago emergency department, Dr. William Sullivan treated a newly homeless patient who was threatening to kill himself. "He had been homeless for about two weeks. He hadn't showered or eaten a lot. He asked if we had a meal tray," said Sullivan, a physician at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago and a past president of the Illinois College of Emergency Physicians. Sullivan said the man kept repeating that he wanted to kill himself. "It seemed almost as if he was interested in being admitted." ... Mentally

Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post, December 22, 2011 When the history of the 2012 campaign is written, a special place may be reserved for Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services secretary and former governor of Kansas, who is doing her best to make the Affordable Care Act - aka Obamacare - disappear as a political liability for the president. The most compelling evidence of this is her decision to delegate to states the final decision on defining “essential health benefits” for minimum health insurance coverage. Some background: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires all Americans to have health insurance. ... Kathleen

Wayne J. Guglielmo, Medscape Medical News, December 22, 2011

In what some see as a capitulation in the face of mounting pressure in and outside the party, House Republican leaders reached an agreement this evening that, among other things, would postpone the 27.4% cut in Medicare physician reimbursement schedule to take effect on January 1.

Along with delaying the cut until March 1, the deal, if pushed to a successful full vote of the House, would also extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits for the same period. Each of these provisions is outlined in a Senate bill that House members rejected on Tuesday by a vote of 229 to 193.

Eileen Boris & Jennifer Klein, Dissent, December 22, 2011 “He did it. He kept it,” exclaimed Pauline Beck of Oakland, California, upon hearing that President Obama had moved to cover home care workers like her under the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). During the presidential primary campaign, Obama spent a day walking in her shoes: preparing breakfast, mopping up, and getting Mr. John, an elderly amputee, ready for the day. “He promised he was going to do everything he can to help me out. He asked me about my concerns and feelings,” Beck recalled. ... Promises

Harvard Pilgrim plan seeks to reduce costs. Robert Weisman, Boston Globe, December 20, 2011 Richard C. Lord, the president of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, said, “We’ve been talking about getting consumers more engaged in making their own health care decisions.” Told they need a routine medical test, such as a colonoscopy or a mammogram, most patients go wherever the doctor recommends. But under a program being rolled out next month by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, they could be paid to seek care somewhere else. The health insurer plans to introduce a rewards program ... Insurer

The justices schedule 5 1/2 hours of argument, the most for a case since the 1960s, a sign they see it as a landmark test of federal regulatory power. David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times, December 19, 2011 Washington - The Supreme Court announced Monday that it would hear arguments over three days in late March to decide the constitutionality of President Obama's healthcare law, another sign the justices see the case as a once-in-a-generation test of the federal government's regulatory power.

 The 5 1/2 hours of argument are believed to be the most time devoted to a single case since the 1960s. ... Supreme

Christian Torres, Washington Post, December 19, 2011 Thirty-two groups were named Monday to test a new health-care model, called for in the health-care law and designed to improve care for seniors while reducing costs. The groups, which range from Boston-based Partners HealthCare, the largest health-care provider in Massachusetts, to the doctor-led HealthCare Partners of southern Nevada, were selected as the first Medicare accountable care organizations by the Department of Health and Human Services. The organizations are designed to save $1 billion over five years ... More

Jordan Rau, Washington Post, December 19, 2011 James Breedin cannot keep track of how often he has been admitted to Howard University Hospital for heart problems. “It’s been so many,” said Breedin, a 75-year-old disabled former truck driver from Northeast Washington. One reason for his frequent returns, he says, is that he often can’t afford the medications his doctor prescribes, “so I have to do without.” Another is that he fears exercising outside because of neighborhood violence. Medicare is preparing to penalize hospitals with frequent potentially avoidable readmissions ... Medicare

Jessica Zigmond & Rich Daly, Modern Healthcare, December 19, 2011 HHS on Monday announced the 32 organizations the agency selected from among 80 applicants to participate in the Pioneer accountable care organization model. Overseen by the CMS Innovation Center, the Pioneer ACO model will test the effects of several payment arrangements to support these groups in providing better care and outcomes at a lower cost, according to HHS, which estimated the project could save up to $1.1 billion over five years. ... HHS

Before Joint Committee on Health Care Financing.
Sandy Eaton, RN, National Nurses United, December 15, 2011

My name is Sandy Eaton. I’m a registered nurse currently employed by Quincy Medical Center. I’m a member of the Massachusetts Nurses Association and I chair the Legislative Council of the National Nurses United, a national union of 175,000 nurses laboring in the vineyards of health care from Maine to California. The MNA is its local incarnation. I offer testimony here today on behalf of the NNU.

Warnings are often ignored, missed by overtaxed caregivers. Liz Kowalczyk, Boston Globe, December 11, 2011 More than a hundred patients who depend on ventilators to breathe have died since 2005 in incidents involving the machines’ warning alarms, such as caregivers failing to respond to beeps warning of a problem or setting alarms improperly so they sounded too softly or not at all. An analysis of federal safety reports by the Globe shows that at least 119 people died nationwide between 2005 and May 2011 because of such alarm-related problems. ... Ventilator