Friday, February 18, 2011
Mark your calendar, April 4, 2011
Dr. Walter Tsou, Health Care for All Philadelphia will be speaking on "Health Care Reform: We're Not Done Yet!" on Monday, April 4, 7 PM at the Free Library of Philadelphia, Central Branch, Montgomery Auditorium. The presentation will highlight the new health care reform law including some good, bad and ugly stuff, and then why a single payer health plan is still needed in American in order to bring jobs back to America.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Snow cancellation
Due to the predicted snow on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011, the Health Care for All Philadelphia General Meeting will be cancelled. The next general meeting will be on Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at the Community College of Philadelphia.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Students for single payer organizing meeting
Hello student leaders,
As many of you read in my first email below (and others have been referred by people who did), we at Health Care for All Philadelphia are trying to bring together medical and health professional students from all the schools in Philly to advocate for a single payer health care system.
We will be meeting at 3PM in the Hamilton Building at Jefferson Medical College TODAY Saturday Dec. 18th to brainstorm and set an agenda for the coming year, including hopefully: an single payer education event at each school in early 2011 and a trip to Vermont to join hundreds of other meds student stating 'single payer is what we want for our future.'
Please come if you can and let me know if you are interested in joining (and helping to lead!) this effort, but cannot make this meeting. (I understand this is very last minute notice for many of you, but wanted to include as many people as possible on the notice.)
The address for Hamilton is 1001 Locust Street. We will gather in the lobby. Call me at 203 668 6669 if you need further directions. Jen
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Fiscal Solutions Tour Misses the Obvious Solution
The Fiscal Solutions Tour stopped into Philadelphia on Friday. Who are these 5 white guys? Well, they represent the brain trust behind the National Debt Commission and are proposing "solutions" to our $13.6 trillion budget deficit which grows astronomically.
So the tour guides are:
Robert Bixby- Executive Director of the Concord Coalition, a non partisan "grassroots" organization dedicated to fiscal responsibility.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin - former chief economist of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisor, former Director of the CBO, and former Advisor to Sen. McCain's residential campaign.
William Novelli - Professor at Georgetown Business School, former President of AARP, founder of the public relations firm, Porter Novelli
Eugene Steurle - Fellow at the Urban Institute, former President of the National Tax Association
David Walker - founder and CEO of Comeback America Initiative, former CEO of the Pete Peterson Institute and former US Comptroller General
A distinguished but biased group. Our FY 2010 budget includes $2.14 trillion in revenue and $3.49 trillion in expenses leaving us with a $1.3 trillion dollar deficit. More than 50% of our deficit is held by foreign countries. Our major budget expenses are health care and Social Security. Our deficit, unchecked, will be 235% of our GDP by 2035. This, of course, is unsustainable.
We agree with the problem, but their solutions - namely severely cutting Medicare, Medicaid and SS are a recipe for disaster. Interestingly, the budget for defense in the US exceeds the next 14 countries COMBINED (including Russia and China). This is an obvious area that needs cutting.
In terms of health care, David Walker's slides makes general comments like "reduce the rate of increase in health care costs and target taxpayer subsidies (largely the tax deductibility of insurance premiums)" and "future health care reforms consider cost, quality, coverage and personal responsibility (read high deductible, consumer directed health care)". Doug Holtz-Eakin is the "health guru" among this group and he clearly let his disdain for single payer come through by saying that government funded health care is not a solution. During the Q and A I asked why not single payer since every other country in the world has used this as a way of controlling cost? He answered that he was more concerned about having "a budget than whether it was single payer or not" There was no opportunity for followup questions since time was running out.
One thing that is clear is that if you had a fixed budget for health care and had the providers and insurers all fighting for the same pool of money, it would quickly become obvious that the insurers served no useful purpose and that the money would go farther if the "budget" directly paid the providers to care for patients. Hmm . . . sounds eerily like single payer. So, I believe their ideology precludes them from seeing single payer, but if we use their solution and put everyone under a fixed budget, I think the absurdity of the insurance industry would become obvious.
