News

Major Advance for Healthcare Reform as Senate Passes Medicare for All Legislation

To ecstatic applause from healthcare advocates, the California Senate today breathed new life into national prospects for fundamental health reform by passing on a 22 to 14 vote a major bill to guarantee healthcare in the state through creating a Medicare for all system that would cover every Californian.

Press Release

November 22, 2010

Haiti's 'floating hospital': Tough questions on USNS Comfort

Yvelot Brianville, 24, lies quietly on a steel hospital gurney, a boyish naval officer in blue combat fatigues standing by his side. The officer, Lt. Cmdr. Mill Etienne, 34, is Haitian, fluent in Creole. He is also a neurologist, called to the intensive-care ward of this floating U.S. Navy hospital just off the coast of Port-au-Prince to assess the impact of Haiti's earthquake on one man's spine.

USA Today

November 22, 2010

Unions Can't Compete With Corporate Campaign Cash

Some union leaders think that the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Citizens United v. FEC -- which essentially takes the limits off campaign spending -- will give them the same flexibility and freedom to influence the process as it does corporations.

The Beat

November 22, 2010

Medical help on hold as groups await transportation to Haiti

Through treacherous floods and military coups, Gale Hull's organization Partners in Development has provided medical services to Haiti's poor. The group's clinic is still standing despite the devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, but there's no medical team there. Hull is just one of thousands of people eager to get into Haiti to help, but whose efforts have been delayed by communications outages and the country's crumbled infrastructure.

CNN

November 22, 2010

With Federal Health Bill Stalled, California Senate to Vote On Medicare for All

With prospects for national healthcare reform dimming following Tuesday's election in Massachusetts, a major bill that would establish universal healthcare, through a Medicare-for-all style reform, has been cleared today for a new vote in the California legislature.

Press Release

November 22, 2010

Michigan healthcare workers set to go to Haiti

Kyle Martin has traveled to Haiti since he was 12 years old as part of local mission groups. Now 26 and a second-year osteopathic medical student at Michigan State University, he has traveled to the impoverished Caribbean nation eight times in the past year to work at a medical clinic in Gressier, a town southwest of Port-au-Prince.

Detroit Free Press

November 22, 2010

More than 7,000 US nurses volunteer for Haiti

More than 7,000 nurses in the United States have volunteered to go to Haiti to help injured survivors of the devastating earthquake.

Associated Press

November 22, 2010

New Illinois law expands protection when medical claims are denied

More than 3 million Illinois residents, particularly those who buy health insurance on their own or get it from a small employer, will have the right to get their denied medical claims reviewed by outside health experts under legislation signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn today.

Chicago Tribune

November 19, 2010

Waiting at a Texas Hospital for Children Who Never Arrive

It was a Tuesday.

By Rachel Pearson writing for The New Yorker