Senate leader Don Perata finally has some good news on the healthcare front: the Enron-style grand bargain between Schwarzenegger and Nunez looks like it’s dying faster than you can say, “energy deregulation I mean healthcare deform.”  And none too soon, because California’s healthcare reform could set the tone nationally and spark states across the country to mimic our plan.

We’ll take a look at this and more, cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

California voters are moving to support a system of guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model-like that working in every other industrialized democracy in the world.  This is, obviously, because voters are victims of the insurance industry, whereas most politicians are beneficiaries of huge donations from insurers.  As such, both Schwarzenegger and Nunez are supporting plans to increase the customers, revenue, and medical interference of health insurance corporations…or would be, if they could just get their act together.

Via the Sac Bee we get some news suggesting that they can’t:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders plan to meet today to discuss health care reform, but state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata is “not optimistic anything substantial” will be accomplished this year.
In an interview with reporters after Monday’s Senate floor session, the Oakland Democrat said a “lot of momentum” was lost during the 52-day budget stalemate that ended last week.

I’m not sure if Dan Walters was arguing for the proven simplicity of a single-payer system when he wrote these words about a possible healthcare “deal”, but he should have been:

The health insurance gap has plagued California for decades, although it appears to be worsening due to changes in the economy that have left fewer workers with employer-provided coverage. As adjournment approaches, the danger is not so much that the issue won’t be addressed but that having promised to do something about it this year, politicians will enact some complicated scheme that has not been fully vetted and will collapse of its own ponderous weight.

In case you don’t think this is a big deal, the Washington Post pointed out that it could set the tone for the nation.  And they’re right…if insurance-bought politicians can pass fake healthcare reform here, and hurt patients in the guise of helping them, it could happen anywhere.  That’s why we have to stop it here and now. The insurers want to lock in their profits and kill guaranteed healthcare forever.  That’s why we have to stop them now.

And finally…(reg. req’d.) Paul Krugman makes fun of the right-wing paranoia about healthcare.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

A new Field poll today in California shows voters choosing a single-payer healthcare plan over the insurance-driven proposals supported by Governor Arnold and his Democratic allies.

The finding is in line with past research finding voters way ahead of politicians on the issue of guaranteed healthcare.  The timing on this poll, however, could not have been better for healthcare advocates, as the California budget just got passed and Governor Arnold, his Democratic helpers, and their insurance buddies are about to try to shove a regressive healthcare measure through the legislature.  Their plan just got harder.

We’ll take a look at this and more, cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

Tom Chorneau in the San Francisco Chronicle:

As voter dissatisfaction with the state’s health care system grows, increasing interest is emerging in moving to a state-run, single-payer program, according to a Field Poll released today.

For years, a single-payer system had been the favorite of a small but loyal minority, but the new poll shows that 36 percent of California voters now favor replacing the current employer-based system with one operated by the state – a jump of 12 percent since December.

Meanwhile, the number of voters who want to make reforms within the framework of the current system has dropped from 52 percent in December to 33 percent in August.

Mike Zapler in the Mercury News notes:

Ironically, the drumbeat of attention on health care this year, fueled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other would-be reformers, seems to have dampened support for the one approach to change that had majority backing last year: shoring up the current insurer-based system. That solution, which is favored by the governor and calls for shared responsibility among government, employers and individuals, is now favored by just one-third of voters, down from 52 percent in December.

Call it the Michael Moore effect.  Sicko drew unprecedented attention to the problem of for-profit insurers…and now legislators want to expend the reach, customers, revenue, and medical influence of these same movie villains?  Thumbs down!

A Bureau of National Affairs article today (sub. req’d.) updates the latest backroom maneuvering on AB 8, which is the legislative offer to Governor Arnold:

SACRAMENTO, Calif.–“Play or pay” health care legislation authored by California’s Democratic legislative leadership was amended Aug. 20 to move up by one year, to Jan. 1, 2009, the proposed date that employers would be required to offer health coverage or pay 7.5 percent of payroll into a state-run purchasing pool .

The health care bill, A.B. 8, amended the same day lawmakers reconvened after a month-long summer recess, is pending in the Senate Appropriations Committee. It must clear both houses of the Legislature by Sept. 14, the last day of the regular legislative session. 

One problem with making this the centerpiece of a healthcare reform initiative?  It is blatangly, obviously, blindingly illegal-and will be tossed out of by the courts faster than you can say Erisa. 

So why put it in there?  To give the appearance of standing up on behalf of patients-while distracting attention from the other provisions in the law.  The other elements of this plan?  Expanding some public health programs while pushing some half-baked insurance “reforms” that will just lead to more paperwork…and more insurance overhead.

That’s it!

Here is a recent  background column from Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s office about the various proposals being thrown out as road-blocks to her single-payer plan, which has the big advantages of being the only plan that will actually work, as well as being the only one with a solid constituency (of healthcare reformers and a growing number of labor unions) pushing for it.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

Did CNA just win a presidential debate?  The Washington Post thinks so.  We’ll take a look and more, cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the Washington Post called my little union, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, the “winners” of Sunday’s Presidential debate for our pro-guaranteed healthcare reform ads we ran and the National Journal lauded the ads for returning the problem of health insurance to the primary.  It’s not going to go away, and whoever the Democratic candidate is will have to decide: are you with insurers or patients (and labor)?

Around the webs, Cervantes looks at the economic argument for guaranteeing healthcare with single-payer financing, while In These Times looks at the momentum in Wisconsin for such a program.

Meanwhile, David Sirota notes the Bush administration threatens to retaliate against middle-class families who use government-sponsored healthcare through the S-Chip program.

And America’s war on Indians continues, this time through inadequate healthcare.

Finally, an editorialist at the San Jose Mercury News wonders how long we have to wait for single-payer?

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

George Bush has spoken: no guaranteed healthcare, not for kids, not for nobody.  Thank you Mr. Bush for putting your unpopularity behind the private insurance sector–just as their “individual mandate” laws in Massachusetts are running into trouble.  Bush’s veto provides the single-payer movement with the greatest strategic opening in memory.

All this and more in today’s Guaranteed Healthcare Update, cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

It was on ideological grounds that George Bush vetoed the expansion of Medicaid to more kids: “My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you’re really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government.”

We have the least popular President in a generation putting his moral weight behind the private insurance companies—and opposing the idea of society guaranteeing healthcare to all kids, and adults.

In the words of Pink, thank you, Mr. President.  This is our opportunity to sharply frame the debate: throw patients to the insurance industry wolves or fight for guaranteed healthcare?  Trust in George Bush and Blue Cross…or the medical systems working in every other industrialized nation in the world?  The more nurses, patients, and other guaranteed healthcare advocates can point out the links between Bush and the private insurance industry, the better off our movement is.  It’s a tragic veto, but a strategic gift we should all exploit.

Speaking of wolves, count Ron Wyden in: “’We’re right at the cusp of an ideological truce on health care,’ declares a beaming Ron Wyden.”  His truce is a massive expansion of the role of private insurers through a legal mandate to become their customer.  In other words… to the ideology of George Bush and Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Ironically, the original individual mandate bill, RomneyCare in Massachusetts, is having trouble and legislators are rushing to tinker.  The big problem? “Massachusetts Senate President Therese Murray recently warned: ‘If we do not constrain health-care costs, the system we worked so hard to create and implement will collapse.’”  It is, of course, impossible to make the economics of healthcare work when you use 30% of care dollars to prop up an unnecessary private insurance sector middleman.  That’s why health care providers in Mass. are leading the fight against the program, with a petition saying, “the state is offering plans with skimpy coverage and little real health security…”

Elsewhere, Larry Summers shares a dark vision of how we’ll get to guaranteed healthcare: “Incrementalism is not enough, we need full and fundamental reform. But I suspect that Congress will do incremental reform for a while until it fails, and crisis forces radical change.”  Let’s work to skip the even-worse crisis part, because that’s a code word for patient suffering.

Finally, medical students are among the nation’s most committed healthcare reformers, and one drew up this great animation on single-payer.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit with GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

A major healthcare union is getting behind single-payer, while Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing its exact opposite in California. 

All this and more in today’s Guaranteed Healthcare Update, cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

Great news for guaranteed healthcare…the SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, a huge and powerful union, is endorsing Rep. John Conyers’ HR 676 the bill implementing a single-payer system in the U.S.  A powerful coalition is building behind this concept, now including hundreds of unions.

Unfortunately, Mitt Romney’s healthcare plan—-the exact opposite of HR 676–may be coming to California through the efforts of Arnold Schwarzenegger. (reg. req’d)  The California Nurses Association opposes this attempt to bandaid our healthcare crisis by shuttling more people into the arms of private health insurance corporations.  Among other reasons, it would be financially devastating for working- and middle-class people, and would give insurers even more control over medical decision-making, while jacking up their profits. 

Julie Pierce, profiled in SiCKO as a victim of these very insurance companies, after she lost her husband because his cancer treatment was denied, is emerging as an American hero and a tireless advocate for guaranteed healthcare.

On a related note, Los Angeles will not file charges against police who left a woman to die on a floor at a troubled hospital there.

Meanwhile, Maine is finding it difficult to reform healthcare and preserve profits for the insurance industry.

Finally, the fact that not even kids can get guaranteed healthcare in this country, is emblematic of the need for some politicians to start paying an electoral price for not taking this crisis seriously.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit with GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

Today we learn that Rudy’s hooked on OxyContin money…Krugman finishes off the myth about waiting times in nations with guaranteed healthcare…and TX nurses are on the rise!

All this and more in today’s Guaranteed Healthcare Update, cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

*Rudy Giuliana was paid by Pfizer to help improve the image of OxyContin and steer prosecutions to street criminals instead of white-collar pushers.  All this while he emerges as probably the single candidate most hostile to healthcare reform and guaranteed healthcare.  That’s pretty sick.

Key quote from the article:

“This is one of Giuliani’s Achilles’ heels,” said Baruch College public affairs professor Doug Muzzio. “He was directly and intimately involved with a company that was in violation of law and morals and ethics. There are ways to frame the issue that resonate, that Rudy Giuliani is sacrificing the public weal for his own personal benefit.”

*If you’re not concerned about the influence of healthcare corporations on policy, read about the latest California scandal here.

*Meanwhile, Paul Krugman (reg. req’d.) points out that, “…The opponents of universal healthcare appear to have run out of honest arguments,” as he debunks the myth about waiting times in Canada and Europe.

*The eyes of Texas are upon their nurses, who are responding to the NNOC’s advocacy for safe staffing, guaranteed healthcare, and fair contracts with a surge of interest in unionization.  Nurse power!

*Winners of the “not so good on the details” prize are three legislators from Alaska who used the premier of SiCKO to push for a bill requiring…mandatory insurance for all Alaskans.  That’s right, requiring people to become customers of the same insurance corporations unmasked in the movie.

*Activist doctors call for Medicare 2.0.

*And finally, the Arkansas Times is not amused that Republican presidential candidate, and Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee blames Michael Moore—and other fat people—for our health care crisis.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit with GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

Californians will find this familiar, as the national political debate over healthcare reform might be coming down to giving up or selling out.  We’ll look at this and more in today’s guaranteed healthcare update, cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

If today’s Washington Post is to be believed, Democratic Presidential Candidates are having internal debates about healthcare reform that can be summed up as: give up or sell out.  The sell out option—ripping up the safety net and letting every patient fend for themselves—seems to be losing so far. Instead, leading candidates are giving up, and choosing Mitt Romney-style plans that won’t solve the problem but will increase the role of the same private insurers who Michael Moore dimed out in Sicko.  Grrrr.  When did unworkable proposals become the “pragmatic” option?  Time for health care advocates to start pressuring candidates for real proposals.

Elsewhere, the San Francisco Chronicle compares the U.S. health care systems with single-payer systems around the world.  Hint: the U.S. doesn’t look too good 

In the same paper, Deborah Burger, RN, President of the National Nurses Organizing Committee & California Nurses Association, piles on with an op-ed about the ugly reality of waiting lines for treatment…in America, while author Ken Terry looks at how American employers are being disingenuous in their attempts to avoid the healthcare mess.

The healthcare blogosphere is loving Michael Moore’s smackdown of CNN, and is going Reagan-esque with demands to tear down the tottering symbols of the decrepit private health insurers. 

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell is trying to protect the profits of private insurance companies…and, of course, finds he isn’t left with enough money to tackle serious healthcare reform.  Coincidence or cautionary tale?

And finally, Tom Tomorrow dissects standard conservative responses to healthcare reform.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit with GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

Today’s guaranteed healthcare roundup, cross-posted at  the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Associations’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

When Iowans want ethanol, presidential candidates leap to it.  When the state’s largest paper calls for guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model…well, we’ll just have to see how that riles up the candidates.  The Des Moines Register did just that today.  Momentum is building.  Money quote:

What we hope {Michael Moore’s “SiCKO”} does: Spur Americans, at long last, to demand a system that covers everyone, while providing greater quality and reining in costs.

The best option for doing that: a government-financed system, much like Medicare, which covers America’s senior citizens. That wouldn’t be “socialized medicine.” Under Medicare, seniors still choose their doctors, and doctors don’t work for the government.

Barack Obama is soliciting health care policy ideas.  I’m going to email him the Des Moines register editorial.

Meanwhile the Des Moines Register finds that Blue Cross/Blue Shield literally have no shame.

In today’s New York Times, {sub. req’d} Paul Krugman slams FOX News for implying national healthcare causes terrorism.  If you remember Katrina, you know that our dysfunctional healthcare system is actually a major security vulnerability for this nation.  Krugman sums it up:

The only things standing in the way of universal health care are the fear-mongering and influence-buying of interest groups. If we can’t overcome those forces here, there’s not much hope for America’s future.

The Wall St. Journal finds that state plans to require employers to provide health insurance are illegal.  They’re right.  So why are politicians in California and other states still out there pushing them?

How to make a killing in the healthcare field?  Dr. Prem Reddy found where to start: restrict patient access to care.  Scary.

We should all follow NBC News’ story on Iraq and military medicine.  The U.S. is going to be working with our soldiers for many, many years as a result of the war.

John Conyers is an American hero.

And finally..is SiCKO Psycho?

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit with GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee. 

You can’t really blame Lauren Turner the Google-ista who breathlessly begged HMO’s to let Google help them fight back against SiCKO and block that horrific push for universal healthcare.

But you can blame Google.

“Do no evil, Google?”

Let’s see how you can make your motto true…after the jump.

Cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED Healthcare.
 

When Google backed off from Turner’s  blog, your official spokesperson wrote:

In fact, Google does share many of the concerns that Mr. Moore expresses about the cost and availability of health care in America. Indeed, we think these issues are sufficiently important that we invited our employees to attend his film (nearly 1,000 people did so). We believe that it will fall to many entities — businesses, government, educational institutions, individuals — to work together to solve the current system’s shortcomings. This is one reason we’re deploying our technology and our expertise with the hope of improving health system information for everyone who is or will become a patient.

So, you are the largest corporation in the world, with progressive employees, incredible financial independence, and a corporate motto to “do no evil.”

And you take on the nation’s largest, life-and-death problem by:

a) sending 1,000 employees to a movie and
b) doing a little categorizing of health information???

Sorry, Google, this does not “demonstrate corporate responsibility on a major issue of our time.” 

But here’s how you can.

1. Realize you don’t live online—you live off-line.  You do business in a nation where thousands are killed each year by a broken healthcare system.  Your customers are hurting, and so are your employees and your family.  From a business angle, the American economy is at a major competitive disadvantage with every other nation because we are funding an unnecessary health insurance sector.  Get serious about this issue, and I’m not talking about selling more ads to health insurance corporations.

2. Become the business that changes everything—you have the chance to make money *and* make a better country.  Use your famed lobbying prowess to change the culture and bring guaranteed health care to all Americans. 

Yep, you might step on the toes of a few right-wing think tanks, and some ideologically-driven conservative businessmen.  But this could also be the biggest PR/branding gift your company has ever gotten–and you could actually  demonstrate corporate responsibility and live up to your motto.

Here’s where we are right now: a coalition of big businesses are blocking health care reform, or are proposing health care reform that might pad their bottom line a little, but won’t really help customers. 

Meanwhile, other companies like Ford are just throwing their hands in the air and moving to Canada because they can’t afford our broken healthcare system. 

The irony is, that there is a proven solution to the health care crisis, but no one in the business world has the guts to stand up and say it. 

