From don at mccanne.org Thu Sep 1 12:22:21 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2011 09:22:21 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Defining success - UnitedHealth acquires Monarch HealthCare Message-ID: The Wall Street Journal September 1, 2011 UnitedHealth Buys California Group of 2,300 Doctors By Anna Wilde Mathews UnitedHealth Group Inc. will acquire the operations of a major southern California physician group, in the latest example of how lines are blurring between insurance companies and health-care providers. The purchase of the management arm of Monarch HealthCare, an Irvine, Calif., association that includes approximately 2,300 physicians in a range of specialties, establishes United's Optum health-services unit as a formidable presence in the region. Optum had previously taken over the management arms of two smaller southern California groups, AppleCare Medical Group and Memorial HealthCare Independent Practice Association. In California, deals involving control of medical groups are structured to comply with rules that block most entities from directly employing practicing physicians. Typically, a company like Optum might buy non-clinical assets and sign a long-term management agreement with an independent practice association of physicians such as Monarch. United has said in the past that providers acquired by Optum will not work exclusively with United's health plan, and will continue to contract with an array of insurers. But in one sign of the potential complications that might ensue, Monarch is currently in an arrangement with United competitor WellPoint Inc. to create a cooperative "accountable-care organization" aimed at bringing down health-care costs and improving quality. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903895904576542553422509280.html Comment: Consolidation is accelerating, and the largest insurers are positioning themselves to be at the top of the heap. Excuse a personal note, but this particular merger is difficult for me to observe. Having practiced in Orange County, I watched the founding and expansion of Monarch HealthCare until they dominated health care in our region. As an early opponent of managed care as it was playing out, I certainly had no interest in joining them. Probably because my practice included large numbers of Medicaid, uninsured, and undocumented patients (so many that they crowded out my privately insured patients even though I worked extended hours), Monarch also never communicated an interest in including me in their panel. What defines a successful health care system? It always seemed to me that success would be when everyone could receive quality health care that was appropriate and without financial barriers that would impair access. Yet The Wall Street Journal implies that success is when you can organize and control the delivery system and corner the portion of the market that has the highest monetary resources. Although I was far busier than other primary care physicians in our region, I ended up retiring earlier than I intended because the composition of my practice eventually resulted in an unsustainable negative cash flow. By most standards, at least by the dominant standards of today, I was unsuccessful, and Monarch HealthCare was highly successful. I'm not sure that my patients who couldn't get past the appointment desks of Monarch physicians would agree when they had success in negotiating past my appointment desk. Not to be defeated, I made a decision to devote my remaining productive years to promoting a concept of success that serves patients - all patients - without the intrusion of intermediaries such as UnitedHealth and Monarch HealthCare that glom onto the money and try to keep all that they can. Haven't we had enough of Wall Street's version of success? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From don at mccanne.org Fri Sep 2 08:29:52 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 05:29:52 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: John Geyman's "Breaking Point" Message-ID: Breaking Point How the Primary Care Crisis Endangers the Lives of Americans By John Geyman, M.D. What are the dimensions of the crisis in primary care? How did we get here? How and why have past efforts to resolve it failed? And how can we succeed in rebuilding our crumbling foundation of health care in this country? In Part I, we will outline the dimensions of this crisis; its impacts on our system, patients and their families; and consider what we can learn from failed attempts to rebuild primary care. In Part II, we will look at various policy alternatives, summarize what can be learned from other countries, and propose a comprehensive agenda for rebuilding primary care. This is admittedly a challenging problem that requires a long view, most likely over one or two generations. Present trends are very unfavorable, and a complete re-orientation of the goals of health care, the roles of physicians and other health care professionals, and fundamental changes in the way we finance health care will be required if we are to deal effectively with the primary care problem. http://copernicus-healthcare.org/books-by-copernicus.html Both the book and the Kindle ebook are available at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Point-Primary-Endangers-Americans/dp/0983773408 Comment: In "Breaking Point," John Geyman explains why it is crucial for us to rebuild our primary care infrastructure, and how we can do it. Highly recommended! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Sun Sep 4 09:00:23 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2011 09:00:23 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Leafleting this week Message-ID: <014601cc6b02$9cf3c5f0$d6db51d0$@org> Happy Labor Day tomorrow! See you then at the West Springfield Verizon Wireless store? Noon-2 pm, leafleting and a rally! Check out this video from our August 13 picket line and rally: http://www.amherstmedia.org/node/20258. Special thanks to Will Delphia. And please let us know if you can leaflet this week about Verizon and corporate greed at: * Wednesday 5-7pm, Saturday noon-2pm, 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know you are coming: larasb at hotmail.com or 413-218-4496. * Wednesday 5-7pm, Saturday noon-2pm, 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know you are coming: larasb at hotmail.com or 413-218-4496. * Wednesday noon-2pm and 5-7pm, Saturday noon-2pm, 360 Russell St, Hadley ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org or 413-827-0301. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on this campaign by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. Will your organization adopt a shift of your choice on a weekly basis? If so, please send this information to jon at wmjwj.org: Name of Organization: Will adopt this store: On this day(s): At this time: For _____ hours. Name of Individual for Jon to contact: Best Phone: (Cell? Home? Work?) Thank you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch! The Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Workers' Rights list posts opportunities for you to learn about and show solidarity with workplace and working class struggles. And these events are opportunities for JwJ members to fulfill their pledge: "I'll be there for workers' rights at least five times a year!" (http://www.jwj.org/pledge.html) This is the core mission of Jobs with Justice , affirming that workers' rights are human rights. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jon at wmjwj.org Sun Sep 4 12:30:51 2011 From: jon at wmjwj.org (Jon Weissman) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2011 12:30:51 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Next WMSPN Meeting In-Reply-To: <001001cb5088$150737c0$3f15a740$@org> References: <001001cb5088$150737c0$3f15a740$@org> Message-ID: <021b01cc6b20$02d99080$088cb180$@org> Hi Single Payer Folks, How is Saturday September 17 for the next meeting of the Western Mass. Single Payer Network? 9:30-11:30am, Lathrop Village Community Room, 1 Shallowbrook Ln , off Bridge Rd, Northampton. Please let me know if you could make it or your organization would definitely be represented. Please also send me agenda items at this time. The statewide single-payer bill - "Act for Improved Medicare for All in Massachusetts: Providing Guaranteed, Affordable Health Care" - be a top agenda item. Please visit http://masscare.org/ma-single-payer-bill/. The Western Massachusetts Single Payer Network is a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of advocates committed to achieving a universal single payer health care system. At our quarterly meetings, we check in with each other to see how we're doing on meeting our Organizational Goals: 1) to increase visibility of universal single payer health care across western Massachusetts 2) to strengthen the universal single payer movement through increasing numbers of people familiar with and committed to a single payer health care system 3) to work in concert with eastern Massachusetts single payer groups, as well as other groups throughout the country who share the single payer mission Thanks, Jon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TO UNSUBSCRIBE, send an email to healthcareaction-unsubscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or visit http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/healthcareaction. [Health Care Action] posts events and information that support the large and vibrant Western Mass. movement for health care justice. Nationwide, Jobs with Justice (www.jwj.org) has prioritized Health Care as a basic human right. To subscribe, send an email to healthcareaction-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or visit http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/healthcareaction. Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Sun Sep 4 16:11:27 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2011 16:11:27 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] WJPCT Travel Fund Message-ID: <008801cc6b3e$d4df7360$7e9e5a20$@org> Dear Friends, From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Tue Sep 6 09:08:32 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 09:08:32 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Leafleting RAIN ADVISORY Message-ID: <01eb01cc6c96$1481b200$3d851600$@org> PLEASE NOTE! We normally don't leaflet customers in the rain and are cancelling tomorrow's leafleting if it is raining at noon or 5pm. But volunteers should call the "store captains" listed below to be sure. THANK YOU! to the dozens who have "Been There" so far, fighting corporate greed and its current poster child, Verizon. From: WMass Jobs with Justice [mailto:wmjwj at wmjwj.org] Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2011 9:00 AM To: 'WMJwJ Members List'; Workers' Rights List; 'WMass SLAP List'; 'Street Heat List' Cc: 'Health Care Action List'; Arise Action List; Interfaith Coalition List; Pride at Work List; Progressive Dems In Western Mass List; SAGE List Subject: Verizon Leafleting this week Happy Labor Day tomorrow! See you then at the West Springfield Verizon Wireless store? Noon-2 pm, leafleting and a rally! Check out this video from our August 13 picket line and rally: http://www.amherstmedia.org/node/20258. Special thanks to Will Delphia. And please let us know if you can leaflet this week about Verizon and corporate greed at: * Wednesday 5-7pm, Saturday noon-2pm, 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know you are coming: larasb at hotmail.com or 413-218-4496. * Wednesday 5-7pm, Saturday noon-2pm, 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know you are coming: larasb at hotmail.com or 413-218-4496. * Wednesday noon-2pm and 5-7pm, Saturday noon-2pm, 360 Russell St, Hadley ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org or 413-827-0301. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on this campaign by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. Will your organization adopt a shift of your choice on a weekly basis? If so, please send this information to jon at wmjwj.org: Name of Organization: Will adopt this store: On this day(s): At this time: For _____ hours. Name of Individual for Jon to contact: Best Phone: (Cell? Home? Work?) Thank you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch! The Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Workers' Rights list posts opportunities for you to learn about and show solidarity with workplace and working class struggles. And these events are opportunities for JwJ members to fulfill their pledge: "I'll be there for workers' rights at least five times a year!" (http://www.jwj.org/pledge.html) This is the core mission of Jobs with Justice , affirming that workers' rights are human rights. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Tue Sep 6 16:39:44 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 13:39:44 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: The emergence of private insurance exchanges Message-ID: American Medical News September 5, 2011 Private exchanges offer yet another alternative to group health plans By Emily Berry With potentially more than 50 state-based versions of a public health insurance exchange set to emerge by 2014, another version of a post-health reform insurance market is emerging: the private exchange. A private exchange is an existing concept taking on a new name. The idea also has been pitched as a "defined benefit" plan and has been part of a package with a health reimbursement account. Simply put, a private exchange is an alternative to a group health benefit plan. Rather than paying a portion or all of a premium, an employer pays each of its workers a flat amount and sends each to choose his or her plan. Here's how a private health exchange works: An employer decides what it can afford to pay for health benefits -- for example, $1,000 per employee per month. Rather than enrolling every employee in the same plan and using the $1,000 to pay for a portion of a premium, the employer puts $1,000 in an account for each worker. Then one of two things happens: One, the employee works with a third party that acts as a clearinghouse. The worker chooses from any plan available in the individual market, with the clearinghouse administering the employee's HRA, and helping connect brokers and health plans with the employees who want to buy coverage. Under the second scenario, the employer sends the worker to a third party that gives him or her a limited set of choices, for instance a range of plans offered by the state's Blues plan. A private exchange would be a better deal for the employer than not offering health benefits, because the company can still reap the tax advantage of offering health benefits and avoid the penalty that would apply to companies with 50 or more employees if they decided not to offer benefits, analysts said. http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/09/05/bisb0905.htm Comment: Employers who want to reduce their roles in providing health insurance for their employees, yet do not want to turn their employees over to the state insurance exchanges and pay penalties for doing so, seem to have another option - private exchanges. One of the greatest benefits for the employer is that they can convert their health benefit programs from a defined benefit to a defined contribution. This shifts the burden of future health care cost increases onto their employees. In the next couple of years we can anticipate seeing many other similar efforts to skirt the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. It is really tragic that we are going to have to wait until far too many more people are destitute and suffer and die before we are ready to enact the reform we really need - an improved Medicare for all. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Tue Sep 6 17:23:36 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 17:23:36 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Labor Day Rally Video Message-ID: <026b01cc6cdb$3d51cb30$b7f56190$@org> Labor Day Rally 2011 at Verizon West Springfield Special thanks to Joe Oliverio for making this and other videos! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jon at wmjwj.org Tue Sep 6 21:08:58 2011 From: jon at wmjwj.org (Jon Weissman) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 21:08:58 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Next WMSPN Meeting 9/17 References: <001001cb5088$150737c0$3f15a740$@org> Message-ID: <001801cc6cfa$b966d610$2c348230$@org> Saturday September 17 WESTERN MASS. SINGLE PAYER NETWORK 9:30-11:30am, Lathrop Village Community Room, 1 Shallowbrook Ln , off Bridge Rd, Northampton. Please send agenda items at this time and let me know if you can come or your organization will definitely be represented. The statewide single-payer bill - "Act for Improved Medicare for All in Massachusetts: Providing Guaranteed, Affordable Health Care" - will be a top agenda item. Please visit http://masscare.org/ma-single-payer-bill/. Also on the agenda: Updates on . the Verizon workers fight over health care - and the rest of their contract struggle . Safe Hospital Staffing press conference September 19 and hearing September 20 . Cooley Dickinson Hospital woes . the Nurses union's "Main Street Contract" The Western Massachusetts Single Payer Network is a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of advocates committed to achieving a universal single payer health care system. At our quarterly meetings, we check in with each other to see how we're doing on meeting our Organizational Goals: 1) to increase visibility of universal single payer health care across western Massachusetts 2) to strengthen the universal single payer movement through increasing numbers of people familiar with and committed to a single payer health care system 3) to work in concert with eastern Massachusetts single payer groups, as well as other groups throughout the country who share the single payer mission Thanks, Jon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman Chair, Western Mass. Single Payer Network & Coordinator, Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch - please check out our mailing lists at http://wmjwj.org/our-lists. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Wed Sep 7 10:17:49 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2011 10:17:49 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Fact Sheet Message-ID: <017d01cc6d68$ecea34a0$c6be9de0$@org> From: Russ Davis russdavis at comcast.net attached Russ Davis Executive Director Massachusetts Jobs With Justice Office-(617)-524-8778 Cell-(617)-413-0713 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Fact Sheet on VZ Negotiations - post strike.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 121990 bytes Desc: not available URL: From don at mccanne.org Wed Sep 7 16:27:28 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2011 13:27:28 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Sally Pipes threatens us with Medicare for All Message-ID: Forbes September 6, 2011 Democrats' Plan B For Medicare: Medicare For All By Sally Pipes Democrats know the individual mandate might go up in smoke. So they?ve started strategizing a constitutionally sound means of achieving the ever-elusive goal of ?universal coverage.? Their preferred remedy? ?Medicare-for-All,? a term popularized by the late Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) who supported a single-payer, government run healthcare system. Former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich laid out the basic idea in a recent op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle. ?So what do Obama and the Democrats do if the individual mandate in the new health care law gets struck down by the Supreme Court?? Reich asked. ?Immediately propose what they should have proposed right from the start ? universal health care based on Medicare-for-All, financed by payroll taxes.? This notion has been floated in progressive policy circles in the past. It?s a pure distillation of their government-heavy approach to health care reform. Typically, though, the idea?s been shelved out of fears of political blowback. Today, when the government extracts Medicare taxes from people?s paychecks, it?s forcing them to assent to this deal: Hand over a slice of your paycheck now, and get government-sponsored health insurance in old age. Of course, Americans are not allowed to opt out of that deal ? just like they won?t be able to opt out of the individual mandate. But unlike the mandate, the taxes that finance Medicare are not in danger of being deemed unconstitutional. If the individual mandate is actually struck down, Medicare-for-All may become the new rallying cry for progressive luminaries. And if President Obama wins a second term, he may look to heed that cry. http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2011/09/06/democrats-plan-b-for-medicare-medicare-for-all/ Comment: As a Canadian libertarian now serving as President and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, an organization advocating for free market solutions to America's problems, Sally Pipes is issuing a warning that "Medicare-for-All may become the new rallying cry for progressive luminaries." Further, "if President Obama wins a second term, he may look to heed that cry." Don't we wish! