Will WaPo Outsource Health Reform Analysis to Fiscal Times?
A closer look at the Washington Post's new "partnership" with the Peter G. Peterson-funded Fiscal Times raises even more questions.
Health
Thank you for Demanding a Full Investigation of AHIP's Double-Dealing
Thank you for demanding a full investigation into the health insurance industry's expensive double-dealing.
We, the people, deserve to know the true extent of the double-dealing of the insurance industry. And, we deserve to know how much of our health insurance premiums have been spent not on providing health care but on underwriting ads and lobbying against health care reform.
We'll deliver this petition to Congress and let you know about it.
Please share this [http://tinyurl.com/investigatenow] with your friends.
Plastic Front Group With Flexibility
Submitted by Bob Burton on
A member of the Helena, Montana, chapter of the Coalition for Chemical Safety, a chemical industry front group, has been disavowed for calling for an all-out ban of the use of BPA, an additive in many plastic products. Richard Denison, a senior scientist with Environmental Defense Fund, noted that the woman was interviewed on Montana Public Radio’s Evening Edition.
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Joe Lieberman: The Best Senator Money Can Buy?
Submitted by Anne Landman on
Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman has long been an advocate for universal health care. In August, 2000 he signed on to the Hyde Park Declaration, a policy agenda that promoted Americans' universal access to health care.
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Chamber Uses Virtual Astroturf, Food and Female Sexuality to Fight Health Care Reform
Submitted by Anne Landman on
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring online pop-up ads to try and generate the appearance of "grassroots" opposition to health care reform.
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Lessons Learned From Tobacco Control Should be Applied to Climate Policy
The approach the world has taken to tobacco control holds many lessons for the COP-15 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. A newly-published article in The Lancet (available with free registration) summarizes the many similarities between tobacco control and climate policy, and how the lessons learned from tobacco control can be applied to the way countries approach climate policy.
Oil and Gas Billionaire David Koch Funding Fight Against Health Care Reform
Submitted by Anne Landman on
Early in November, thousands of angry protesters flocked to Capitol Hill to listen to House Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) rail against a supposed "government takeover" of health care.
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The Insurance Industry's Lethal Bottom Line -- and a Solution From Sens. Franken and Rockefeller
There was a time, in the early 1990s, when health insurance companies devoted more than 95 cents out of every premium dollar to paying doctors and hospitals for taking care of their members. No more.
Since President Bill Clinton's health reform plan died 15 years ago, the health insurance industry has come to be dominated by a handful of insurance companies that answer to Wall Street investors, and they have changed that basic math. Today, insurers only pay about 81 cents of each premium dollar on actual medical care. The rest is consumed by rising profits, grotesque executive salaries, huge administrative expenses, the cost of weeding out people with pre-existing conditions and claims review designed to wear out patients with denials and disapprovals of the care they need the most.
This equation is known as the medical loss ratio (MLR), an aptly named figure that is widely seen by investors as the most important gauge of an insurance company's current and future profitability. In a private health insurance industry that collected $817 billion this year, a 14 percentage point difference in the MLR represents $112 billion a year! Over 10 years, that would be more than enough to pay for health reform.
Green or Mean? Questions Crop Up About "Organic" Toxic Sludge
Submitted by Anne Landman on
Almost fifteen years have passed since CMD blew the whistle on the Toxic Sludge Is Good for You! scam, but the spin campaign continues unabated.
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New Letter from Wendell Potter to the Senate on Aetna and Corporate Spin
Here is a letter the Center for Media and Democracy's Wendell Potter recently sent to the Senate about the health care reform efforts and corporate spin:
My name is Wendell Potter, the former insurance industry insider speaking out about how insurance companies have hijacked our health care system in service of Wall Street's relentless profit expectations. I am joined in this letter by Andrew Kurz, a former chief financial officer for Wisconsin Blue Cross and Blue Shield who shares these concerns.
We stand together for immediately reforming the plainly broken U.S. health care system with its spiraling premium costs and harmful loopholes. Business as usual is taking a terrible toll on Americans, on government budgets, and on our nation's ability to compete in the global marketplace. This is unacceptable and unsustainable.
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