Deval Patrick’s likely Senate pick raises ‘serious concerns’

The Kennedy-backed pick for interim senator - a Beltway insider who could enjoy a lifetime pass to the Senate floor - has deep ties to special interests, sitting on a board that oversees a health-insurance provider and having lobbied for the pharmaceutical industry, the Herald has learned.

We need a HR 676 co-sponsor to primary this jerk.

The hijacking of health reform

Headlines in the Berkshire Eagle recently proclaimed that Berkshire Health Systems (BHS) is cutting the equivalent of 65 full-time jobs, and will lose $3 million this year. This is neither good for employment nor for the health of our population in the Berkshires. The culprits are the cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, the programs that cover 70 percent of the BHS population.

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Economist, Healthcare Activists Also on Tap; John Nichols of Nation Magazine Will Moderate

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. - March 10 - Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), author of HR 676 The U.S. National Healthcare Act, will be the featured speaker at "Turning Hope Into Action," a community forum on healthcare and the economy on Friday, March 20 at the Northampton High School auditorium, 320 Elm St. The forum will begin at 7:30 p.m. and admission is free to the public.

National Lessons from State Health Reform: The Mass. Case
Watch the Hearing Live, Right Here, on Thursday, Feb. 25 from 2-4pm

Urge Your Rep. to Attend Mass. Health Reform Forum

National Lessons from State Health Reform: The Massachusetts Case Study
February 25, 2009, 2pm-4pm, 2226 Rayburn House Office Building, Capitol Hill, Washington, DC.

In the last two decades over a half dozen state-based health reforms have attempted to provide universal health care coverage, and failed. It's clear that new engineering will be needed in the months ahead as the nation looks to rebuild our economy and our healthcare system.

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Solution or Stopgap?

Questions about the Massachusetts health plan? This brochure might help you sort through this recently popular “blueprint” for a national healthcare plan. Get all the details about the limits of mandates and keeping private health insurance companies in the mix.

From the brochure:

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Partners, insurer under scrutiny

Attorney General Martha Coakley has launched an investigation into whether the state's largest health insurance company and its largest healthcare provider may have illegally colluded to increase the price of health insurance statewide over the last nine years, according to several legal and government sources.

The attorney general sent formal demands for information to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Partners HealthCare late last week, the sources say, calling for a detailed account of their contract negotiations in recent years.

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The Worcester Telegram & Gazette has an article about Kennedy's effort to form a "concensus" on health care, filled with fluffy quotes from special interest lobbyists.

Special attention is given to the role of John McDonough, who is described as a former law maker and head of Health Care For All. Sounds like a nice guy huh?

Let's review who McDonough really is:

Mass. health plan has national appeal

WASHINGTON - Key players in the debate over how to provide healthcare coverage for the nation's 47 million uninsured say they view Massachusetts' landmark 2006 law as an important model for what Washington could do and how to get it done.

Check out who Senator Kennedy has been talking to:

An Unofficial Perspective on the Fiscal Crisis at Cambridge Health Alliance

Constitutional amendment for for health care campaign needs your help

This proposed constitutional amendment for health care is a citizens' petition initiative. The campaign includes the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care, the Mass. Nurses Association, Mass. Coalition for Healthy Communities, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and many others who share a commitment to work toward a statewide mandate for fundamental change in the health care system.

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Letter to the Baltimore Sun

The Massachusetts health care plan, which was supposed to create universal coverage, has left hundreds of thousands of people uninsured because the premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are too costly for many to afford.

Have you written a letter to the editor?

Natick vote on health reform

MASS-CARE, the Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, has enabled 10 districts in Massachusetts the opportunity to vote on a question that establishes access to health care as a right and eliminates the punitive application of fines to citizens who do not obtain medical insurance on their own. In MetroWest, the precincts represented by David Linsky are eligible to vote to express their wish that their elected representative continue to work toward this goal.

Readers, if you live in Mass. please sign up, get active, and keep the rest of us informed.

Sentiment tested on single-payer health care

Is health care a human right that should be provided through a Medicare-type program for people of all ages?

Many local voters will have the opportunity to weigh in Tuesday on a non-binding referendum that will be on the ballot in a number of Massachusetts communities, including nearly all towns on the Cape and Martha's Vineyard.

Known as Question 4 in most towns — or questions 5 and 6 in some Vineyard towns and Orleans — the ballot item is backed by the groups Mass Care and Cape Care, which have called for a single-payer health insurance program in Massachusetts and Barnstable County.

Private health insurance in Mass. not living up to hype

The critics point out a number of worrisome signs. First, the part of the plan that is supposed to get those who supposedly can afford insurance to pony up, is failing -- mainly because the cost of the private coverage is so high. The doctors note the lowest-cost plan for a couple in their 50s costs $8,200 annually and includes a $2,000 per person deductible.

Big money to insurers

Meanwhile, the private insurers are making out like bandits. Blue Cross, as the state's largest insurer, supposedly is acquiring a surplus of more than $1 million each day. It was able to pay its outgoing CEO a $16.4 million retirement bonus.

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John Kerry Sponsors 7/31 Faneuil Hall Health Care “Dialogue”

US Sen. John Kerry is sponsoring a health care dialogue at Boston’s Fanueil Hall on July 31 at 12 noon.

I can't find any information about this at the John Kerry site, but if you go, please post about your experience.

John Kerry's Democratic opponent, Ed O'Reilly has endorsed a single payer system.

Edit-
In Health Care Reform, Massachusetts Shows How Not To Do It

La dolcé vita

My girlfriend and I recently visited Rome. While there, a stray cat attacked her. The injury was bad enough to need a doctor, so we visited a hospital’s emergency unit and waited under an hour for care. The doctor wrote a prescription and gave my girlfriend a shot to ease the pain. We had no idea what to expect in respect to cost: Italy has a universal health-care system, but we were not citizens. In total the doctor visit cost us nothing, and we paid $50 for medicine.

S.1218, A bill to provide quality, affordable health care for all Americans

Sponsored by Senator Kennedy, the is the senate companion bill to HR 676.

Kennedy leads renewed effort on universal healthcare

The discussions signal that Kennedy, who instructed aides to begin holding the meetings while he is in Massachusetts undergoing treatment for brain cancer, intends to work vigorously to build bipartisan support for a major healthcare initiative when he returns to Washington in the fall. ...

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It seem John Kerry is going to get a primary challenge. The Massachusetts Democratic Convention gave Ed O'Reilly enough support to put him on the ballot. I don't live in Massachusetts and don't know anything about this, but O'Reilly supports single payer.

Kerry Gets Slapped

Michael Capuano considers preserving and expanding access to quality health care a top priority.

William Delahunt is leading the fight against torture and the Iraq war as well as co-sponsoring HR 676.

The wit and wisdom of Barney Frank.

Stephen Lynch has been holding a series of forums to inform seniors on Medicare, maybe a year from now he can be holding forums on HR 676.

Today, I am very proud of my state, and also proud of our paper of record for an editorial for the ages (reg. required).

After weeks of intense lobbying and endless speculation about who might vote how, a joint session of the Legislature made blessedly quick work yesterday of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In a State House mobbed with revved-up campaigners on both sides of the issue, lawmakers took a quarter hour to dispatch the proposal by a decisive margin. The vote was a victory for decency and civil equality, and underscored Massachusetts' long history of protecting individual rights.