There’s a chicken and egg aspect to health care reform which often frustrates lawmakers and policy makers. To achieve universal coverage the cost of health insurance must be affordable. To make coverage affordable you need universal coverage. So which comes first? My take is that affordability has to come first. You cannot require people to […]

Among the duties of the Congressional Budget Office is determining the financial impact of legislation proposed by lawmakers. Their highly credible analyses is given great credence within Congress. Which means today’s preliminary report on the health care reform package crafted by Senator Edward Kennedy and other members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions […]

Health care reform is not for the weak willed. Just ask President Barack Obama. As Congress continues to draft legislation the President is expending his political capital to mobilize supporters of his reform package while at the same time seeking to soften the opposition. As tough as the task lawmakers face, President Obama’s is in […]

Based on what was being said on the Sunday talk shows today, the justification for creating a government-run health plan to compete with private carriers seems to be expanding. One of the fresh arguments does not seem to carry much weight, but the other might. Some are claiming that consumers need to know they can […]

A common thread is emerging in the right wing response to healthcare reform. Its opponents aren’t claiming that public healthcare will be bad. Rather, they are terrified that the new system will be so good that no citizen would buy expensive private insurance–or vote for politicians who wanted to take public insurance away. The Obama […]

When it comes to health care reform in America, there is a relatively simple solution that will cover everyone’s basic health care, control costs and save businesses, most people and the country a lot of money. It’s called a single-payer health plan, where the government collects taxes to finance national health insurance. The government, which […]

The nation has 8.6 million children who lack public or private health insurance and 1.3 million of them are in California, Families USA, a Washington-based advocate for expanded health access, says in a report based on new census data. California, the nation’s most populous state, is just behind Texas in the numbered of medically uninsured […]

Given all Barack Obama said about change during the presidential race, he might be expected to quickly revamp America’s health-care system, which virtually everyone calls a mess. Local people who have pushed for health-care reform say, however, they don’t expect major changes in a hurry. But they do foresee the new president attending to the […]

California’s farmers and ranchers are struggling with health care bills that, in some instances, threaten the viability of their family businesses, according to a report Wednesday by the Access Project and funded by the California Endowment. The report finds that while almost all farm and ranch operators have health insurance, one in five says that […]