Articles of Interest

By Wendell Potter | The Guardian (U.K.)
Andrew Lansley's controversial National Health Service bill is premised on "choice and competition" and the creation of a market in health care. These three stories below from the U.S. show choice and competition at work on the ground. They also explain why 45,000 Americans die every year because they can't afford – and in many cases can't even obtain – health insurance.

By Trudy Lieberman | Columbia Journalism Review
Leave it to Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman to speed along the process of making seniors on Medicare pay more for their care—the cost control method of choice at the moment, since it doesn’t disturb the profits of major stakeholders. After all, it was Lieberman who sealed the death warrant for the public option during the health reform debate. So the legislation he has proposed along with Senator Tom Coburn is consistent with his political MO. Lieberman’s proposal along with others like it may well slip into the bill, authorizing an increase in the debt ceiling with nary a word from the seniors who depend on the program. It would be grand if they knew what was afoot.

By Chris Gibbar | Letters, The Coloradoan
Medicare is less expensive to administer than private programs. Yet this wildly popular program is under attack. The Democratic Obama administration has offered to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid, and Republicans in Congress are making serious attempts to privatize not only Medicare but Social Security. Both parties are failing the American people.

By David Sirota | Salon.com
While the contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination is already revolving around conservative-themed attacks on "Obamacare," back when the health care bill was being legislated, the most important debate was within the Democratic Party, which held large majorities in both houses of Congress. On one side were the drug companies, the insurance companies and President Obama -- the latter who had not only disowned his prior support of single-payer health care but had also worked with his corporate allies to actively undermine a modest public insurance option. On the other side were progressives who opposed any bill which further cemented the private insurance industry as the primary mediator between doctors and patients.

Ann Molison | Letters | The Coloradoan
Rep. Cory Gardner wants us to have vouchers to pay for our health care. This would end Medicare as we know it and would decrease the quality of medicine for everyone. I propose we do something that would save money, provide health care for everyone and create a more competitive opportunity for all businesses, especially small businesses and those in the manufacturing sector.

ELIZABETH R. ROSENTHAL | Letters | The New York Times
We do not have to reduce benefits or raise the age of eligibility to save Medicare. We need to expand and improve it so we have Medicare for all. This is what many other industrialized nations have done. They bring high-quality medical care to all their citizens at half the cost of what we spend.

By Gerald Friedman | Dollars and Sense
America’s broken health-care system suffers from what appear to be two separate problems. From the right, a chorus warns of the dangers of rising costs; we on the left focus on the growing number of people going without health care because they lack adequate insurance. This division of labor allows the right to dismiss attempts to extend coverage while crying crocodile tears for the 40 million uninsured. But the division between problem of cost and the problem of coverage is misguided.

By Aaron Carroll | The Incidental Economist
The story you’ve been hearing is that (1) doctors are fleeing Medicare and Medicaid in droves and that (2) doctors much prefer private insurance to either of these programs. That’s not the whole story. Doctors, especially primary care docs, seem more likely to accept new patients with Medicare than with private capitated plans and likely many private non-capitated plans

By Jean Ross, R.N. | Orlando Sentinel
The view from the hospital floor where nurses give care 24/7 is quite a distance from the halls of Congress, which is consumed with debates on debt ceilings. Or from Labor Department cubicles, where monthly unemployment numbers are being crunched. Or from corporate boardrooms, which are signing off on executive bonuses.