While Medicare and Medicaid negotiate prices for health services–as do governments or regulated insurers in most other countries –the private insurance market in the US creates a free-for-all in which “providers largely charge what they can get away with.” This means inflated prices for everyone with private insurance, and even higher prices for the uninsured. For services ranging from CT scans to heart surgery to delivering babies, Americans are paying far more than their counterparts abroad with no difference in quality.

The importance of removing the employer from the health insurance decision making process has never been more obvious than now. As Sandra Fluke’s testimony indicates, women should not be denied contraceptive coverage simply because their employers object. In a single-payer system, all women would have the same access to care.

A new report from the Pew Center on the States estimates that preventable dental conditions were the primary reason for 830,590 ER visits by Americans in 2009—a 16 percent increase from 2006. Shelly Gehshan, director for the Pew Center’s Children’s Dental Campaign says, “people showing up at emergency rooms for dental is really your sign that your system is breaking down.” 

Read more here!

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear testimony on the constitutionality of the ACA, premiums soar and out-of-pocket costs prevent many Americans–even those with health insurance–from getting the care they need. Life expectancy is going down relative to other countries. As Rose Ann DeMoro of National Nurses United argues, the only solution is a universal, single-payer healthcare system: medicare for all!

Small business owners shouldn’t have to deal with the complexities of providing health insurance to their employees. It’s time we decoupled health insurance and employment.

California’s biggest insurers are raising average rates by 8% to 14% for hundreds of thousands of Californians with individual coverage, outpacing the cost of overall medical care which has risen just 3.6% in the last year.

Read more here!

In private academic hospitals in New York City, quality of care varies significantly based on the nature of a patient’s insurance. Those with private insurance are treated in faculty practices and those with public or no insurance in outpatient clinics, which provide a far lower standard of care.  Because black and Hispanic patients are much more likely than whites to be publicly insured or uninsured, this treatment gap amounts to a racial gap in access to high-quality medical care.

Bronx Health Reach has been working for ten years to address racial and ethnic health disparities. A recent report documents medical apartheid in NYC and community mobilization to challenge it. Tonight, PNHP-NYC hosts a discussion of the issue.

Tuesday, February 21, 7:30 PM
Beth Israel’s Phillips Ambulatory Care Center
10 Union Square East (btw 14th & 15th St.)
2nd Floor Auditorium

FREE AND OPEN TO ALL

Uwe Reinhardt explains that two of the main sources of high health care costs are the administrative expenses incurred by the private insurance companies and the fragmentation of the payment side of our health care system. Both of these issues would be addressed with single-payer health care.

More than a year ago, New York City’s public hospital system announced the creation of a management structure for its medical staff in an effort to save millions of dollars.  As part of this plan, the city agreed to pay Navigant, a consulting company, $1.95 million a year for the service of two consultants to cover “professional fees, travel and living expenses.”  One of the consultants, Dr. Marc A. Bard, resigned this week.

Read more here!

Despite collecting millions of dollars from the state for “charity care, ” New York hospitals pursue uninsured patients aggressively for unpaid bills, seizing their assets and filing liens against their homes. With little or no oversight, hospitals routinely fail to help eligible patients apply for financial aid. Even those who have paid premiums for years find themselves in overwhelming debt after losing their jobs and insurance . . . and getting sick at the wrong time.