From wmspn at wmjwj.org Mon Jan 2 14:14:23 2012 From: wmspn at wmjwj.org (WMass Single Payer Network) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 14:14:23 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] WMSPN 1/21 Message-ID: <022001ccc982$bdb46770$391d3650$@org> Saturday January 21 (Third Saturday in January, April, and September) WESTERN MASS SINGLE PAYER NETWORK MEETING 9:30-11:30am, Lathrop Village Community Room, 1 Shallowbrook Ln, off Bridge Rd, Northampton. WMSPN is a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of organizations and individuals committed to achieving a universal single payer health care system. . Please send agenda items to wmspn at wmjwj.org. . Please email wmspn at wmjwj.org if you are definitely coming or your organization will definitely be represented. Top of the agenda: Winning Massachusetts Medicare for All. Please visit http://masscare.org/ma-single-payer-bill/. Info: (413) 827-0301 x1, wmspn at wmjwj.org. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Tue Jan 3 12:50:07 2012 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:50:07 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon action this week - change of plan tomorrow Message-ID: <00b701ccca40$2683a0a0$738ae1e0$@org> Dear Workers' Rights Supporters, Please let the Store Captains listed below know you are coming to leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed this week! Schedule below. Note that we have canceled Wednesdays at noon with the Graduate Employees Organization. Instead, GEO will be organizing delegations to deliver letters of support for Verizon workers to the Hadley store manager. And we added before-work stand-outs with Verizon workers on Thursdays. Please let us know (wmjwj at wmjwj.org) if you can form or want to join a delegation to deliver a support letter to a store manager. On Dec. 17, a delegation from American Income Life Insurance Co. delivered a letter from AIL General Agent Philip Prata, quoting AIL CEO Roger Smith, at the Springfield store. And Massachusetts Senior Action Council (WMass) is organizing a delegation. And our Verizon Street Heat committee meets Friday January 6, 9:30-10:30am, at IBEW Local 2324, 281 Cottage St, Springfield . This week's schedule: Thursday, 6:45-7:30am, Verizon garages at 95 Brookdale Dr, Springfield and 111 North Hatfield Road, Hatfield : Just stop by! Saturday, Noon to 2pm, at the Hadley store, 360 Russell St, Hadley : Please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. Saturday, 11am to 1pm, 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. Saturday, Noon to 2pm,, at the Springfield store, 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield : Please let Kathy Collins know you are coming: kathy7157 at hotmail.com, 413-734-0863. Saturday, Noon to 2pm, 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. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt/jacket, as the strikers did. If it looks like rain or snow, we will make the decision to call it off around 9am and let you know by email. If we know you are coming, we can let you know by phone, text, or the email sent to your cell phone as a text message (if you've sent your phone number and name of carrier to wmjwj at wmjwj.org). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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. 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 don at mccanne.org Tue Jan 3 14:35:40 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 11:35:40 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Arnold Relman on saving the U.S. medical system Message-ID: The American Prospect Jan-Feb/2012 In Dire Health By Arnold S. Relman Most people assume that insurance is an essential part of the health-care system. Some think it should be provided through public programs like Medicare, while others prefer to see it purchased from private insurance companies, but the majority believe that insurance is needed to help pay the unpredictable and often catastrophic expenses of medical care. That is why so much public policy focuses on extending coverage to as many people as possible and controlling its cost. I think this emphasis on insurance is mistaken. We would have a much better and more affordable health-care system if the reimbursement of medical expenses through public or private insurance plans was replaced by a tax-supported universal access to comprehensive care, without bills for specific services and without insurance plans to pay those bills. Insurance is not simply a mechanism for spreading financial risks and paying for medical care. Because it usually tries to limit payments to providers, insurance often is an intrusive third party in the doctor-patient relationship and, particularly with private insurance, restricts the freedom of doctors and patients to select the services, specialists, and facilities they want to use. Furthermore, all insurance plans have administrative expenses, and most private plans take profits that add to the cost of their premiums. The billing and collecting operations that are an integral part of any insured health system are a major expense for doctors and hospitals as well. For-profit insurance companies, which control most of the private market, are the greatest problem. They have a direct conflict of interest with their customers, because a plan's net income is increased by avoiding coverage of patients with serious illness (who, of course, are most in need of insurance), restricting access to services, and limiting coverage of expensive medical services. There is, however, a practical alternative to health insurance and the fee-for-service system with which it is usually associated: a not-for-profit system in which a public single payer provides universal access to comprehensive private care delivered by primary-care physicians cooperating with medical specialists in group-practice arrangements. I do not underestimate the complexity of the changes I am proposing. The odds against it are daunting. Congress might not even begin to debate major reform until the health system is near collapse. But what seems clear is that the best - possibly the only - hope for achieving universal, affordable care lies in the eventual elimination of private insurance and fee-for-service payment and in the creation of a tax-supported system based on group practice. Although this proposal makes good medical, social, and economic sense, its ultimate fate will be decided in the political arena. It cannot become a reality without an informed and aroused public bolstered by the medical profession's strong support for the reform. (Arnold S. Relman is a professor emeritus of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School and the former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.) http://prospect.org/ (As of Jan. 3, Jan-Feb/2012 issue not yet posted online) Comment: It seems appropriate to begin the new year with the words of the venerable Arnold Relman. Much media attention on reform will be misdirected this year to implementation of the private-insurance-based Affordable Care Act and to its challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court. Dr. Relman reminds us that instead we need to move forward with informing and arousing the public in support of fundamental reform that actually would bring affordable care to 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 Wed Jan 4 17:02:52 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:02:52 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Enhancing physician recruitment for rural hospitals Message-ID: Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine January-February 2012 Increasing Graduate Medical Education (GME) in Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) Could Enhance Physician Recruitment and Retention in Rural America By Imam M. Xierali, PhD, Sarah A. Sweeney, BS, Robert L. Phillips Jr., MD, MSPH, Andrew W. Bazemore, MD, MPH and Stephen M. Petterson, PhD Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) are geographically isolated, small rural hospitals that are typically the sole source of care for their community, providing not only acute care but a broad spectrum of basic health services. There was a robust increase of CAH designations from 50 in 1998 to 1,310 in 2009. Rural communities struggle to recruit and retain health care providers. In 2008, 81% of rural counties were or contained areas designated as Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Areas. Encouraging evidence shows that residents trained in a rural setting are much more likely to continue to serve in rural or underserved settings. Analysis of Medicare hospital cost report data suggests that very few CAHs ever have reported intern and resident training. As rural hospitals and as hospitals without prior graduate medical education (GME) programs, CAHs are eligible for starting or becoming funded members of GME training programs. Increasing the capacity for CAHs to create and expand training programs could improve access to care in rural communities and strengthen existing rural training programs, many of which are threatened or closing. Recent policies promoting primary care training, such as the teaching health center program, also mean opportunity for CAHs to play an important role in GME expansion. Though this role for CAHs requires no legislative changes, CAHs will face additional hurdles related to accreditation and staffing. http://www.jabfm.org/content/25/1/7.full And... Critical Access Hospital (CAH) Graduate Medical Education (GME): Too Little, and Maybe Too Late By Frederick M. Chen, MD, MPH In the context of national scrutiny on graduate medical education (GME) from both the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, Xierali et al, bring our attention to the ongoing needs of rural underserved communities and the potential role of critical access hospitals (CAHs) in training the rural physician workforce. Their analysis demonstrates the minuscule number of CAHs that have reported resident training within their walls. The literature shows that physician training in rural settings is successful in producing rural physicians but also is endangered with the number of rural training tracks and rural residencies in free-fall over the past 10 years. Although CAHs may be an untapped resource for GME, there are significant barriers to their success. Xierali et al point out the challenges of accreditation and staffing. CAHs, like RTTs, are by definition located in small communities that tend to be under-resourced for physician faculty and other medical education needs. Often the loss of a single physician in these settings results in the loss of the training site. Financing is always an important consideration. Though CAHs may be eligible for Medicare GME payments because they are free of the resident cap, many CAHs have a low percentage of Medicare inpatients, resulting in payments that are insufficient to cover the costs of residency training. On the other hand, this has not precluded urban hospitals from claiming the time that residents spend in CAHs. Though this enables some residency training time in CAHs, the flow of funds, if any, from the urban hospital to the CAH is unknown, except to hospital financial officers. Enabling and encouraging more residency training in rural settings is a priority if rural communities are to have adequate access to health care. New training models that encourage community-based training also encourage CAHs to participate in physician training. However, changes to GME financing are needed if CAHs are going to be able to play a larger role in rural physician training. http://www.jabfm.org/content/25/1/6.full?etoc Comment: Critical Access Hospitals serving rural communities provide an opportunity to train physicians who would more likely stay in these communities, many of which are designated as Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Areas. If our current fragmented system of financing health care were replaced with a single payer national health program - an improved Medicare for all - the coordinated allocation of our health care funds could ensure that these training programs for rural physicians would be adequately funded, not to mention ensuring the perpetuation of Critical Access Hospitals wherever they are obviously needed. -------------- 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 Jan 5 13:48:14 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:48:14 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Insurers Profit From Health Law They Fought Message-ID: Bloomberg January 5, 2012 Insurers Profit From Health Law They Fought By Sarah Frier Insurance companies spent millions of dollars trying to defeat the U.S. health-care overhaul, saying it would raise costs and disrupt coverage. Instead, profit margins at the companies widened to levels not seen since before the recession, a Bloomberg Government study shows. Insurers led by WellPoint Inc. (WLP), the biggest by membership, recorded their highest combined quarterly net income of the past decade after the law was signed in 2010, said Peter Gosselin, the study author and senior health-care analyst for Bloomberg Government. The Standard & Poor's 500 Managed Health-Care Index rose 36 percent in the period, four times more than the S&P 500. "The industry that was the loudest, most persistent critic of this law, the industry whose analysts and executives predicted it would suffer immensely because of the law, has thrived," Gosselin said. "There is a shift to government work under way that is going to represent a fundamental change in their business model." The report compares the 18 months before and after the overhaul became law, Gosselin said. The companies studied are Wellpoint; UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), of Minnetonka, Minnesota; Aetna Inc. (AET), of Hartford, Connecticut; Humana Inc. (HUM), in Louisville, Kentucky; and Philadelphia-based Cigna Corp. (CI) The companies saw their average operating profit margins expand to 8.24 percent in the six quarters since the overhaul became law, compared with 6.88 percent for the 18 months before it was passed. Commercial business now accounts for less than half of the companies' combined revenue for the first time in at least two decades, according to the study. That's partly a result of the companies' growing investments in plans that provide services to Medicare and Medicaid patients, the report said. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-05/health-insurer-profit-rises-as-obama-s-health-law-supplies-revenue-boost.html Peter Gosselin discusses his report, "Despite Predictions, Health Insurers Prosper Under Overhaul" (5 minute video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rMOz5E5Du8 Comment: Peter Gosselin's Bloomberg Government report, "Despite Predictions, Health Insurers Prosper Under Overhaul," is further confirmation that, as long as we leave the private insurers in charge, they will always find a way to stick it to us, as we now witness a dramatic increase in insurers cornering taxpayer-financed health insurance programs - Medicare and Medicaid - not to mention the private plans that taxpayers purchase for government employees on all levels. These trends are very healthy for the private insurance industry, but they're enough to make us sick. (The Bloomberg Government report is available only to subscribers, but Peter Gosselin provides the essence of his conclusions in the brief video available at the link above.) -------------- 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 Jan 6 08:04:13 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 05:04:13 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Francis Fukuyama on the decline of the middle class Message-ID: Foreign Affairs January/February 2012 The Future of History Can Liberal Democracy Survive the Decline of the Middle Class? By Francis Fukuyama Something strange is going on in the world today. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 and the ongoing crisis of the euro are both products of the model of lightly regulated financial capitalism that emerged over the past three decades. Yet despite widespread anger at Wall Street bailouts, there has been no great upsurge of left-wing American populism in response. It is conceivable that the Occupy Wall Street movement will gain traction, but the most dynamic recent populist movement to date has been the right-wing Tea Party, whose main target is the regulatory state that seeks to protect ordinary people from financial speculators. Something similar is true in Europe as well, where the left is anemic and right-wing populist parties are on the move. The Absent Left One of the most puzzling features of the world in the aftermath of the financial crisis is that so far, populism has taken primarily a right-wing form, not a left-wing one. In the United States, for example, although the Tea Party is anti-elitist in its rhetoric, its members vote for conservative politicians who serve the interests of precisely those financiers and corporate elites they claim to despise. There are many explanations for this phenomenon. They include a deeply embedded belief in equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome and the fact that cultural issues, such as abortion and gun rights, crosscut economic ones. But the deeper reason a broad-based populist left has failed to materialize is an intellectual one. It has been several decades since anyone on the left has been able to articulate, first, a coherent analysis of what happens to the structure of advanced societies as they undergo economic change and, second, a realistic agenda that has any hope of protecting a middle-class society. The main trends in left-wing thought in the last two generations have been, frankly, disastrous as either conceptual frameworks or tools for mobilization. Marxism died many years ago, and the few old believers still around are ready for nursing homes. The academic left replaced it with postmodernism, multiculturalism, feminism, critical theory, and a host of other fragmented intellectual trends that are more cultural than economic in focus. Postmodernism begins with a denial of the possibility of any master narrative of history or society, undercutting its own authority as a voice for the majority of citizens who feel betrayed by their elites. Multiculturalism validates the victimhood of virtually every out-group. It is impossible to generate a mass progressive movement on the basis of such a motley coalition: most of the working- and lower-middle-class citizens victimized by the system are culturally conservative and would be embarrassed to be seen in the presence of allies like this. **** Elites in all societies use their superior access to the political system to protect their interests, absent a countervailing democratic mobilization to rectify the situation. American elites are no exception to the rule. That mobilization will not happen, however, as long as the middle classes of the developed world remain enthralled by the narrative of the past generation: that their interests will be best served by ever-freer markets and smaller states. The alternative narrative is out there, waiting to be born. (Francis Fukuyama is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.) http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136782/francis-fukuyama/the-future-of-history Comment: In this essay, Francis Fukuyama describes the historical background of the middle class, bringing us to the troublesome present in which the stability of the middle class is in question. He suggests that we need a new political and economic ideology that "could provide a realistic path toward a world with healthy middle-class societies and robust democracies." The views of Fukuyama are not without controversy. Indeed, he has changed his own views over time (e.g, his views on neoconservatism and the Iraq invasion). Nevertheless, his writings are quite provocative and are helpful in broadening conceptualizations of societal problems and their potential solutions. It is difficult to provide enough content in a few excerpts to provoke gainful contemplation on how we should approach the middle-class crisis - a crisis which is important to understand if we ever hope to ensure health care justice for all. For that reason, the entire article should be downloaded, savored and shared. Although Foreign Affairs charges $2.95 for the article (link above), this one is worth giving up today's latte. When you read it, consider what you already know in disciplines such as economics, political science, and sociology, but do not be bound by them in your contemplation. We have to get beyond simplistic, rigid analyses such as boxing solutions into either a government approach or a private market approach. That type of thinking has resulted in our polarized political gridlock that has prevented us from moving forward with health care reform that would best serve not only the middle class, but everyone. Think in the broadest terms about what new political and economic ideology might lead us in the right direction. According to Fukuyama, "The alternative narrative is out there, waiting to be born." Fukuyama is famous for proposing that liberal democracy represents "The End of History" but not the end of events. Let's see if we can create the events that would make our democracy work for the betterment of us all, by contemplating "The Future of History" and then acting on our thoughts. -------------- 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 Jan 6 11:20:23 2012 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 11:20:23 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] REMINDER: Verizon leafleting Saturday Message-ID: <008e01cccc8f$1b6d7690$524863b0$@org> Dear Workers' Rights Supporters, Please let the January 7 Store Captains listed below know you are coming to leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed tomorrow! Saturday, Noon to 2pm, at the Hadley store, 360 Russell St, Hadley : Please let Jeff Finck know you are coming, jefffinck at comcast.net, (413) 230-9061. Saturday, 11am to 1pm, 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. Saturday, Noon to 2pm,, at the Springfield store, 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield : Please let Kathy Collins know you are coming: kathy7157 at hotmail.com, 413-734-0863. Saturday, Noon to 2pm, 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. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt/jacket, as the strikers did. If it looks like rain or snow, we will make the decision to call it off around 9am and let you know by email. If we know you are coming, we can let you know by phone, text, or the email sent to your cell phone as a text message (if you've sent your phone number and name of carrier to wmjwj at wmjwj.org). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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. 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 don at mccanne.org Sun Jan 8 09:06:52 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 06:06:52 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: D. Light on Fukuyama's "History" and D. Massey on "American Exceptionalism" Message-ID: Professor Donald Light responds to the Quote of the Day on Francis Fukuyama's "The Future of History: Can Liberal Democracy Survive the Decline of the Middle Class?" ( http://www.pnhp.org/news/2012/january/francis-fukuyama-on-the-decline-of-the-middle-class ): Hi Don, While I had not thought if it in this frame, the course on comparative health care in advanced capitalist countries at Stanford provides compelling materials for a coherent, liberal platform for the broad working and middle classes. (See STANFORD 2011 Syllabus on Kaiser web: http://www.kaiseredu.org/Syllabus-Library.aspx?sort=topic&pageno=1&school=Stanford+University) 1) For individuals and families to be productive and thrive, they need easy access to good medical services to treat injuries, illnesses, disabilities, chronic conditions, or mental distress. One can make a strong conservative case for universal health care, as most conservatives outside the United States do, based not on solidarity or equity but on individual freedom and responsibility. (For a synopsis, see http://www.healthpaconline.net/rekindling/Articles/Light.htm. For the article, see http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Publications/HCR/Detail.aspx?id=2574.) 2) For infants and small children to begin life feeling confident, trusting (Erik Erickson), and energetic, they and their parents need universal parental and child supports. 3) For children and adults to learn and gain skills for productive work, they need easy access to good, universal education. 4) For workers and managers to focus on productive work rather than on how to keep from being laid off, there needs to be reasonable (but not excessive) job protection and ways of handling recessions that minimize the high economic & emotional costs of unemployment. 5) For the seriously ill, injured, or disabled not to become a heavy financial burden on their families that drags them down towards poverty, they need free medical care and maintenance income. For the elderly and chronically ill not to become impoverished or impoverish their kin, they need universal long-term care. Most of these services and supports are provided in most affluent countries. They can be called "welfare" or "socialism," but they are paid for largely by the working and middle-classes through equitable forms of collection such as taxes or mandatory premiums. In a conservative country like the United States where only some of these services and supports are partially provided, much of the direct costs are paid out of pocket by individuals or families affected. This results in serious impoverishment. Far greater would be the indirect costs of skills not learned because they cost too much, opportunities lost because of family burdens, promotions not gained as individuals take up heavy burdens at home with little societal support, unsafe working and living environments, marital disruption and divorce, and higher levels of violence. If a full empirical assessment were done of such direct and indirect costs not providing the working and middle classes with educational, economic, family, and medical supports, I suspect they would be much greater than the costs of providing. In this way, I believe a coherent intellectual and societal case can be made for what might be called the "thriving state." Perhaps the single best article we read was by Doug Massey, who describes the costs of dismantling what supports the US had and provides some comparisons with other affluent nations. (For a free copy, type in Google: Massey "Globalization and Inequality" and a pdf link will appear. ) With best regards, Don Donald W. Light Professor, UDMNJ-SOM Lokey Visiting Professor, Stanford University Visiting Researcher, Center for Migration & Development, Princeton University Comment by Don McCanne: Donald Light writes that "a coherent intellectual and societal case can be made for what might be called the 'thriving state.'" As we think about Francis Fukuyama's essay and about making the case for the "thriving state," we should think about how we can move beyond simply "occupying" and then going home. This will be no easy task. I would emphatically second the recommendation of Donald Light to read Professor Douglas Massey's article, "Globalization and Inequality: Explaining American Exceptionalism" (link below). It discusses the new political economy of poverty, the political economy of affluence, and their roles in American exceptionalism. After you read Massey's article you'll think, "And we thought trying to reform health care was going to be tough!" But it will be very difficult to gain consensus on health care reform until we can address the issues behind Massey's explanation of American exceptionalism. European Sociological Review August 20, 2008 Globalization and Inequality: Explaining American Exceptionalism Douglas S. Massey http://www.brynmawr.edu/socialwork/GSSW/schram/masseyglobal.pdf -------------- 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 Mon Jan 9 13:03:05 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 10:03:05 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Germany's painful lesson on private insurance Message-ID: The Local - Germany's News in English January 8, 2012 Many seek to switch to public health insurance Shocked by premium increases of as much as 50 percent, many Germans with private health insurance are seeking to switch to a national health plan, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday. Many private health insurance plans pushed through hefty premium increases at the beginning of the year and that's behind the move to switch, the magazine said. "We've gotten increased telephone inquiries from those privately insured who want to come to the AOK," Wilfried Jacobs, the head of the AOK in Rheinland/Hamburg, told the magazine. The AOK, with 15 regional branches and some 24 million members, is Germany's largest public health insurance organisation. The magazine said other public health insurers have received similar inquiries. But it's not so easy to switch once you've opted for private insurance. German law only allows people to change from public to private in exceptional situations. These include when someone has lost their job. You can also switch if you are an employee whose salary falls below the ? 45,900 level. Workers who used to be self-employed but now have a full-time position with a similar salary may also change. But a public health organization manager said, "There are tricks that we can use to help private patients, providing the employer cooperates." The Barmer GEK public health organization reported that 27,600 people switched from private competitors in 2011 ? nine percent more than in 2010. http://www.thelocal.de/national/20120108-39989.html And... The New York Times December 9, 2011 Social Insurance and Individual Freedom By Uwe E. Reinhardt By law, every German must have coverage for a prescribed benefit package. German employees and pensioners earning less than 49,500 euros ($66,350) per year (in 2011) are compulsorily insured under the statutory system. Employees and pensioners above that threshold are free to opt out of the statutory system and purchase private, commercial coverage, but if they do, they cannot ever return to the statutory system unless they are paupers. The intent is to minimize gaming of the insurance system by individuals. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/social-insurance-and-individual-freedom/ Comment: It's only January, yet Germany already is providing us one of the most important policy lessons of 2012. It may be great politics to allow more affluent citizens to opt out of public health insurance and to express their personal faith in private markets by selecting private plans, but they may decide that it's terrible policy when the private plans come back to bite them. In the United States, conservatives continue to push policies that would promote private plans that appeal to the healthier and wealthier sectors of our society. Consumer-directed plans with high-deductibles combined with health savings accounts are such options. Even with Medicare, conservatives have established the private Medicare Advantage plans for Medicare beneficiaries who would prefer to opt out of the public program. If you just look at the Medicare Advantage plans, we have already seen that the private insurers have gamed the system such that they are receiving $3000 more per patient than the costs for comp[arable patients in the public Medicare program. What if the government required individuals to pay an extra $3000 for the "private upgrade"? It is likely that only the wealthiest and the most passionate anti-government ideologues would stay in the program. What if, in addition, health care costs increased at rates well in excess of the growth in GDP, and the differences between the higher premiums that would have to be charged by the private plans compared to the more efficient public insurance program had to be paid in full by those enrolled in the private plans? You would see a massive exit from the private plans. Witness the current experience in Germany. This is not hypothetical policy theory. The Germans fully understand the principles of social insurance. There are clear policy risks in allowing private options to government insurance plans. That is why they did not permit low- and middle-income individuals to make the foolish decision of exiting the public plans. They wanted to ensure both financial security and health security for these more vulnerable populations. If politically-influential wealthier individuals wanted to have the choice of private plans, then so be it, and Germany allowed it. But no games. If wealthier Germans chose the private plans, then, as long as they maintained their higher incomes, they could not game the system by moving back into the public plan should they lose their bet that they would be better off in the private sector. Many Germans who made that choice are now facing skyrocketing premiums in the private sector. They want back into the public program, but many will have to continue to live with their ill-advised decision to go private. Another sign of how flawed the private insurance concept is that they are now considering "tricks" that can be used to help private patients. Although tricks may produce winners, they automatically produce losers as well. There is no place for "tricks" in a public insurance program. What is Germany to do now? It doesn't seem fair to allow those who made this unwise decision to escape the consequences when it would expose the public program to adverse selection. There would be no problem had the government prohibited the wealthy from making an imprudent decision to go private in the first place, which they could have done simply by requiring everyone to participate in the public program. For those who say that it is unfair to not allow choice, as mentioned the Germans were smart enough to prohibit that choice for low- and middle-income individuals, saving them from potential exposure to financial hardship. Ensuring security is fair; permitting the choice of insecurity is not fair for those who end up losing. There may be less sympathy for the wealthy caught in a financial bind of their own making, but there are two important reasons why the wealthy also should be required to participate in the public program: 1) the insurance risk pools (sickness funds) benefit from including the contributions of this wealthier and generally healthier population, and 2) the influence of the wealthy provides greater political support for the public program in which they would be required to participate. Consider the great support for Medicare as opposed to the meager political and financial support for Medicaid. The obvious lesson for the United States is that we should eliminate the over-priced private insurers and establish a single national health program that covers everyone. We still may have some compassion even for those who want to play their ideological games but then run into trouble when they really need health care, but we should not allow them to escape their obligation to contribute equitably, in advance, to a financing system that many of them someday would have to rely upon. P.S., Canada, listen up! -------------- 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 Tue Jan 10 08:15:44 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:15:44 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Finnish school lessons for American health care Message-ID: The Atlantic December 29, 2011 What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success By Anu Partanen (Excerpts) Everyone agrees the United States needs to improve its education system dramatically, but how? One of the hottest trends in education reform lately is looking at the stunning success of the West's reigning education superpower, Finland. Trouble is, when it comes to the lessons that Finnish schools have to offer, most of the discussion seems to be missing the point. So there was considerable interest in a recent visit to the U.S. by one of the leading Finnish authorities on education reform, Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education's Center for International Mobility and author of the new book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? Earlier this month, Sahlberg stopped by the Dwight School in New York City to speak with educators and students, and his visit received national media attention and generated much discussion. Yet one of the most significant things Sahlberg said passed practically unnoticed. "Oh," he mentioned at one point, "and there are no private schools in Finland." This notion may seem difficult for an American to digest, but it's true. Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D. The irony of Sahlberg's making this comment during a talk at the Dwight School seemed obvious. Like many of America's best schools, Dwight is a private institution that costs high-school students upward of $35,000 a year to attend -- not to mention that Dwight, in particular, is run for profit, an increasing trend in the U.S. Yet no one in the room commented on Sahlberg's statement. I found this surprising. Sahlberg himself did not. >From his point of view, Americans are consistently obsessed with certain questions: How can you keep track of students' performance if you don't test them constantly? How can you improve teaching if you have no accountability for bad teachers or merit pay for good teachers? How do you foster competition and engage the private sector? How do you provide school choice? The answers Finland provides seem to run counter to just about everything America's school reformers are trying to do. For starters, Finland has no standardized tests. The only exception is what's called the National Matriculation Exam, which everyone takes at the end of a voluntary upper-secondary school, roughly the equivalent of American high school. As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted." And while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable. In his book Sahlberg quotes a line from Finnish writer named Samuli Puronen: "Real winners do not compete." It's hard to think of a more un-American idea, but when it comes to education, Finland's success shows that the Finnish attitude might have merits. There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation. Finally, in Finland, school choice is noticeably not a priority, nor is engaging the private sector at all. Which brings us back to the silence after Sahlberg's comment at the Dwight School that schools like Dwight don't exist in Finland. "Here in America," Sahlberg said at the Teachers College, "parents can choose to take their kids to private schools. It's the same idea of a marketplace that applies to, say, shops. Schools are a shop and parents can buy what ever they want. In Finland parents can also choose. But the options are all the same." Herein lay the real shocker. As Sahlberg continued, his core message emerged, whether or not anyone in his American audience heard it. Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity. Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality. In the Finnish view, as Sahlberg describes it, this means that schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance. In fact, since academic excellence wasn't a particular priority on the Finnish to-do list, when Finland's students scored so high on the first PISA survey in 2001, many Finns thought the results must be a mistake. But subsequent PISA tests confirmed that Finland -- unlike, say, very similar countries such as Norway -- was producing academic excellence through its particular policy focus on equity. That this point is almost always ignored or brushed aside in the U.S. seems especially poignant at the moment, after the financial crisis and Occupy Wall Street movement have brought the problems of inequality in America into such sharp focus. "When President Kennedy was making his appeal for advancing American science and technology by putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's, many said it couldn't be done," Sahlberg said during his visit to New York. "But he had a dream. Just like Martin Luther King a few years later had a dream. Those dreams came true. Finland's dream was that we want to have a good public education for every child regardless of where they go to school or what kind of families they come from, and many even in Finland said it couldn't be done." Clearly, many were wrong. It is possible to create equality. And perhaps even more important -- as a challenge to the American way of thinking about education reform -- Finland's experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity. The problem facing education in America isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/ Comment: When you read these excerpts from this article on the education system in Finland, what is striking is how much the philosophy behind their vastly superior system contrasts sharply with ours. What is really mind-boggling is that if you re-read the same excerpts, except substitute "health care system" for "education system," you then will have an inkling of what we are doing wrong in both education and health care. One fundamental concept that has appeared repeatedly on the pages of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) is that excellence is a product of cooperation, not competition. It is not choice between private for-profit and public systems, but rather it is equity within public systems that facilitates excellence. In both education and health care, Americans emphasize testing, accountability, merit rewards, competition, and choice. Yet Finland does not use standardized testing (analogous to HEDIS testing in health care), nor do they demand accountability - they don't even have a word for it - but rather they expect responsibility. In Finland, all teachers are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. Finns are very uncomfortable with the concept of competition, especially since that interferes with the productivity induced in an environment of cooperation. Nor do they even consider choice - choice between publicly-financed and privately-financed schools - since the latter do not even exist. So their secret is to establish equity and cooperation within the public sector. Now that it's no longer a secret, we also can have high quality education and health care systems right here in the United States. We just have to shove the MBAs aside and place control in the hands of our own publicly chosen advocates of social justice. -------------- 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 Jan 10 21:34:40 2012 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:34:40 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] [May Day 2012] Initial Organizing References: <019e01cab56d$b3ae2e80$1b0a8b80$@org> Message-ID: <004001ccd009$9b8e2950$d2aa7bf0$@org> Dear friends, It's time to start planning May Day again. May 1 is a Tuesday this year. I have specific questions for you at the end. Besides Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Members, this is going to quite a range of activists, performers, historians (professional and amateur), artists, and folks who have shown an interest in Western Mass. People's History and/or the annual WMJwJ May Day Celebration. Please Reply if we should drop you from the list. Please forward to friends you think might be interested. Western Mass Jobs with Justice has celebrated International Workers' Day over the years, usually with a dramatic reading, "Voices of Working People's History", inspired by Howard Zinn. We tell the story of the first May Day in 1886 and the May Day themes of workers' power in the workplace and in society with speeches, letters, poems, and songs. Our wonderful volunteer artists and activists perform the voices of people who make history happen but are usually left out of history books - workers, women, people of color - with an emphasis on our own Western Massachusetts voices! This year we will again perform at the Holyoke Heritage State Park (http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/central/hhsp.htm) in the Visitors Center. 2010 was our first time there and everyone - both performers and audience - loved it. Irene Thornton will return as Director and Tom Neilson as Musical Director. So, some specific questions: Would you like to be in the performance? (Preference given to returning cast members.) help with the script? suggest readings, especially from local folks? (We're always tinkering with it, especially to make the ending contemporary. Do you know of local unsung, even nameless working class heroes? How does the story or meaning of May Day involve people of color? native peoples? women outside the labor movement? religious activists? Do you know of "voices" from important moments in Western Mass labor history? Do you know of local May Day speeches? In particular, we are looking for a May Day or strike speech that invokes Tom Paine. Are there readings that connect Western Mass or at least Massachusetts to national figures (such as Cesar Chavez's Springfield speech)? Quite a challenge, eh?) co-sponsor the event - $100 donation to the Warren J. Plaut Charitable Trust Jobs with Justice Fund (receive two complimentary reserved-seating tickets)? help with the publicity? volunteer that evening (receive a complimentary reserved-seating ticket)? be on the organizing committee, leading the work (receive a complimentary reserved-seating ticket)? stay on this [May Day 2012] list? Please let me know! Thank you! for just reading this email and even considering helping with this project. If you want to hear a wonderful example of what this kind of collaboration can produce, please listen to "Voices of a People's History" at http://wmjwj.org/voices-peoples-history-part-1. (And check out The People Speak.) In solidarity, Jon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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. Our mailing lists: [Workers' Rights] 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!" 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. [Health Care Action] posts events and information that support the large and vibrant Western Mass. movement for health care justice. Nationwide, Jobs with Justice has prioritized Health Care as a basic human right. To subscribe, send a blank email to healthcareaction-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/healthcareaction. [People's History] posts events and other information related to a people's history of Western Mass, inspired by Howard Zinn. To subscribe, send a blank email to peopleshistory-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/peopleshistory. [Solidarity Calendar] posts other events of interest to the broader Western Mass. movement. To subscribe, send an email to wmjwj at wmjwj.org with a Subject of "Subscribe Solidarity Calendar". WMJwJ sponsors [WMSLAP], the Western Mass. Student Labor Action Project mailing list. SLAP engages student organizations in economic justice campaigns. To subscribe, send a blank email to wmassslap-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/wmassslap. WMJwJ co-sponsors [GreenWork], the mailing list of the Western Mass. Green Economy Working Group of advocates of a Green Economy which serves local communities; guarantees workers' rights to organize; and promotes community-owned sustainable projects. To subscribe, send a blank email to greenwork-subscribe at lists.gaiahost.coop or go to http://lists.gaiahost.coop/mailman/listinfo/greenwork. WMJwJ is a founding member of the Western Mass Coalition for Immigrant & Worker Rights, organizations and community members who advocate, educate, organize, and mobilize to protect the Human, Civil, and Constitutional Rights of all workers and residents in our communities. To subscribe to its mailing list, send a blank email to wmciwr-subscribe at lists.riseup.net or go to https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/wmciwr. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Wed Jan 11 12:08:12 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:08:12 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Wrong way to slow health care spending Message-ID: Health Affairs January 2012 Growth In US Health Spending Remained Slow In 2010; Health Share Of Gross Domestic Product Was Unchanged From 2009 By Anne B. Martin, David Lassman, Benjamin Washington, Aaron Catlin and the National Health Expenditure Accounts Team Abstract Medical goods and services are generally viewed as necessities. Even so, the latest recession had a dramatic effect on their utilization. US health spending grew more slowly in 2009 and 2010?at rates of 3.8 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively?than in any other years during the fifty-one-year history of the National Health Expenditure Accounts. In 2010 extraordinarily slow growth in the use and intensity of services led to slower growth in spending for personal health care. The rates of growth in overall US gross domestic product (GDP) and in health spending began to converge in 2010. As a result, the health spending share of GDP stabilized at 17.9 percent. Conclusion Health care spending experienced historically low rates of growth in 2009 and 2010 as the impact of the recent recession continued to affect the purchasers, providers, and sponsors of health care. Persistently high unemployment, continued loss of private health insurance coverage, and increased cost sharing led some people to forgo care or seek less costly alternatives than they would have otherwise used. As a result, growth in the use and intensity of health care goods and services in 2010 accounted for a much smaller share of personal health care spending growth than in previous years. Finally, as businesses, households, and state and local governments financed a smaller share of total national health care spending during and just after the recession, the federal government financed a larger share. http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/31/1/208.abstract Comment: For the present, growth in health care spending has leveled off at 17.9 percent of our GDP. But how? By high unemployment, continued loss of private health insurance, and increased cost sharing - all measures that prevent people from getting the health care that they should have. If you exclude from consideration this inappropriate decline in health care services, then you can only conclude that health care costs have continued their inexorable rise unabated. We desperately need a sane system of financing 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 Wed Jan 11 13:44:54 2012 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:44:54 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon action this week Message-ID: <00e901ccd091$1cfc3db0$56f4b910$@org> Check out the video, Alms for the Rich: Verizon CEO's Take to the Street , that DC Jobs with Justice made with the Puppet Underground and Occupy DC. Please let the Store Captains listed below know you are coming to leaflet about Verizon and corporate greed! This week's schedule: Thursday January 12, 6:45-7:30am, Verizon garages at 95 Brookdale Dr, Springfield and 111 North Hatfield Road, Hatfield : Just stop by! Friday January 13, 9:30-11am, our Verizon Street Heat committee meets with Pioneer Valley Street Heat at the Labor Council, 640 Page Boulevard, Springfield . Just stop by! Saturday January 14 11am to 1pm 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 2pm at the Hadley store, 360 Russell St, Hadley : Please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-827-0301. Noon to 2pm at the Springfield store, 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield : Please let Marty Feid know you are coming: martinfeid at gmail.com, (413) 530-8888. Noon to 2pm 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. Join us! Please wear your organization's apparel and/or a red shirt/jacket, as the strikers did. If it looks like rain or snow, we will make the decision to call it off around 9am and let you know by email. If we know you are coming, we can let you know by phone call, text message, or email sent to your cell phone as a text message (if you've sent your phone number and name of carrier to wmjwj at wmjwj.org). 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. 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 don at mccanne.org Thu Jan 12 11:05:55 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:05:55 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Insurers use fitness memberships to select the healthy Message-ID: The New England Journal of Medicine January 12, 2012 Fitness Memberships and Favorable Selection in Medicare Advantage Plans By Alicia L. Cooper, M.P.H., and Amal N. Trivedi, M.D., M.P.H. This study examined the consequences of adding a fitness-membership benefit on the self-reported health status of enrollees in Medicare Advantage plans. Using a quasi-experimental design, we found that persons enrolling in plans after the addition of a fitness-membership benefit reported significantly better general health, fewer limitations in moderate activities, less difficulty walking, and higher PCS scores than did persons who enrolled in the same plan before the fitness benefit was added and in matched control plans that never offered a fitness benefit. These patterns persisted in the analyses of 2-year follow-up responses for all measures except self-reported general health. Our findings suggest that there is an association between the adoption of fitness-membership benefits in Medicare Advantage plans and the enrollment of healthier Medicare beneficiaries. Risk-adjusted payments are designed to reduce incentives for plans to avoid high-cost patients. However, the enhanced Medicare risk-adjustment model has the power to explain only 11% of the total variation in health spending. Furthermore, the model overpredicts costs for persons in good health and underpredicts costs for persons in poor health, yielding overpayments for healthy enrollees and underpayments for less-healthy enrollees. Therefore, the continued limitations of the CMS payment model may not discourage Medicare Advantage plans from engaging in risk-selective activities. Our findings are consistent with the notion that Medicare managed-care plans have continued to selectively market their benefits to healthier beneficiaries, even after the improved risk-adjustment program was instituted. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1104273?query=TOC#t=articleTop Comment: This study further confirms what we have known all along - that private insurers selectively market to the healthy, further cushioning their profits by being paid at rates for those with only average health. Although risk adjustment has been introduced to correct overpayments due to their use of favorable selection, the insurers have found devious ways to use risk adjustment to further expand their profits, even though technically prohibited. It is the nature of private insurers to always work the system to their own advantage, and that will never change. How many times do we have to say it? It is time to dismiss the private insurers and establish our own single payer national health program in which the benefits accrue to the patients/taxpayers and not to the expensive, intrusive, wasteful insurance intermediaries. -------------- 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 Thu Jan 12 13:31:41 2012 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:31:41 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] FW: Brownfield Forum Thurs. Jan 19 6-8pm Message-ID: <030801ccd158$6e556840$4b0038c0$@org> -----Original Message----- From: Tom Taaffe Thomas.Taaffe at baystatehealth.org Hi Folks, What do we do with our abandoned factories? What are the risks for our health and our communities? How can I get involved? To address these questions and many more, the Healthy Environment/Healthy Springfield CARE Project invites you to attend Cleaning Up Springfield: A Community Discussion about Brownfields and Hazardous Waste Sites: Thursday January 19, 6-8pm, at the UMass Design Center, 3 Elm St/Court Square, across the street from Springfield City Hall. Speakers include Alan Peterson, US EPA Brownfield Technical Assistance Resources, and Samalid Hogan, Springfield City Planning and Economic Development. Moderated by Lynn Rose, Springfield Department of Parks, Buildings, and Recreational Management. Food and refreshment will be provided. For further information, call 413-794-1803 or email thomas.taaffe at baystatehealth.org. We hope you will be able to attend! Tom Tom Taaffe, Ph.D. Director, Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition EPA CARE Project Coordinator Office: 413-794-1803 Cell: 413-330-2716 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Fri Jan 13 13:59:25 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:59:25 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Medicaid and uninsured patients receive less imaging in EDs Message-ID: Journal of the American College of Radiology January 2012 Imaging and Insurance: Do the Uninsured Get Less Imaging in Emergency Departments? By James W. Moser, PhD, Kimberly E. Applegate, MD, MS Compared with non-Medicaid insured ED patients, uninsured ED patients were less likely to get any imaging services and to get lower value imaging RVUs (relative value units), results that held for nearly all modalities. Similar results regarding the number and value of imaging services, as well as health status, were found for Medicaid patients. Even after controlling for health status and other measurable factors, the average number of imaging tests received by uninsured ED patients was ?8% lower than that for non-Medicaid insured ED patients. The deficit for Medicaid ED patients was even greater, at about 10%. Uninsured ED patients and Medicaid ED patients also received fewer imaging-related RVUs per visit than non-Medicaid insured ED patients: 13% and 19%, respectively. These differences amplify the potentially serious health implications for persons lacking conventional health insurance. As the number of uninsured Americans continues to rise, the use of ED services will also rise. The differences in imaging RVUs by insurance group stemmed from a bias toward lower valued imaging modalities for persons lacking coverage compared with insurance persons. Medicaid patients, perhaps underinsured, also received lower valued imaging and less imaging compared with insured patients. Other studies have found that the uninsured are less likely to get timely medical care and consequently are sicker upon being admitted to the hospital. http://www.jacr.org/article/S1546-1440(11)00445-5/fulltext Comment: Fully predictable. Uninsured and Medicaid emergency department patients receive fewer imaging tests, and when they do receive them, they are more likely to be lower valued tests. Under the Affordable Care Act, many individuals will remain uninsured and many more will be enrolled in Medicaid. Thus this is a problem that is not going away. We can do better than 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 don at mccanne.org Sat Jan 14 17:22:18 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:22:18 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Link for Arnold Relman's article used in Jan. 3 qotd Message-ID: The first Quote of the Day for this year was from Arnold Relman's article, "In Dire Health," published in the American Prospect. The online version was not yet available. Several asked if I would send out a link to the full article when it was published online. The link: http://prospect.org/article/dire-health -------------- 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 Mon Jan 16 16:58:54 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:58:54 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: What Dr. King might say about physicians in the 1 percent Message-ID: "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane" Martin Luther King Jr. The New York Times January 14, 2012 Among the Wealthiest One Percent, Many Variations By Shaila Dewan and Robert Gebeloff The colossal gap between the very rich and everyone else - the 1 percent versus the 99 percent - has become a rallying point in this election season. President Obama positions himself as a defender of the middle class, and Mitt Romney, the wealthiest of the Republican presidential candidates, decries such talk as "the bitter politics of envy." The range of wealth in the 1 percent is vast - from households that bring in $380,000 a year, according to census data, up to billionaires like Warren E. Buffett and Bill Gates. Most 1 percenters were born with socioeconomic advantages, which helps explain why the 1 percent is more likely than other Americans to have jobs, according to census data. They work longer hours, being three times more likely than the 99 percent to work more than 50 hours a week, and are more likely to be self-employed. In one survey of wealthy Chicago families, almost twice as many respondents said they would cut government spending as those who said they would cut spending and raise revenue. "I don't mind paying a little bit more in taxes. I don't mind putting money to programs that help the poor," said Anthony J. Bonomo of Manhasset, N.Y., who runs a medical malpractice insurance company and is a Republican. But, he said, he did mind taking a hit for the country?s woes. "If those people could camp out in that park all day, why aren?t they out looking for a job? Why are they blaming others?" Still, David Mejias, a divorce and personal injury lawyer who once served as a Democratic legislator for Nassau County, said that the system everywhere was skewed in favor of the self-employed and business owners who could deduct part of the cost of their cars, trips, dinners and even collectibles like art. "Not only do we make more money, but if you do a lifestyle analysis, we make a lot more money," he said. "Before we even get paid, most of our life has been paid for already." "I definitely see it around me," said Anu Chandok, 36, an oncologist in Lake Success, referring to the country?s economic pain. "It just personally hasn't affected me yet." Dr. Chandok said that her husband, also a doctor, was still paying off his student loans. The couple has a nanny, but Dr. Chandok's father-in-law does the shopping and cooking. Dr. Chandok said she had never heard the Occupy Wall Street slogan "We are the 99 percent." Two children and 11-hour workdays, she said, do not leave much time for politics. But when the slogan was explained as a complaint against the wealthy's growing share of income, she shook her head. "I spent four years in undergraduate school, four years in medical school, three years as a resident and three years as a fellow," she said. "You have to look at the people who are complaining." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/business/the-1-percent-paint-a-more-nuanced-portrait-of-the-rich.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all New York Times Interactive Of 360,785 physicians who practice in offices and clinics, 27.2 percent have incomes in the top 1 percent (over $380,000). http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2012/0115-one-percent-occupations/index.html?ref=business Comment: On Martin Luther King Jr Day it seems appropriate to contemplate what he might say about the dramatic increase in flow of wealth from middle- and lower-income families to the 1 percent who constitute the uber-wealthy. It seems safe to assume that he would be concerned about the negative impact on the issues of social justice to which he devoted his life. One of those issues was health care justice. What do you think he might say about the fact that 27 percent of physicians practicing in offices and clinics fall into the highest 1 percent of income? It is likely that he would not frame the problem narrowly as excess compensation for physicians but rather as the larger issue of an excess accumulation of wealth at the very top when there is so much unmet need amongst the masses. But for many of us who have had experience in the trenches, we have been annoyed, to say the least, that many of these same high-income physicians refused to see our uninsured and Medicaid patients. Was it because they didn't want to make the smallest of dents in their high incomes by using a small amount of office time on just a few patients that did not cover their costs? Or was it that they didn't want "that element" to frequent their waiting rooms? Both, in my experience, and as Dr. Chandok's views suggest. One concern that many physicians have about single payer, or an improved Medicare for all, is that the government, as a monopsony, could reduce physicians' incomes perhaps to the level of teachers' salaries. Although incomes of physicians in most other nations are lower than in the United States, they still rank well above average. Physicians do very well, though most are not able to accumulate large amounts of wealth that a $380,000 or more income might bring. Most physicians who are truly dedicated to serving patients would be satisfied with incomes in the top 20 percent if they were provided a practice environment conducive to optimal care for all of their patients. That, of course, is precisely a major goal of single payer. Many if not most of those physicians who want to be in the top 1 percent might not be satisfied. When deciding on career choices they might reject medicine if it had government controls on spending, and choose an educational path that might lead to the financial services industry, corporate leadership, or entrepreneurial endeavors. Opponents of government-financed medicine have warned that controls on health care spending might deprive health care of some of the finest and brightest minds. What? Do we really want more physicians whose primary interest is to accumulate wealth while demonstrating absolutely no compassion for the least amongst us? There isn't much doubt about what Dr. King's position would be. When we are asked if single payer might reduce physicians' incomes we don't need to fumble around trying to craft an answer that would placate physicians with very high incomes. We should state frankly that if an individual's goal is to have a personal fleet of luxury automobiles and a condo in every climate, then medicine isn't the field for them, or at least shouldn't be. On the other hand, if the goal is to obtain the best attainable health care for everyone, while adjusting incomes to reinforce the primary care infrastructure and to provide fair but not excessive compensation for procedure-oriented specialists, then practicing medicine in a single payer environment is just what the compassionate doctor ordered. -------------- 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 wmspn at wmjwj.org Mon Jan 16 18:27:27 2012 From: wmspn at wmjwj.org (WMass Single Payer Network) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:27:27 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] WMSPN REMINDER Message-ID: <038901ccd4a6$6a468d50$3ed3a7f0$@org> Saturday January 21 (Third Saturday in January, April, and September) WESTERN MASS SINGLE PAYER NETWORK 9:30-Noon, Lathrop Village Community Room, 1 Shallowbrook Ln, off Bridge Rd, Northampton. WMSPN is a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of organizations and individuals committed to achieving a universal single payer health care system. At 10:30 we will be joined by leaders of Mass-Care, the statewide single payer coalition meeting, for the top agenda item: Winning Massachusetts Medicare for All. Please visit http://masscare.org/ma-single-payer-bill/. . Please send agenda items to wmspn at wmjwj.org. . Please email wmspn at wmjwj.org if you are definitely coming or your organization will definitely be represented. Info: (413) 827-0301 x1, wmspn at wmjwj.org. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 wmjwj at wmjwj.org Mon Jan 16 19:31:18 2012 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:31:18 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] REMINDER: [May Day 2012] Initial Organizing References: <019e01cab56d$b3ae2e80$1b0a8b80$@org> Message-ID: <03e001ccd4af$5a12f960$0e38ec20$@org> One last call for responses. Thanks to all who replied! We'll be in touch soon. Jon From: WMass Jobs with Justice [mailto:wmjwj at wmjwj.org] Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 9:35 PM To: 'WMJwJ Members List' Cc: Workers' Rights List; WMass SLAP List; People's History List; Health Care Action List Subject: [May Day 2012] Initial Organizing Dear friends, It's time to start planning May Day again. May 1 is a Tuesday this year. I have specific questions for you at the end. Besides Western Mass. Jobs with Justice Members, this is going to quite a range of activists, performers, historians (professional and amateur), artists, and folks who have shown an interest in Western Mass. People's History and/or the annual WMJwJ May Day Celebration. Please Reply if we should drop you from the list. Please forward to friends you think might be interested. Western Mass Jobs with Justice has celebrated International Workers' Day over the years, usually with a dramatic reading, "Voices of Working People's History", inspired by Howard Zinn. We tell the story of the first May Day in 1886 and the May Day themes of workers' power in the workplace and in society with speeches, letters, poems, and songs. Our wonderful volunteer artists and activists perform the voices of people who make history happen but are usually left out of history books - workers, women, people of color - with an emphasis on our own Western Massachusetts voices! This year we will again perform at the Holyoke Heritage State Park (http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/central/hhsp.htm) in the Visitors Center. 2010 was our first time there and everyone - both performers and audience - loved it. Irene Thornton will return as Director and Tom Neilson as Musical Director. So, some specific questions: Would you like to be in the performance? (Preference given to returning cast members.) help with the script? suggest readings, especially from local folks? (We're always tinkering with it, especially to make the ending contemporary. Do you know of local unsung, even nameless working class heroes? How does the story or meaning of May Day involve people of color? native peoples? women outside the labor movement? religious activists? Do you know of "voices" from important moments in Western Mass labor history? Do you know of local May Day speeches? In particular, we are looking for a May Day or strike speech that invokes Tom Paine. Are there readings that connect Western Mass or at least Massachusetts to national figures (such as Cesar Chavez's Springfield speech)? Quite a challenge, eh?) co-sponsor the event - $100 donation to the Warren J. Plaut Charitable Trust Jobs with Justice Fund (receive two complimentary reserved-seating tickets)? help with the publicity? volunteer that evening (receive a complimentary reserved-seating ticket)? be on the organizing committee, leading the work (receive a complimentary reserved-seating ticket)? stay on this [May Day 2012] list? Please let me know! Thank you! for just reading this email and even considering helping with this project. If you want to hear a wonderful example of what this kind of collaboration can produce, please listen to "Voices of a People's History" at http://wmjwj.org/voices-peoples-history-part-1. (And check out The People Speak.) In solidarity, Jon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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. Our mailing lists: [Workers' Rights] 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!" 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. [Health Care Action] posts events and information that support the large and vibrant Western Mass. movement for health care justice. Nationwide, Jobs with Justice has prioritized Health Care as a basic human right. To subscribe, send a blank email to healthcareaction-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/healthcareaction. [People's History] posts events and other information related to a people's history of Western Mass, inspired by Howard Zinn. To subscribe, send a blank email to peopleshistory-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/peopleshistory. [Solidarity Calendar] posts other events of interest to the broader Western Mass. movement. To subscribe, send an email to wmjwj at wmjwj.org with a Subject of "Subscribe Solidarity Calendar". WMJwJ sponsors [WMSLAP], the Western Mass. Student Labor Action Project mailing list. SLAP engages student organizations in economic justice campaigns. To subscribe, send a blank email to wmassslap-subscribe at lists.prometheuslabor.com or go to http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/wmassslap. WMJwJ co-sponsors [GreenWork], the mailing list of the Western Mass. Green Economy Working Group of advocates of a Green Economy which serves local communities; guarantees workers' rights to organize; and promotes community-owned sustainable projects. To subscribe, send a blank email to greenwork-subscribe at lists.gaiahost.coop or go to http://lists.gaiahost.coop/mailman/listinfo/greenwork. WMJwJ is a founding member of the Western Mass Coalition for Immigrant & Worker Rights, organizations and community members who advocate, educate, organize, and mobilize to protect the Human, Civil, and Constitutional Rights of all workers and residents in our communities. To subscribe to its mailing list, send a blank email to wmciwr-subscribe at lists.riseup.net or go to https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/wmciwr. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Tue Jan 17 16:12:52 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:12:52 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Physicians investing in for-profit technology Message-ID: The Baltimore Sun January 17, 2012 After urologists got machine, cancer treatments soared By Jay Hancock Four years ago, doctors at Chesapeake Urology Associates started ordering the most expensive kind of prostate-cancer therapy for many more of their patients. Before 2007, the large, multi-office practice was prescribing the treatment, known as intensity modulated radiation therapy, for 12 percent of its prostate-cancer patients covered by Medicare, according to data compiled by a Georgetown University researcher. But starting in mid-2007, Chesapeake Urology's referral rate for IMRT more than tripled, rising to 43 percent of the Medicare cases. What could have caused such a sharp change? It couldn't have been because IMRT, which costs about $40,000 per treatment, was new. Maryland hospitals had been offering it for years. It couldn't have been because IMRT was better. "No randomized clinical trials show that prostate cancer patients receiving IMRT live longer or experience fewer long-term side effects than those getting the alternatives" of radiation-seed therapy or surgery, said Dr. James Mohler, a urologist at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., and chairman of the national committee that sets standards for prostate-cancer care. Chesapeake Urology tripled its percentage of prescriptions for IMRT after the practice acquired its own IMRT machine in 2007. The more patients the Baltimore-area urologists referred for that expensive therapy alternative, the more revenue and profits they would generate. "They're steering patients to IMRT because that's where they make their money," said Jean Mitchell, a professor and health care economist at Georgetown who's working on a national study about IMRT referrals. "They're making a ton of money out of this. There's no question about it. At the expense of the taxpayers" who finance Medicare. http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-bz-hancock-chesapeake-urology-20120114,0,670418.column Comment: Technology that improves patient outcomes and reduces costs is great. Technology that increases costs, produces undesirable side effects, and provides no evidence of extended life expectancy is... well... not so great, except for meeting the financial goals of the entrepreneurial owners of the technology. And when the owners of the technology are the same trusted physicians who are prescribing it, that's reprehensible. Theoretically a government-funded and government-administered health care financing program would have the power to prevent these abuses. Yet this diversion of radiation treatment fees to the referring physicians is occurring within the Medicare program. So simply expanding Medicare to everyone alone is not enough to fix our dysfunctional financing system. A properly designed single payer national health program would do far more than simply remove private insurers from the system. In this instance the need for the radiation equipment would be determined by medical science confirming the value of the intervention. The decision to purchase the equipment would be made through regional planning based on need. The payment for the equipment would be through separate budgeting of capital improvements. The ownership would be public or non-profit and would have no investors to draw off profits. Physicians would be paid appropriately for their professional services as urologists and radiation oncologists, but they would not receive extra dividends based on their insight as to the potential lucrative benefits of personally investing in the equipment. So about that Medicare for all. We speak of an improved Medicare for all, but the improvements would have to be monumental. -------------- 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 Jan 18 16:17:55 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:17:55 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Folding Medicare into Vermont's single payer system Message-ID: Department of Vermont Health Access and the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities, and Health Care Administration January 17, 2012 Act 48 Integration Report: Green Mountain Care Submitted by Robin J. Lunge, Director of Health Care Reform Act 48 creates Green Mountain Care, which is a publicly financed health care program delivering affordable, high-quality health care coverage to all residents of Vermont. Section 8 of No. 48 of the acts of 2011 (Act 48) calls for a report consisting of a series of studies to inform the development of Green Mountain Care. The administrative integration of many payers will begin in the Exchange. For example, individuals eligible for Medicaid may use a web-based portal designed for the Exchange to enroll in Medicaid. The Exchange will also integrate the small group and association markets and could additionally integrate the individual market as well. Municipal employees are currently in the small group market, so their coverage would also be integrated in the Exchange. The three payers who may not be able to be integrated into the Exchange are Medicare, state employees, and school employees. Medicare Medicare is a federal program, paid for with all federal funds and administered entirely by the federal government. 33 V.S.A. 1824 provides that the agency of human services shall collect information to determine if an individual is eligible for Medicare in order to ensure that federal funds are utilized before state funds. Act 48 specifically provides that Green Mountain Care will not alter anyone?s Medicare benefits under Medicare. If an individual is enrolled in Medicare, he or she need not apply for or enroll in Green Mountain Care if he or she does not wish to. Act 48 allows the individual the choice to have Green Mountain Care as a secondary insurance, but does not require it. The cost of these provisions will be looked at as part of the financing study due in January 2013. http://hcr.vermont.gov/sites/hcr/files/GreenMountainCareStudiesIntegration.pdf And... Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services Medicare Waiver Demonstration Application CMS conducts Medicare-waiver-only demonstrations to test innovations that have been shown to be successful in improving access and quality and/or lowering health care costs. These demonstrations may involve new benefits, fee-for-service or Medicare Advantage payment methodologies, and/or risk sharing arrangements that are not currently permitted under Medicare statute. https://www.cms.gov/DemoProjectsEvalRpts/downloads/FESC_Medicare_Waiver_Demo.pdf For more about Medicare waivers: Legal Information Institute http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/42/1395b-1.html And... Converting Successful Medicare Demonstrations into National Programs (an excellent description of the limitations of the process using the example of P4P): http://www.rti.org/pubs/rtipress/mitchell/BK-0002-1103-Ch11.pdf Comment: As states attempt to set up single payer programs, one problem that comes up is how do you move federal funds from programs such as Medicare into the state single payer system? The simple answer is, you don't, at least not without getting Congress to enact transformative legislation. Many have suggested that all you need is a "Medicare waiver." But the Medicare waiver process is limited to small demonstrations primarily of payment innovations that are budget neutral or less, and that do not reduce benefits. They do not allow changes in the fundamentals of the Medicare program. The populations covered remain the same. Vermont dropped "single payer" from the title of their legislation. One of the reasons is that Medicare will have to remain a separate program, even though they are making efforts to allow Green Mountain Care to serve as an additional Medigap plan, and to allow for some administrative integration within the insurance exchange. Vermont should certainly move forward with its process, since beneficial tweaks are better than nothing at all. But the real message is that Vermont, and all of us, could have so much more if we enacted a national single payer health program. We should not wait to see how well the state efforts and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act will work. We already know. Costs will be higher. Millions will remain uninsured. Underinsurance will be the new standard. Hardship and suffering will increase. States should try to improve their programs while they are waiting for national reform. But it's our job to see that they don't have to wait any longer than they have to. We must act now. -------------- 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 Thu Jan 19 08:56:42 2012 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:56:42 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Action: DIY Delegations & Saturday Leafleting Message-ID: <007901ccd6b2$31805b00$94811100$@org> Dear Opponents of Corporate Greed, WE?VE LAUNCHED DO IT YOURSELF VERIZON WIRELESS STORE DELEGATIONS: We now have a letter from community leaders across the nation, including Western Mass., asking Verizon to respect workers rights. Will you deliver it to a local store manager? Here?s how you do it! ? Talk to a couple of friends, neighbors, relatives, coworkers, or members to see who?s in. Any size delegation is fine. ? Pick any time and store that your delegation wants to visit. See the Western Mass. list below. ? Go to http://www.massjwj.net/news/help-show-community-support-verizon-workers to download the letter and directions. Or get the letter by email from wmjwj at wmjwj.org. ? Read the directions. ? There?s room on the letter to add your names if you want. ? Visit the store and ask to speak with the manager. Deliver the letter, explaining that you are part of a national movement of people who want respect for Verizon workers. ? After you do your delegation, tell Jon at WMass Jobs with Justice (jon at wmjwj.org) how it went. WE?RE STILL LEAFLETING & STANDING-OUT AT VERIZON WIRELESS STORES: Pick a Saturday ~ Jan. 21, 28, Feb. 4, 11, 18, 25 Pick an ?Hour of Power? between Noon & 2pm Pick a VzW Store: Hadley / Pittsfield / Springfield / West Springfield And click here . Or let the January 21 Store Captains know you are coming: Saturday, 11am to 1pm, 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. Saturday, Noon to 2pm, at the Hadley store, 360 Russell St, Hadley : Please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-250-5267. Saturday, Noon to 2pm,, at the Springfield store, 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield : Please let Marty Feid know you are coming: martinfeid at gmail.com, (413) 530-8888. Saturday, Noon to 2pm, 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. Join us! Please wear your organization?s apparel and/or a red shirt/jacket, as the strikers did. If it looks like rain or snow, we will make the decision to call it off around 9am and let you know by email. If we know you are coming, we can let you know by phone, text, or the email sent to your cell phone as a text message (if you?ve sent your phone number and name of carrier to wmjwj at wmjwj.org). Wondering what it?s like to leaflet (besides cold)? The leafleters wear signs and stand near the door (yes, on the property) and approach folks as they approach the door. We offer the leaflet, saying something like ?Verizon workers are still trying to get a good contract that keeps 45,000 good jobs in the U.S.? Most customers take the leaflet. Some want to commiserate with us and complain about the company (Vz customers are a highly disloyal lot). Occasionally someone (at least one each time in Hadley) decides not to go into the store. We say as much as we can as they hurry toward the door. We point out the website on the flyer as a way they can help. We say they can also help by hurting the company in the pocketbook. We tell them that they can do all their Verizon business (sometimes for less) at Wireless Zone, Family Wireless, Best Buy, Radio Shack. And AT&T is the all-union cell phone company (often just across the street). There are so few customers that most of the time that the leafleting can be a one-person job. So once we have three people we have two of them hold the banner on the street. More people and we have a colorful stand-out. (But sometimes it?s so windy there they can?t display the banner.) Drivers-by constantly honk their approval and after an hour or two we leave, knowing that the company is really pissed that we keep doing this! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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. 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 don at mccanne.org Thu Jan 19 14:18:51 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:18:51 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: CBO: Medicare's demonstration projects fail to demonstrate cost savings Message-ID: Congressional Budget Office January 2012 Lessons from Medicare's Demonstration Projects on Disease Management, Care Coordination, and Value-Based Payment In the past two decades, CMS has conducted two broad categories of demonstrations aimed at enhancing the quality of health care and improving the efficiency of health care delivery in Medicare?s fee-for-service program. * Disease management and care coordination demonstrations have sought to improve the quality of care of beneficiaries with chronic illnesses and those whose health care is expected to be particularly costly. * Value-based payment demonstrations have given health care providers financial incentives to improve the quality and efficiency of care rather than payments based strictly on the volume and intensity of services delivered. The evaluations show that most programs have not reduced Medicare spending: In nearly every program involving disease management and care coordination, spending was either unchanged or increased relative to the spending that would have occurred in the absence of the program, when the fees paid to the participating organizations were considered. Programs in which care managers had substantial direct interaction with physicians and significant in-person interaction with patients were more likely to reduce Medicare spending than other programs, but on average even those programs did not achieve enough savings to offset their fees. Results from demonstrations of value-based payment systems were mixed. In one of the four demonstrations examined, Medicare made bundled payments that covered all hospital and physician services for heart bypass surgeries; Medicare?s spending for those services was reduced by about 10 percent under the demonstration. Other demonstrations of value-based payment appear to have produced little or no savings for Medicare. The results of those Medicare demonstrations suggest that substantial changes to payment and delivery systems will probably be necessary for programs involving disease management and care coordination or value-based payment to significantly reduce spending and either maintain or improve the quality of care provided to patients. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/126xx/doc12663/01-18-12-MedicareDemoBrief.pdf Comment: Recognizing the need to slow the increase in health care spending, much hope has been placed on disease management, care coordination, and value-based payments such as pay-for-performance. Medicare has authorized numerous demonstration projects to prove that these programs are effective. They aren't. The results of these demonstrations have shown that they have not reduced spending because the costs of the interventions were not offset by the savings, and frequently the costs were greater, resulting in a net loss. The one exception in the report - bundled payments - doesn't really belong in this list anyway. The demonstration study negotiated a single fee for coronary bypass surgeries, covering both the hospitals and the in-hospital treating physicians. The negotiated fee was about 10 percent less than the itemized fees had been previously. Thus the savings for Medicare was about 10 percent for these bypass surgeries. There was no attempt to determine if this reduction resulted in efforts to recover the difference from other patients or payers, which makes it difficult to know whether or not bundling actually reduced total health care costs. On the other hand, imagine a system in which all payments are negotiated, as with a single payer system. Hospitals negotiate an annual global budget. That budget includes their costs of services, such as coronary bypass surgeries, without the need to itemize each single item for the services, nor the need to bundle payments in some sort of pretense that global costs are reduced. The hospital already has incentives to improve efficiencies to stay within budget. Likewise, physicians collectively negotiate their payments, whether fee-for-service, capitation, or salary, as appropriate to their clinical circumstances. Payments are adequate to ensure a very comfortable net income. Other nations have proven that negotiated, administered payment is effective in obtaining greater value for health care spending. We've now proven that intrusion of market-model games players such as outside disease managers, or pay-for-performance administrators, have failed to improve value. So we should go with a system that really does work - 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 wmspn at wmjwj.org Fri Jan 20 15:02:17 2012 From: wmspn at wmjwj.org (WMass Single Payer Network) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:02:17 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] WMSPN MEETING Message-ID: <00f801ccd7ae$695792d0$3c06b870$@org> Well, Mom's snowing tonight and tomorrow. Looks like we should cancel tomorrow. Any thoughts? Just talked with Ben Day at Mass-Care and they will not be coming in any case. Jon From: WMass Single Payer Network [mailto:wmspn at wmjwj.org] Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 6:27 PM To: 'Health Care Action List'; Workers' Rights List Subject: WMSPN REMINDER Saturday January 21 (Third Saturday in January, April, and September) WESTERN MASS SINGLE PAYER NETWORK 9:30-Noon, Lathrop Village Community Room, 1 Shallowbrook Ln, off Bridge Rd, Northampton. WMSPN is a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of organizations and individuals committed to achieving a universal single payer health care system. At 10:30 we will be joined by leaders of Mass-Care, the statewide single payer coalition meeting, for the top agenda item: Winning Massachusetts Medicare for All. Please visit http://masscare.org/ma-single-payer-bill/. . Please send agenda items to wmspn at wmjwj.org. . Please email wmspn at wmjwj.org if you are definitely coming or your organization will definitely be represented. Info: (413) 827-0301 x1, wmspn at wmjwj.org. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 Fri Jan 20 15:13:19 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:13:19 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Reinhardt: Is U.S. Health Spending Finally Under Control? Message-ID: The New York Times January 20, 2012 Is U.S. Health Spending Finally Under Control? By Uwe E. Reinhardt ?Growth in U.S. health spending remains slow in 2010? was the headline of a news release on Jan. 9 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the Department of Health and Human Services. At an increase of 3.9 percent over national health spending in 2009, ?the rates of health spending growth in 2009 and 2010 marked the lowest rate in the 51-year history of the National Health Expenditure Accounts,? the release said. The $64,000 question is how soon the excess growth of health spending will descend from its historical average of 1.5 to 2.5 percent first to, say, 1 percent or so, and eventually to 0 percent. It is tempting to view the relatively lower cost growth in recent years as a first step in that direction. But nothing in the history of health spending in the United States suggests that this is the time to break out the Champagne to celebrate that victory. After all, low rates of spending increases in 2009-10 could just be the lagged effect of the deep recession in 2008-9. There is evidence in the literature that health spending does not completely march to its own drummer, regardless of what happens in the rest of the economy, but instead tends to rise and fall somewhat with the rest of the G.D.P., albeit with a lag of one to two years. The safest bet is that on the long road to eventual zero excess growth in health spending, we will ride up and down quite a few more times on the health-spending roller coaster. Now why is it reasonable to assume that excess cost growth will just have to decline to zero in the long run ? that is, to assume that health spending will not eventually grow faster than G.D.P. and perhaps even more slowly? Economists would explain such a trend as follows: as the fraction of G.D.P. devoted to health care increases, the added satisfaction, or utility, that people derive from added health care is likely to diminish relative to the added satisfaction derived from consuming more of other things. It could explain a gradual decline in the excess growth of health care spending. Finally, economists retreat here to the one law on which they all agree, namely, Stein?s Law, named for the late economist Herbert Stein: ?If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.? Trust us. It will, in the long run. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/is-u-s-health-spending-finally-under-control/ Published Comment: Don McCanne San Juan Capistrano, CA How close we already are to meeting the limits of Stein's Law is exemplified by 1) the current cost of health care for a family of four with an employer-sponsored PPO - $19,393 (Milliman), and 2) median household income - $49,445 (2010). Although these are not measures of identical family units, they do provide enough of a perspective to show that we have run out of space in family budgets to pay for health care. The forgoing of wages to pay for employer-sponsored health benefits has crimped family budgets to the extent that frugality has become, by necessity, the norm. We can continue as we are, allowing personal hardship to increase, or we can have our public stewards take control, as they have in other nations. They have been successful in ensuring that everyone has health care at costs averaging only half of those in the U.S. A properly designed Medicare for all would work just fine for all of us. -------------- 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 jerbru at aol.com Fri Jan 20 15:12:11 2012 From: jerbru at aol.com (Jerry) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:12:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Health Care Action] WMSPN MEETING In-Reply-To: <00f801ccd7ae$695792d0$3c06b870$@org> References: <00f801ccd7ae$695792d0$3c06b870$@org> Message-ID: <8CEA5C6EDCA4A14-1768-DB05@webmail-d101.sysops.aol.com> I would say cancel and reschedule when MassCare folks can come. The weather if too iffy. Cynthia -----Original Message----- From: WMass Single Payer Network To: 'Health Care Action List' ; Workers' Rights List Sent: Fri, Jan 20, 2012 10:02 am Subject: Re: [Health Care Action] WMSPN MEETING Well, Mom?s snowing tonight and tomorrow. Looks like we should cancel tomorrow. Any thoughts? Just talked with Ben Day at Mass-Care and they will not be coming in any case. Jon From: WMass Single Payer Network [mailto:wmspn at wmjwj.org] Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 6:27 PM To: 'Health Care Action List'; Workers' Rights List Subject: WMSPN REMINDER Saturday January 21 (Third Saturday in January, April, and September) WESTERN MASS SINGLE PAYER NETWORK 9:30-Noon, Lathrop Village Community Room, 1 Shallowbrook Ln, off Bridge Rd, Northampton. WMSPN is a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of organizations and individuals committed to achieving a universal single payer health care system. At 10:30 we will be joined by leaders of Mass-Care, the statewide single payer coalition meeting, for the top agenda item: Winning Massachusetts Medicare for All. Please visit http://masscare.org/ma-single-payer-bill/. ? Please send agenda items to wmspn at wmjwj.org. ? Please email wmspn at wmjwj.org if you are definitely coming or your organization will definitely be represented. Info: (413) 827-0301 x1, wmspn at wmjwj.org. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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. _______________________________________________ You are subscribed to the HealthCareAction mailing list. To manage your subscription settings or unsubscribe, please visit http://lists.wmjwj.org/mailman/listinfo/healthcareaction. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wmspn at wmjwj.org Fri Jan 20 18:17:36 2012 From: wmspn at wmjwj.org (WMass Single Payer Network) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:17:36 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] WMSPN MEETING CANCELLED Message-ID: <025001ccd7c9$b2ac81f0$180585d0$@org> We are cancelling tomorrow's Western Mass. Single Payer Network meeting. Since the next one isn't til April, we'll need to reschedule. Stay tuned. From: WMass Single Payer Network [mailto:wmspn at wmjwj.org] Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 3:02 PM Well, Mom's snowing tonight and tomorrow. Looks like we should cancel tomorrow. Any thoughts? Just talked with Ben Day at Mass-Care and they will not be coming in any case. Jon From: WMass Single Payer Network [mailto:wmspn at wmjwj.org] Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 6:27 PM To: 'Health Care Action List'; Workers' Rights List Subject: WMSPN REMINDER Saturday January 21 (Third Saturday in January, April, and September) WESTERN MASS SINGLE PAYER NETWORK 9:30-Noon, Lathrop Village Community Room, 1 Shallowbrook Ln, off Bridge Rd, Northampton. WMSPN is a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of organizations and individuals committed to achieving a universal single payer health care system. At 10:30 we will be joined by leaders of Mass-Care, the statewide single payer coalition meeting, for the top agenda item: Winning Massachusetts Medicare for All. Please visit http://masscare.org/ma-single-payer-bill/. . Please send agenda items to wmspn at wmjwj.org. . Please email wmspn at wmjwj.org if you are definitely coming or your organization will definitely be represented. Info: (413) 827-0301 x1, wmspn at wmjwj.org. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 wmjwj at wmjwj.org Sat Jan 21 09:03:18 2012 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:03:18 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Action: DIY Delegations & Saturday Leafleting Message-ID: <008801ccd845$71c5e740$5551b5c0$@org> Weather.com predicts snow during our leafleting hours, so no leafleting today. See you next Saturday? Doing a DIY delegation? Please let us know! From: WMass Jobs with Justice [mailto:wmjwj at wmjwj.org] Dear Opponents of Corporate Greed, WE?VE LAUNCHED DO IT YOURSELF VERIZON WIRELESS STORE DELEGATIONS: We now have a letter from community leaders across the nation, including Western Mass., asking Verizon to respect workers rights. Will you deliver it to a local store manager? Here?s how you do it! ? Talk to a couple of friends, neighbors, relatives, coworkers, or members to see who?s in. Any size delegation is fine. ? Pick any time and store that your delegation wants to visit. See the Western Mass. list below. ? Go to http://www.massjwj.net/news/help-show-community-support-verizon-workers to download the letter and directions. Or get the letter by email from wmjwj at wmjwj.org. ? Read the directions. ? There?s room on the letter to add your names if you want. ? Visit the store and ask to speak with the manager. Deliver the letter, explaining that you are part of a national movement of people who want respect for Verizon workers. ? After you do your delegation, tell Jon at WMass Jobs with Justice (jon at wmjwj.org) how it went. WE?RE STILL LEAFLETING & STANDING-OUT AT VERIZON WIRELESS STORES: Pick a Saturday ~ Jan. 21, 28, Feb. 4, 11, 18, 25 Pick an ?Hour of Power? between Noon & 2pm Pick a VzW Store: Hadley / Pittsfield / Springfield / West Springfield And click here . Or let the January 21 Store Captains know you are coming: Saturday, 11am to 1pm, 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. Saturday, Noon to 2pm, at the Hadley store, 360 Russell St, Hadley : Please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-250-5267. Saturday, Noon to 2pm,, at the Springfield store, 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield : Please let Marty Feid know you are coming: martinfeid at gmail.com, (413) 530-8888. Saturday, Noon to 2pm, 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. Join us! Please wear your organization?s apparel and/or a red shirt/jacket, as the strikers did. If it looks like rain or snow, we will make the decision to call it off around 9am and let you know by email. If we know you are coming, we can let you know by phone, text, or the email sent to your cell phone as a text message (if you?ve sent your phone number and name of carrier to wmjwj at wmjwj.org). Wondering what it?s like to leaflet (besides cold)? The leafleters wear signs and stand near the door (yes, on the property) and approach folks as they approach the door. We offer the leaflet, saying something like ?Verizon workers are still trying to get a good contract that keeps 45,000 good jobs in the U.S.? Most customers take the leaflet. Some want to commiserate with us and complain about the company (Vz customers are a highly disloyal lot). Occasionally someone (at least one each time in Hadley) decides not to go into the store. We say as much as we can as they hurry toward the door. We point out the website on the flyer as a way they can help. We say they can also help by hurting the company in the pocketbook. We tell them that they can do all their Verizon business (sometimes for less) at Wireless Zone, Family Wireless, Best Buy, Radio Shack. And AT&T is the all-union cell phone company (often just across the street). There are so few customers that most of the time that the leafleting can be a one-person job. So once we have three people we have two of them hold the banner on the street. More people and we have a colorful stand-out. (But sometimes it?s so windy there they can?t display the banner.) Drivers-by constantly honk their approval and after an hour or two we leave, knowing that the company is really pissed that we keep doing this! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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. 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 wmspn at wmjwj.org Sat Jan 21 10:03:32 2012 From: wmspn at wmjwj.org (WMass Single Payer Network) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:03:32 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] WMSPN MEETING CANCELLED Message-ID: <011c01ccd84d$d820a040$8861e0c0$@org> I suggest we meet January 28 or February 18. Please chime in. Thanks! Jon From: WMass Single Payer Network [mailto:wmspn at wmjwj.org] Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 6:18 PM To: 'Health Care Action List'; Workers' Rights List Subject: WMSPN MEETING CANCELLED We are cancelling tomorrow's Western Mass. Single Payer Network meeting. Since the next one isn't til April, we'll need to reschedule. Stay tuned. From: WMass Single Payer Network [mailto:wmspn at wmjwj.org] Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 3:02 PM Well, Mom's snowing tonight and tomorrow. Looks like we should cancel tomorrow. Any thoughts? Just talked with Ben Day at Mass-Care and they will not be coming in any case. Jon From: WMass Single Payer Network [mailto:wmspn at wmjwj.org] Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 6:27 PM To: 'Health Care Action List'; Workers' Rights List Subject: WMSPN REMINDER Saturday January 21 (Third Saturday in January, April, and September) WESTERN MASS SINGLE PAYER NETWORK 9:30-Noon, Lathrop Village Community Room, 1 Shallowbrook Ln, off Bridge Rd, Northampton. WMSPN is a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of organizations and individuals committed to achieving a universal single payer health care system. At 10:30 we will be joined by leaders of Mass-Care, the statewide single payer coalition meeting, for the top agenda item: Winning Massachusetts Medicare for All. Please visit http://masscare.org/ma-single-payer-bill/. . Please send agenda items to wmspn at wmjwj.org. . Please email wmspn at wmjwj.org if you are definitely coming or your organization will definitely be represented. Info: (413) 827-0301 x1, wmspn at wmjwj.org. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 Mon Jan 23 12:50:10 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:50:10 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: U.S. to Sarah Burke's family: "Sorry for your loss; here's your bill" Message-ID: Calgary Herald January 20, 2012 'Sorry for your loss ? here?s your bill' By Robert Remington With the family of deceased Canadian skier Sarah Burke facing a U.S. medical bill topping the value of an average Calgary home, I was reminded Friday of a quote by the late Justice Emmett Hall, a crusader for Canada's public health-care system. "We as a society are aware that the trauma of illness, the pain of surgery, the slow decline to death are burdens enough for the human being to bear without the added burden of medical or hospital bills penalizing the patient at the moment of vulnerability," Hall wrote in a 1979 review of publicly funded health insurance. To help Burke's husband Rory Bushfield pay an expected $550,000 medical bill for nine days of intensive care in Utah, a website was set up by Burke's agent asking for donations. The site had reached nearly $200,000 as of this writing Friday afternoon, prompting the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association to announce that the amount was enough that her family "will not have any financial burden related to her care." The association's statement seemed odd, considering that the website was $350,000 short of its intended goal, but not if you understand the vagaries of a private health system dominated by big private insurers. In the U.S. health system, "nobody pays the sticker price, except for those who are squeezed, which is normally the uninsured," says Steve Morgan, a health policy analyst with the University of British Columbia's Centre for Health Services and Policy Research. "Big insurance doesn't pay retail," Morgan says of the U.S. health system. Typically, he says a hospital will present a bill big enough to choke a horse and the insurance company will negotiate it down. Individuals without insurance, or those who are under-insured, have little or no negotiating power and often end up paying bills that are financially devastating, Morgan said. Burke was apparently not adequately insured in the U.S. Her ski association only covers sanctioned events. Because the event at which she was injured and subsequently died was an unsanctioned competition put on by her sponsor, Monster Energy Company, the ski association's insurance did not cover her. It was not clear if Burke's family thought she was adequately covered, or if Monster had insurance for her. The company did not say if it would help cover her medical bills, which Morgan says is not surprising. Monster, he said, could have negotiated behind the scenes to get the price down. The Canadian Freestyle Ski Association said the family had not yet received a final bill for her hospitalization, but that it is expected to be approximately $200,000, roughly the amount that had already been collected. Morgan says Burke's case should be a sobering reminder to Canadians of what could happen in a privately-insured market, rather than a public system where everyone is insured against a catastrophic event. In 2000, the U.S. health policy journal Health Affairs wrote about the issue under the heading "Gouging the Medically Uninsured: A Tale of Two Bills." "Overcharging the uninsured is one of the many unintended and largely overlooked results of our decade-long obsession with curbing health-care costs," it said. "Powerful interest groups ? government, employers, insurers, hospitals, medical equipment vendors, and health care professionals ? have fought vigorously to protect their interests. The uninsured, with no organized voice, emerge as losers." Since 2001, family health insurance premiums in the U.S. have increased 113 per cent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, with annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage growing to $15,073 in 2011. Due to the economic downturn, the number of Americans going without insurance has grown by one million to 49.9 million people. We complain of health-care costs and outcomes in Canada, but the U.S. ranks behind Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the U.K. in five areas of health system performance: quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and mortality, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund. "Our failure as a country to ensure basic health care for all of its citizens is in part to blame," Glenn D. Braunstein, chairman of the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, wrote Friday in the Huffington Post. It is, indeed, a sobering reminder to Canadians how lucky we are. As one commentator wrote of the Burke family?s experience with the U.S. system: "We are sorry for your loss. Here?s your bill." http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/Remington+Sorry+your+loss+here+your+bill/6029293/story.html Comment: Instead of commenting on the cruel and inhumane health care financing system we have in the United States, let's remember Sarah by spending a moment with her: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4tQJAl4tYM -------------- 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 Tue Jan 24 17:58:11 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:58:11 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Ezekiel Emanuel wants liberals to worry about costs Message-ID: The New York Times January 21, 2012 What We Give Up for Health Care By Ezekiel J. Emanuel When it comes to health care, most liberals are committed above all to ensuring that every American has insurance. In their view, the greatest achievement of the health care reform act passed under President Obama is to finally erase the moral stain of the United States? being the only major developed country without universal coverage. But we also hold the questionable distinction of having the world?s most expensive health care system ? what about cost control? For many liberals, that just sounds like a cover for heartless conservatives who care only about cutting benefits and not about helping people in need. But liberals are wrong to ignore costs. The more we spend on health care, the less we can spend on other things we value. If liberals care about middle-class salaries, public education and other state-funded services, then they need to care about controlling health care costs every bit as much as conservatives do. During the campaign season and into 2013 ? a vital year for health care legislation ? liberals must make the issue of cost control their own. (Ezekiel J. Emanuel is an oncologist, former White House adviser and a vice provost and professor at the University of Pennsylvania.) http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/what-we-give-up-for-health-care/?scp=2&sq=Ezekiel%20Emanuel&st=cse Comment: NYT Pick Don McCanne San Juan Capistrano, CA Truly universal coverage and effective cost containment were the goals from the beginning, but Congress and the administration selected a model of reform that cannot possibly bring us either. It is likely that tens of millions will remain uninsured because of affordability issues, and the measures supposedly designed to control costs will have very little impact. A new CBO report confirms that some of the mechanisms proposed have already been shown to be ineffective in pilot studies. All other wealthy nations provide comprehensive services to everyone, and at prices that on average are half that of the United States. The other nations use similar technology, experience aging of their populations, and have similar rates of health care utilization, yet they are still able to contain their costs. The difference is that they have strong public oversight of their systems of social insurance or government health services. Although single payer systems are well recognized for their savings through administrative efficiencies, they use many other tools to slow the increases in health care costs. These tools are not experimental, like those in the Affordable Care Act. They have already proven to be effective beyond any doubt in nations with such systems. We can cover absolutely everyone, which should make the liberals happy, and we can do it while truly bringing our health care costs under control, and isn't that what the conservatives want as well? http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/what-we-give-up-for-health-care/?comments#permid=124 -------------- 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 Wed Jan 25 09:31:12 2012 From: acswift at comcast.net (Alice Swift) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:31:12 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] Volunteer for Mass-Care's Big Cities Outreach Campaign In-Reply-To: <1110572599.95315.1327500486247.JavaMail.root@sz0009a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> References: <1110572599.95315.1327500486247.JavaMail.root@sz0009a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mass-Care Date: Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 9:08 AM Subject: Volunteer for Mass-Care's Big Cities Outreach Campaign To: acswift at comcast.net ** Volunteer in the Mass-Care office for the Big Cities Outreach campaign! Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. *Hello Single Payer Supporters*, This winter Mass-Care is launching a 'Big Cities Outreach' campaign, to build grassroots support for single payer in Boston, Worcester, and Springfield. We need your help! *Mass-Care is looking for volunteers who can come into the Boston officefor one or more shifts a week to help with the new campaign *. The new Cities Outreach Campaign begins soon, and volunteers will work with Benjamin Day, Executive Director, on: - Making phone calls - Writing educational materials - Translating materials - Doing simple research (e.g., finding phone numbers, addresses, statistics) - Carrying out clerical support tasks Shifts presently available are Monday through Thursday: - Morning (10:00 ? 1:00) - Afternoon (1:00- 4:00) Commitment required: One shift every other week for a minimum of three months. To sign up as a volunteer or for further information, please e-mail Mass Care?s volunteer coordinator Bea Mikulecky . This is your chance to help in the campaign for Single Payer Health Care!!! ------------------------------ forward to a friend | friend on Facebook | follow on Twitter *Copyright ? 2012, Mass-Care, All rights reserved.* You are receiving this email because you have expressed an interest in receiving updates on the campaign for single payer health reform in Massachusetts. *Our mailing address is:* Mass-Care 33 Harrison Ave - 5th Floor Boston, MA 02111 Add us to your address book [image: Email Marketing Powered by MailChimp] unsubscribe from this list| update subscription preferences -- acswift at comcast.net Alice C. Swift Amherst, MA 01002 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From don at mccanne.org Wed Jan 25 16:17:53 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:17:53 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: "Global budgeting" for Children's Hospital Boston Message-ID: The Boston Globe January 24, 2012 Children?s, Blue Cross deal curbs payments Children's Hospital Boston has agreed to a three-year contract with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts... Perhaps most important, Children's and its doctors groups will accept global payments for the first time, meaning they will be given a budget for patients' care rather than billing for each visit and procedure. "The contract is completely aligned with our aggressive and comprehensive efforts to take costs out of the system, while also improving quality," said Children's president Sandra Fenwick. Until recently, it was thought unlikely that specialty providers such as Children's, a 395-bed teaching hospital that is a national leader in pediatric research and training, would join the new global payment plans being offered by insurers. Fenwick said the deal makes Children's the first pediatric hospital in the nation to take global payments instead of traditional fee-for-service reimbursements. The contract also covers the Children's Physicians Organization, made up of 959 specialists, and the Pediatric Physician Organization at Children's, which includes 279 primary care doctors. http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-24/business/30655411_1_pediatric-care-health-care-providers-specialty-hospitals Comment: Under a well designed single payer system, hospitals would be funded through global budgets, much like police and fire departments, libraries and other civic institutions. Single payer eliminates the need to provide complex, itemized billings for each and every patient to any of hundreds of third party payers. The hospitals are simply paid a global fee that covers all of their costs for the year. As Canada and other nations have shown, global budgeting dramatically reduces the high costs of the administrative excesses that U.S. hospitals face. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has now negotiated the first contract with a pediatric hospital that they say uses global budgeting. So can we use this as an experiment to prove that global budgeting will work in the United States? Unfortunately, no. This contract has almost nothing in common with global budgeting under a single payer system. A global budget limited to one insurer does not place the entire hospital under a single global budget. Far from it. They still have to interact with all other payers in our fragmented financing system. Further, the products and services provided to Blue Cross Blue Shield patients must be segregated and itemized separately to know the amount of the budget to be negotiated. The uncertainties on how to allocate various hospital costs also can result in inequities amongst the various payers, likely making Blue Cross Blue Shield a winner while other payers lose. When we are told later on that we do not want hospitals globally budgeted under a single payer system because it did not work for Children's Hospital Boston, be prepared to answer that this was not global budgeting. This was merely another individual contract between one hospital with its physicians' organizations and one insurer, under a fragmented financing system in which it was impossible to achieve the efficiencies of globally budgeting of the hospital's entire costs. We can even invent a term based on what this process is. It is "segregated budgeting." We can make that a pejorative term by demonstrating that it is merely another insurer gimmick in our dysfunctional system of financing health care. Let's keep the definition of "global" clean, and not let the insurers steal it from us. -------------- 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 Jan 25 17:21:21 2012 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:21:21 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Action This Week Message-ID: <026701ccdbaf$abaf64a0$030e2de0$@org> Fighting Corporate Greed is as easy as (1) (2) (3) (1) STAND WITH VERIZON WORKERS: Thursday January 26, 6:45-7:30am, Verizon garages at 95 Brookdale Dr, Springfield and 111 North Hatfield Road, Hatfield : Just stop by! (2) LEAFLET & STAND-OUT AT VERIZON WIRELESS STORES: Pick a Saturday ~ Jan. 28, Feb. 4, 11, 18, 25 Pick an ?Hour of Power? between Noon & 2pm (11am & 1pm in Pittsfield) Pick a VzW Store: Hadley / Pittsfield / Springfield / West Springfield And click here . Or let the Saturday January 28 Store Captains know you are coming: 11am to 1pm, 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 2pm, at the Hadley store, 360 Russell St, Hadley : Please let Jon Weissman know you are coming: jon at wmjwj.org, 413-250-5267. at the Springfield store, 1420 Boston Rd, Springfield : Please let Marty Feid know you are coming: martinfeid at gmail.com, (413) 530-8888. 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. Join us! Please wear your organization?s apparel and/or a red shirt/jacket, as the strikers did. If it looks like rain or snow, we will make the decision to call it off around 9am and let you know by email. If we know you are coming, we can let you know by phone, text, or the email sent to your cell phone as a text message (if you?ve sent your phone number and name of carrier to wmjwj at wmjwj.org). (3) DO IT YOURSELF DELEGATIONS TO VERIZON WIRELESS STORES: We have a letter from community leaders across the nation, including Western Mass., asking Verizon to respect workers rights. Will you deliver it to a local store manager? Here?s how you do it! ? Talk to a couple of friends, neighbors, relatives, coworkers, or members to see who?s in. Any size delegation is fine. ? Pick any time and store that your delegation wants to visit. See the Western Mass. list below. ? Go to http://www.massjwj.net/news/help-show-community-support-verizon-workers to download the letter and directions. Or get the letter by email from wmjwj at wmjwj.org. ? Read the directions. ? There?s room on the letter to add your names if you want. ? Visit the store and ask to speak with the manager. Deliver the letter, explaining that you are part of a national movement of people who want respect for Verizon workers. ? After you do your delegation, tell Jon at WMass Jobs with Justice (jon at wmjwj.org) how it went. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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. 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 don at mccanne.org Thu Jan 26 16:04:01 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:04:01 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Destroying England's National Health Service (as we know it) Message-ID: The Lancet January 26, 2012 How the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 would end entitlement to comprehensive health care in England By Allyson M Pollock, David Price, Peter Roderick, Tim Treuherz, David McCoy, Martin McKee, Lucy Reynolds (Excerpts) The National Health Service (NHS) in England has been a leading international model of tax-financed, universal health care. Legal analysis shows that the Health and Social Care Bill currently making its way through the UK Parliament would abolish that model and pave the way for the introduction of a US-style health system by eroding entitlement to equality of health-care provision. The Bill severs the duty of the Secretary of State for Health to secure comprehensive health care throughout England and introduces competitive markets and structures consistent with greater inequality of provision, mixed funding, and widespread provision by private health corporations. The Bill has had a turbulent passage. Unusually, the legislative process was suspended for more than 2 months in 2011 because of the weight of public concern. It was recommitted to Parliament largely unaltered after a "listening exercise". These and more recent amendments to the Bill do not sufficiently address major concerns that continue to be raised by Peers and a Constitution Committee of the House of Lords, where the Bill now faces one of its last parliamentary hurdles before becoming law. Fundamental to the Bill are provisions that transform a mandatory system into a discretionary one with structures that permit the introduction of charging for services that are currently free under the NHS, as well as a system in which much delivery would be privatised. Under the current statutory framework the Government has a legal duty to secure comprehensive health care, whereas, under the new system, substantial discretionary powers will instead be extended to commissioners and providers of care. These measures will increase inequalities of provision. The whole system has been publicly administered and funded on the basis of contiguous geographical areas by bodies, now called primary care trusts (PCTs), that act on behalf of the Secretary of State and have responsibility for the health-care needs of everyone in their area. The Bill creates two new bodies with responsibility for managing care: an NHS Commissioning Board and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), the number of which remain unclear. PCTs will be abolished and not replaced. Clause 12 of the Health and Social Care Bill repeals the Secretary of State's "duty to provide" specific services. Instead, a "duty to arrange" provision is imposed on each of the many CCGs that will also have transferred to them the power to determine what care is necessary to meet all reasonable requirements. However, CCGs will not have the duty to promote a comprehensive free health service. As well as transferring powers from the Secretary of State to other bodies, the Bill leaves each CCG free to choose the patients for whom they have responsibility. Unlike PCTs, CCGs will not be responsible for all residents within contiguous geographical areas. CCGs select patients, initially assembling their patient populations on the basis of general practitioners' (GPs) lists; they will not have to cover everyone in a geographical area but only "persons for whom it [the CCG] has responsibility". Nor will they be required to arrange for the provision of all the services that are currently part of the comprehensive health system. These changes will have substantial legal consequences. First, the duty to provide a national health service throughout England would be lost if the Bill became law. It would be replaced by a duty on an unknown number of CCGs, not GPs, to arrange provision as they see fit for various sections of the population for which they are separately responsible. Second, CCGs would not be bound by the "duty to continue to promote a comprehensive free health service" when exercising their functions. Under present law, according to a judgment of the Court of Appeal, the Secretary of State "has the duty to continue to promote a comprehensive free health service and he must never, in making a decision [about services provided], disregard that duty". Third, the Secretary of State's accountability to Parliament for the provision of services to patients in the new NHS will be diminished. The Government has not disclosed the radical nature of this reform. In the USA, opposition to health reforms under both the Clinton and Obama administrations is articulated as erosion of personal freedom by increasing government powers. Conversely, pro-market reforms of universal health systems in Europe are often justified on the grounds that they increase personal freedom by transferring powers from government to non-governmental or commercial bodies and by increasing choice. Citizens' rights in democracies are underpinned not just by limitations on government powers but also by legal duties imposed on governments, such as those that guarantee citizens access to health care. The Bill would withdraw this legal underpinning. As the Bill enters its final critical stages it is crucial that Peers observe three red lines for the NHS (below) and are fully aware of the key parts of the legislation that would abolish core NHS functions, if they are to safeguard the NHS for future generations. **** Red lines to protect the NHS # The Secretary of State must have the duty to secure provision of comprehensive and equitable health care for the whole of the population of England, taking action whenever there are problems. # CCGs (Clinical Commissioning Groups), operating on behalf of the Secretary of State, must make sure that comprehensive and equitable health care is available for everyone and be responsible for all residents living in single geographically defined areas that are contiguous, without being able to pick and choose patients. # Nothing must be done that undermines the ability of the Secretary of State to fulfil the duty to secure provision of comprehensive and equitable health care, by bringing more of the NHS within the scope of EU competition law so that, in particular: * There must be no increase in the commercial contracting of health services; * The current authorisation system for central regulation of Foundation Trusts must be retained; * Statutory functions of CCGs must be carried out by NHS staff, with CCG finances being used solely for the benefit of patients; * Statutory and enforceable codes of conduct must be laid down for all NHS bodies, underpinned by sanctions that are rigorously policed; * Information about commercial contracting, including the planning, procurement, financing, and monitoring, must be available as a matter of course. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60119-6/fulltext(The Lancet is offering access to this important article for free, but they do require registration.) Comment: The Conservative government of David Cameron is about to destroy England's National Health Service, as we know it. While we are struggling in our attempt to ensure health care for everyone (and are still not receiving it under the Affordable Care Act), the British government is severing its responsibility to secure comprehensive health care throughout England. Health care justice is an international cause. We should partner with our colleagues in England to support their cause in this moment of crisis, as they later partner with us to see that health care justice becomes a reality in the United States... and throughout the world. -------------- 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 Jan 27 13:00:08 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:00:08 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: GAO report on Medicare Advantage risk adjustment Message-ID: GAO January 2012 Medicare Advantage CMS Should Improve the Accuracy of Risk Score Adjustments for Diagnostic Coding Practices We found that diagnostic coding differences exist between MA plans and Medicare FFS and that these differences had a substantial effect on payment to MA plans. We estimated that risk score growth due to coding differences over the previous 3 years was equivalent to $3.9 billion to $5.8 billion in payments to MA plans in 2010 before CMS?s adjustment for coding differences. Before CMS reduced 2010 MA beneficiary risk scores, we found that these scores were at least 4.8 percent, and perhaps as much as 7.1 percent, higher than the risk scores likely would have been as a result of diagnostic coding differences, that is, if the same beneficiaries had been continuously enrolled in FFS. Our estimates suggest that, after accounting for CMS?s 3.4 percent reduction to MA risk scores in 2010, MA risk scores were too high by at least 1.4 percent, and perhaps as much as 3.7 percent, equivalent to $1.2 billion and $3.1 billion in payments to MA plans. http://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/112/gao_macodesfinal.pdf Comment: One of the greatest abuses of the private insurance industry is taking advantage of favorable selection. Through deceptive practices such as selective marketing, they enroll healthier individuals while receiving higher premiums appropriate for a less healthy population. To correct for this, payment is modified through risk adjustment (RA) - reducing payments for healthier populations and increasing payments for less healthy populations. If health care spending is to be equitable, risk adjustment is mandatory in a multi-payer system such as that of the Affordable Care Act. We now have considerable experience with risk adjustment between the private Medicare Advantage plans and the public fee-for-service Medicare program. The experience is not good. As Medicare has refined the risk adjustment tools, the private Medicare Advantage plans have found new ways to game the system which have resulted in even greater overpayments for their patients who are healthier than the data submitted by the insurers would indicate. This GAO report recommends that Medicare needs to increase its data collection and revise its application of risk adjustment in an attempt to recover some of the overpayments that would be made in the future. However, the experience to date indicates that the private insurers will use the greater complexity to further game the system to their own advantage. PNHP co-founders Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein state it well in this comment on risk adjustment: "RA (risk adjustment) folks have been making this claim for decades; great improvement is just around the corner. To us, the most interesting part of the 2004 enhancement of Medicare Advantage RA is not that plans beat it, but that the gaming was actually much more lucrative AFTER the enhancement than before. Static analyses of RA schemes can virtually always come up with schemes that explain far more of the variance than existing schemes - ie. they're better. But once incentives are based on a particular RA scheme, the gaming is on. There is absolutely no evidence that RA works or can work in the dynamic reality of profit-seeking health care insurers/providers." Private insurers operate on market principles. They will always place business interests first. They chase the money. A universal public insurance program operates in the interests of patients. Gaming risk adjustment is a totally foreign concept to administrators of a single payer system. Why would we ever want to have private plans involved at all? Dump them and we'll get rid of the problems of adverse selection and favorable selection. Keep them and they'll always game the system. They win, and we lose. -------------- 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 Mon Jan 30 09:54:47 2012 From: calendar at wmjwj.org (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Workers'_Rights_Calendar?=) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:54:47 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] Occupy Wall St bus trip to Main St Northampton Message-ID: <038e01ccdf5f$1cbc4750$5634d5f0$@org> updates at www.occupynorthampton.org & https://www.facebook.com/events/109493669173458/ or contact Julia Handschuh, 413-522-1319, juliashoe at gmail.com, or Rose Bookbinder, 413-320-2028, rose.bookbinder at gmail.com OCCUPY WALL STREET ROAD TRIP ARRIVES IN NORTHAMPTON ON FEBRUARY 1 Beginning Wednesday February 1, members of Occupy Wall Street will visit Pioneer Valley in a biodiesel bus as part of a Northeast regional tour. Activities are being organized in each city they visit to share information and build solidarity within the Occupy movement. The trip itinerary is at http://bit.ly/y8DrM0. At 6pm on February 1, there will be film screening of Occupy Wall Street documentary shorts followed by a conversation with local and New York based Occupy activists at the Academy of Music in downtown Northampton. Description below. Other events and trainings during the Occupy Wall Street visit to the Valley are: Wednesday February 1 Noon: OccuBus arrives from Boston: welcomed by Valley OccuTrip Working Group 3pm: Facilitation Training (location TBD) 6pm: Occupy Cinema and Panel Discussion: The Academy of Music (see below) Thursday February 2 Morning: Skill Share/Training (location and time TBD) 4pm: Demonstration/Protest/March starts at Pulaski Park 6:30pm: Western Mass General Assembly (location TBD) 10pm: Occupy the Dance Floor, Haymarket Caf?, Northampton Friday February 3 Morning: Breakfast and debrief OCCUPY WALL STREET FILM SHORTS AND DISCUSSION NO ONE CAN PREDICT THE MOMENT OF REVOLUTION: FILMS FROM #OWS Wednesday February 1, 6:00 pm, Academy of Music , 274 Main St, Northampton MA Occupy Wall Street bus riders are teaming up with Occupy Northampton to screen a unique selection of short independent films that have been produced by activists in the #Occupy movement. The film shorts will be followed by a facilitated discussion and Q & A session with OWS organizers along with representatives of community and activist groups in Western Massachusetts. The curator Nick Shimkin, of No One Can Predict the Moment of Revolution: Films From #OWS, and New York City filmmaker Messiah Rhodes will discuss the increasingly important role that ?crowd sourced media? plays in social justice movements. The screening is free. The organizers will happily accept donations at the door to cover costs. Food For Thought Books will be selling relevant literature in the lobby. This impressive and thoughtfully chosen program of indie grassroots political cinema totals about 80 minutes, followed by an hour-long discussion. Films include short works: "Right Here All Over" (Alex Mallis), "Occupy the Hood" (Adele Pham), "Consensus" (Meerkat Media), "Occupy Bat Signal for the 99%" (Mark Read), "Why Occupy Portland?" (Softbox Digital), "The Council of Elders Stand in Solidarity With OWS" (Beloved Community Center), "Feed the Movement: Next Barn Over Farm" (Chris Landry), "Homeowners Speak Out" (Messiah Rhodes) ... plus clips from Barcelona and Occupy London Stock Exchange. Sponsored by: Western Mass Jobs with Justice, UMass STPEC Department, UMass Economics Department, Law Offices of Lesser, Newman & Nasser, LLP, Media Education Foundation, Dean of Faculty of Hampshire College, Hampshire Franklin Central Labor Council, and Hampshire College School of Critical Social Inquiry. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 Mon Jan 30 14:52:02 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:52:02 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Paying for a free screening colonoscopy Message-ID: Ventura County Star January 28, 2012 'Free' preventive care can cost patients big money Is procedure a screening or therapeutic? By Tom Kisken Patients are getting charged as much as $3,000 for screenings they thought would be free under a federal health care reform mandate that promises free preventive care. Most of the problems revolve around colonoscopies ? screenings designed to detect colon and rectal cancers that kill about 52,000 Americans a year. The procedure has been covered by federal health care reform for men and women 50 and older since September 2010, although many older insurance policies are exempt from the new provision. Some patients are still receiving bills for deductibles or co-pays when the procedures show an abnormal growth called a polyp that can develop into cancer. Insurance companies may charge for screenings or tests if patients show symptoms of cancer or are going through a colonoscopy as a follow-up to an earlier diagnosis, said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for the trade group. But many insurers consider colonoscopies to be preventive care ? and covered ? regardless of whether polyps are present, he said. Bills are sent when they aren't told the nature of the procedure. "One of the challenges is: How are those procedures being coded by physicians?" he said. "Is it clear that it's a preventive service?" Some doctors, however, insist the issue isn't coding, but rather money and the insurers' desire for it. "That is subterfuge," said Dr. Paul Sanders, a Thousand Oaks gastroenterologist, contending insurers are shifting blame from themselves to physicians. "It's utter baloney. The insurance companies have quite intentionally blocked any way that anybody could understand what they're going to, and not going to, pay for." Charles Rosen, a Simi Valley insurance broker and president-elect of the California Association of Health Underwriters, tells clients to minimize chances of any billing confusion by not talking to a doctor about any health concerns during a screening exam. "If you have a pending issue, make another appointment," he said. http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/jan/28/free-preventive-care-can-cost-patients-big-money/ Comment: Colonoscopy is one of several cancer screening tests that are covered 100 percent - no deductibles nor coinsurance are required. What separates out colonoscopy from the other screening tests is that it is frequently converted, on the spot, to a therapeutic procedure when polyps are detected and removed. Somewhere between the billing office for the physician or outpatient department and the processing of the claim by the insurer, the diagnostic and procedure coding is changed from the free screening test to the therapeutic procedure, subject to cost sharing. The physician blames the insurer, and the insurer blames the physician. But it is the patient who is harmed by being required to pay the out-of-pocket costs of a therapeutic procedure after having been promised a free screening test. As is typical in our health care financing system that turns decisions over to private insurers (even if only private administrators of Medicare), the president-elect of the California Association of Health Underwriters advises patients to withhold medical information until after they have received their free screening. Only then should they inform their physician about the rectal bleeding or the tenesmus that they have been experiencing. What's a little fraud if it is only the patient that is committing it? There are two policy lessons here. One is that deductibles, co-payments and coinsurance should be eliminated for all appropriate care. Payment issues should not interfere with health care decisions made by the patient with the best advice of the physician. The harm dome by erecting financial barriers to care is potentially far greater than the almost negligible decrease in our national health expenditures that would result from cost sharing (most of which is merely shifted from the insurer to the patient). Obtaining appropriate health care should not result in the assessment of cost sharing penalties or fines. The second policy lesson is that we need to throw the middleman crooks out. Only that industry would come up with a solution that patients should be instructed to lie to their health care professionals. Not a lie to withhold information? Isn't the oath for swearing in, "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but..."? Maybe the whole truth is confidential proprietary information. At least that's what the insurers keep telling us when we ask for transparency. -------------- 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 Tue Jan 31 14:43:26 2012 From: don at mccanne.org (Don McCanne) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:43:26 -0800 Subject: [Health Care Action] qotd: Emanuel and Liebman predict the end of private insurance Message-ID: The New York Times January 30, 2012 The End of Health Insurance Companies By Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Jeffrey B. Liebman Here?s a bold prediction for the new year. By 2020, the American health insurance industry will be extinct. Insurance companies will be replaced by accountable care organizations ? groups of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers who come together to provide the full range of medical care for patients. ... thanks to the accountable care organizations provided for by the health care reform act, a new system is on its way, one that will make insurance companies unnecessary. Accountable care organizations will increase coordination of patient?s care and shift the focus of medicine away from treating sickness and toward keeping people healthy. ... accountable care organizations will typically be paid a fixed amount per patient, along with bonuses for achieving quality targets. The organizations will make money by keeping their patients healthy and out of the hospital and by avoiding unnecessary tests, drugs and procedures. Thus, they will actually have a financial incentive to hire that nurse for follow-ups. In addition to providing better and more efficient care, A.C.O.?s will also make health insurers superfluous. Because they will each be responsible for a large group of patients (typically more than 15,000), they will pool the risk of patients who have higher-than-average costs with those with lower costs. And with the end of fee-for-service payments, insurance companies will no longer be needed to handle complicated billing and claims processing, nor will they need to be paid a fee for doing so. Payments can flow directly from an employer, Medicare or Medicaid to the accountable care organizations. A.C.O.?s will require enhanced information systems to track patients and figure out how to deliver more effective care, but this analytic capacity will be directed at improving health outcomes, not at imposing barriers to those seeking treatment. A.C.O.?s are not simply a return to the health maintenance organizations of the 1990s. Although in both models patients are members of a provider network with a specific group of doctors and hospitals, and both are paid primarily per member rather than per procedure or test, there are big differences between them. H.M.O.?s were often large national corporations far removed from their members. In contrast, A.C.O.?s will consist of local health care providers working as a team to take care of patients who are likely to be members for years at a time. A few health insurers see this asteroid coming. Wellpoint, for example, bought the clinic operator CareMore for $800 million last summer to make the transition into the A.C.O. business. Others, like the Optum unit of UnitedHealth Group, are developing data analysis services to provide to future A.C.O.?s. If they don?t want to go the way of the dinosaurs, insurance companies will have to find a new business to be in, one that is useful in the new world of coordinated care. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/the-end-of-health-insurance-companies/ Comment: NYT Pick Don McCanne San Juan Capistrano, CA The policy community, as represented by Ezekiel Emanuel and Jeffrey Liebman, speaks in glowing terms about idealistic, altruistic accountable care organizations (ACOs) in which health care professionals and institutions join together to improve quality and lower costs. Yet the specifics of the Medicare Shared Savings program that would establish ACOs through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), has only a superficial resemblance to these idealistic models. The fact that the two largest for-profit insurers in the nation - WellPoint and UnitedHealth - are going after the ACO business is proof that we are in for more of the same. Eliminating private insurers by merely setting up ACOs is a pipe dream. The state insurance exchanges mandated by ACA are exchanges of private insurance plans, not ACOs. We need to improve Medicare, dump the private insurers including the Medicare Advantage plans, and provide Medicare for everyone. Medicare has been far more effective than the private insurers in controlling costs, and would be even more so if it were our own publicly-financed single payer system. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/the-end-of-health-insurance-companies/?comments#permid=7 -------------- 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 Tue Jan 31 15:17:02 2012 From: calendar at wmjwj.org (=?us-ascii?Q?Workers'_Rights_Calendar?=) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:17:02 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] Occupy Wall St bus trip UPDATE Message-ID: <015901cce055$4c03a110$e40ae330$@org> updates at www.occupynorthampton.org & https://www.facebook.com/events/109493669173458/ or contact Julia Handschuh, 413-522-1319, juliashoe at gmail.com, or Rose Bookbinder, 413-320-2028, rose.bookbinder at gmail.com All activities are in Northampton and are free and open to the public: Wednesday February 1st Noon: OccuBus arrives from Boston: welcomed by Valley OccuTrip Working Group 3pm: Facilitation Training at First Churches, 129 Main St. Northampton 6pm: Occupy Cinema and Panel Discussion: The Academy of Music Thursday February 2nd 10-12: Skill Share/Training: Topic TBD Haymarket Cafe (downstairs) 10-12: Skill Share/Training: Topic TBD Dynamite Space (basement of Thornes Marketplace) 12-1 Lunch Dynamite Space (basement of Thornes Marketplace) 1-3 Skill Share/Training: Topic TBD Dynamite Space (basement of Thornes Marketplace) 4pm:Demonstration/Protest Starts at Pulaski Park 6:30: Western Mass General Assembly Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence, 220 Main St., Northampton, MA 10pm: Occupy the Dance Floor Haymarket Cafe Friday February 3rd Morning: Breakfast and debrief For updates rsvp to the facebook event HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! You can share the event on facebook , and download the OWS Road Trip Handbill and the OWS Road Trip Poster to print out and distribute to your community. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From acswift at comcast.net Tue Jan 31 15:46:21 2012 From: acswift at comcast.net (Alice Swift) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:46:21 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] Save the Date: Robert Kuttner at Single Payer Gala, Apr. 21! In-Reply-To: <327525778.332964.1328042620118.JavaMail.root@sz0009a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> References: <327525778.332964.1328042620118.JavaMail.root@sz0009a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: ** Robert Kuttner will be speaking at this year's Single Payer Gala on April 21 - please join us! Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. *Hello Single Payer Supporters*, Mass-Care is pleased to announce this year's single payer gala, which will be held on *Saturday, April 21 from 1PM to 4PM at the Ryle's Jazz Club * in Cambridge! This year's keynote speaker will be *Robert Kuttner*, writer and co-editor of *The American Prospect*, speaking on the topic of *"The Coming Showdown: Stripped Down Care or Single Payer."* This year we are also offering *a discount price to those who purchase tickets in advance*: if you go to masscare.organd click on the "Donate" button in the upper-right corner, you can make a donation of *$30 per ticket*, which we will hold for you at the door. Tickets will be $35 per person at the event. Everyone is welcome, so please make whatever donation you are able to and we will be glad to have your company at the event! We will send you a full program for the event soon, but we always have great music, interesting speakers, and inspiring honorees. See you on the 21st! *Benjamin Day Executive Director* ------------------------------ forward to a friend | friend on Facebook | follow on Twitter *Copyright ? 2012, Mass-Care, All rights reserved.* You are receiving this email because you have expressed an interest in receiving updates on the campaign for single payer health reform in Massachusetts. *Our mailing address is:* Mass-Care 33 Harrison Ave - 5th Floor Boston, MA 02111 Add us to your address book [image: Email Marketing Powered by MailChimp] unsubscribe from this list| update subscription preferences -- acswift at comcast.net Alice C. Swift Amherst, MA 01002 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wmjwj at wmjwj.org Tue Jan 31 17:12:02 2012 From: wmjwj at wmjwj.org (WMass Jobs with Justice) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:12:02 -0500 Subject: [Health Care Action] Verizon Contract Rally 2/16 Message-ID: <009f01cce065$5c402c50$14c084f0$@org> Rally For a Fair Verizon Contract Save 45,000 Good Jobs! Thursday February 16! Rally Thursday February 16! 5:00pm Teamsters Local 404 115 Progress Avenue, Springfield JOHN ROWLEY, IBEW Local 2324 Business Manager will report from the bargaining table. Find out how you can help pressure the company to settle. Verizon, a $100-billion-dollar-a-year company, is making record profits, paying no federal income taxes (getting rebates instead), and trying to ship jobs overseas. Verizon's top 5 executives are in the top one tenth of the 1%. They each make more than 99.9% of american families! Yet Verizon is demanding that its workers, who create its wealth, add to those profits from their own pockets by accepting slashed wages and benefits. When 45,000 Verizon workers struck for two weeks in August, people across the nation joined them. 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 if we want to keep good quality jobs in America. Info: Verizon Street Heat Committee: Western Mass. Jobs with Justice, (413) 827-0301, wmjwj at wmjwj.org International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 2324, (413) 734-0863, ibew2324 at verizon.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 11077 bytes Desc: not available URL: