Media
What's your police insurance number?
Editor's Note: A wonderful 4-minute skit depicting what would happen if the police services were run like today's health insurance. It was produced by HEALTH CARE FOR ALL Minnesota and gives new meaning to the phrase theater of the absurd; however, it's our current health care system that comes up short and ineffective.
Watch the videoEditor's note: Health, Money and Fear was produced, directed and edited by Dr. Paul Hochfeld, an emergency room physician for over thirty years in Corvallis, Oregon. It is his and other like minded physicians' very personal perspective on the failures of our current system and on how to change it for the better.
Dr. Margaret Flowers speaks
"truth to power"
Editor's note: Pediatrician and universal, single payer health care activist Dr. Margaret Flowers shares some persuasive reasons why our current system makes no sense, needlessly costly and wasteful - in a word, broken. Her personal perspective confirms the recently released analysis by the Institute of Medicine that we as a nation waste $750 billion each year on unnecessary "health care" services, excessive administrative costs, fraud, inefficiency, missed prevention opportunities and prices that are too high.
For the same amount of money, three quarters of a trillion dollars, we could easily cover every uninsured person in the nation, but only if we established an efficient and effective universal, single payer system - a tried and true American solution - Medicare for All. The pie chart below helps visualize major areas of waste in the current, fragmented insurance-based system.
Dr. Margaret Flowers, healthcare reformer, speaking in Maine.
T.R.Reid, author of the 2009 best-seller “The Healing of America,” as interviewed on World Focus.
Mark Dudzic, National Coordinator, Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, speaking at a 2011 workers' conference at the University of Washington. To date, single payer Medicare for All (HR 676) has been endorsed by 585 union organizations in 49 states including 138 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state AFL-CIO's.
In the News
May 8, 2013
Hospital Billing Varies Wildly, Government Data Shows
April 18, 2013
Greed, fear and other barriers to health care as a human right
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
April 2013
Coming together for the Common Good
March 14, 2013
Selling expensive health care lemons
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
March 15, 2013
The problem with health care is cost
By Gordon Weil
Feb. 14, 2013
Health care spending: A 21st century gold rush
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
February 21, 2013
Bitter Pill: The Exorbitant Cost of Health Care by lawyer and writer Steve Brill is the cover story in this week's TIME magazine. Here the author gives a 3.5 minute video summary of his story about why health care costs so much and where does the money go? Brill is quoted as saying, “I wanted to follow the money and get the price tag.” Worth viewing.
Jan. 18, 2013
Misdirected efforts aren’t making Americans any healthier
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
Jan. 27, 2013
Why a Maine doctor becomes a senator
By Geoff Gratwick
Dec. 27, 2012
Chronic MaineCare shortfalls — a symptom of a disease
we can treat
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
Dec. 28, 2012
Doctors with financial conflicts influence drug treatment guidelines
By John Fauber and Ellen Gabler, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (MCT)
Oct. 18, 2012
Health care waste deconstructed: Fraudsters and patients aren’t the problem
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
Oct. 12, 2012
Public Forum on Universal Health Is Greeted with Interest
By Joe Lendvai
Sept. 22, 2012
Report claims state health insurance reform not working
By Scott Thistle, Sun Journal
Sept. 20, 2012
Let the buyer beware in a free-market health care system
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
Aug. 23, 2012
Massachusetts leads on health care while Maine regresses
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
Aug. 20, 2012
Universal health care good for the economy
By Darrell Adams, Special to the BDN
August 5, 2012
Maine Voices: Everyone deserves access to health care
By Julie Keller Pease, Philip Caper and Edward Pontius
July 16, 2012
Medicare for Everyone – after 47 years, it's the right thing to do!
July 19, 2012
Obamacare one step forward, one step back
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
June 16, 2012
Another View: Head-in-the-sand 'solution' is killing GOP
By Jack Bernard
June 14, 2012
Poorer nations push for universal health coverage as U.S. squabbles
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
May 17, 2012
The ills of money-driven medicine
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
May 5, 2012
Maine Voices: Affordable Care Act neglects needs of moderate-income Americans
By Alice Knapp
Continuing on the path of inequitable spending, the law will still leave 27 million people uninsured.
April 19, 2012
Where is Marcus Welby when you need him?
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
March 15, 2012
Primary care doctors are going the way of the dinosaurs
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
Jan. 20, 2012
Remington: ‘Sorry for your loss — here’s your bill’
By Robert Remington
With the family of deceased Canadian skier Sarah Burke facing a U.S. medical bill topping the value of an average Calgary home, I was reminded Friday of a quote by the late Justice Emmett Hall, a crusader for Canada's public health-care system.
Jan 2, 2012
MAINE COMPASS: Health care is basic human right; access to it is a moral issue
By Alice Knapp
Dec. 15, 2011
Do we need health insurance?
By Philip Caper, Special to the BDN
Nov. 24, 2011
Top ten health care myths to ignore — part two
By Erik Steele, Special to the BDN
There are so many fantastical myths out there in the great debate about reforming the American health care system that Disney Studios appears to be running the show.
Nov. 08, 2011
Noted author promotes ‘moral commitment’ to universal health care
By Meg Haskell, Special to the BDN
BANGOR, Maine — Extending health care coverage to every man, woman and child in America ultimately would save the country billions of dollars each year, according to best-selling author T.R. Reid.
Nov. 10, 2011
Top 10 health care myths to ignore, part one
By Dr. Erik Steele
This is the first of two articles about 10 important myths in the Great American Health Care Debate.
There are sweet-sounding myths in the American odyssey to a viable health care system, siren songs of simple solutions that lure us onto the rocks of irrelevant debate. It’s time for us all to stop believing them and stop fighting over them.
Oct. 19, 2011
Paying for Health Care
WERU Common Health program
Host Jim Fisher together with guests Dr. Wendy Wolf, President of the Maine Health Access Foundation, and
Dr. Philip Caper, retired physician and health advocate and vice chair of Maine AllCare discuss how people are paying for health care in today's increasingly insurance oriented environment.
Oct. 20, 2011
Health Care Policy – Faith-Based or Evidence-based?
By Philip Caper, M.D.
From the Ellsworth American, a "commentary" in response to state Senator Langley's piece on how wonderful the new health insurance law is . . .
Sept. 12, 2011
WALTER KUMIEGA PIECE IN THE BDN
Republican health care law already causing price spikes, fear
Walter Kumiega is a Democratic member of the Maine House of Representatives representing District 36. He lives in Deer Isle.
With the summer coming to an end, many of the laws passed by the Maine Legislature will be going into effect this month. One of those laws is the major health insurance overhaul Republicans pushed through a few months ago. We are already seeing the negative effects of this health insurance overhaul...
Sept. 14, 2011
ALICE KNAPP OP-ED IN THE BDN
Maine Democrats, GOP offer little health care help for middle class
Alice Knapp is a former health insurance regulator. During her tenure she was appointed the first director of the Consumer Health Care Division within the Maine Bureau of Insurance. She lives in Richmond.
June 23, 2011
A "credible alternative"
By William D. Clark, M.D.
Our health-care system benefits insurance companies, drug companies and shareholders rather than you and me and our families when we need care. Currently, 20 percent to 30 percent of every health-care dollar pays for administrative costs and profits.
Apr. 13, 2011
By Lisa Priest
Medical marvel: A US doctor discovers Canadian health care
Eight doctors from the U.S.-based Physicians for a National Health Program visited Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital for an inside look at Canada’s single-payer health care system. Hosting the trip was family physician Danielle Martin, chair of Canadian Doctors for Medicare.
May 4, 2011
Don’t let consumers be sold out to big insurance
By David Farmer
Peggy Rotundo, Director of Policy and Strategic Initiatives for the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine introducing Dr. William Hsiao, Professor of Economics, Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Hsiao's presentation is part of Bates College's Fall 2010: Civic Forum Series. Watch Dr. Hsiao's talk at Bates.
May 3, 2011
Terrorists aren’t the only ones with a price on our heads
By Pat LaMarche
February 6, 2011
Health or wealth? What's the mission of our health care system?
Switching to a nonprofit system in Maine would put the focus back on care.
November 10, 2010
Speaking in Maine: "Taiwan's Health Reforms: Lessons for the U.S. and Maine"
The speaker is William Hsiao, Professor of Economics, Harvard School of Public Health, and an architect of Taiwan's universal health care system.
October 19, 2010
Expert: Single-Payer Health System Could Save Maine $1 Billion a Year
MPBN story of Dr. Hsiao's and Maine AllCare members's testimony before the Joint Select Committee on Health Reform and Press Conference statements.
Video
Testimony by Phil Caper, M.D., Alice Knapp, Esq., both members of Maine AllCare; then followed by Dr. William Hsiao, PhD. testifying before the Joint Select Committee on Health Reform of the Maine Legislature.
Audio
Audio recording by the Joint Committee itself of the various testimonies, beginning with Dr. Hsiao's.