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From don at mccanne.org Thu Sep 8 09:54:41 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 06:54:41 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Downward mobility for the middle class Message-ID: The Pew Charitable Trusts Economic Mobility Project September 2011 Downward Mobility from the Middle Class: Waking up from the American Dream By Gregory Acs The idea that children will grow up to be better off than their parents is a central component of the American Dream, and sustains American optimism. However, "Downward Mobility from the Middle Class: Waking up from the American Dream" finds that a middle-class upbringing does not guarantee the same status over the course of a lifetime. A third of Americans raised in the middle class ? defined here as those between the 30th and 70th percentiles of the income distribution ? fall out of the middle as adults. http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Economic_Mobility/Pew_PollProject_Final_SP.pdf Comment: Extensive studies have shown that over the past few decades income has dramatically shifted upwards to the wealthiest individuals. This study adds to that data base by showing the impact on the middle class. A third of Americans raised in the middle class have fallen out of the middle (and this was before the economic downturn). Because health care costs are now so high the middle class can no longer afford to fund an insurance pool that would be adequate to cover their collective health care needs. If the middle class is to receive adequate health care then it is imperative for the wealthy to contribute a greater amount through a progressive financing system (i.e., taxes). What won't work is an underfunded welfare program for the poor (Medicaid) and exchanges of low actuarial value under-insurance plans for the middle class, yet this is what the Affordable Care Act is bringing us. What will work is a single comprehensive risk pool that is equitably funded and includes everyone. If the wealthy were allowed to have a higher standard for themselves with a lower, mediocre standard for everyone else then their support for the health plans serving the "commoners" would diminish. By having a single high standard for everyone, the wealthy would use their influence to see that the health care system met their standards, thereby pulling up the standards for everyone else. Of course, that is precisely the goal of an improved Medicare for all. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From don at mccanne.org Fri Sep 9 09:31:23 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 06:31:23 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: New health care jobs we don't need Message-ID: The New England Journal of Medicine September 7, 2011 Health Care Reform and the Health Care Workforce ? The Massachusetts Experience By Douglas O. Staiger, Ph.D., David I. Auerbach, Ph.D., and Peter I. Buerhaus, Ph.D., R.N. In 2006, Massachusetts enacted legislation to provide universal health insurance coverage that later served as a model for the national health care reform legislation passed in 2010. Since implementing these provisions, Massachusetts has achieved near-universal insurance coverage but has also seen continuing growth in health insurance premiums, a net increase in state spending on health care, and growing political pressures to control cost growth. Polls of the public and of physicians indicate that the state?s health care reforms are generally viewed favorably, though physicians are concerned about access to primary care and administrative burdens. The Massachusetts reform experience has been watched closely for indications of what might occur throughout the country as national health care reform is implemented under the Accountable Care Act (ACA). One aspect of the Massachusetts experience that has remained unexplored is the impact on the health care workforce, particularly the question of whether greater numbers of health care professionals or support personnel were needed to ensure the success of the reform in increasing access to care. Since Massachusetts enacted the Health Care Reform Plan in early 2006, total health care employment per capita in the state has grown more rapidly than that in the rest of the country. Most of the divergence in employment growth between Massachusetts and the rest of the country occurred in 2006 and 2007, when the Massachusetts reforms were being phased in. Had health care employment in Massachusetts grown at the same rate as in the rest of the country, approximately 18,000 fewer people would have been employed in health care by 2010. Most of the difference in health care employment growth occurred in administrative occupations. From 2005?2006 to 2008?2009, employment per capita in administrative occupations grew by 18.4% in Massachusetts, as compared with 8.0% in the rest of the country. These administrative occupations include management, business and financial operations, and office and administrative support (including medical records and health information technicians). In contrast, employment levels in nonadministrative positions in Massachusetts increased by 9.3% after health care reform, an increase similar to that of 8.6% in the rest of the United States. The Massachusetts experience provides lessons for national health care reform. First, reform may accelerate the trend toward health care?s being the dominant employment sector in the economy. More important, our analysis supports physicians? concerns about the administrative burden of health care reforms, an issue that will have to be addressed as the ACA is implemented. Finally, rather than requiring greater numbers of physicians and nurses, reform may require larger numbers of people supporting the work of such health care professionals. http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=15255 Comment: With today's high unemployment rates, some have celebrated the fact that employment in the health care sector has continued to grow. This study confirms that health care employment in fact has grown within the state of Massachusetts, which has served as a model for our national reform through the Affordable Care Act. Should we be celebrating these newly generated jobs? When the Massachusetts plan was proposed the policy experts at Physicians for a National Program warned that the additional administrative excesses would add to the already very heavy administrative burden that uniquely characterizes the U.S. health care system. PNHP issued the same warning when the Affordable Care Act was under development. And what are these new jobs in Massachusetts? According to this report, "Most of the difference in health care employment growth occurred in administrative occupations." More administration! Although there is much interest in finding new employment opportunities for residents of the United States, there is also a compelling interest in controlling runaway health care costs. With a single payer system, one of the most important efficiency targets is to reduce this profound administrative waste. Instead, our legislators brought us changes that dramatically increase this waste! We do need more jobs, but not more administrative jobs in a profoundly expensive health care system that is now almost sinking under the costly added burden of administrative excesses. There are far more important potential employment opportunities throughout society that would benefit all of us if Congress were to enact the type of jobs program that we need. Instead of adding to our profound administrative waste, let's use our health care dollars for, of all things, health care! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Fri Sep 9 15:02:48 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 15:02:48 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] WIRELESS SATURDAY TOMORROW & more Verizon Leafleting Message-ID: <01c901cc6f23$152a6460$3f7f2d20$@org> THANK YOU! to the dozens of workers' rights advocates who have "Been There" so far, fighting corporate greed and its current poster child, Verizon. See you tomorrow Noon-2 pm? Wednesday too? Please let us know if you can leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed: 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield or 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield . Saturdays noon-2pm * Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know which store you are coming to and when: larasb at hotmail.com or 413-218-4496. 360 Russell St, Hadley . Saturdays noon-2pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org or 413-827-0301. . Wednesdays noon-2pm ~ please let Ryan Quinn know you are coming: rep at geouaw.org or 413-545-0705. . Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org or 413-827-0301. 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield . Schedule still being planned. ~ please let Jon Weissman know if you can leaflet this store: jon at wmjwj.org or 413-827-0301. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. PLEASE NOTE! We normally don't leaflet customers in the rain. You can call the "store captains" listed above to be sure. When we call off a leafleting, the captains will be there at the beginning to tell anyone who did not get the message, but we'll only wait 15 minutes, so it'd be better if you tell us in advance that you're coming and we'll call you. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on this campaign by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. Will your organization adopt a shift of your choice on a weekly basis? If so, please send this information to jon at wmjwj.org: Name of Organization: Will adopt this store: On this day(s): At this time: For _____ hours. Name of Individual for Jon to contact: Best Phone: (Cell? Home? Work?) Thank you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch! The Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Workers' Rights list posts opportunities for you to learn about and show solidarity with workplace and working class struggles. And these events are opportunities for JwJ members to fulfill their pledge: "I'll be there for workers' rights at least five times a year!" (http://www.jwj.org/pledge.html) This is the core mission of Jobs with Justice , affirming that workers' rights are human rights. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Sun Sep 11 11:03:21 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2011 08:03:21 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: A decade later Message-ID: Following is the Quote of the Day from September 12, 2001. The New York Times September 12, 2001 Editorial "But this is an age when even revenge is complicated, when it is hard to match the desire for retribution with the need for certainty. We suffer from an act of war without any enemy nation with which to do battle. The same media that brought us the pictures of a collapsing World Trade Center shows us the civilians who live in the same places that terrorists may dwell, whose lives are just as ordinary and just as precious as the ones that we have lost." http://www.pnhp.org/news/2001/september/nyt-editorial And now... The New York Times September 10, 2011 Editorial "A decade later, we?re still trying to understand, looking back and looking ahead. It is not enough simply to remember and grieve." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/opinion/sunday/loss-and-hope.html?ref=opinion -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From jon at wmjwj.org Sun Sep 11 15:22:37 2011 From: jon at wmjwj.org (Jon Weissman) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Fwd: 12 predictions for health care reform's future Message-ID: <02df01cc70b8$2b0e42b0$812ac810$@org> -----Original Message----- From: Diana Stein dstein at mtholyoke.edu Food for thought.... TEN SPECIFIC PREDICTIONS THAT INFORM FUTURE STRATEGY AND TACTICS Jeoffry B. Gordon, MD, MPH, paradocs21 at gmail.com, September 5, 2011 The Second Coming (Slouching towards Bethlehem) by W.B Yeats, 1919 Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; *Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. *Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert. A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, *And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?* * * Alas, it is easy to see the shape of the future these days. These 12 highly likely observations must inform our future actions in promoting our core issue of health systems reform. I put them out in very concrete fashion to stimulate discussion about future strategy and tactics. (If you see any validity to them at all, you might want to pass them on to other activists and interested parties.) 1. The Great Contraction has occurred. Much of lower and middle class security and the future prospects of their children have been blown away. Unemployment will remain high at least for another 5 years. In these conditions, reinforced by the outrageous cost of commercial health insurance, and the arrival of PPACA, the employment based health financing system will collapse. Employers just will no longer have to incur the expense of fringe benefits to attract workers. 2. The individual mandate will be found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The only question is whether just this aspect of PPACA will be struck down or the whole bill. If the whole bill, there will be national chaos, especially led by the insurance companies who will have lost their life supporting subsidy. The majority will be led by Justice Clarence Thomas whose wife has been working full time against PPACA ever since it was passed. 3. The next great national crisis in health care will be over physician pay rates by Medicare before January, 2012. In this time of demagogic austerity, when basic education is being curtailed; police and fire departments are shrinking; the FAA has been shut down; the Post Office is struggling financially; and sovereign default is on the horizon, Congress does not give a shit about rich doctors pay. There will be no fix to the Medicare formula and a 26% cut will happen. 4. In my opinion doctors across the country are disgusted and angry. As a population, they behave more like frustrated small business entrepreneurs, than professionals. Most have little sense of the abominable public health, epidemiologic or vital statistics of overall medical services in the USA. They are eagerly seeking out ecological niches where they can maximize their income such as concierge medicine, dermatology, radiology or minimize their economic instability by becoming hospitalists or ER docs. Most doctors dislike insurance companies, but they hate government. Primary care is atrophying and its shortages will greatly impact PPACA. The generational transformation that will bring docs to support single payer has not yet occurred. 5. The demagogic, racist, violent, anti-humanitarian, anti-government, libertarian Tea Party Republicans will continue to dominate the Presidential election in the media, but will cause widespread fear and resentment among independent voters. The charismatic Gov. Rick Perry has deep ties to most fundamental, protofascist roots of the Tea Party and his ascendency will continue to threaten our Republican democracy and its ability to provide social and economic justice. In addition their core interest in stopping abortions and, as in Florida making it criminal for physicians to talk to patients about gun safety, fly in the face of the professional values of medicine. Because of the power of wealthy individuals, finance capital, and corporate lobbies on the federal election process, and the financial anarchy brought on by conservative Republicans, Obama, with support from finance capital, will win reelection, but the federal government will remain in roiling disarray. Neither President nor the Democratic Party (as currently constituted) has the ability to provide leadership through these turbulent times. 6. In spite of the disdainful attitude of the majority of Americans toward the conservative Republicans, their overwhelming distrust of government capability and agency will be long lasting. The people will not naturally support a government run health system, or an expansion of Medicare. 7. Nationally, due to the stress on state budgets Medicaid is falling apart. It never was a health system to begin with. In an atmosphere of falling provider payment, doctors and institutions will revert to direct charity care, discounted cash fees, or just not seeing the poor at all. Community clinics will flourish, but academic, county and municipal hospitals will not have adequate resources (see the abandonment of illegal immigrants on dialysis in Atlanta). Primary and ER care will be available, but chronic care, continuity of care, and integration with secondary and tertiary care will fall apart. Morbidity and mortality will rise substantially. Medicaid will be a poor vessel to fill with PPACA patients in 2014. 8. PPACA itself, if the Court lets it exist, will be colossal failure as designed. This has been presaged by the failure of the temporary PCIP (Preexisting Condition Insurance Program) which was predicted to have 360,000 enrollees nationally by now and only has 26,000. There are no statutory limits on premiums and employers will drop insurance in droves. They can get new workers without the cost of expensive fringe benefits and the fine was designed to be nominal. Many citizens would choose to pay the individual minimal fine instead of buying into an insurance plan that forces them to devote 20% of their family income to medical care expenses. State insurance exchanges will have a crucial role in creatively extending their mandate beyond merely facilitating enrollment, but only 5 or 6 states including Vermont and California will have this capacity. 9. Nationally rates of uninsurance will continue to increase at an accelerating rate. Soon we will be seeing dramatic rises in morbidity and mortality due to medically treatable conditions, but there will be a two year lag in reporting these vital statistics. Welcome to "third world" America. 10. Especially due to lack of leadership by the President, there is no national attention, never mind commitment, to the poor and minorities of our country - not just in health services, but also in more basic issues as housing, food, education, and safety. While the middle class struggles, the poor will be ignored. There is no national momentum toward social or economic justice. 11. The need for health care reform will escalate dramatically, but due to federal government conflict and capture this will be possible only at the state level. Like Vermont, California will have the opportunity to step into the breach with a state single payer program. The time for this is drawing near. 12. Traditional methods of influencing public policy have and will continue to fail. Fact-based systems analysis and international comparisons, compassion for cases of individual tragedies and personal lobbying are blown away by the power of corporate lobbyists. One area of hope is the demonstration of how health finance reform will save money. Yet, in these times of massive unemployment, the job loss effects of health finance reform may far out way the possible savings. The power of public demonstrations has atrophied, as illustrated by the lack of impact on the Legislature by years of California's massive health student lobby day and the lack of response to the recent arrest of over 1000 protesters in front of the White House trying to block the tar sands pipeline. The real question is what event, strategy, or circumstance will mobilize the pain and dismay on main street and turn it into a positive political force? I hope these observations can stimulate some good thoughtful discussion and some outside the box thinking. We need all the help we can get. Jeoffry B. Gordon, MD, MPH -- The ultimate measure of a person is not where one stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where one stands in times of challenge and controversy. - *Martin Luther King -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Mon Sep 12 14:22:02 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:22:02 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: VA experience suggests that most readmissions may not be preventable Message-ID: Kaiser Health News September 12, 2011 VA Experience Shows Patient 'Rebound' Hard To Counter By Jordan Rau The Veterans Health Administration, the largest integrated health care system in the country, has long employed many of the approaches Medicare is pushing on all hospitals to cut unnecessary readmissions. But new data show VA hospital patients are just as likely to end up back in a hospital bed as are patients at private hospitals. Studies have found the VA does better than most hospitals in following appropriate guidelines for the best care to give patients. The new statistics underscore how hard it may be for hospitals to stop patients from rebounding back through their doors, a major goal of Medicare as it seeks to curtail the nation's ballooning health costs. http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/September/12/VA-readmissions.aspx Comment: Obviously, when a patient is discharged from a hospital, every effort should be made to avoid slip-ups that might result in an unnecessary readmission soon after discharge. Yet many patients have serious, unstable conditions that can require readmissions that are unavoidable. Differentiating avoidable from unavoidable readmissions can be very difficult. This report on VA hospital readmissions reveals that it may be nearly impossible, or that the numbers may be negligible. The VA already has in place guidelines and systems that should prevent unnecessary readmissions, yet their readmission rates are the same as private hospitals. This brings into question the current efforts by Medicare to save costs by penalizing hospitals for readmitting patients. This policy could be particularly harmful if it resulted in the refusal to readmit patients who really needed to be back in (e.g., manage them in the emergency room and then send them back home). Although quality improvement should be a continuing effort, this is simply another example of the totally inadequate cost containment measures of the Affordable Care Act - measures that only pretend that we are going to control costs. We need a massive overhaul of the financing system if we ever expect to bring costs under control - yes, a single payer national health program. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Mon Sep 12 16:53:46 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Leafleting this week Message-ID: <06cc01cc718e$12734260$3759c720$@org> Please let us know if you can leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed at the following stores: 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield & 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield * Wednesdays 5-7pm . Saturdays noon-2pm ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know which store you are coming to and when: larasb at hotmail.com, 413-218-4496. 360 Russell St, Hadley . Wednesdays noon-2pm ~ please let Ryan Quinn know you are coming: rep at geouaw.org, 413-545-0705. Graduate Employees Organization/UAW 2324 has adopted this shift. . Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. . Saturdays noon-2pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield . Saturday, Sep. 17, 2-4pm, then Saturdays 11am-1pm ~ please let Brian Morrison know you are coming: brian.morrison at state.ma.us, 413-281-3223. Berkshire Central Labor Council has adopted this shift. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Please let us know if a different shift would be better for you. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. PLEASE NOTE! We normally don't leaflet customers in the rain. You can call the "store captains" listed above to be sure. When we call off a leafleting, the captains will be there at the beginning to tell anyone who did not get the message, but we'll only wait 15 minutes, so it'd be better if you tell us in advance that you're coming and we'll call you. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on this campaign by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. If you would like to participate in a flash mob, please contact Patrick Burke, patrick at wmjwj.org, (413) 454-5692. Will your organization adopt a shift of your choice on a weekly basis? If so, please send this information to jon at wmjwj.org: Name of Organization: Will adopt this store: On this day(s): At this time: For _____ hours. Name of Individual for Jon to contact: Best Phone: (Cell? Home? Work?) Thank you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch! The Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Workers' Rights list posts opportunities for you to learn about and show solidarity with workplace and working class struggles. And these events are opportunities for JwJ members to fulfill their pledge: "I'll be there for workers' rights at least five times a year!" (http://www.jwj.org/pledge.html) This is the core mission of Jobs with Justice , affirming that workers' rights are human rights. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Tue Sep 13 14:12:55 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:12:55 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Census numbers on the uninsured Message-ID: U.S. Census Bureau September 2011 Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010 Income Real median household income was $49,445 in 2010, a 2.3 percent decline from 2009. Comparing changes in household income at selected percentiles shows that income inequality is increasing. Poverty The official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent ? up from 14.3 percent in 2009. In 2010, 46.2 million people were in poverty, up from 43.6 million in 2009. The number of people in poverty in 2010 is the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published. Health Insurance Coverage The number of uninsured people increased to 49.9 million in 2010 from 49.0 million in 2009. In 2010, the percentage of people without health insurance, 16.3 percent, was not statistically different from the rate in 2009 (16.1 percent). The percentage of people covered by private health insurance decreased in 2010 to 64.0 percent (195.9 million). The percentage and number of people covered by government health insurance increased to 31.0 percent and 95.0 million in 2010. The percentage of people covered by employment-based health insurance decreased to 55.3 percent in 2010 from 56.1 percent in 2009 (decreased to 169.3 million from 170.8 million). The percentage and number of people covered by Medicaid in 2010, 15.9 percent and 48.6 million, were not statistically different from 2009 estimates. The percentage and number of people with Medicare coverage in 2010 increased to 14.5 percent and 44.3 million. In 2010, the uninsured rates decreased as household income increased ? 21.8 percent of people in households with incomes ranging from $25,000 to $49,999 were uninsured; 15.4 percent of people in households with incomes ranging from $50,000 to $74,999 were uninsured; and 8.0 percent of people in households with incomes of $75,000 or more were uninsured. U.S. Census release: http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb11-157.html Full report (95 pages): http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf Comment: This Census report for 2010 shows that 919,000 more people were uninsured this past year than in 2009. This may be considered a ho-hum statistic by those who seem to be reassured by the provisions of the Affordable Care Act since the Act would expand coverage. However, there are other reasons to be very concerned, not the least of which are the statistics on income and poverty from this same report. Of significance is the fact that this report counts anyone who was insured for any part of the year as being insured. It leaves out from the count of the uninsured those who have gaps in their coverage even if they were uninsured for most of the year. This results in a serious undercount of of those impacted by not being insured. Another important deficiency is that this study makes no effort to quantify the rates of under-insurance. Employers and insurers have been redesigning their insurance products to shift more health care costs to the patient. Many studies have shown that this has impaired access to care and has caused significant financial hardship. The Census report is silent on this problem. What is the shocker in this report is that these unfavorable insurance statistics are imposed on a background of declining income and expanding poverty. Median household income has dropped to $49,445 while income inequality is increasing. Further, the number of people in poverty (46.2 million) is the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published! Anyone who has studied the Affordable Care Act realizes that health insurance policies will be very expensive even though they have relatively low actuarial values (leaving the patient responsible for 30 to 40 percent of health care costs). The new national standard in health insurance is "unaffordable under-insurance." The subsidies for the premiums and for out-of-pocket spending have been shown to be inadequate for far too many people, again impairing access, creating financial hardship, and even leaving tens of millions with no insurance at all. Had we enacted a single payer national health program, we could have included everyone, while eliminating under-insurance by providing first dollar coverage. We could have paid for it by eliminating the profound administrative waste that uniquely characterizes our system, and by introducing the other efficiencies of a single payer system. Wouldn't it have been nice to be rid of the problem of the uninsured and under-insured so that we could intensify our efforts to improve income and reduce poverty? Or are those just not our national priorities? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From acswift at comcast.net Tue Sep 13 15:35:18 2011 From: acswift at comcast.net (Alice Swift) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:35:18 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Fwd: Census: Massachusetts Uninsured Climb to Highest Rates Since Reform In-Reply-To: <2144557853.448670.1315938777783.JavaMail.root@sz0009a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> References: <2144557853.448670.1315938777783.JavaMail.root@sz0009a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mass-Care Announce Date: Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 2:32 PM Subject: Census: Massachusetts Uninsured Climb to Highest Rates Since Reform To: Mass-Care Announce Hello Single Payer Supporters - According to Census data released today, the share of uninsured residents in Massachusetts rose to 5.6% in 2010, up from 4.4% in 2009 and the highest rate since health reform passed in 2006. The rise in uninsured was almost driven by low-income people: uninsured rates for those below 300% of the poverty line (about $32,500 per year for an individual) rose from 6.0% to 9.9%, and rates for those between 300% and 500% of poverty (about $54,000) rose from 4% to 9.8%. This rise comes despite a massive growth in Medicaid enrollment, which reached almost 900,000 at the end of 2010 - compared with 700,000 at the outset of health reform. This growth in public insurance was not enough to offset the continued decline in employer-sponsored coverage, which dropped below 65% of the population in Massachusetts for the first time. Today's troubling news tells us what all parties agree upon: the Massachusetts Health Reform is not sustainable with continued rising health care costs. And while the legislature is promising to control the costs of health care in the future by implementing Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), a much-anticipated study examining what is probably the country's largest experiment in ACOs - Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts's Alternative Quality Contract, which already enrolls almost a fourth of Blue Cross's members - found that the ACOs were significantly more costly than Blue Cross's traditional managed care payment system, and that furthermore the ACOs did not reduce utilization at all, which was the promise of ACOs in the first place (that they would remove the incentive for doctors and other providers to over-use tests and procedures). This is not a shocking finding, since it is well-established in the literature that over-use of health care is not responsible for driving up our health care costs. Consider writing an op-ed or a letter to the editor of your local paper referencing the new data from the Census, and calling for quick passage of the Medicare for All in Massachusetts Act (S. 501 and H. 338), which would establish comprehensive access to health care as a right - in and out of recessions - and create an estimated 15.75% savings from our current health care spending even after eliminating uninsurance and underinsurance. Detailed Census data for Massachusetts can be obtained from the CPS Table Creator: http://www.census.gov/hhes/**www/cpstc/cps_table_creator.**html The study of Blue Cross's AQC program was published in Health Affairs here: http://content.healthaffairs.**org/content/30/1/51 ______________________________**_________________ Mass-Care: The Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care 33 Harrison Ave - 5th floor Boston, MA 02111 Ph: 617-723-7001 Fx: 617-723-7002 Em: info at masscare.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Wed Sep 14 14:58:06 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:58:06 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Hospital Association and others support raising Medicare age to 67 Message-ID: Politico September 8, 2011 Medicare eligibility age should go up, hospitals say By Susan Jaffe The American Hospital Association has a strategy for heading off any more Medicare payment cuts: Tell Congress to get the money from Medicare beneficiaries instead. The association is urging its nearly 5,000 members to lobby Congress to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, in addition to other money-saving alternatives. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63020.html And... The Washington Post September 14, 2011 The health industry case for raising Medicare?s eligibility age by Sarah Kliff The Health Leadership Council, a consortium of 47 health industry leaders including Aetna, Pfizer and the Cleveland Clinic, will vote Wednesday on whether to endorse raising Medicare?s eligibility age. It?s ?very likely? that the group will throw its weight behind the proposal, says HLC vice president Michael Freeman. States, employers and seniors would all suffer if the Medicare eligibility rules were changed. It would shift about $11.4 billion in new costs to those parties while saving the federal government only $5.7 billion, according to the Center on Budget Priorities and Policy. ?This policy does nothing to control costs,? Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, wrote in a memo obtained by the New York Times. ?It simply shifts substantial costs from Medicare to other parts of government and to private and public employers.? The Budget and Policy center estimates that if the Medicare eligibility age were raised, seniors under age 67 would have to spend $3.7 billion more in out-of-pocket cost. For many in the political system, that?s enough to reject the idea out of hand. But for some in the health-care system, that?s a profit waiting to be made. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-health-industry-case-for-raising-medicares-eligibility-age/2011/09/14/gIQAJJ8sRK_blog.html Comment: Most of us who believe that the health care system should be designed to serve patients are enraged by America's health industry leaders who believe that the system should be designed to serve the industry. Yet who has red carpet access to Congress and President Obama? Aren't we going to do anything about that? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Wed Sep 14 16:29:46 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:29:46 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] UPDATE RE: Verizon Leafleting Message-ID: <001b01cc731d$0bdeac10$239c0430$@org> Please note: Verizon Street Heat committee meets Friday September 16, 9:30-10:30am, at a new location, IBEW Local 2324, 281 Cottage St, Springfield . It's best to let us know in advance that you are coming to this and other events, as circumstances may lead to cancellations and we'll let you know. Info: 827-0301, jon at wmjwj.org. From: WMass Jobs with Justice [mailto:wmjwj at wmjwj.org] Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 4:54 PM To: 'WMJwJ Members List'; Workers' Rights List; 'WMass SLAP List'; 'Street Heat List' Cc: 'Health Care Action List'; Arise Action List; Interfaith Coalition List; Pride at Work List; Progressive Dems In Western Mass List; SAGE List Subject: Verizon Leafleting this week Please let us know if you can leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed at the following stores: 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield & 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield * Wednesdays 5-7pm . Saturdays noon-2pm ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know which store you are coming to and when: larasb at hotmail.com, 413-218-4496. 360 Russell St, Hadley . Wednesdays noon-2pm ~ please let Ryan Quinn know you are coming: rep at geouaw.org, 413-545-0705. Graduate Employees Organization/UAW 2324 has adopted this shift. . Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. . Saturdays noon-2pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield . Saturday, Sep. 17, 2-4pm, then Saturdays 11am-1pm ~ please let Brian Morrison know you are coming: brian.morrison at state.ma.us, 413-281-3223. Berkshire Central Labor Council has adopted this shift. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Please let us know if a different shift would be better for you. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. PLEASE NOTE! We normally don't leaflet customers in the rain. You can call the "store captains" listed above to be sure. When we call off a leafleting, the captains will be there at the beginning to tell anyone who did not get the message, but we'll only wait 15 minutes, so it'd be better if you tell us in advance that you're coming and we'll call you. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on this campaign by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. If you would like to participate in a flash mob, please contact Patrick Burke, patrick at wmjwj.org, (413) 454-5692. Will your organization adopt a shift of your choice on a weekly basis? If so, please send this information to jon at wmjwj.org: Name of Organization: Will adopt this store: On this day(s): At this time: For _____ hours. Name of Individual for Jon to contact: Best Phone: (Cell? Home? Work?) Thank you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch! The Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Workers' Rights list posts opportunities for you to learn about and show solidarity with workplace and working class struggles. And these events are opportunities for JwJ members to fulfill their pledge: "I'll be there for workers' rights at least five times a year!" (http://www.jwj.org/pledge.html) This is the core mission of Jobs with Justice , affirming that workers' rights are human rights. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Thu Sep 15 13:54:02 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:54:02 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Hospitals: All-payer or global budgets? Message-ID: JAMA September 14, 2011 Maryland's Hospital Cost Review Commission at 40 By John A. Kastor, MD; Eli Y. Adashi, MD, MS In 1971, the state of Maryland established the Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC) to regulate the rates that hospitals in the state could receive from Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers. Although other states once regulated hospital rates, only in Maryland does the practice continue. In this Commentary, we describe the Maryland system, discuss why regulation in other states failed, and suggest that other states should consider regulating hospital rates. In 1976, when the system began full operation, the adjusted costs per admission in Maryland hospitals were approximately 26% higher than the national average. Between 1977 and 2009, Maryland hospitals experienced the lowest cumulative increase in cost per adjusted admission of any state in the nation. For fiscal year 2009, the average cost per admission at Maryland hospitals increased by only 2% compared with an estimated 4.5% increase for the rest of the nation.? Because the HSCRC regulates the amount hospitals can increase (?mark up?) their charges, Maryland also has the lowest absolute charges of any state. Why has regulation succeeded in Maryland? First and foremost, there is the HSCRC's enlightened design with its legislated independence, broad enforcement powers, and discretion to chart its own course. Accordingly, changes the HSCRC sees as advantageous can be instituted without additional legislative action. Most stakeholders?hospitals, payers, and patients?favor the system. Hospitals appreciate the transparency and equity of the rate-setting process, the enhanced compensation by public payers, and the elimination of protracted rate negotiations with each payer. Payers value the clarity and parity of the HSCRC-approved hospital rates, the absence of hospital-driven cost-shifting, and the containment of continually increasing costs. Patients welcome the unfettered access to care. Although as many as 30 states once regulated hospital costs, by 1991, only Maryland continues to use an all-payer rate-setting system. While the reasons varied state by state, fundamental to the decrease in the rate-setting system was federal policy, beginning in the 1980s, that replaced the regulatory model with deregulatory market-driven schemes. Managed care, capitation, and diagnosis related groups, not rate regulation, became the mantra to control increases in health spending. The Maryland experience demonstrates that an enlightened independent public utility can be empowered to successfully stem inflationary growth in hospital spending. Is this the time for other states to consider or reconsider using rate regulation to control hospital costs? http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/306/10/1137.full?etoc And... The New England Journal of Medicine January 12, 1989 A National Health Program for the United States: A Physicians' Proposal By The Writing Committee (PNHP's proposal) Payment for Hospital Services Each hospital would receive an annual lump-sum payment to cover all operating expenses - a "global" budget. The amount of this payment would be negotiated with the state national health program payment board and would be based on past expenditures, previous financial and clinical performance, projected changes in levels of services, wages and other costs, and proposed new and innovative programs. Hospitals would not bill for services covered by the national health program. No part of the operating budget could be used for hospital expansion, profit, marketing, or major capital purchases or leases. These expenditures would also come from the national health program fund, but monies for them would be appropriated separately. Global prospective budgeting would simplify hospital administration and virtually eliminate billing, thus freeing up substantial resources for increased clinical care. Before the nationwide implementation of the national health program, hospitals in the states with demonstration programs could bill out-of-state patients on a simple per diem basis. Prohibiting the use of operating funds for capital purchases or profit would eliminate the main financial incentive for both excessive intervention (under fee-for-service payment) and skimping on care (under DRG-type prospective-payment systems), since neither inflating revenues nor limiting care could result in gain for the institution. The separate appropriation of funds explicitly designated for capital expenditures would facilitate rational health planning. In Canada, this method of hospital payment has been successful in containing costs, minimizing bureaucracy, improving the distribution of health resources, and maintaining the quality of care. It shifts the focus of hospital administration away from the bottom line and toward the provision of optimal clinical services. http://www.pnhp.org/publications/a_national_health_program_for_the_united_states.php?page=all And... Canadian Health Services Research Foundation March 15, 2011 Hospital Payment Policy in Canada: Options for the future By Jason Sutherland Canada?s publicly funded healthcare system is facing increasing cost control pressures. Hospitals alone represent a substantial burden on provincial health budgets, accounting for 28% of total costs. Presently, in the Canadian system, the primary source of funding for hospitals is through a global budget. Under this model, a fixed (global) amount of funding is distributed to each hospital to pay for all hospital-based services for a fixed period of time (commonly one year). Global budgets: * Are based on historical spending, inflation, negotiations and politics in many provinces, rather than on the type and volume of services provided. * Constrain hospital spending growth and create budgetary predictability; however, its consequences may be decreased services and increases in waiting times. * Do not provide incentives to improve access, quality or efficiency of hospital care. Funding hospitals on the basis of the type and volume of services they provide has become the international norm. Known as activity-based funding (ABF), these systems have been systematically supplementing global budgets in public and private insurance-based health systems around the world. ABF: * Provides powerful financial incentives to stimulate productivity and efficiency: efficient hospitals retain the difference between the payment amount and the hospital?s actual cost of production. * Is associated with higher volumes of hospital care, shorter lengths of stay, and yet has not been linked to poorer quality of care. * Is linked to higher overall spending, due to higher volumes of patients being treated, and evidence of lower cost per admission is mixed. Combining properties of ABF and global budgets may optimize the strengths of both global budgets and ABF. Many countries that have ABF to fund their hospital systems utilize a blend of global budgets to control spending, while instituting an ABF mechanism to create incentives for hospitals to provide timely and equitable access, appropriate volume of care, and efficient care. http://www.chsrf.ca/PublicationsAndResources/ResearchReports/CommissionedResearch/11-03-15/88814df8-66e9-4db0-9cd6-b48370af5f66.aspx Comment: Much attention is being directed to Maryland's all-payer system of rate setting for hospitals since it has been effective in shifting Maryland from a state with amongst the highest hospital costs to a state with the lowest absolute charges. Should we ignore these findings and merely proceed with the relatively ineffectual tweaks of the Affordable Care Act? Or should we adopt an all-payer system for all hospitals? Or should we change to a system of global budgeting for hospitals? Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act provides only illusions of cost control for hospitals. As an example, the early experiences with accountable care organizations have failed to demonstrate any significant cost savings. If we really do want to improve value in our hospital spending, we are going to have to look beyond the Affordable Care Act. What makes Maryland's approach unique is that hospital rates are set by a commission that has the power to regulate the rates paid by all private and public payers, including Medicare and Medicaid. They have been able to get the pricing right, to the satisfaction of hospitals, payers and patients. So why hasn't their all-payer approach been adopted by more states or by the federal government? It is because those that support deregulated, market-driven schemes are in control of the political process. We are being guided by the philosophy that government is always bad, even when it's good! In contrast to all-payer, a single payer approach establishes global budgets for hospitals, much like global budgets for police and fire departments, schools, public libraries, and other institutions serving the public interest. Negotiated global budgets are the most effective model of ensuring adequate hospital services and resources while preventing waste on superfluous services such as the large bureaucratic monoliths within their institutions. Global budgets provide the best value in hospital care purchasing. If we can succeed in reestablishing a public service role for government, then wouldn't it be reasonable to simply enact an all-payer system for hospitals? The problem is that it only makes one change in our fragmented, dysfunctional system of financing care, and not a complete change at that. Under all-payer, only the rates are controlled, but each service still must be accounted for and paid for independently, and the hospitals would still have multiple public and private payers with which they would have to interact. Canada has had tremendous success with its program of global budgeting for hospitals. As the article from the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation indicates, even the best of processes can benefit from refinement, though decisions will have to be made as to whether "activity-based funding" is a beneficial refinement. We can applaud the efforts of Maryland which has proven for us that the health care system works better when the government is involved. Now we can go Maryland one better by establishing global budgeting for hospitals as part of a single payer national health program. Then we would have it all. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From calendar at wmjwj.org Thu Sep 15 16:21:21 2011 From: calendar at wmjwj.org (=?us-ascii?Q?Workers'_Rights_Calendar?=) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Rally to support nurses 9/17 Message-ID: <047001cc73e5$09a49db0$1cedd910$@org> From: Leo Maley [mailto:LMaley at mnarn.org] Community and labor support means a lot to the Cooley Dickinson nurses. Please attend this brief rally if you can. --Leo Leo Maley Associate Director/Region 1 Community Organizer Division of Legislation and Government Affairs Massachusetts Nurses Association C: 781-520-1483 COOLEY DICKINSON NURSES TO RALLY SEP 17 AT NOON AT CITY HALL IN NORTHAMPTON STAFFING, SUCCESSOR LANGUAGE, AND SECURING THEIR PENSION ARE THE ISSUES Thanks to everyone from the community who joined the Registered Nurses at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, MA, for their informational picket on August 24. It was an inspiring picket and a very solid show of community support for the nurses. The nurses' year-long contract negotiations have come down to three very important issues, staffing, successor language and protection of their defined benefit pension. In response to an increase in patient assignments, nurses are calling for nurse staffing language to ensure that patients receive the care they need when they need it and to protect their licenses. With active discussions underway with potential buyers for the hospital, the RNs need to have successor language to protect their union rights and contract no matter who takes over. And lastly, the nurses are fighting to secure their pension. Recently the hospital tried to end their defined benefit pension and now they want to stop offering it to new nurses. WHAT: RALLY FOR A FAIR AND ACCEPTABLE CONTRACT WHEN: Noon on Saturday, September 17, 2011 WHERE: On the steps of Northampton City Hall (downtown Northampton) WHO: The Registered Nurses and their Community Supporters -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From calendar at wmjwj.org Thu Sep 15 16:23:06 2011 From: calendar at wmjwj.org (=?us-ascii?Q?Workers'_Rights_Calendar?=) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:23:06 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] press event for Safe Hospital RN Staffing 9/19 Message-ID: <047f01cc73e5$47d8d740$d78a85c0$@org> From: Leo Maley [mailto:LMaley at mnarn.org] The evidence is in: Safe Staffing Saves Lives. Join nurses and other patient safety advocates for a half hour on Monday to show your support for legislation to set minimal standards for safe hospital RN staffing. --Leo Leo Maley Associate Director/Region 1 Community Organizer Division of Legislation and Government Affairs Massachusetts Nurses Association Advocates for Hospital Patient Safety Speak Out on Massachusetts Safe Staffing Legislation News Conference on Monday, Sept. 19 at Noon (and concluding by 12:30) Outside Cooley Dickinson Hospital What: nurses and other patient safety advocates from Western Mass. will hold a news conference to urge lawmakers to pass two pieces of legislation that would improve the quality of patient care, save millions of health care dollars and prevent thousands of preventable infections and medical errors caused by poor RN staffing in the state's acute care hospitals The Patient Safety Act (HB. 1469), calls upon the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to set safe limits on the number of hospital patients a nurse can be forced to care for at once A second bill (HB 1506) would prohibit the dangerous practice of utilizing mandatory overtime as a means of staffing hospitals. The event, one of five being held outside hospitals across the Commonwealth, comes on the eve of a public hearing on the bills before the Joint Committee on Public Health on Tuesday, Sept. 20. Why: Safe staffing saves lives and controls health care costs. Scientific research makes clear that poor staffing and mandatory overtime contribute to millions of preventable complications for patients and causes thousands of preventable deaths each year. The state's nurses and health care advocates have been pushing for passage of this bill for over a decade. With all the talk of lowering the cost of health care in Massachusetts, it is more important than ever to protect the quality of care by ensuring that hospital patients have adequate access to registered nurses. When: Monday, September 19, at 12 noon (concluding by 12:30) Where: Cooley Dickinson Hospital (outside near the main hospital entrance); 30 Locust St. (Rt. 9), Northampton, MA Who: Bedside Nurses, members of the Coalition to Protect Massachusetts Patients , and others from the community -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Fri Sep 16 16:48:03 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:48:03 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Obama administration's dishonest promotion of Medicare Advantage Message-ID: Kaiser Health News September 15, 2011 Medicare Advantage Premiums To Fall 4% Next Year By Phil Galewitz The Obama administration on Thursday said the nearly 12 million senior citizens enrolled in Medicare health plans will see their monthly premiums drop by an average of 4 percent while benefits remain stable next year. Enrollment in the plans, which now have about a quarter of all Medicare beneficiaries, is expected to grow by 10 percent in 2012, said Jonathan Blum, deputy administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He attributed the premium drop to the agency?s strong negotiations with plans as well as the companies? continuing desire to serve the market. Dan Mendelson, the chief executive of consulting firm Avalere Health, said plans are lowering premiums because their costs have fallen as their members have used fewer services in the midst of the economic downturn. The plans were targeted by Democrats who complained that the government pays more per capita for beneficiaries in the private plans than it spends on those in traditional Medicare. Federal payments were frozen to Medicare Advantage plans this year and are dropping by less than 1 percent in 2012. The health care law softens the impact of Medicare Advantage cuts in 2012 by providing billions of dollars for quality bonuses for highly rated plans that received four or five stars in a government grading system. In a policy shift last fall, HHS decided to lower the bar for bonuses. Average-quality plans garnering just three or three-and-a-half stars would also get bonuses, although at a lower percentage than top-tier plans. The HHS decision means that nearly 90 percent of Medicare Advantage enrollees are in plans now eligible for a bonus. Under the tougher approach Congress took in the health law, only about 33 percent would have been in plans getting the extra payments. http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/September/15/medicare-advantage-premiums-fall-next-year.aspx Comment: The Obama administration is countering Republican claims that the Affordable Care Act stole money from Medicare. They are trumpeting the facts that Medicare Advantage premiums are 4 percent lower, and enrollment is expected to be up by 10 percent. We really need to get past the deceptive rhetoric on both sides to understand what really is going on. The Medicare Advantage program began as a fraud. These private plans were paid 113 percent of the costs of the traditional Medicare program so that they could offer extra benefits to entice individuals away from the public program. Once a sufficient number of individuals joined the private plans, funding for the public program would be slashed and patients would flee into the private plans. Only then would the public learn that the next planned step would be to shift to a Ryan-type voucher (premium support), which would dump much more of the costs onto patients. The Affordable Care Act included a provision to gradually reduce these Medicare Advantage overpayments. The scheduled reduction for 2012 will be less than 1 percent. But members of the Obama administration have been listening to the insurers and the Republicans. They decided that this very modest reduction might make them more vulnerable to Republican attacks as we enter an election year. So what did they do? They replenished the reductions with billions of dollars in quality bonuses designed for top tier 4 and 5 star plans, but they expanded the program to include 3 star plans. That way, plans covering 90 percent of Medicare Advantage enrollees would receive additional payments. A quality bonus for almost every plan is nothing more than a blanket payment increase. They have preserved this gift to the private insurers and then have the gall to claim that the programs are stronger and more popular as a result of their "strong negotiations" with the plans! Strength in politics seems to be proportional to the size of the gifts of cash, especially appalling when you realize that this is our tax money. By the way, how much is that 4 percent reduction in premiums that the Medicare Advantage enrollees will be paying? It averages about $1.48 monthly per enrollee. That tough negotiating sure hit the insurers hard. $1.48! I can picture the insurers leaving the negotiations saying that they sure were hit hard this year, but they hope to do better in next year's negotiations, as they collapse in hysterics right after the door closes. One more important fact to keep in mind is that these extra insurance company bonuses are paid partly by our Part B premiums in the traditional Medicare program. Those of us who refuse to join the Medicare Advantage plans are paying higher premiums to buy more patient benefits, more insurer profits and more administrative services for those who have enrolled in the private plans. We now have an official government policy that requires us to pay more and get less if we don't privatize ourselves! Dishonesty is so prevalent in politics today that I think I almost understand the graffiti that we saw yesterday while hiking on our ridge trail: "The truth is a lie!" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Sun Sep 18 18:31:56 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:31:56 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] towns' save $ with single payer health care Message-ID: <020801cc7652$c66f71d0$534e5570$@org> Attached are charts that Frank Olbris shared with the Western Mass. Single Payer Network at its quarterly meeting Saturday, showing the savings to individual cities and towns with single payer and where the savings come from. More at www.masscare.org. Alice -- acswift at comcast.net Alice C. Swift Amherst, MA 01002 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Savings by towns with single payer.xls Type: application/vnd.ms-excel Size: 22528 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Single payer would lower costs.doc Type: application/msword Size: 32768 bytes Desc: not available URL: From calendar at wmjwj.org Sun Sep 18 21:30:45 2011 From: calendar at wmjwj.org (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Workers'_Rights_Calendar?=) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:30:45 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] upcoming events Message-ID: <002d01cc766b$c1941f30$44bc5d90$@org> Monday September 19 SAFE STAFFING PRESS CONFERENCE & RALLY Noon, in front of Cooley Dickinson Hospital, 30 Locust Street, Northampton . Nurses and allies will rally in advance of a hearing Tuesday September 20 on the the Patient Safety Act (SB 543/HB 1469), which would dramatically improve hospital care by setting a safe limit on the number of patients assigned to a nurse. The Department of Public Health would set the safe limits and adjust them based on patient needs. It would also ban mandatory overtime and provide initiatives to increase nursing faculty and nurse recruitment. Please visit http://www.massnurses.org/legislation-and-politics/safe-staffing. Info: Leo Maley, (781) 520-1483, LMaley at mnarn.org. Tuesday September 20 (Third Tuesday) FRANKLIN/HAMPSHIRE HEALTH CARE COALITION 7pm, Lathrop Village Community Room, 1 Shallowbrook Ln , off Bridge Rd, on the right, Northampton. Organizing for the Massachusetts Medicare for All bill - a universal health care system, providing universal access, a comprehensive range of physical and mental health benefits, choice of provider, quality, unified financing and cost controls, accountable governance, and stability. Also organizing for the national alternative to state action: Medicare for All ? HR 676. Info: info at fhhcc.org. Please also visit www.masscare.org and www.healthcare-now.org. To subscribe to the WMass Health Care Action mailing list, send a blank email to healthcareaction-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/healthcareaction. Wednesday September 21 (Third Wednesday) BROWN BAG LUNCH VIGIL AT REP. NEAL?S OFFICE Noon-1pm, 300 State St, Springfield (map ). Monthly vigil in front of Rep. Richard Neal?s office. Asking him to sign onto the Main Street Contract pledge of no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and to implement a financial transaction tax. Info: Tim Carpenter, tim at pdamerica.org. Show your Representative and your neighbors what social benefits we could have paid for if the money spent on foreign, nation-building wars had been spent building our own communities (courtesy of the National Priorities Project ). Thursday September 22 WHY ARE ASTHMA RATES SO HIGH IN THE NORTH END? 6-8pm, Germ?n Gerena Community School, 200 Birnie Ave, Springfield. Why are our children sicker? How can we fix what is wrong with our air, our streets and our schools? Roundtable Discussion: ? Vanessa Green, Mass. Diesel Coalition ? Joaquin Rodriguez BS, LADC 1, Regional Manager, Springfield International Health Center ? Milta Franco, Activist, Brightwood Health Center/Centro de Salud Community Discussion to follow. Supper provided. Info: Arise for Social Justice, 734-4948. This event funded and supported by the Healthy Environment/Healthy Springfield CARE project, a US EPA-funded Environmental Justice Project. Wednesday September 28 (Fourth Wednesday) MASS SENIOR ACTION COUNCIL ? WESTERN MASS 1:30-3pm, Hobby Club, 309 Chestnut St (enter off Franklin off Liberty; behind YMCA), Springfield (739-4874). Light refreshments, 50/50 raffle. MSAC was founded in 1981 to promote the rights, well being, and dignity of all people, particularly vulnerable senior citizens. Open to people of all ages. MSAC has a proud history of effective community organizing and legislative advocacy on health care, housing, transportation, and other issues. Info: 543-2334, lstone at masssenioraction.org, www.masssenioraction.org. More events at AFSC Calendar . cid:image001.png at 01CBF21B.01158F20 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/png Size: 7218 bytes Desc: not available URL: From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Mon Sep 19 10:54:40 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Leafleting this week Message-ID: <010501cc76dc$11296530$337c2f90$@org> A big thank you! to all you good folks who've been there for this fight against corporate greed! Due to a combination of major competitions for our time, we are NOT leafleting this Wednesday September 21, but we will be talking Verizon at the other events. So we'd like Saturday September 24 to be a high profile day. Can you join us? Please let us know if you can leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed! Here's the regular weekly schedule and how to RSVP: 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield & 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield . Saturdays noon-2pm * Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know which store you are coming to and when: larasb at hotmail.com, 413-218-4496. 360 Russell St, Hadley . Saturdays noon-2pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. . Wednesdays noon-2pm ~ please let Ryan Quinn know you are coming: rep at geouaw.org, 413-545-0705. Graduate Employees Organization/UAW 2324 has adopted this shift. . Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield . Saturdays 11am-1pm ~ please let Brian Morrison know you are coming: brian.morrison at state.ma.us, 413-281-3223. Berkshire Central Labor Council has adopted this shift. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Please let us know if a different shift would be better for you. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. PLEASE NOTE! We normally don't leaflet customers in the rain. You can call the "store captains" listed above to be sure. When we call off a leafleting, the captains will be there at the beginning to tell anyone who did not get the message, but we'll only wait 15 minutes, so it'd be better if you tell us in advance that you're coming and we'll call you. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on this campaign by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. If you would like to participate in a flash mob, please contact Patrick Burke, patrick at wmjwj.org, (413) 454-5692. Will your organization adopt a shift of your choice on a weekly basis? If so, please send this information to jon at wmjwj.org: Name of Organization: Will adopt this store: On this day(s): At this time: For _____ hours. Name of Individual for Jon to contact: Best Phone: (Cell? Home? Work?) Thank you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch! The Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Workers' Rights list posts opportunities for you to learn about and show solidarity with workplace and working class struggles. And these events are opportunities for JwJ members to fulfill their pledge: "I'll be there for workers' rights at least five times a year!" (http://www.jwj.org/pledge.html) This is the core mission of Jobs with Justice , affirming that workers' rights are human rights. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From acswift at comcast.net Mon Sep 19 13:04:42 2011 From: acswift at comcast.net (Alice Swift) Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:04:42 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Fwd: Bake and Barbeque for Health Care Justice! In-Reply-To: <1948323856.652425.1316449323658.JavaMail.root@sz0009a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> References: <1948323856.652425.1316449323658.JavaMail.root@sz0009a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: Even if you don't want to cook, consider going and joining in the fun. 11 am on Sunday, Oct. 9. Alice ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mass-Care Announce Date: Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 12:22 PM Subject: Bake and Barbeque for Health Care Justice! To: Mass-Care Announce Hello Single Payer Supporters - Mass-Care is planning a beginning of fall cook-off and bake-off fundraiser for Sunday, October 9 (Columbus Day weekend) at the beautiful Larz Anderson park in Brookline! We are looking for volunteers to grill their favorite BBQ, or bake their favorite sweet, for a good cause. You don't need to be a top chef - enthusiastic amateurs who can prepare about 50 appetizer-sized morsels are warmly welcomed. The cook-off can involve any food that can be cooked on a grill, and the baked goods can all be made in advance - we are hoping for four contestants in each category, and we will have prizes! Please email Benjamin Day at director at masscare.org if you are interested in participating, and otherwise mark your calendar for 11AM on Sunday, October 9! ______________________________**_________________ Mass-Care: The Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care 33 Harrison Ave - 5th floor Boston, MA 02111 Ph: 617-723-7001 Fx: 617-723-7002 Em: info at masscare.org -- acswift at comcast.net Alice C. Swift Amherst, MA 01002 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Mon Sep 19 14:48:50 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:48:50 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Government health spending is fiscally unsustainable? Message-ID: Health Affairs Blog September 14, 2011 Census Numbers: The Trend Toward Government Coverage Continues By Nina Owcharenko (Condensed) In its yearly survey of health insurance coverage, the U.S. Census Bureau published figures that underscore the trend toward greater dependence on government for coverage. Most analysts, regardless of political views, generally agree that to make the system work better, there needs to be greater portability and continuity in health care coverage. This, however, is where the philosophical divide occurs. Those on the left generally see a larger role for government-based coverage, while those on the right see a greater role for individuals. One only needs to look at the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to see this take shape. The PPACA puts the trend toward government-based coverage on the fast track. The law will add an estimated 26 million people to Medicaid alone. Even without PPACA, existing government-based coverage (Medicare and Medicaid) is fiscally unsustainable. Those on the right (including myself) who oppose the government-based model see an alternative path toward portability and continuity based on individual ownership and market-based competition. The Heritage Foundation?s Saving the American Dream plan empowers individuals and families to own and control their health insurance. It establishes individual tax relief for people to buy coverage in a marketplace where insurers and providers are accountable to meeting consumers? needs of higher quality at lower costs. It also reforms Medicare and Medicaid, putting them on a sustainable path forward. While discussion of the Census numbers typically focuses on changes affecting the uninsured, the real story is the slow but steady trend away from private coverage and toward government coverage. Recent estimates by the CMS actuaries project that by 2020, government will control 50 percent of all health care spending in the country. Americans should take note that the health care system is moving to the tipping point where it will be more government-run than private. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/09/14/census-numbers-the-trend-toward-government-coverage-continues/ Response: Don McCanne September 18th, 2011 Why would health care be fiscally unsustainable when it is paid for through a government program, yet sustainable when it is paid for privately? The fiscally unsustainable argument is based on the assumptions that the government would not introduce adequate cost containment measures, and that the government would not impose adequate taxes or tax equivalents to pay for the system. Based on the experience of other nations, both assumptions should be challenged. Other nations use either government ownership or robust government regulation to slow the growth in health care costs. They also use government taxing authority or regulatory mandates to ensure that the health system is fiscally sustainable. Directly or indirectly, they function as a public monopsony. Although they may complain about their own rising costs, they certainly spend less money than we do, yet they are able to include essentially everyone in their comprehensive programs. How would private control of health spending produce a fiscally sustainable system? The answer is that it would be fiscally sustainable only for the government. With a median household income of $49,000 and average health care expenditures of an insured family at $18,000 (Milliman Medical Index), health care costs for individuals and families are already unsustainable. (Median households and families with employer-sponsored plans are not the same, but these numbers still illustrate the enormity of the problem.) Health consumer empowerment is being achieved by shifting more of the responsibility for payment directly to patients, especially through increased deductibles and other cost sharing. At today?s high heath care costs that means that many more patients would be foregoing beneficial health care services, simply because they can?t pay for them. Now Medicare and Medicaid are being threatened with proposed reforms that allegedly would put them on the path of sustainability. Again, that might be sustainable for the government, but the proposed changes would shift more costs to patients, further impairing access because of increasing financial barriers to care. Many of us were shocked recently during the Republican candidates? debate when the moderator asked if a thirty year old, critically ill man should be allowed to die because he was uninsured, and members of the audience shouted, "Yes." But that was only a very few voices from an anti-government Tea Party audience. Not only would citizens of other nations emphatically reject this view, it also decidedly violates American values. Nina Owcharenko offers us the choice between consumer empowerment in which we can reject the health care we need but can?t pay for, or our own beneficent government monopsony that would ensure value in our health care purchasing so that all of us could have the health care that we need. Although her blog entry and this response may appear to be merely a rhetorical game, the choice really is a matter of our nation?s health. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/09/14/census-numbers-the-trend-toward-government-coverage-continues/#comment-50117 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Tue Sep 20 17:14:53 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:14:53 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] URGENT VZ STREET HEAT MEETING TOMORROW Message-ID: <019901cc77da$57ccb0b0$07661210$@org> The national campaign for justice at Verizon has called for a national day of action Thursday September 29. To begin planning our contribution to this, we are calling a special meeting of our Verizon Street Heat Committee for tomorrow, September 21, 4 to 5pm, at IBEW 2324, 281 Cottage St, Springfield . If you can come, please let me know: jon at wmjwj.org or 413-827-0301. REMINDER: we are NOT leafleting tomorrow. See you Saturday September 24? Click here to RSVP: "I 'll Be There!" And if you would like to participate in a flash mob, please contact Patrick Burke, patrick at wmjwj.org, (413) 454-5692. Please let us know if you can leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed! Here's the regular weekly leafleting schedule (please let us know if a different shift would be better for you) and how to RSVP: 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield & 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield Saturdays noon-2pm Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know which store you are coming to and when: larasb at hotmail.com, 413-218-4496. 360 Russell St, Hadley Saturdays noon-2pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. Wednesdays noon-2pm ~ please let Ryan Quinn know you are coming: rep at geouaw.org, 413-545-0705. Graduate Employees Organization/UAW 2324 has adopted this shift. Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield Saturdays 11am-1pm ~ please let Brian Morrison know you are coming: brian.morrison at state.ma.us, 413-281-3223. Berkshire Central Labor Council has adopted this shift. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. PLEASE NOTE! We normally don't leaflet customers in the rain. You can call the "store captains" listed above to be sure. When we call off a leafleting, the captains will be there at the beginning to tell anyone who did not get the message, but we'll only wait 15 minutes, so it'd be better if you tell us in advance that you're coming and we'll call you. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on this campaign by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. Will your organization adopt a shift of your choice on a weekly basis? If so, please send this information to jon at wmjwj.org: Name of Organization: Will adopt this store: On this day(s): At this time: For _____ hours. Name of Individual for Jon to contact: Best Phone: (Cell? Home? Work?) Thank you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch! The Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Workers' Rights list posts opportunities for you to learn about and show solidarity with workplace and working class struggles. And these events are opportunities for JwJ members to fulfill their pledge: "I'll be there for workers' rights at least five times a year!" (http://www.jwj.org/pledge.html) This is the core mission of Jobs with Justice , affirming that workers' rights are human rights. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Tue Sep 20 17:19:30 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:19:30 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: President Obama's political positioning on Medicare Message-ID: Office of Management and Budget September 2011 Living Within Our Means and Investing in the Future The President?s Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction Health Savings Increase income-related premiums under Medicare Parts B and D. Under Medicare Parts B and D, certain beneficiaries pay higher premiums as a result of their higher levels of income. Beginning in 2017, the Administration proposes to increase income-related premiums under Medicare Parts B and D by 15 percent and maintain the income thresholds associated with income-related premiums until 25 percent of beneficiaries under Parts B and D are subject to these premiums. This will help improve the financial stability of the Medicare program by reducing the Federal subsidy of Medicare costs for those beneficiaries who can most afford them. Modify Part B deductible for new beneficiaries. Beneficiaries who are enrolled in Medicare Part B are required to pay an annual deductible. This deductible helps to share responsibility for payment of Medicare services between Medicare and beneficiaries. To strengthen program financing and encourage beneficiaries to seek high-value health care services, the Administration proposes to apply a $25 increase in the Part B deductible in 2017, 2019, and 2021 for new beneficiaries. Current beneficiaries or near retirees would not be subject to the revised deductible. Introduce home health co-payments for new beneficiaries. Medicare beneficiaries currently do not make co-payments for Medicare home health services. This proposal would create a home health copayment of $100 per home health episode, applicable for episodes with five or more visits not preceded by a hospital or other inpatient post-acute care stay. This would apply to new beneficiaries beginning in 2017. Introduce a Part B premium surcharge for new beneficiaries that purchase near first-dollar Medigap coverage. Medigap policies sold by private insurance companies provide beneficiaries additional support for covering healthcare costs by covering most or all of the cost sharing Medicare requires. This protection, however, gives individuals less incentive to consider the costs of health care services and thus raises Medicare costs and Part B premiums. Of particular concern are Medigap plans that cover substantially all Medicare copayments, including even the modest co-payments for routine care that most beneficiaries can afford to pay out of pocket. To encourage more efficient health care choices, the Administration proposes a Part B premium surcharge equivalent to about 15 percent of the average Medigap premium (or about 30 percent of the Part B premium) for new beneficiaries that purchase Medigap policies with particularly low cost-sharing requirements, starting in 2017. Current beneficiaries and near-retirees would not be subject to the surcharge. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/jointcommitteereport.pdf Comment: Having been burned repeatedly in negotiations with the Republicans, and fully aware of that the election season has already begun, President Obama stepped away from conducting negotiations over in their territory and has now released his own list of policies not tainted by compromise. Since there is no hope of passing this intact in the current Congress, releasing this proposal obviously was a political maneuver. Nevertheless, it is important to see where he stands on Medicare, if only he could have his way. Although he had been in discussions on raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67, it is a relief to see that this is absent from his wish list. Also there is not even a hint that he might consider a privatization scheme such as the Republican premium support/voucher program. So what is in his proposal? He would increase both Medicare Part B (physician) and Part D (drug) premiums for higher-income individuals and expand the number of beneficiaries who would be subject to these higher premiums. It is entirely appropriate for higher-income individuals to contribute more in taxes to the funding of Medicare, but once individuals are in the program they should all be treated the same. Requiring higher payments for higher-income individuals reduces their support for the traditional program and increases the political pressure to privatize. If more money is needed from higher-income Medicare beneficiaries then it should be collected through progressive income taxes and not through income-indexed premiums. He would increase Part B deductibles for younger Medicare beneficiaries, but not for those already in the program. Just as assigning different premiums based on income decreases solidarity, the assignment of different deductibles based on age also takes a toll on solidarity. Introducing co-payments for Medicare home health services shifts costs from the government to Medicare beneficiaries. In fact, new co-payments, higher premiums, and larger deductibles all expand the cost burden for beneficiaries, which can have the detrimental impact of impairing access. Medicare already is a program with inadequate coverage that leaves patients with excessive out-of-pocket costs. The costs can be high enough such that Medicare beneficiaries have not been immune to personal bankruptcy associated with medical debt. Several previous Quote of the Day messages have shown that cost sharing has only a negligible impact in reducing our national health expenditures, yet it often does cause financial hardship and can impair access. The proposal to introduce a Part B surcharge for individuals purchasing Medigap plans is yet another means of shifting more costs to the patient. It is designed to discourage patients from buying Medigap plans that would significantly reduce the burden of cost sharing. Instead of increasing cost sharing, the financial burden should be reduced by folding Medigap benefits into the traditional Medicare program. Even though President Obama and his handlers are trying to create an image that he is standing firm for middle-income Americans and against the right wing anti-government extremists, on Medicare he is actually moving to the right! He has violated the first rule of negotiation. You never compromise any of your basic policy positions before you begin. Where should he have begun? He should have eliminated all cost sharing in Medicare, converted the financing infrastructure into a single payer system, and then moved the eligibility age to birth. But no. Free of the bonds of the right wing extortion, he drifted to the right anyway. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From don at mccanne.org Wed Sep 21 17:49:07 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:49:07 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Examining the arguments for competitive pricing in Medicare Message-ID: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law August 2011 Competitive Pricing and the Challenge of Cost Control in Medicare By Robert F. Coulam, Roger D. Feldman and Bryan E. Dowd Abstract The Medicare program faces a serious challenge: it must find ways to control costs but must do so through a system of congressional oversight that necessarily limits its choices. We look at one approach to prudent purchasing - competitive pricing - that Medicare has attempted many times and in various ways since the beginning of the program, and in all but one case unsuccessfully due to the politics of provider opposition working through Congress and the courts. We look at some related efforts to change Medicare pricing to explore when the program has been successful in making dramatic changes in how it pays for health care. A set of recommendations emerges for ways to respond to the impediments of law and politics that have obstructed change to more efficient payment methods. Except in unusual cases, competitive pricing threatens too many stakeholders in too many ways for key political actors to support it. But an unusual case may arise in the coming Medicare fiscal crisis related in part to the prices Medicare pays. At that point, competitive pricing may look less like a problem and more like a solution coming at a time when the system badly needs one. What is to be done? * Recognize that competitive pricing is one part of fixing Medicare's urgent fiscal problems * Consider ways to divide provider opposition or buy it off * Be aware that some bidding models might face fewer legal and political problems than others * Cultivate political leaders to support competitive bidding as policy * Compensate losers, at least through a transition period * Give beneficiaries and providers time to adjust * Strengthen the administrative and legal resources available to CMS in competitive bidding struggles * Revise the legal framework to narrow the grounds for challenges * Combine competitive pricing with mechanisms to increase quality http://jhppl.dukejournals.org/content/36/4/649.abstract Comment: The authors of this article supporting competitive pricing for Medicare were funded by a grant from the American Enterprise Institute, an organization "committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise." It is interesting to read why they believe that previous efforts to introduce competitive pricing failed, but what is even more interesting is their list of proposals for action that might accomplish their elusive goal. Medicare uses administrative pricing to determine payments. Prices are set by performing analytic calculations, using historical claims data. The goal of conservatives has been to use competitive pricing instead, a competitive bidding process to obtain the lowest prices. Although conservatives contend that competition will always provide the lowest prices, in fact, the top-down administered pricing by Medicare has been much more effective in controlling health care prices than has competition of private insurance plans in the private sector. Regardless of the evidence, the conservatives have a ideological belief that competition must be more effective, and we can prove that by displacing administrative pricing with competitive pricing - showing that it really works. So let's look at their proposals for introducing competition as a means of expanding liberty and strengthening free enterprise. In examining their proposals listed above, the concepts are the same, only the rhetoric is changed: * The first and most important point (according to the authors) is that we must accept without question the ideology of competition as the means to fix Medicare's urgent fiscal problems, while implicitly totally rejecting government administrative pricing. The political process is to be driven by ideology rather than policy science. * Using the finest principles of market competition, we must use devious methods to divide the opposition of health care providers, or, failing that, simply buy them off. Just don't call it a bribe since that term is offensive to free market purists. * Make sure the bidding models are rigged to circumvent legal and political barriers. * Cultivating political leaders to support competitive pricing is now much easier since the Supreme Court decided that the transfer of massive amounts of cash is a protected form of free speech. * Compensating losers through a transition period is a euphemism for the "so-sorry-but-that's-the-way-competition-works" gratuitous comment to the losers who face financial ruin. Market purists would never give cash rewards to the competition that they just beat out. * Giving beneficiaries and providers time to adjust need not be a separate policy since it is automatic - the time between when they are informed that they lost their insurance or their provider contract and the date of the actual termination. * Strengthening the administrative and legal resources available to CMS in competitive bidding struggles is just what markets are all about - swindle the patients and providers by diverting more health care dollars to yet more administrative waste. * Revising the legal framework to narrow the grounds for challenges will be a cinch since they already have a Supreme Court that will protect their marketplace excesses. * Combining competitive pricing with mechanisms to increase quality - the old measuring-and-monitoring-quality trick wherein they pretend that it is the middleman insurer that creates quality rather than the dedicated health care professionals. In reading this long article, I could understand why these AEI-funded authors were making excuses for the previous failed experiments in competitive pricing, but I have to admit that I was astonished when they gave us this list of reasons why we should never even remotely consider adopting competitive pricing in the Medicare program. That was very thoughtful of them. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From don at mccanne.org Thu Sep 22 14:12:07 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 11:12:07 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Ida Hellander blogs on Lessons from an English GP Message-ID: Physicians for a National Health Program PNHP Blog September 22, 2011 Lessons from an English GP visiting Chicago Posted by Ida Hellander MD Dr. Clare Gerada, president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, visited Chicago recently on a study tour to see how a market-based system works for society?s most vulnerable first hand. I was fortunate to be able to accompany her on several of her stops. http://pnhp.org/blog/2011/09/22/lessons-from-an-english-gp-visiting-chicago/ Comment: Today's message is a twofer. First is the great news that Ida Hellander will be a regular contributor to the PNHP blog. Second is that her blog today on lessons from an English GP is well worth reading, and to free up your time so you can read it, no complicated policy qotd message will be posted today. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From calendar at wmjwj.org Thu Sep 22 15:02:22 2011 From: calendar at wmjwj.org (=?us-ascii?Q?Workers'_Rights_Calendar?=) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:02:22 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Updates Re Tomorrow Message-ID: <025f01cc795a$28f4ef60$7adece20$@org> Friday September 23 VERIZON STREET HEAT COMMITTEE meeting has moved to Thursday September 29, 9:30-10:30am, at IBEW Local 2324, 281 Cottage St, Springfield . It's best to let us know in advance that you are coming to this and other Verizon-related events, as circumstances may lead to cancellations and we'll let you know. Info: (413) 827-0301, jon at wmjwj.org. BUS RIDERS UNION ORGANIZING COMMITTEE meeting has moved to Thursday September 29, 3:30-5pm at the Central Labor Council, 640 Page Blvd, Springfield (get directions here ). Community and labor organizers are exploring mass transit issues and forming a PVTA bus riders union. Info: Richard Gardner, (413) 732-8041, rgardner at atulocal448.com. The following will happen tomorrow: FUTURE OF WORK: WHAT'S LABOR'S AGENDA FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT? 9am-3:30pm, Reading Room, 2nd Floor, Campus Center, UMass Amherst. Free. This conference will bring together labor leaders, community activists, and researchers and academics to examine some interesting projects from Massachusetts and beyond, such as labor involvement in worker coops, high-road manufacturing strategies, and building sustainable and green, and consider how to deepen labor's involvement in economic planning and development in the Commonwealth. Info: Dale Melcher, (413) 545-6166, dmelcher at lrrc.umass.edu. COMMUNITY-LABOR REBUILDING COALITION 11am-12:30, Pioneer Valley Central Labor Council, 640 Page Boulevard, Springfield. Springfield area community and labor leaders from fourteen organizations have formed the Community-Labor Rebuilding Coalition to focus on good jobs for local workers as part of the planning and projects in response to the June tornados, and beyond. The Coalition advocates for local people to get jobs with good pay and benefits, doing work that the community needs, with solid long-term community benefits. Info: Michael Florio, (413) 731-0760, westernmasscosh at verizon.net, or Khali Maddox-Abdegeo, (413) 433-9056, nembt1 at gmail.com. CO-OP POWER'S ANNUAL SUSTAINABILITY SUMMIT Greenfield Community College - in the new green building. Celebrate the more than 48 good green jobs Co-op Power has created and the more than 50 others they've helped to create. Friday September 23: 6-11pm - celebration with awesome Cuban band, La Charanga Libre - $5 if you register in advance. Saturday September 24: 9am-3:30pm - focus on justice and sustainability, exhibitors, mini workshops and demonstrations, family games, think tank sessions, music, local food - free if you register in advance. Info: Lynn Benander, (413) 772-8898, lynn at cooppower.coop. HYPERLOCAL MEDIA AND THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY MEDIA 7pm, Unitarian Society, 220 Main St, Northampton. Speaker: Craig Aaron, Executive Director, Free Press . Info: www.northamptontv.org or barbaradiamond at rcn.com. cid:image001.png at 01CBF21B.01158F20 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/png Size: 7218 bytes Desc: not available URL: From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Thu Sep 22 16:42:25 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:42:25 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] URGENT VZ STREET HEAT Message-ID: <033b01cc7968$236ae730$6a40b590$@org> The national action date has changed to Saturday October 1 - we will rally at the West Springfield store from noon to 2. More info coming. Our Verizon Street Heat Committee will next meet Thursday September 29, 9:30-10:30am, at IBEW Local 2324, 281 Cottage St, Springfield . It's best to let us know in advance that you are coming to this and other Verizon-related events, as circumstances may lead to cancellations and we'll let you know. Info: (413) 827-0301, jon at wmjwj.org. From: WMass Jobs with Justice [mailto:wmjwj at wmjwj.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 5:15 PM To: 'WMJwJ Members List'; Workers' Rights List; 'WMass SLAP List'; 'Street Heat List' Cc: 'Health Care Action List'; Arise Action List; Interfaith Coalition List; Pride at Work List; Progressive Dems In Western Mass List; SAGE List Subject: URGENT VZ STREET HEAT MEETING TOMORROW Importance: High The national campaign for justice at Verizon has called for a national day of action Thursday September 29. To begin planning our contribution to this, we are calling a special meeting of our Verizon Street Heat Committee for tomorrow, September 21, 4 to 5pm, at IBEW 2324, 281 Cottage St, Springfield . If you can come, please let me know: jon at wmjwj.org or 413-827-0301. REMINDER: we are NOT leafleting tomorrow. See you Saturday September 24? Click here to RSVP: "I 'll Be There!" And if you would like to participate in a flash mob, please contact Patrick Burke, patrick at wmjwj.org, (413) 454-5692. Please let us know if you can leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed! Here's the regular weekly leafleting schedule (please let us know if a different shift would be better for you) and how to RSVP: 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield & 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield Saturdays noon-2pm Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know which store you are coming to and when: larasb at hotmail.com, 413-218-4496. 360 Russell St, Hadley Saturdays noon-2pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. Wednesdays noon-2pm ~ please let Ryan Quinn know you are coming: rep at geouaw.org, 413-545-0705. Graduate Employees Organization/UAW 2324 has adopted this shift. Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield Saturdays 11am-1pm ~ please let Brian Morrison know you are coming: brian.morrison at state.ma.us, 413-281-3223. Berkshire Central Labor Council has adopted this shift. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. PLEASE NOTE! We normally don't leaflet customers in the rain. You can call the "store captains" listed above to be sure. When we call off a leafleting, the captains will be there at the beginning to tell anyone who did not get the message, but we'll only wait 15 minutes, so it'd be better if you tell us in advance that you're coming and we'll call you. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on this campaign by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. Will your organization adopt a shift of your choice on a weekly basis? If so, please send this information to jon at wmjwj.org: Name of Organization: Will adopt this store: On this day(s): At this time: For _____ hours. Name of Individual for Jon to contact: Best Phone: (Cell? Home? Work?) Thank you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch! The Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Workers' Rights list posts opportunities for you to learn about and show solidarity with workplace and working class struggles. And these events are opportunities for JwJ members to fulfill their pledge: "I'll be there for workers' rights at least five times a year!" (http://www.jwj.org/pledge.html) This is the core mission of Jobs with Justice , affirming that workers' rights are human rights. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Fri Sep 23 08:12:13 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2011 08:12:13 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Wireless Saturday + Call Message-ID: <011101cc79ea$08c702b0$1a550810$@org> Please RSVP to leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed at noon on Saturday September 24 - if it isn't raining. NOTE: It does look like rain Saturday. We will make the decision to call it off Saturday morning and let you know by email. We can send the email to your cell phone as a text message if you send your number and name of carrier to wmjwj at wmjwj.org. You can call the "store captains" listed below to be sure, but it's better if you tell us in advance that you're coming and we'll call you. When we call off a leafleting shift, the captains will be there at the beginning to tell anyone who did not get the message, but we'll only wait 15 minutes, Here's the regular weekly leafleting schedule and how to RSVP: 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield & 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield Saturdays noon-2pm Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know which store you are coming to and when: larasb at hotmail.com, 413-218-4496. 360 Russell St, Hadley Saturdays noon-2pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. Wednesdays noon-2pm ~ please let Ryan Quinn know you are coming: rep at geouaw.org, 413-545-0705. Graduate Employees Organization/UAW 2324 has adopted this shift. Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield Saturdays 11am-1pm ~ please let Brian Morrison know you are coming: brian.morrison at state.ma.us, 413-281-3223. Berkshire Central Labor Council has adopted this shift. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. Please join a brainstorming conference call Saturday at 1:30pm: We've scheduled a conference call September 24 to brainstorm ideas for different kinds of actions during the next few weeks. National JwJ has proposed weeks of action around the broad areas of concern at the bargaining table, such as health care and pensions. And the AFL-CIO has called for a national week of action 10/10-16 for jobs and the America Wants to Work agenda at http://aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/jobs/jobsagenda.cfm. We decided to schedule the call for 1:30pm so as to involve our leafleters at the stores (if it's not raining!). People can stop leafleting early and make the calls from someone's car. The call will happen even if we are not leafleting due to rain. Dial-in Number: 1-218-936-4700 Participant Access Code: 5997412 En la lucha, Jon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Fri Sep 23 14:31:10 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:31:10 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: U.S. still the worst on amenable mortality Message-ID: The Commonwealth Fund September 23, 2011 Variations in Amenable Mortality ? Trends in 16 High-Income Nations By Ellen Nolte, Ph.D., and Martin McKee, M.D., D.Sc. Synopsis The rate of "mortality amenable to health care" ? that is, deaths that are considered preventable with timely and effective health care ? declined for people under age 75 across 16 high-income nations between 1997?1998 and 2006?2007. While all countries showed improvement, the United States improved the least. Key Findings In 2006?2007, amenable mortality accounted for 24 percent of deaths under age 75 in the 16 countries studied. The highest levels were in the United States, with 95.5 deaths per 100,000 people. Addressing the Problem Although amenable mortality fell consistently in all countries, the scale and pace of improvement varied. The United States's poor performance and relatively slow improvement compared with other nations may be attributable to "the lack of universal coverage and high costs of care," the authors conclude. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Publications/In-the-Literature/2011/Sep/Variations-in-Amenable-Mortality.aspx?omnicid=20 Comment: So, the United States has "the best health care system in the world," except for all the others. Our amenable mortality - deaths that are preventable with timely and effective health care - is the worst amongst the 16 high-income nations studied. The authors suggest that our poor result may be attributable to the lack of universal coverage and the high costs of care. Unfortunately the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will provide neither universal coverage nor adequate measures to control health care spending. The policy community certainly understands that we could cover everyone and control excessive spending by enacting a single payer national health program - an improved Medicare for all. So why have they disappeared behind closed doors to work on ACA - a model that won't get us there? Please, policy wonks, come out of the closet! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Fri Sep 23 19:42:59 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:42:59 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Letter to support MHA workers Message-ID: <03c101cc7a4a$87ccb450$97661cf0$@org> Dear Workers' Rights Advocates, Workers at Mental Health Association in Springfield are in the fight of their lives. Last year Executive Director Linda Williams and management waged an intense anti-union campaign and violated workers' rights. Their actions were so egregious, like turning the office into a stockade on election day and promising bonuses only if workers voted no, that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) set aside the election and ordered a new one. Can click here today and tell MHA's management that you've got the workers' back? Workers at MHA provide a valuable service to our community-helping our neighbors with mental health needs and developmental disabilities live independent lives in the community. They are forming a union to win dignity and respect at the workplace, to raise standards in their industry, and to work for safety, accountability, and oversight of human services. Despite the fear and intimidation campaign waged by Linda Williams and MHA management, the workers have another shot this fall to win their voice at the workplace in a new election. Show them you support their fight by sending a letter to Linda Williams and the Board of Directors. Tell MHA they can't get away with these illegal actions again: http://509.seiu.org/page/speakout/i-support-mha-workers Thank you! Peter Witzler Senior Community Political Organizer Supporting People, Supporting Communities http://spsc.seiu.org/ SEIU, Public Services Division Cell: 202.257.4952 Office: 202.730.7389 peter.witzler at seiu.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: MHA One Pager 9.22.doc Type: application/msword Size: 95232 bytes Desc: not available URL: From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Fri Sep 23 20:48:16 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:48:16 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Two more local e-actions for workers' rights! Message-ID: <045b01cc7a53$a9da9310$fd8fb930$@org> UAW 2322 is asking us to help its members at ServiceNet by contacting President and CEO Susan Stubbs and tell her to bargain in good faith. Some of the more outrageous demands and inequities include: 1) While senior management has taken almost 40% in wage and benefit increases over a three-year period, they are offering the union's members a mere "bonus", which would be less than 2% and would not be added to their base wage. 2) ServiceNet management pays only half of what our members do towards insurance. 3) ServiceNet wants to reduce vacation days earned ... and 4) Excessive restrictions on the use of sick leave. Click here to sign the letter to Sue Stubbs. Another online petition Local 2322 has going is about UMass health insurance changes: http://uaw2322.org/story/tell-umass-co-insurance-no-insurance -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Walsh at umassmed.edu Tue Sep 13 15:43:53 2011 From: John.Walsh at umassmed.edu (Walsh, John) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:43:53 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Fwd: Census: Massachusetts Uninsured Climb to Highest Rates Since Reform In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Why then do we not join the fight against ObamaCare which is more of the same? If it is stopped, as Robert Reich points out, then the only way to get Universal Care is Single-payer (or an NHS which Reich does not mention). Once we are saddled with ObamaCare it may be a generation or more before we get another crack at single payer. I sat with a friend the other night and listen to her cry because her daughter had a bad infection and was afraid to go to the ER because of the cost. Her daughter's husband works, making $500 a week but the insurance through his company would cost them $100+ a week. They have kids and cannot afford it. I believe if George W. Bush were pushing this kind of plan, the "progressives" would be fighting it tooth and nail. In fact we did resist it here in MA. And all those folks who voted for Obama and were extremely nasty to those who foretold all he would do ? they are still tagging along behind the Messiah. Pathetic and an abdication of principle in the extreme. jw John V. Walsh, MD Professor of Microbiology and Physiological Systems University of Massachusetts Medical School 55 Lake Ave., N. Worcester, MA 01655 Cell: 508-868-1653 From: Alice Swift > Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:35:18 -0400 To: HealthCareAction > Subject: [Health Care Action] Fwd: Census: Massachusetts Uninsured Climb to Highest Rates Since Reform ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mass-Care Announce > Date: Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 2:32 PM Subject: Census: Massachusetts Uninsured Climb to Highest Rates Since Reform To: Mass-Care Announce > Hello Single Payer Supporters - According to Census data released today, the share of uninsured residents in Massachusetts rose to 5.6% in 2010, up from 4.4% in 2009 and the highest rate since health reform passed in 2006. The rise in uninsured was almost driven by low-income people: uninsured rates for those below 300% of the poverty line (about $32,500 per year for an individual) rose from 6.0% to 9.9%, and rates for those between 300% and 500% of poverty (about $54,000) rose from 4% to 9.8%. This rise comes despite a massive growth in Medicaid enrollment, which reached almost 900,000 at the end of 2010 - compared with 700,000 at the outset of health reform. This growth in public insurance was not enough to offset the continued decline in employer-sponsored coverage, which dropped below 65% of the population in Massachusetts for the first time. Today's troubling news tells us what all parties agree upon: the Massachusetts Health Reform is not sustainable with continued rising health care costs. And while the legislature is promising to control the costs of health care in the future by implementing Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), a much-anticipated study examining what is probably the country's largest experiment in ACOs - Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts's Alternative Quality Contract, which already enrolls almost a fourth of Blue Cross's members - found that the ACOs were significantly more costly than Blue Cross's traditional managed care payment system, and that furthermore the ACOs did not reduce utilization at all, which was the promise of ACOs in the first place (that they would remove the incentive for doctors and other providers to over-use tests and procedures). This is not a shocking finding, since it is well-established in the literature that over-use of health care is not responsible for driving up our health care costs. Consider writing an op-ed or a letter to the editor of your local paper referencing the new data from the Census, and calling for quick passage of the Medicare for All in Massachusetts Act (S. 501 and H. 338), which would establish comprehensive access to health care as a right - in and out of recessions - and create an estimated 15.75% savings from our current health care spending even after eliminating uninsurance and underinsurance. Detailed Census data for Massachusetts can be obtained from the CPS Table Creator: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstc/cps_table_creator.html The study of Blue Cross's AQC program was published in Health Affairs here: http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/30/1/51 _______________________________________________ Mass-Care: The Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care 33 Harrison Ave - 5th floor Boston, MA 02111 Ph: 617-723-7001 Fx: 617-723-7002 Em: info at masscare.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lstone at masssenioraction.org Fri Sep 23 19:48:00 2011 From: lstone at masssenioraction.org (Linda Stone) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:48:00 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Healthy Environment/Healthy Aging Forum Message-ID: HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT/HEALTHY AGING What do clean air, water, and soil have to do with aging? Why should be concerned about our environment as we get older? What does the recent tornado clean-up have to do with our health? *A Community Discussion with*: Chris Rogers, UMass School of Public Health Patrick Sullivan, Director, Springfield Parks, Buildings & Recreation Management Lynn Rose, City of Springfield, Air Quality Specialist Mike Florio, WMass Coalition on Occupational Health & Safety Nick Fyntrilakis, Chair, DevelopSpringfield *Wed., Sept. 28, 1 to 3:30 p.m.* *Springfield** Hobby Club* *309 Chestnut St**.** *(off Franklin St., behind YMCA) Information: Mass. Senior Action, 543-2334 This event funded and supported by the Healthy Environment/Healthy Springfield CARE project, a US EPA-funded Environmental Justice Project -- Linda Stone Western MA Organizer Massachusetts Senior Action Council 413-543-2334 www.masssenioraction.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Sat Sep 24 09:16:58 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Wireless Saturday + Call Message-ID: <058601cc7abc$3ff62cc0$bfe28640$@org> The weather looks good and we ARE leafleting today! Please also note the conference call below <> . From: WMass Jobs with Justice [mailto:wmjwj at wmjwj.org] Please RSVP to leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed at noon on Saturday September 24 - if it isn't raining. NOTE: It does look like rain Saturday. We will make the decision to call it off Saturday morning and let you know by email. We can send the email to your cell phone as a text message if you send your number and name of carrier to wmjwj at wmjwj.org. You can call the "store captains" listed below to be sure, but it's better if you tell us in advance that you're coming and we'll call you. When we call off a leafleting shift, the captains will be there at the beginning to tell anyone who did not get the message, but we'll only wait 15 minutes, Here's the regular weekly leafleting schedule and how to RSVP: 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield & 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield Saturdays noon-2pm Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Lara Shepard-Blue know which store you are coming to and when: larasb at hotmail.com, 413-218-4496. 360 Russell St, Hadley Saturdays noon-2pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. Wednesdays noon-2pm ~ please let Ryan Quinn know you are coming: rep at geouaw.org, 413-545-0705. Graduate Employees Organization/UAW 2324 has adopted this shift. Wednesdays 5-7pm ~ please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield Saturdays 11am-1pm ~ please let Brian Morrison know you are coming: brian.morrison at state.ma.us, 413-281-3223. Berkshire Central Labor Council has adopted this shift. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. Please join a brainstorming conference call Saturday at 1:30pm: We've scheduled a conference call September 24 to brainstorm ideas for different kinds of actions during the next few weeks. National JwJ has proposed weeks of action around the broad areas of concern at the bargaining table, such as health care and pensions. And the AFL-CIO has called for a national week of action 10/10-16 for jobs and the America Wants to Work agenda at http://aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/jobs/jobsagenda.cfm. We decided to schedule the call for 1:30pm so as to involve our leafleters at the stores (if it's not raining!). People can stop leafleting early and make the calls from someone's car. The call will happen even if we are not leafleting due to rain. Dial-in Number: 1-218-936-4700 Participant Access Code: 5997412 En la lucha, Jon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Mon Sep 26 14:59:35 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:59:35 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Marmor, Mashaw, and Lakoff - the language of egalitarianism has been hijacked Message-ID: The New York Times September 23, 2011 How Do You Say ?Economic Security?? By Theodore R. Marmor and Jerry L. Mashaw In the face of nothing but bad economic news, Americans often take heart in remembering that we have been here before ? during the Great Depression, when conditions were far worse than they are today ? and we survived. But there is a crucial difference between then and now: the words that our political leaders use to talk about our problems have changed. Where politicians once drew on a morally resonant language of people, family and shared social concern, they now deploy the cold technical idiom of budgetary accounting. This is more than a superficial difference in rhetoric. It threatens to deprive us of the intellectual resources needed to address today?s problems. In 1934, the government was us. We had shared circumstances, shared risks and shared obligations. Today the government is the other ? not an institution for the achievement of our common goals, but an alien presence that stands between us and the realization of individual ambitions. Programs of social insurance have become ?entitlements,? a word apparently meant to signify not a collectively provided and cherished basis for family-income security, but a sinister threat to our national well-being. Over the last 50 years we seem to have lost the words ? and with them the ideas ? to frame our situation appropriately. Can we talk about this? Maybe not. (Theodore R. Marmor is a professor emeritus of public policy, and Jerry L. Mashaw is a professor of law, both at Yale.) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/24/opinion/how-do-you-say-economic-security.html?_r=1&ref=opinion And... Huff Post Politics September 10, 2011 The Use of 9/11 to Consolidate Conservative Power: Intimidation via Framing By George Lakoff >From 9/11 on, the American people have been subject to conservative intimidation by framing. I've now written five books explaining how framing works in the brain and what citizens could do about it -- Moral Politics, Don't Think of an Elephant, Whose Freedom?, Thinking Points, and The Political Mind. The books were based on results from the cognitive and brain sciences on how reason about social and political issues really works -- primarily in terms of morally-based frames, metaphors, and narratives, and only secondarily, if at all, in terms of policy, facts, and logic. But since the 2008 election, conservative intimidation of the electorate via framing has come back big time, with no adequate Democratic defense against it. With a Democratic president in office, Democrats, both citizens and office-holders, turned their attention to policy and logical, fact-based arguments for the policies. In response to the president's health care policies, conservatives attacked on the moral front, choosing two moral values from their value system: freedom ("government takeover") and life ("death panels"). Knowing well that morality trumps lists of policy details, lists of facts, and logic, conservatives won that framing encounter, and have kept winning. Why? Because people, using their real reason, normally think unconsciously in terms of morally based systems of frames, metaphors, and narratives. Since the 2008 election, America has returned to post-9/11 conservative intimidation by framing. The intimidation does not use violence. It uses media. When conservatives, using their moral system, are able to frame the main values that define public discourse, the media follows suit, because that is how "mainstream" public discourse has been defined. The media, encountering more conservative language, picks up on that language and uses it. Since conservative language evokes conservative frames and values, which are carried with it, the media (liberal or not) winds up helping conservatives. Even arguing against conservatives, liberal pundits in the media first quote what they say. Liberals in the media help the conservatives by quoting their language, even to argue against it. In the post-2008 return to 9/11 style intimidation by framing, conservatives have been winning. They have protected banks from financial regulation, health insurance companies from government insurance, and corporations from serious environmental regulation. They have successfully attacked the very idea of the public -- public education, employees, unions, parks, housing, and safety nets. Here's how public intimidation by framing works. The mechanism of intimidation is framing, not just the use of words or slogans, but rather the changing of what voters take as right as a matter of principle. Framing is much more than mere language or messaging. A frame is a conceptual structure used to think with. Frames come in hierarchies. At the top of the hierarchies are moral frames. All politics is moral. Politicians support policies because they are right, not wrong. The problem is that there is more than one conception of what is moral. Moreover, voters tend to vote their morality, since it is what defines their identity. Poor conservatives vote against their material interests, but for their moral identity. All language activates frames in the brain. Conservative language activates conservative frames, which activate conservative moral worldviews in the brains of those who hear the language. The more those frames are activated, the stronger the conservative moral views get in people's brains. When Democrats are intimidated into using conservative language, they help conservatives, even if they are arguing against them. Here's why. The main voters you want to affect are the bi-conceptuals, those who are conservative on some issues and progressive on others; that is, those who have both conservative and progressive moral worldviews, but on different issues. They are sometimes misnamed as "the center," "independents," or "moderates." But they do not have any single overriding worldview. Instead they have two. Given the way brains work, the activation of one worldview will inhibit the other worldview. The more one is activated, the stronger it gets and the weaker the opposite one gets. The worldview that is most activated by the public discourse they hear will most likely govern how they will vote. What activates one worldview versus another? Framing. Conservative language activates conservative frames, which activate conservative worldviews. If Democrats use conservative language, even to argue against it, they are just helping conservatives. To a large extent, Democrats don't understand this. They think that language is neutral and that reason works by logic. If you just tell people the facts and reason logically, everyone should be convinced. But they aren't, because language works by framing and by brain mechanisms. Framing is just the normal way people think and talk. Conservatives tend to understand this. They avoid using liberal language. They frame issues very carefully to fit their goals. Democrats need to do the same -- avoid using conservative frames and instead frame the issues with their own values. The conservative consolidation of power violates this most basic of democratic principles. It replaces social and personal responsibility with personal responsibility alone. It approves of the government over our lives by corporations for their own profit, and hence sees government by, of and for the people as immoral and to be eliminated. The good news is that it doesn't have to be that way. It is possible for Democrats to learn how frames, narratives, and brains really work. It is possible to take moral stands, with all policies backed up by a single moral vision. It is possible to awaken and strengthen the progressive worldview already present in swing voters who are partly progressive as partly conservative (called "independents," "moderates," and "the center"). It is possible for Democrats to say what they believe and win, without giving in to intimidation tactics. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/the-use-of-911-to-consoli_b_955954.html Comment: Words. Language. Framing. Egalitarianism? How do you frame that? Is that an American concept? Is that a defining value of democracy? Do our citizens believe that we should strive to ensure that all people have equal rights and opportunities? Or is this a left-wing conspiracy that deprives people of the realization of their individual ambitions? Is it then really just about freedom? Whatever label you use, the right has gained control of the framing, and framing controls cognitive function. Cognition does not require logic. Those who have been watching the Republican debates have been able to witness cognitive activity that is almost totally devoid of logic, yet the candidates have been well versed on framing. It is the moral worldview of freedom from government that prevails, while dismissing the logic of the great benefits that we receive as a people joining together to establish and operate our own government. This worldview allows them to dismiss the obvious logic of an improved Medicare program that would cover everyone. We do need to recapture the framing from the conservative ideologues who would destroy as much government functioning as they can. Why they would is beyond the capacity of many of us to understand, but then we are looking for logic where it may not exist. Do we need to reframe the problems and their potential solutions from a liberal, progressive, Democratic, politically polarized position? Or can we use framing with which the great majority of us can identify? Would framing supporting economic security for everyone work? That's a moral worldview that is also logical. Can we talk about this? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Mon Sep 26 22:24:19 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:24:19 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon leafleting this week Message-ID: <001b01cc7cbc$9204dd70$b60e9850$@org> {There are new leaflets attached.} Will you Be There to leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed on Wednesday September 28 & Saturday October 1? We leaflet regularly at the door at 360 Russell St, Hadley , 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield , 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield , & 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield . This Saturday we add the Apple store in the Holyoke Mall ! Apple stores are being targeted across the country on Saturday due to the roll-out of the new IPhone5. We will leaflet peacefully at the store inside the mall. This week's schedule: Wednesday, noon to 2pm, at the Hadley store: Please let Ryan Quinn know you are coming: rep at geouaw.org, 413-545-0705. Graduate Employees Organization/UAW 2324 has adopted this shift. Wednesday, 5 to 7pm, at the Hadley store: Please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. Wednesday, 5 to 7pm, at the Springfield and West Springfield stores: Please let Patrick Burke know you are coming: patrick at wmjwj.org, 413-454-5692. Saturday, 11am to 1pm, at the Pittsfield store: Please let Brian Morrison know you are coming: brian.morrison at state.ma.us, 413-281-3223. Berkshire Central Labor Council has adopted this shift. Saturday, noon to 1pm, at the Apple store: Please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. Saturday, 1 to 2pm, at the West Springfield store: Please let Patrick Burke know you are coming: patrick at wmjwj.org, 413-454-5692. We are also rallying at the West Springfield store Saturday, 1 to 2pm ~ with Verigreedy the Rat ~ to get an update from the bargaining table and show solidarity with other struggles, such as postal workers, nurses, and people losing their homes. So, we are asking everyone in the Valley to come to the West Springfield store and we'll skip the Hadley and Springfield stores this Saturday. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. If it looks like rain, we will make the decision to call it off by 9am and let you know by email. We can send the email to your cell phone as a text message if you send your number and name of carrier to wmjwj at wmjwj.org. You can call the "store captains" listed above to be sure, but it's better if you tell us in advance that you're coming and we'll call you. When we call off a leafleting shift, the captains will be there at the beginning to tell anyone who did not get the message, but we'll only wait 15 minutes. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on workers' rights campaigns by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch - please check out our mailing lists at http://wmjwj.org/our-lists. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: VZGreedyflyer 3.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 719490 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: vz_iPhone_final_version-1.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 1853782 bytes Desc: not available URL: From don at mccanne.org Tue Sep 27 15:52:28 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:52:28 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Do we have to accept $15, 000 premiums and higher deductibles? Message-ID: Kaiser Family Foundation September 27, 2011 Rising Health Costs Are Not Just a Federal Budget Problem By Drew Altman, Ph.D. Premiums for employer-provided health insurance, where 150 million Americans get their coverage, jumped 9% in 2011 while workers? wages grew just 2%, according to our annual employer survey. The average family policy now costs more than $15,000 per year, more than the cost of a Chevy Aveo or a Ford Fiesta. Since we began doing this survey thirteen years ago, worker contributions to premiums have increased 168%, wages 50%, and inflation 38%. The ?Supercommittee? created by the recent debt reduction legislation will be looking for more ways to save money in government health programs, but the focus in Washington is almost entirely on cutting government spending, not curbing rising health costs overall. Employers will be left to their own devices to try to keep health care costs down. They have never been very successful at this, nor have private health insurance companies. While the conventional wisdom is that private insurance does a better job of controlling costs, the opposite is true. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) says that Medicare spending per enrollee grew at a much lower rate than private insurance between 1999 and 2009 (4.9% vs. 7.2% for comparable benefits). In the short term, employers have few new tools to control premium increases. Employees will continue to see more high-deductible health plans, with and without tax-preferred savings accounts, and deductibles will get even larger. These plans have lower premiums because the big upfront deductible that people must pay before their insurance kicks in causes them to use fewer health services. The trend here is very clear, especially in firms with fewer than 200 employees where the percentage of workers in a plan with a deductible of $1,000 or more for single coverage has grown from 16% in 2006 to 50% today. Conservatives rail about Obamacare, but they may be winning more than they are losing; it is their vision of insurance with more ?skin in the game? that is gradually taking over the marketplace because employers have no other way to control costs. Health care groups are maneuvering with defense lobbyists and health provider groups are jockeying with beneficiary advocates about who will take the brunt of the hit from the Supercommittee. But one thing that should be clear is that reducing federal health spending is not the same thing as controlling health care costs; just ask the 150 million Americans and their employers who will be paying $15,000 when they buy a family policy this year. http://www.kff.org/pullingittogether/rising_health_costs_federal.cfm Summary of findings (8 pages): http://ehbs.kff.org/pdf/8226.pdf Comment: When the Affordable Care Act was drafted every effort was made to leave intact the largest source of health care coverage in America - employer-sponsored health plans. Most working families will have no other choices than the plans offered by their employers. How well are they working? The average premium for an employer-sponsored family plan is now over $15,000, paid for by employee premium contributions and foregone wage increases. As if that weren't bad enough, more of the direct costs of health care are being shifted to employees and their families, especially through larger deductibles. The conservatives won the health care reform battle. Health care coverage for workers was left in the more expensive private market, and consumers are being empowered with the right to decline the health care that they need but can no longer afford because of the high out-of-pocket expenses. Yesterday's qotd message was on framing, demonstrating how the right has taken control of our cognitive processes by superimposing the moral worldview of individual responsibility, while bypassing logic. As proof, much of the bashing of single payer advocates is coming from the left. Even though liberals understand fully the logic of single payer, they are absorbed in the process of making the Affordable Care Act work. We've shown that it cannot ever accomplish the goals of universal coverage and affordability, yet they insist that this right-wing consumer/market approach will get us there through incremental steps, though incrementalism hasn't achieved our ultimate goals in over a half century of trying. Today I received an email message that went out to another list, sent by one of the most intelligent, dedicated, progressive individuals in the health care reform movement. The title of the message was, "Don McCanne is wrong Re: [hc4ac] US Last In Mortality Amenable to Health Care." She wrote, "The vote on the ACA has occurred; opposing it on a daily basis does not get us closer to universal coverage or price controls or to single payer; nor does intoning single payer on a daily basis." So abandoning single payer and tweaking a model designed by the conservative Heritage Foundation will get us there? We certainly screwed up the framing on this one! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Wed Sep 28 09:11:18 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2011 09:11:18 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon leafleting today Message-ID: <016d01cc7de0$1ec8e390$5c5aaab0$@org> Based on http://www.weather.com/, predicting rain at 5pm, we are calling off leafleting (Hadley, Springfield, West Springfield). Hadley at noon looks dry. Please try to join the Graduate Students there. Thanks! From: WMass Jobs with Justice [mailto:wmjwj at wmjwj.org] Sent: Monday, September 26, 2011 10:24 PM Will you Be There to leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed on Wednesday September 28 & Saturday October 1? We leaflet regularly at the door at 360 Russell St, Hadley , 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield , 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield , & 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield . This Saturday we add the Apple store in the Holyoke Mall ! Apple stores are being targeted across the country on Saturday due to the roll-out of the new IPhone5. We will leaflet peacefully at the store inside the mall. This week's schedule: Wednesday, noon to 2pm, at the Hadley store: Please let Ryan Quinn know you are coming: rep at geouaw.org, 413-545-0705. Graduate Employees Organization/UAW 2324 has adopted this shift. Wednesday, 5 to 7pm, at the Hadley store: Please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. Wednesday, 5 to 7pm, at the Springfield and West Springfield stores: Please let Patrick Burke know you are coming: patrick at wmjwj.org, 413-454-5692. Saturday, 11am to 1pm, at the Pittsfield store: Please let Brian Morrison know you are coming: brian.morrison at state.ma.us, 413-281-3223. Berkshire Central Labor Council has adopted this shift. Saturday, noon to 1pm, at the Apple store: Please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. Saturday, 1 to 2pm, at the West Springfield store: Please let Patrick Burke know you are coming: patrick at wmjwj.org, 413-454-5692. We are also rallying at the West Springfield store Saturday, 1 to 2pm ~ with Verigreedy the Rat ~ to get an update from the bargaining table and show solidarity with other struggles, such as postal workers, nurses, and people losing their homes. So, we are asking everyone in the Valley to come to the West Springfield store and we'll skip the Hadley and Springfield stores this Saturday. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. Western Mass. Jobs with Justice will provide leaflets. It is important to point out that we are leafleting not picketing! Since the workers are not currently on strike, a picket would not be lawful. Instead, we are passing out flyers in front of Verizon stores and to customers of other stores nearby. If it looks like rain, we will make the decision to call it off by 9am and let you know by email. We can send the email to your cell phone as a text message if you send your number and name of carrier to wmjwj at wmjwj.org. You can call the "store captains" listed above to be sure, but it's better if you tell us in advance that you're coming and we'll call you. When we call off a leafleting shift, the captains will be there at the beginning to tell anyone who did not get the message, but we'll only wait 15 minutes. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on workers' rights campaigns by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch - please check out our mailing lists at http://wmjwj.org/our-lists. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Wed Sep 28 15:15:57 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:15:57 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: How much should physicians be paid? Message-ID: Health Affairs September 2011 Higher Fees Paid To US Physicians Drive Higher Spending For Physician Services Compared To Other Countries By Miriam J. Laugesen and Sherry A. Glied Abstract Higher health care prices in the United States are a key reason that the nation?s health spending is so much higher than that of other countries. Our study compared physicians? fees paid by public and private payers for primary care office visits and hip replacements in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We also compared physicians? incomes net of practice expenses, differences in financing the cost of medical education, and the relative contribution of payments per physician and of physician supply in the countries? national spending on physician services. Public and private payers paid somewhat higher fees to US primary care physicians for office visits (27 percent more for public, 70 percent more for private) and much higher fees to orthopedic physicians for hip replacements (70 percent more for public, 120 percent more for private) than public and private payers paid these physicians? counterparts in other countries. US primary care and orthopedic physicians also earned higher incomes ($186,582 and $442,450, respectively) than their foreign counterparts. We conclude that the higher fees, rather than factors such as higher practice costs, volume of services, or tuition expenses, were the main drivers of higher US spending, particularly in orthopedics. http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/30/9/1647.abstract And... Letter Alliance of Specialty Medicine September 26, 2011 To: Glenn M. Hackbarth, J.D., Chairman Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (excerpts) The Alliance of Specialty Medicine (Alliance) and its member organizations are writing to express our opposition to the Chairman?s recommendations on the Sustainable Growth Rate System (SGR) proposed at the MedPAC meeting of September 15, 2011. The Alliance recognizes that MedPAC has called for repeal of the SGR repeatedly and we welcome your understanding of the critical need to rationalize physician payment to assure stability of patient access to quality physician care. However, we were dismayed to hear the Chairman?s first recommendation to slash the conversion factor for specialist services by 5.9 percent each year for three years to be followed by a freeze for seven years. The cumulative cut to specialty physician payments would be 18 percent over the first three years. The recommendations seek to shield a small percentage of primary care services furnished by primary care specialties by imposing only a 10-year freeze rather than an absolute cut on these services. Furthermore, while the Alliance understands MedPAC?s desire to support primary care, we have serious objections to the recommended proposal to essentially hold primary care "harmless" while cutting specialty physicians? reimbursement. Private Contracting with Physicians Under Medicare The Alliance strongly supports empowering patients with the ability to obtain medical services from the physician of their choice. To that end, we believe that patients and physicians should be allowed to privately contract for Medicare services without penalty. Sincerely, American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery American Association of Neurological Surgeons American Gastroenterological Association American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery American Society of Plastic Surgeons American Urological Association Coalition of State Rheumatology Organizations Congress of Neurological Surgeons Heart Rhythm Society North American Spine Society Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions http://thehill.com/images/stories/blogs/healthwatch/specialtymedpac.pdf Comment: Today's message on physician income does not delve into the important topics of fee-for-service, capitation, salary and other such considerations, but rather is intended to provide a perspective on how much money physicians should take home. Having said almost nothing in this first sentence, just opening the topic undoubtedly has already provoked controversy, but we do need to take a look at this. Before discussing physicians' net incomes, we should first stipulate that our health care system should be designed to provide all necessary care to everyone. Since health care now is so expensive, that means that we must have some method of pooling funds, and the financing must be progressive. Medicare is an example of pooled funds with progressive financing. Some of us can remember when Medicare was first established, physicians were allowed to set their own fees. The cost of the program skyrocketed far beyond even the highest cost projections. Medicare was forced into a system (under continual refinement) that controlled fees. Likewise, escalating costs in the private sector forced the insurers into provider contracting as a means of controlling fees. Even the plans that expose patient/consumers to the costs of health care still have limits on how much the physicians can receive. We need to learn from other nations that have been successful in covering essentially everyone, while spending far less than the United States. The Health Affairs article demonstrates that one important difference between us and those other nations is that we pay physicians more, even with our current private insurance and public program controls on spending. What is even more alarming is that procedure-oriented specialists are paid much more than primary care physicians. The Health Affairs study cited above looked at orthopedics as a proxy for procedure-oriented specialists. Other studies have shown that very high fees also apply to most other such specialties. Unfortunately, this is setting up a battle between the primary care and specialty sectors of medicine. The letter to MedPAC (Medical Payment Advisory Commission) sent by the professional organizations representing high-fee specialists states, "we have serious objections to the recommended proposal to essentially hold primary care 'harmless' while cutting specialty physicians? reimbursement." It's war. Worse, the specialists want Medicare rules changed so that they can set their own fees and collect from the patient the full balance beyond the Medicare allowed fees. If you have looked at any Medicare payment statements recently, you know that the amounts that the patient would be responsible for are staggering. Yet this unreasonable demand is from a sector of physicians that are already paid far more than similar specialists in other nations. How much should physicians be paid? Under our current fragmented system, Medicare is not able to determine the costs of providing care to the beneficiaries since such costs are not segregated, and it is difficult to determine how much of the practice costs should be paid by the private insurers and by cash-paying patients. If Medicare were the only payer (single payer) then pricing could be based on legitimate total practice costs and fair profits (physician net income). This method would provide the greatest value in our health care purchasing - paying enough to be sure that physicians would be there when you need them, but not paying egregiously excessive profits. Although it would be foolish to try to specify here precise levels of physicians' incomes for the United States, we can say that adopting an efficient system of financing health care would bring us far closer to getting the levels right. This is partly what we mean by "improved" in an "improved Medicare for all." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Wed Sep 28 16:08:10 2011 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon rally & leafleting Saturday Message-ID: <00fe01cc7e1a$5900dce0$0b0296a0$@org> IPhone5 is coming . Destroying Middle Class Jobs ~ Is there an app for that? Verizon, a $100-billion-dollar-a-year company is making record profits. Yet it is demanding that its workers add to those profits from their own pockets by accepting slashed wages and benefits. When they struck in August, people across the nation joined them on the line. We were all on strike against corporate greed. They're back in bargaining now, but we all need to keep the pressure on the company. We will leaflet & rally about Verizon and corporate greed on Saturday October 1. Join us! 11am to 1pm, leafleting at the Pittsfield store, 555 Hubbard Ave, Pittsfield : Please let Brian Morrison know you are coming: brian.morrison at state.ma.us, 413-281-3223. Berkshire Central Labor Council has adopted this shift. noon to 12:40pm, leafleting at the Apple store in the Holyoke Mall : Apple stores are being targeted across the country on Saturday due to the roll-out of the new IPhone5. We will leaflet peacefully at the store inside the mall. Buyers have the option of going with AT&T, which is union. Please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. 1 to 2pm, leafleting & rally at the West Springfield store, 1123 Riverdale St, West Springfield : Please let Patrick Burke know you are coming: patrick at wmjwj.org, 413-454-5692. While we're at the West Springfield store Saturday we will rally next to Verigreedy the Rat for a report from the bargaining table by John Rowley of the IBEW and to show solidarity with other struggles, such as postal workers, nurses, and people losing their homes. So, we are asking everyone in the Valley to come to the West Springfield store and we'll skip the Hadley and Springfield stores this Saturday. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt, as the strikers did. If this email was forwarded or copied to you, be sure to keep up-to-date on workers' rights campaigns by subscribing to the Workers' Rights List. To subscribe, send a blank email to workersrights-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/workersrights. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jon Weissman, Coordinator Western Mass Jobs with Justice 640 Page Blvd #101 Springfield MA 01104 (413) 827-0301 Founded in 1987, Jobs with Justice's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. We believe workers' rights are human rights and to be successful, we have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, "J with J" has created a national coalition and a network of local coalitions that connect labor, community, student, and faith-based organizations and activists on workplace and community social justice campaigns. Western Mass JwJ - founded June 5, 1993 - is now a coalition of almost 70 organizations. Let's keep in touch - please check out our mailing lists at http://wmjwj.org/our-lists. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Thu Sep 29 16:14:47 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:14:47 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Denver Post editorial on battle over health care costs Message-ID: The Denver Post September 29, 2011 Editorial: Pointing fingers over health costs When critics insist the growth of this nation's health care burden is unsustainable, this is what they mean: The average cost of an employer-provided family insurance plan soared by 9 percent in 2011. That's far higher than the rate of inflation or the average growth of wages. Nor is this year's increase out of line with recent history. In a word, it's a looming disaster. And yet our political leaders mostly still refuse to come to terms with it. Some Republicans immediately sought to blame the Affordable Care Act, which critics call Obamacare, for the latest news, although unsustainable health-care inflation predated the legislation and indeed was one of the main arguments offered in support of its passage. But many Democrats appear equally determined to sidestep reality when discussing health care costs, insisting ? in the face of all early evidence ? that the Affordable Care Act will restrain costs over time, if we are patient enough. We opposed that legislation because we were convinced ? and have seen nothing since to change our opinion ? that it will not, unfortunately, rein in costs to any major extent. The Congressional Budget Office certainly doesn't think so, either. Although both parties are still largely in denial on health care, there are exceptions. Democrats who favored a single-payer system understood that it would have a better chance of achieving cost control than most alternatives, given the experience in other countries. And other Dems have prioritized cost containment. Some Republicans also understand the need for fundamental reform, with Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, leading the charge. We take issue with elements of Ryan's approach ? block grants to states for Medicaid and premium subsidies for Medicare coverage that patients would then purchase in the private market ? but at least he appreciates the necessity of revamping incentives. "At its core," Ryan said in speech this week at the Hoover Institution, "the health care problem is one of inflation, driven by the over-utilization of services, dramatic underpayments, and massive inefficiency." And if nothing is done to address those issues, this nation's future will be bleak indeed. http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_18998740 Comment: The Kaiser Family Foundation report on the 9 percent increase in family health insurance premiums brought back to the front pages the issue of unsustainable health care cost increases. The Denver Post had previously opposed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) because they "were convinced ? and have seen nothing since to change our opinion ? that it will not, unfortunately, rein in costs to any major extent." So what do they see as our options? They dismiss the political battle between the Republicans who are blaming ACA for this year's premium increases, and the Democrats who are defending ACA as a (certainly dubious) vehicle for cost restraint. They do give credit to Republican Paul Ryan for recognizing the problem, but they "take issue with elements of Ryan's approach." And Democrats? The Denver Post editors state, "Democrats who favored a single-payer system understood that it would have a better chance of achieving cost control than most alternatives, given the experience in other countries." The Denver Post falls short of endorsing single payer, but it's the only truly effective option that they seem to offer. The better people understand the single payer model, the greater the support that we'll see. Keep spreading the word. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From don at mccanne.org Fri Sep 30 12:02:09 2011 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2011 09:02:09 -0700 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Consensus on the constitutionality of Medicare for all Message-ID: The New York Times September 29, 2011 Some Common Ground for Legal Adversaries on Health Care By Adam Liptak The 2010 health care overhaul law has provoked an unprecedented clash between the federal government and 26 states, dividing them on fundamental questions about the very structure of the federal system. But the two sides share a surprising amount of common ground, too, starting with their agreement in briefs, filed on Wednesday, that the Supreme Court should resolve the clash in its current term. Their briefs also reflect agreement on matters of substance. The two sides, along with the judges in the majority in the appeals court decision most likely to be reviewed by the justices, all said the dispute is about means rather than ends. There are other ways, they said, for Congress to achieve near-universal health coverage, some of them more expansive than what was enacted. "Both sides agree that Congress has the constitutional power to enact a national health care system that raised taxes to support a single government agency that pays all medical bills, just like Medicare," said Walter Dellinger, who served as acting solicitor general in the administration of President Bill Clinton and supports the law. Randy E. Barnett, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs who on Wednesday sought Supreme Court review, made essentially the same point. "What I?ve said from Day 1," he said, "is that if Medicare is constitutional then Medicare-for-everyone is constitutional." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/us/health-care-adversaries-have-common-ground.html Comment: The Affordable Care Act represents the most expensive model of reform and yet falls short on universality and affordability, and now it is being challenged as a violation of the Constitution. Why are we defending it when the least expensive model that actually would accomplish our goals has been declared by all parties to be compliant with the Constitution? Fast tracking the decision is great. Once the legal issues are dispensed with, we can look at the mess we have left, reject it, and move on to enacting an improved Medicare for all. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day From acswift at comcast.net Fri Sep 30 12:31:07 2011 From: acswift at comcast.net (Alice Swift) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:31:07 -0400 Subject: [Health Care Action] Montana Gov. Schweitzer Wants to Design His Own Universal Health Care System Message-ID: Montana Gov. Schweitzer Wants to Design His Own Universal Health Care System Friday 30 September 2011 by: Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress [3] | Report As ThinkProgress previously reported, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) made history [4] earlier this year when he signed into law legislation that would make his state the first state to lay the groundwork for a single payer health care system. In order to enact this system, the state needs a waiver from the federal health care law, which it will be able to obtain in 2017. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) has introduced legislation [5] to move the waiver date up to 2014, an idea President Obama has endorsed [6]. Now, another governor is looking to take advantage of flexibility in Obama?s health care law in order to establish a single payer system. Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) announced yesterday [7] that he will be seeking a waiver to set up his own universal health care system in his state modeled after the single payer Canadian health care system that began in the province of Saskatchewan: Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Wednesday *he will ask the U.S. government to let Montana set up its own universal health care program, taking his rhetorical fight over health care to another level.* [...] *The popular second-term Democrat would like to create a state-run system that borrows from the program used in Saskatchewan.* He said the Canadian province controls cost by negotiating drug prices and limiting non-emergency procedures such as MRIs. Local news station KRTV covered Schweitzer?s bid for a new universal health care system for his state. Schweitzer said that under his ideal system patients can still buy private insurance if they want to, but that it?ll be a ?lonely place over there at Blue Cross Blue Shield? due to the superior public health insurance he plans to provide. Schweitzer?s announcement to seek a waiver and design his own system was met with curiosity by GOP state Sen. Jason Priest, who responded, ?I don?t want to reject it before I see the details. I am just glad he is thinking about it [8].? -- acswift at comcast.net Alice C. Swift Amherst, MA 01002 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: