New Website

We have moved our website to http://www.phillyhealth.org.  We hope you like the new look and updates.  If you are interested, join our listserve at phillyhealth@yahoogroups.com or by donating to us.  You can also come out to one of our general monthly meetings and help us promote the single payer message in Philadelphia.

Health Care Reform: We're Not Done Yet! April 4, 7 PM, Free Library

This past week marked the first anniversary of the landmark health care reform law.  It will profoundly reshape health care in the next decade, but most people do not understand it or understand its implications. I will be explaining the bill:  the good, the bad and the ugly and explain why while the bill is a landmark change, there is much more that needs to be done.  Since this will influence everyone and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, it would be wise for people to learn about this.  Come for a free lecture at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Health Care Reform:

We’re Not Done Yet!

Monday, April 4, 2011,

7 PM to 8:30 PM

Free Library of Philadelphia, Central Branch

 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia 19103

Free and Open to Everyone

Walter Tsou, MD, MPH

Physicians for a National Health Program

Whether you agree with, are outraged by,

Feel indifferent to or just wish to be better informed

Please come & voice your opinion on

The Patient Protection and

Affordable Care Act of 2010

(Aka the Healthcare Law of 2010)

Unless we fix health care, we cannot fix our economy.

Sponsored by: Health Care for All Philadelphia;

Health Care for All Pennsylvania; Healthcare-NOW; Physicians for a National Health Program PA.

Contact: 

Labor Donated

March 8 ONLY, Change of Location of HCAP General Meeting

On Tuesday, March 8 ONLY, the HCAP General Meeting will move from Community College of Philadelphia to Temple Univ, Gladfelter Hall, Room 614. This change is necessary because CCP is closed for spring break. Gladfelter Hall is at 1115 West Berks Street on Temple Univ Main campus. Street parking is best along 11th Street between Norris and Montgomery Avenue. Walk to the building with the GH sign in the window. Sign in at guard station and take the elevator to the 6th floor. Walk left and you will find Room 614 down the hall on your left. This is a special meeting to fold envelopes for our fundraising letter.

Corbett hypocricy on Adult Basic

Unless Governor Corbett acts quickly, by March 1^st of this year, 42,000 Pennsylvania residents will loose their health insurance and join the already one million-plus in the state without coverage. Adult Basic, a health insurance program designed for adults who don’t qualify for Medicaid, but earn too little for private-market insurance, is scheduled to be terminated in the state on February 28^th.

The program, initially launched about a decade ago to deal with the still unresolved nationwide health insurance crisis, has largely been funded by Blue Cross/Blue Shield in an agreement related to their tax-exempt status. Now that their obligation to contribute to the program is coming to an end, the Blue’s, despite reaping record profits and continuing to add to its enormous reserves, are refusing to offer further support for the program. Governor Corbett’s staff have told me they “appealed to the federal government” for assistance, but that’s just not good enough.

I’m not sure whether its more shameful that our Governor, who was among the first Attorney Generals in line to challenge President Obama’s health reform package, is now turning to the federal government in a last ditch attempt to preserve insurance for Pennsylvanians, or that the Blue’s, a “charitable organization” that made their billions selling health care, are going to stand by and let thousands of hardworking adults loose their coverage.

Either way its clear that money, as it always has been, is being put before people when it comes to health care. Perhaps the greatest irony of all, is that when these 42,000 begin utilizing hospitals and other medical services without insurance, the costs of their uncompensated care will ultimately be passed on in the form of higher premiums to the rest of us- including those that voted to put the “fiscally responsible” Corbett in office, who is now gambling with the lives of thousands.

Our "Empire" is among "worst of the worst" in life expectancy

The New York Times has an op ed that is worth seeing today, February 19th. It has a table that compares the IMF's "Advanced economy" countries on various measures. The article says "on a whole host of measures we have become the laggards of the industrialized world," and it points out that the newly-submitted Republican budget would makes things far worse.

The criterion seemingly most overtly connected to health care is "Life Expectancy At Birth," where the US received a "worse of the worst" since the age is 78.24 (numbers were close here for many countries). (Other countries were very close in age of life expectancy and yet didn't receive worse of the worse rating.)

The US also did poorly in certain other areas relevant to health. Such measures were "Food Insecurity" (people were asked if there were times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food you or your family needed). The percentage answering "yes" in the US (16%) was the highest of the 33 countries considered, with Korea sharing that percentage. No other countries were even close, except for Italy and Israel (15%), and Spain (14%). Countries in which nobody said "yes" to that question were Australia, Norway, Austria, Finland, Belgium, Malta, Iceland, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Taiwan, and Slovakia. Our score on income inequality was by far the highest except for Singapore and Hong Kong. Our number of prisoners per 100, 000 (related to health in my estimation, especially mental health) was off the chart at 743, with the next highest being France at 365. On unemployment we were only in the "Worst" category at 9% (but we all know our records are fudged, and the real figure is estimated at 15% I have heard), with with Greece, Spain, and Portugal being in the "worst of the worst" category (between 10 and 20%). In a category called Wellbeing Index ("percentage thriving" Huh?), we were in the "Best" category at 57%. Huh? There was no rating of the health care system, but we all know it.