http://news.linktv.org Link TV News Videos (Filtered by topics: Health insurance) en-us Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:56:00 -0700 Copyright 2011 Link Media, Inc. http://news.linktv.org/videos/pro-obama-ad-links-womans-cancer-death-to-mitt-romney?start=0 Things are turning ugly on the US presidential campaign trail. A new ad from Priorities USA, a pro-Obama super PAC. links a woman's cancer death to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded -- but critics are crying foul. Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:56:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/pro-obama-ad-links-womans-cancer-death-to-mitt-romney Mitt Romney, US presidential election, 2012, Attack ad, Joe Soptic, Priorities USA, Bain Capital, Barack Obama, Political action committee, Politics of the United States, Health insurance Things are turning ugly on the US presidential campaign trail. A new ad from pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA links a woman's cancer death to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded -- but critics are crying foul. http://news.linktv.org/videos/beijing-husband-commits-fraud-to-save-his-wife?start=0 With his wife suffering from kidney failure, and without the money to pay for dialysis, Liao Dan of Beijing created fake documents to pay for his wife's treatments. State broadcaster CCTV reports on Liao's trial and the outpouring of support he has received from the Chinese people. Fri, 20 Jul 2012 20:49:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/beijing-husband-commits-fraud-to-save-his-wife China, Health insurance, Dialysis, Renal failure, Beijing, Health care provider, Health care, Health, Chinese, LinkAsia With his wife suffering from kidney failure, and without the money to pay for dialysis, Liao Dan of Beijing created fake documents to pay for his wife's treatments. State broadcaster CCTV reports on Liao's trial and the outpouring of support he has received from the Chinese people. http://news.linktv.org/videos/will-states-catch-up-to-implement-affordable-care?start=0 A key part of President Obama's Affordable Care Act requires states to create an exchange, or marketplace, where individuals can buy insurance. But many states are behind in setting theirs up, some intentionally so, and may be in danger of missing the 2014 deadline. Sat, 30 Jun 2012 13:04:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/will-states-catch-up-to-implement-affordable-care US health care reform, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Health care in the United States, Health insurance exchange, Health care, Health insurance mandate, Individual mandate, Politics of the United States, Health insurance, Medicare A key part of President Obama's Affordable Care Act requires states to create an exchange, or marketplace, where individuals can buy insurance. But many states are behind in setting theirs up, some intentionally so, and may be in danger of missing the 2014 deadline. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-28-2012?start=105 As Mexico prepares to vote Sunday, will the PRI return to power or could the Occupy-inspired Yo Soy 132 movement help Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who narrowly lost the 2006 election, pull off an upset? US Attorney General Eric Holder faces a contempt vote by the House of Representatives today in a dispute involving an alleged botched gun-running probe, but a new investigation says federal agents "never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels." And a new film "Escape Fire" takes a look at waste and overspending in the US health care system. Plus headlines, and more. Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:28:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-28-2012 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Health care in the United States, Supreme Court of the United States, US health care reform, Health insurance, US-Mexico relations, Yo Soy 132, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexican general election, 2012, Mexican Drug War The U.S. Supreme Court is set to issue its decision today on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the landmark healthcare reform bill signed by President Obama two years ago. The case partly centers on the so-called individual mandate, which requires most people buy health insurance by 2014 or pay a tax penalty. The court will decide whether to strike down the mandate and determine whether the rest of the law can stand. Coming on the last day of the Supreme Court's term, the decision will have major implications not just for the nation's healthcare system, but also the 2012 election race and beyond. In a speech ahead of the decision, President Obama defended the law. President Obama: "It's the right thing to do that we've got three million young people who are on their parents' health insurance plans that didn't have it before. It's the right thing to do to give seniors discounts on their prescription drugs. It's the right thing to do to give 30 million Americans health insurance that didn't have it before. They want to go forward." Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has called for the law's repeal despite its similarities to the mandate-based healthcare measure he oversaw as governor of Massachusetts. At a campaign event in Virginia, Romney said the law's days are numbered. Mitt Romney: "If Obamacare is not deemed constitutional, then the first three-and-a-half years of this president's term will have been wasted on something that has not helped the American people. If it's not — if it is deemed to stand, then I'll tell you one thing: we're going to have to have a president, and I'm that one, that's going to get rid of Obamacare, and we're going to stop it on day one." http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-28-2012?start=3069 As Mexico prepares to vote Sunday, will the PRI return to power or could the Occupy-inspired Yo Soy 132 movement help Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who narrowly lost the 2006 election, pull off an upset? US Attorney General Eric Holder faces a contempt vote by the House of Representatives today in a dispute involving an alleged botched gun-running probe, but a new investigation says federal agents "never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels." And a new film "Escape Fire" takes a look at waste and overspending in the US health care system. Plus headlines, and more. Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:28:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-28-2012 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Health care in the United States, Supreme Court of the United States, US health care reform, Health insurance, US-Mexico relations, Yo Soy 132, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexican general election, 2012, Mexican Drug War As the nation waits for news today on the Supreme Court's landmark ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, we look at the state of our healthcare system through the new documentary, "Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare." The film follows the dramatic human stories of people fighting to transform healthcare, from the highest levels of medicine, industry, government and even the U.S. military. We're joined by director Matthew Heineman, who began the film in 2009, before the political firestorm erupted over President Obama's healthcare bill. As the country waits for news today on the Supreme Court's landmark ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, we end today's broadcast looking at the state of our healthcare system. That's the focus of a new documentary called Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare. Here's a clip from the film, featuring medical journalist Shannon Brownlee and Dr. Don Berwick, the former head of Medicare and Medicaid. We spend a spectacular amount of money on healthcare. Just sheer numbers, $2.7 trillion per year. The average per capita cost of healthcare in the developed world is about $3,000, and in the United States it was around $8,000 annually. We spend one heck of a lot of money. The healthcare system isn't affordable anymore. Who pays for that? Where does that money come from? This is all coming out of our pockets. It's your money. The really astonishing part about the fact that we spend more is we have worse health outcomes. If you need real serious technology today, like a very complex cardiac surgery, you're lucky to be in this country. Rescue care is second to none. As an overall system, no, we're not anywhere near the best in the world. I mean, look at our results. Our lifespan isn't even in the top 20. We have a disease-care system, and we have a very profitable disease-care system. And the disease-care system, actually, I mean, if it really was honest with itself, it doesn't want you to die, and it doesn't want you to get well. It just wants you to keep coming back for your care of your chronic disease. Medical journalist Shannon Brownlee and Dr. Don Berwick, former head of Medicare and Medicaid, from the documentary Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare. The film also follows the dramatic human stories of people fighting to transform healthcare, from the highest levels of medicine, industry, government and even the U.S. military. For more, we're joined by the film's director, Matthew Heineman. He began by making the film in 2009, before the political firestorm erupted over President Obama's healthcare bill. But the questions it attempts to answer are very timely today and will continue no matter what the Supreme Court decides. Matthew Heineman, welcome to Democracy Now! Thank you. Why the title? Why Escape Fire? So, Escape Fire draws on a metaphor that Dr. Don Berwick, the former head of Medicare and Medicaid, draws for us between our healthcare system and a forest fire that happened in 1949, where a group of smokejumpers were dropped in to fight this fire, and they realized that the wind shifted directions, and they found themselves running up the hill for dear life. And the leader of this group, Wag Dodge, came up with a solution. He lit a match, and he burned the area around him, in what's now known as an "escape fire." He called for all of his men to join him, but nobody did, and they kept running up the hill for dear life. And I think the metaphor is very strong, that there's these very simple solutions around us. Our healthcare system is burning. Why can't we pay attention to these solutions? And why did you decide to make this film? I think, like many Americans, we were very confused about what was happening in healthcare. Healthcare had really become this political football that was being thrown back and forth by both sides in Washington. We really wanted to get to the heart of why this system came to be, how did this perverse system come to be, why did it not want to change, and people out there who are trying to change it. In this clip of your film, Escape Fire, medical journalist Shannon Brownlee and Dr. Leslie Cho of the Cleveland Clinic describe the fee-for-service approach to healthcare. The vast majority of doctors in this country are paid by a fee-for-service system, and that simply means that they get paid for each office visit. If they're surgeons, they get paid for each procedure. If it's a radiologist, they get paid for each CT scan that they deliver. DR. LESLIE CHO: If I spend five minutes with you and then put in one of these stents, probably get paid $1,500. For me to spend 45 minutes on a established visit with a patient to make sure they're doing their exercise, make sure their diabetes is going OK, and to try to