HCFANY

Racist Health Care: A New York Story (Huffington Post, 7/15)
We have a black president and governor, we have a generation of young people looking for a color blind America, but we can’t expect good will alone to change the racial problems in health care. We have to penalize health plans, hospitals, and doctors who don’t do the right thing, and we have to reward those who start to do better.

GOP’s Grassley Key to Senate Hopes for a Bipartisan Deal on Health Care (Wall Street Journal, 7/14)
Democrats now have a supermajority in the Senate. But their top priority, a health-care overhaul, may well need the blessing of a veteran Republican, Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, if it has any hope of becoming law.

How to Pay for Health P lan? Tax the Rich? (CQ Politics, 7/13)
Cost has become the foremost issue in the health care debate, eclipsing even the ongoing arguments over a proposed government-run plan that Democrats want to create to cover some of the estimated 47 million people with no insurance. While a surtax on the wealthy may be the most politically palatable way to pay for the overhaul, it is sure to cost House Democratic leaders some votes among their caucus.

Leaders in House Seek to Tax Rich for Health Care (NY Times, 7/13)
House Democrats will ask the wealthiest Americans to help pay for overhauling the health care system with a $550 billion income tax increase, the chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee said Friday.

Congress only has 22 working days left to reform America’s Health Care system (Slate, 7/8)

Suddenly, a Trillion Is Too Much? (Politicker NY, 7/1)
Politicians and pundits cite that figure to argue that we cannot afford health care reform, following recent cost estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, but the plain truth is that we spend (and squander) more than that on purposes not nearly so wise and humane as universal quality health care.

Is Medicaid or Private Insurance Better for the Poor Uninsured?
(Kaiser Health News-Hot Button Health Issue, 7/1)
The disagreement centers on a critical issue: What’s the best way to cover impoverished Americans? Is it by expanding Medicaid? Or by providing subsidies for the poor to buy private insurance on new health insurance exchanges to be created by the legislation?

Wal-Mart Backs Drive to Make Companies Pay for Health Insurance
(Wall Street Journal, 7/1)
In a major break with most other large companies, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Tuesday told the White House that it supports requiring employers to provide health insurance to workers, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s effort to provide near-universal coverage to Americans.

Senate Health Panel Readies Government Insurance Option (AP, 7/1)
According to a draft summary circulating Tuesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee proposal calls for a nationwide plan to be run by the federal government. An upfront loan from taxpayers would get the plan started, but it would have to pay its own way after a few months, relying on premiums collected from beneficiaries to stay solvent.