Well-known health care analyst Alain Enthoven had an op-ed in the Times yesterday with his solution to the health care spending crisis. It's a bizarre combination of market and nonmarket measures.

On the one hand, he points to the virtues of large, multispecialty physician practices "in which doctors work together to improve quality and keep costs low. Their doctors share values and cultures of teamwork. They keep comprehensive electronic medical records, they share information, and they emphasize disease prevention and chronic disease management as a matter of course. These doctors are usually paid salaries, not fees for services. Research and experience suggests that these practices — which exist in all regions of the country, including both rural and urban communities — can reduce costs by 30 percent." In other words, within the practice these doctors rely not on market mechanisms (i.e. price and competition with each other) but on cooperation to cut costs and improve care.

On the other hand, he wants to shift patients toward such practices by increasing competition, i.e. by creating incentives that will force patients, their employers and their insurers into such practices.

Medicare and the VA have already shown the economies of scale, and the potential for teamwork, in large, integrated healthcare institutions. The evidence is there for making such models universal. Trying to do it through competition will just maintain the fragmentation among providers and insurers, which will force them to continue wasting money on competing with each other.

- Andrew Pollack

Wednesday, Feb. 4th, 2009
7:30 PM
25 W. 43rd Street, 18th Floor 

The Must Go!zette is the newsletter of the PHIMG Coalition.

Click below to download the entire newsletter for printing.

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Inside This Issue:

OBAMACARE - Will Centrist D.C. Offer Up Effective Reform or Just the Next "Part D?"

The Genesis of the PHIMG Coalition

New Yorkers Rally for Single Payer 

Strategic Movement For The Right To Healthcare 

Petition New York City Council for HR 676

PHIMG Book Club - 10 Excellent Reasons for National Healthcare

Why is Single Payer Reform Not Viable?

Poets For Single Payer

Progressive Pranksters Offer News From the Future

Seven Must Watch Internet Videos About Healthcare

 

 
PHIMG held its first city-wide teach-in on December 6, 2008. The teach-in was a success. It lasted for approximately 4 ½ hours (originally scheduled for 4 hours).
 
The target audience was seasoned local human rights activists and the NYC community at large. The primary objectives of the teach-in were to inform the activist community and general public of the current depth of the healthcare crisis in the U.S., the scope of various federal responses to that crisis, and to recommend campaigns that various organizations and individuals would further develop, support, and implement over the next 12 months that increase the political capacity to end the healthcare crisis as defined by the information presented in the teach-in.
 
A subtext of this effort included the goal to enhance the separate capacities of local human rights organizations to fulfill their missions related to the question of the human right to healthcare through a greater cooperative agenda.
 
The teach-in was the result of nearly six months of planning by PHIMG. PHIMG activists met once a week for eight weeks prior to the event. The teach-in was funded in substantial part by the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation. Space was provided, in kind, by the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies/CUNY. Below, see a preliminary report of the teach-in.

 

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2008, 11 am to 3 pm

Join a NYC-wide TEACH-IN on high profile strategies to build a united front of sustained political action that creates a national single-payer healthcare system in the U.S.

Location: 25 West 43rd Street, 18th floor

New York Times, "Health Insurers Offer to Accept All Applicants, on Condition:"

The health insurance industry said Wednesday that it would support a health care overhaul requiring insurers to accept all customers, regardless of illness or disability. But in return, the industry said, Congress should require all Americans to have coverage.

The proposals, put forward by the insurers' two main trade associations, have the potential to reshape and advance the debate over universal health insurance just as President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office.

In separate actions, the two trade groups, America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, announced their support for guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, in conjunction with an enforceable mandate for individual coverage.

In the absence of such a mandate, insurers said, many people will wait until they become sick before they buy insurance.

...

In many cases, people with cancer, diabetes, traumatic brain injuries or other serious afflictions have found that they cannot obtain health insurance at any price.

Research suggests that some insurers turn down 10 percent or more of applicants for individual coverage because of their pre-existing medical conditions.

...

The new policy statements are silent on two important issues: how to enforce an individual mandate and how to regulate insurance prices, or premiums.

While insurers would be required to sell insurance to any applicant, nothing would guarantee that consumers could afford it. Rate regulation promises to be a highly contentious issue, since it pits the financial interests of insurers against those of consumers.

