A blog by Nicholas Solter about politics and everything else
Posted in Civil Rights, Gay Rights, Health Care on Mar 23rd, 2010
Apparently some “tea party” protesters hurled derogatory and hateful language at some African-American and gay Democratic representatives on Saturday. The only surprising part of this is how unsurprised I was to hear it. It’s been transparently obvious that some (not all, of course) of these so-called protesters were “…more opposed to the skin color of […]
Posted in Health Care on Sep 8th, 2009
There seem to be two groups that benefit most from maintaining the status quo in our health care system: for-profit insurance companies and lawyers. To address the former, it’s fairly clear that we need a government-run, non-profit, insurance option in order to guarantee coverage for all Americans. Understandably, this solution has been the focus of […]
Posted in Health Care on Sep 3rd, 2009
The polls continue the trend I wrote about last week, in showing that a majority of Americans support, “a health insurance plan administered by the federal government that would compete with private health insurers”.
So why is Republican Representative John Boehner still saying things like, “House Republicans want to hear what the president has to say, […]
Posted in Health Care on Aug 26th, 2009
Based on media coverage of town hall meetings and the rest of the health care “debate”, you’d think that most Americans are against a government-run insurance option in health care reform. But it turns out that’s not the case.
As Nate Silver points out, it’s been surprisingly difficult to accurately gauge public opinion on this topic. […]
Posted in Health Care on Aug 20th, 2009
Although I support a single-payer system, or at least a public option, in health care reform, I admit that there are probably reasonable arguments against them. So why aren’t we hearing any? Instead, we’re inundated by ludicrous claims that Obama will institute “death panels” and so on. Sharon Begley at Newsweek provides some interesting analysis […]
Posted in Health Care on Aug 18th, 2009
More and more, I’m hearing that the public option in health care reform is dead. While I’m not giving up hope yet, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight provides some interesting insight into why that might be the case:
Why doesn’t the public option have the votes for passage? You’d think that a provision that is both fairly […]
Posted in Health Care on Mar 6th, 2009
I’m helping to organize a Health Care for All Meeting in Colorado Springs next week, March 12. If you’re in the Colorado Springs area and interested in universal health coverage, I hope to see you there! Here’s the event description:
With rising costs and diminishing employer-based health insurance, the health care system in the United States […]
Posted in Civil Rights, Environmentalism, Gay Rights, Health Care, Separation of Church and State, Uncategorized on Jan 23rd, 2009
As a progressive, I believe that there is still fundamental progress to be made in many areas in the United States, including gay rights, religious tolerance, environmental care, worldwide conflict resolution, and so on. As such, most of my writing on this blog and elsewhere tends to focus on what we could do better. I […]
Posted in Barack Obama, Election 2008, Health Care, John McCain, Politics on Oct 9th, 2008
My mother had a great letter published today in the Santa Barbara News Press. Viewing it online requires a login, so here’s the full text:
John McCain’s tax credit of $5000 for health insurance is a drop in the bucket. My husband and I pay $1200 a month for self-employed health insurance premiums. That amounts to […]
Posted in Health Care on Mar 5th, 2008
In a recent court case, a judge awarded $9 million to a woman who had her medical insurance canceled while she was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. The judge was harshly critical of the insurer, Health Net, saying in part,
“It’s difficult to imagine a policy more reprehensible than tying bonuses to encourage the rescission of health […]