Except, that is, for BusinessWeek which admits that, “France, Britain, and most other Old World countries long ago took the plunge into universal health insurance and have made it work, with varying degrees of success.”  Other than them, there are a few CEO’s here and there who support guaranteeing healthcare on the single-payer model, but no one has shown leadership on this issue.

So why don’t you?  What’s the alternative?

According to E-commerce Times:

… Google’s bottom line, in large part, has to do with its street cred. In other words, it may act like a big business, but it doesn’t necessarily want to look like one. The current uproar — as silly at it may seem in the eyes of some in the business community — could have a negative impact on Google.

“Google is making a very tricky transition from a relatively young company to an established company, Jeffrey Johnson, partner at Pryor Cashman, told the E-Commerce Times.

“This transition is risky: If they do not handle the transition well, Google may go from being perceived as an “upstart” company with cutting-edge technology that helped bring Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT)  and other corporate bullies down to earth, to a bully that is no better than Microsoft,” he remarked.

Sounds like a brand disaster in the making.  Or a revolutionary and profitable business strategy in the making.  Your choice.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit with GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee.

(Events of the weekend… – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Think that SiCKO isn’t already changing healthcare politics in this country?

Just through the California Nurses Association & National Nurses Organizing Committee, 15,000 nurses from across the country have signed up to help organize on the opening night of SiCKO, as part of the “Scrubs for Sicko” campaign to drive one million nurses to see the film.  .  More are signing up every day.  Even more caregivers and patients have mobilized through Healthcare Now, Physicians for a National Health Program, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, and an unprecedented coalition of activist nurse groups from around the country.  Real energy on behalf of guaranteeing healthcare on the single-payer model.

We’ll take a look, below, at what it all means.  But first, we need you to  Go here, download some flyers, and hit your theater Friday night (warning: pdf).  Say hi if you see any nurses in their red “Scrubs for Sicko” scrubs.

Cross-posted at GuaranteedHealthcare Blog.

*Update*  As of this morning, 17,000 nurses are volunteering at the SiCKO opening night, and pledging to help us reach our million nurse goal.

Here’s how SiCKO is changing our country:

1. The healthcare movement finally is a mass, on-the-ground movement  Not since the days of Act Up have we actually had a critical mass of healthcare activists on the ground, working for change.  Now we do: tens of thousands of activists talking to hundreds of thousands of people.  Powerful.

2. Caregivers finally have a voice.  For years, groups such as the American Medical Association purported to be the voice of caregivers.  Unfortunately, they have been all too willing to throw patient interests under the bus so they can line their own pockets.  Now with the rise of the nurses’ movement, allied with PNHP docs, we finally have healthcare providers taking their patient advocacy to the streets…and the statehouse.

3. The media finally has to cover the issue of guaranteeing healthcare—and force political leaders to do the same.  Take a look at some examples below here.

And now to the SiCKO/Guaranteed Healthcare Update

*The Nation notes the nurse uprising and, like us, wonders what happens after SiCKO.

(In the same issue, Liza Featherstone looks at the movement by nurses for guaranteeing healthcare on the single-payer model, despite those looking to compromise with the insurance industry.}

*Clarence Page at the Chicago Tribune lays out the new conventional wisdom: America’s got a terrific health care system, as long as you don’t get sick.  That much, at least, seems to be conceded even by lobbyists for the nation’s health insurance industry.

*Last night Bill O’Reilly was in the unenviable position of debating a kids’ cancer nurse.  The point is—when was the last time O’Reilly did a segment on whether we should move to guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model?  (And ended up kind of having to agree…)

*Coverage like this Washington Post story reminds us about what’s really happening out there:

As for government-funded health insurance, it would be enlightening if those who so reflexively assert that the public has already rejected it would just ask—well—the public. In a May CNN poll, 64 percent said they thought the government should “provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes.”

*Health Insurance companies are running scared.

The natural next question is, what now?  How do we extend the impact of SiCKO?  At a minimum level, nurses will continue to put pressure on politicians to answer one question: are you with patients—or insurance companies?  At the same time, we are on the verge of announcing a strategy to pressure health insurance corporations themselves.

But what else? It’s a movement in development.  Your thoughts are needed.