 

If the insurance industry gets its HOLY GRAIL -- the individual mandate -- everyone will be forced, under threat of massive fines, to purchase insurance on the individual market if they do not get coverage through an employer. The industry is generously offering to "accept you" even with your unfortunate "preexisting condition." But how much will an "I had cancer" or "I have diabetes" policy cost you? $7,000 a year? $15,000 a year? It certainly won't be cheap, but what are you complaining about -- they didn't deny you coverage! Now remember, under the Individual Mandate it is now illegal to NOT have insurance. Does that mean you have to sell your house to pay for that huge premium? Dip into your 401k? Go without food? You better start crunching the numbers now. The new president means business -- and all signs point towards industry-friendly CENTRISM rather than real solutions.
Any "reform" that forces you to purchase a defective product from a corrupt industry is a fraud!

Any "reform" that preserves private insurers, their profits, and their waste is a fraud!
If it is not PUBLICLY FUNDED, it is not UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE -- it is a fraud!Publicly funded, privately delivered healthcare is the solution, and we have to fight for it and expose the CENTRIST plot for the fraud it is.

 

 

The Yes Men, who are described as a group of "social engineering activists," printed and distributed over a million remarkably realistic fake copies of the New York Times from the future (July 4th, 2009) featuring happy headlines such as 'Iraq war ends' and 'Nation sets its sights on building a sane economy'.

Of interest to Single Payer advocates was an article entitled : "National Health Insurance Act Passes", the act in question is HR-676. From the fake article:

H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, also known as “expanded and improved Medicare for all,” has moved through Congress, and is expected to be signed into law shortly. The legislation provides publicly funded health insurance, with a free choice of health care providers, for every United States citizen and permanent resident.

After the bill passed, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi declared, “We can now proudly say that the United States has caught up with the rest of the developed world in granting all our citizens access to high-quality, comprehensive medical care.”

Prior to the bill’s passage, the U.S. health care system was widely regarded to be in a state of severe crisis. Over 46 million Americans have been without health insurance and another 50 million have been under-insured. Despite spending more money per capita on health care than any other nation, the U.S. has lagged behind many countries in such key health-related categories as life expectancy, infant mortality, and preventable deaths. The Institute of Medicine estimates that in recent years approximately 22,000 people have died annually in the U.S. due to a lack of health insurance. Furthermore, nearly one million Americans, many who have private health insurance plans, have filed for bankruptcy each year because they have been unable to pay medical bills. In recent polls, a clear majority of Americans have said they believe government should guarantee health care for all U.S. residents.

Despite growing popular support for a single-payer system, Pelosi acknowledged that Congress would not have voted for this bill without the dedicated grassroots organizing of national groups like Healthcare-NOW and Physicians for a National Health Program, regional groups like the California Nurses Association and the New York-based Private Health Insurance Must Go Coalition, and over 450 union organizations across the country that had endorsed H.R. 676. Pelosi said that many formerly undecided congressional representatives were also swayed by seeing Michael Moore’s film, “Sicko,” and by the cogent arguments presented in a 2008 pocket-sized book, “10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care,” edited by Mary E. O’Brien and Martha Livingston, that was given to every member of Congress.

 

 Click here to read the entire fake New York Times article.

 

 

Monday, November 10th, 8pm
The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church
131 E. 10th St., NYC
info@poetryproject.com / 212-674-0910
$8 general admission
 
There is a growing movement across the U.S. to support a single-payer, national health care system that would provide health care for all. Currently, over 47 million Americans are without health insurance and another 50 million are under-insured. More than 18,000 people die every year because they have no medical insurance. The Poetry Project is pleased to host this benefit for two of the leading health-care activist groups based in New York City: Healthcare-NOW (www.healthcare-now.org), and the Private Health Insurance Must Go Coalition (www.phimg.org).

Featured poets, performers, and speakers include: David Amram, Andy Clausen, Suheir Hammad, David Henderson, Eliot Katz, Rachel Levitsky, Akilah Oliver, Reno, Katie Robbins, Ajamu Sankofa, Frank Sherlock, Stacy Szymaszek, Steven Taylor, Rodrigo Toscano, and Anne Waldman.
 
 

In mid-November 2008, the Private Health Insurance Must Go Coalition (PHIMG) will organize two important events--a demonstration and a teach-in--to help build the movement for a national single-payer health care system that would guarantee health care for all U.S. residents, regardless of immigration status. PHIMG is a New York City-based activist coalition of over two dozen organizations working to secure health care as a human right and to end the nation's health care crisis. PHIMG is supporting HR 676, a single-payer bill introduced by Rep. John Conyers, which has over 90 cosponsors in the House and has been endorsed by over 450 labor and community groups across the U.S.

 

To view and print the flyers below you'll need to be sure you have the free Adobe Reader.

To download the file just click the thumbnail image. Each printed page produces two copies of the flyer. You can cut them with scissors or if you print a large number, take them to a Kinkos and they will cut them with a machine for about $3.

English:
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English+:
If your printer can print on the front and back of the page please use this file -- it contains more information about HR-676 on the back.