Healthcare

Let’s do the [lobbying] numbers

July 6, 2009 · Consumer Watchdog

I love hard numbers. Like 350. That's how many high-ranking former Congressional and White House staff, many of them tied to today's key health reform committees, are working as lobbyists for the medical and insurance industries, according to an eye-opening Washington Post story published today.

Chief Scientific Officer Resigns from S.F.-Based State Stem Cell Agency

June 26, 2009 · Consumer Watchdog

The chief scientific officer at California's stem-cell agency has announced that she will step down from her position in a little over a month. John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog says Csete's resignation "speaks volumes about CIRM's management... One doesn't walk away from a $310,000 a year job at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) without a very good reason."

DC Dispatch: Health insurance cancellations

June 19, 2009 · Consumer Watchdog

Most of us don't sit around waiting to catch our health insurance company in the act of being evil. And 99.99% of Americans did not tune in to the congressional hearing I attended on Tuesday when <a...

Let’s break a couple of rules

June 17, 2009 · Judy Dugan

Yeah, I know that some things are now shunned in the consumer end of the health reform debate: Don't mention Canada because it's been demonized as some kind of socialism (and it's full of foreigners, eh?). And ditto for so-called single payer or "Medicare for All" because it's dead in D.C. Here's a blatant violation, however, for the sake of excellent myth-busting.

HMO execs’ ‘Seven Dwarfs’ moment

June 17, 2009 · Jamie Court

Democrats in Congress who want strong reform should strive for a repeat of yesterday's fireworks. It's time to put the health insurance executives on the spot and give patients who have been victimized by company policies a spotlight.

No Solidarity For Labor

June 15, 2009 · Consumer Watchdog

SEIU head Andrew Stern dismisses the idea that the infighting is derailing labor's progress in Washington. It's a sign of union strength, he argues, that discussions on card check continue. "No other bill could have withstood this kind of opposition and still survived," he says. Still, labor supporters like Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group, are worried. "Any time you have labor fighting, it gives politicians an excuse to buy big business' argument," he says.

Doctors’ lobby attack on health reform seeks malpractice caps in Obamacare

June 11, 2009 · Jamie Court

The American Medical Association has proven again that the greed of the medical insurance complex is the chief obstacle to health care reform in America.

Body Of Lies: Patients Aren’t 100% Honest With Doctors

June 9, 2009 · Consumer Watchdog

When patients aren't truthful, misled doctors may give a wrong diagnosis or treatment. Patients can refuse to release the records, but if they do, the company can refuse to sell them a policy or refuse to pay claims. This is part of the deal patients agree to by signing on to the insurance contract. And it doesn't take much in a patient's records to nix the sale of a policy. "A case of acne can do it," says Jerry Flanagan, an advocate with Consumer Watchdog.

Meet Joe the Mechanic 2012 — The Video

June 5, 2009 · Jamie Court

This <a href="http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Multimedia/2009/May/0531Brown.aspx">powerful video,</a> from the new Kaiser Health Network, of a Massachusetts mechanic who says he cannot afford the state's mandatory health insurance is a look into the future for President Obama about the political danger he faces <a href="http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=27751">embracing mandatory health insurance.</a>

The Rush Limbaugh of health care hires oil industry hit man

June 1, 2009 · Judy Dugan

Gene Randall's name popped out of the news reports about a<a href="http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2009/05/26/opponents_step_up_criticism_of_obama_health_plan"> 30-minute fake-news infomercial</a> that aired on the NBC station in Washington yesterday. A disgraced billionaire who intends to kill national health reform paid for it and hired former CNN correspondent Randall, the "reporter" who also hosted <a href="http://www.oilwatchdog.org/articles/?storyId=27272">a 30-minute hit piece for Chevron</a> exonerating its deadly pollution in the Amazon.

Health Care Activists Lament Single-Payer Snub

May 30, 2009 · Consumer Watchdog

Health insurers and drugmakers have contributed millions of dollars to members of Congress. One of the top recipients of that money, said Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group based in Santa Monica, was Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who was running the hearings when the arrests took place this month. He accepted $413,000 in drug and health insurance campaign contributions during that time.

Can Kennedy stick to his guns?

May 29, 2009 · Judy Dugan

Every new report on Massachusetts' effort to create universal health care entirely through private insurance <a href="http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=27547">raises the red flag higher-</a>-the insurers keep finding new ways to undercut affordability. Even so, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052803772.html?hpid=sec-health">a leaked plan</a> by Sen. Ted Kennedy to model national reform on the Massachusetts effort contains--maybe--a saving grace.

Fairness for Injured Patients

Medical Board of California Announces Maternal Mortality Task Force

Patient Voices