So the tour guides are:
Robert Bixby- Executive Director of the Concord Coalition, a non partisan "grassroots" organization dedicated to fiscal responsibility.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin - former chief economist of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisor, former Director of the CBO, and former Advisor to Sen. McCain's residential campaign.
William Novelli - Professor at Georgetown Business School, former President of AARP, founder of the public relations firm, Porter Novelli
Eugene Steurle - Fellow at the Urban Institute, former President of the National Tax Association
David Walker - founder and CEO of Comeback America Initiative, former CEO of the Pete Peterson Institute and former US Comptroller General
A distinguished but biased group. Our FY 2010 budget includes $2.14 trillion in revenue and $3.49 trillion in expenses leaving us with a $1.3 trillion dollar deficit. More than 50% of our deficit is held by foreign countries. Our major budget expenses are health care and Social Security. Our deficit, unchecked, will be 235% of our GDP by 2035. This, of course, is unsustainable.
We agree with the problem, but their solutions - namely severely cutting Medicare, Medicaid and SS are a recipe for disaster. Interestingly, the budget for defense in the US exceeds the next 14 countries COMBINED (including Russia and China). This is an obvious area that needs cutting.
In terms of health care, David Walker's slides makes general comments like "reduce the rate of increase in health care costs and target taxpayer subsidies (largely the tax deductibility of insurance premiums)" and "future health care reforms consider cost, quality, coverage and personal responsibility (read high deductible, consumer directed health care)". Doug Holtz-Eakin is the "health guru" among this group and he clearly let his disdain for single payer come through by saying that government funded health care is not a solution. During the Q and A I asked why not single payer since every other country in the world has used this as a way of controlling cost? He answered that he was more concerned about having "a budget than whether it was single payer or not" There was no opportunity for followup questions since time was running out.
One thing that is clear is that if you had a fixed budget for health care and had the providers and insurers all fighting for the same pool of money, it would quickly become obvious that the insurers served no useful purpose and that the money would go farther if the "budget" directly paid the providers to care for patients. Hmm . . . sounds eerily like single payer. So, I believe their ideology precludes them from seeing single payer, but if we use their solution and put everyone under a fixed budget, I think the absurdity of the insurance industry would become obvious.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Health Care Reform: We're Not Done Yet!
Health Care Reform: We're Not Done Yet!
Public Event (free!)
Sunday, October 17 · 3:00pm - 5:00pm
Summit Presbyterian Church
6757 Greene St., corner of Westview and Greene Sts.
Philadelphia, PA
Curious about the new health reform legislation? Come to our free public meeting on the new Health Reform Bill. Hear about economic, moral, and faith-based reasons for continuing to work for health care reform and why there is still more to do.
Rev. Cheryl Pyrch, Pastor Summit Presbyterian Church
Walter Tsou, MD, MPH, Physicians for a National Health Program
Free child care, Light refreshments For more information, call 215 438-2825
Sponsored by Presbyterian Church USA, Health Care for All Philadelphia, Health Care for All Pennsylvania, Healthcare-NOW, PNHP PA, Weavers Way Education Committee, Summit Presbyterian Church,
Labor Donated
Public Event (free!)
Sunday, October 17 · 3:00pm - 5:00pm
Summit Presbyterian Church
6757 Greene St., corner of Westview and Greene Sts.
Philadelphia, PA
Curious about the new health reform legislation? Come to our free public meeting on the new Health Reform Bill. Hear about economic, moral, and faith-based reasons for continuing to work for health care reform and why there is still more to do.
Rev. Cheryl Pyrch, Pastor Summit Presbyterian Church
Walter Tsou, MD, MPH, Physicians for a National Health Program
Free child care, Light refreshments For more information, call 215 438-2825
Sponsored by Presbyterian Church USA, Health Care for All Philadelphia, Health Care for All Pennsylvania, Healthcare-NOW, PNHP PA, Weavers Way Education Committee, Summit Presbyterian Church,
Labor Donated
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