figure out what their true problem is, probably get paid $15. It's a completely irrational system. Fee-for-service rewards physicians for doing more. It doesn't reward them from doing a better job. It doesn't reward them for keeping their patients healthy. It rewards them for delivering more care. I want to play a comment from Dr. Erin Martin, a primary care physician who you interviewed in Escape Fire. In this clip, she describes her frustration with having to treat a high volume of patients with not enough time for preventative care. DR. ERIN MARTIN: Instead of basing things on outcomes, on how good of a job we're doing, the government sets the reimbursement completely on the number of patients that we see. It doesn't matter how complicated they are, how much time that we spend on them. It's just a number—one, two, three, four, five. You have to play this game with, what does this patient need and how much time am I willing to spend with them, because the administration is telling you, "You need to see more patients. We're in the red." And if you try and buck the system, someone says, "What can we do to get your productivity up?" I'm not interested in getting my productivity up. I'm interested in helping patients. That, Dr. Erin Martin, primary care physician who you interview, Matthew Heineman, in Escape Fire. You're solution-oriented, these stories. Yeah, I think, you know, the story of Dr. Martin is really the story of a primary care physician who is an idealist, who just wants to practice medicine but is handcuffed by the system. She's forced to see a revolving door of patients, and she's not allowed to practice the medicine that she was taught to practice. And I think, you know, the key message of our film is that we really have a disease-care system, not a healthcare system—a system that profits and is oriented towards disease, towards acute care, towards high-tech, not towards prevention, not towards health, not towards, you know, low-tech interventions that work just as well. But you also highlight companies that have managed to dramatically lower the healthcare costs precisely by going into preventative mode as opposed to treatment mode. Yeah. I mean, one of the escape fires that we have is the story of the Safeway corporation, that has recognized, you know, rising healthcare costs and provided incentives for their employees to stop smoking, lower their cholesterol. They not only cut costs, but they improved the health of their employees, so. And veterans—you talk about care for soldiers coming home. And the military is a major storyline in our film, as well, where the military has this huge problem of overmedication and suicide. And they are looking at out-of-the-box ideas. They're giving acupuncture, meditation and other forms of alternative therapies, in lieu of drugs, to help reduce the amount of drugs these soldiers are on. Well, Matthew Heineman, the film opens around the country in October. It's called Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare. Matthew Heineman is its director. And that does it for our show. At 10:00 Eastern [Daylight] Time this morning, we'll be broadcasting live from the steps of the Supreme Court to getting reaction around the country, including filmmaker Michael Moore. Tune in, democracynow.org. http://news.linktv.org/videos/obama-no-illness-should-lead-to-any-familys-financial-ruin?start=0 President Obama says the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act ensures hard-working, middle class families will get the security they deserve and protects every American from the worst insurance company abuses. Thu, 28 Jun 2012 11:01:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/obama-no-illness-should-lead-to-any-familys-financial-ruin Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, US health care reform, Supreme Court of the United States, Health insurance, Barack Obama, Medicare, Medicaid, Health care reform, Politics of the United States, Pre-existing condition President Obama says the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act ensures hard-working, middle class families will get the security they deserve and protects every American from the worst insurance company abuses. http://news.linktv.org/videos/romney-response-i-will-act-to-repeal-obamacare?start=0 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney reacts to the Supreme Court's early Thursday ruling upholding President Obama's Affordable Care Act. Thu, 28 Jun 2012 10:21:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/romney-response-i-will-act-to-repeal-obamacare Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Mitt Romney, US health care reform, Supreme Court of the United States, Health insurance, US presidential election, 2012, Medicare, Health care reform, Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012, Constitution GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney reacts to the Supreme Court's early Thursday ruling upholding President Obama's Affordable Care Act. http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-rep-sheila-jackson-lees-impassioned-reaction-to-supreme-court-ruling?start=0 Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee from Texas reacts positively to the Supreme Court's early Thursday ruling upholding President Obama's Affordable Care Act. Thu, 28 Jun 2012 09:31:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-rep-sheila-jackson-lees-impassioned-reaction-to-supreme-court-ruling Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, US health care reform, Sheila Jackson Lee, Supreme Court of the United States, Health insurance, Barack Obama, Health care, Politics of the United States, Texas, US House of Representatives Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee from Texas reacts positively to the Supreme Court's early Thursday ruling upholding President Obama's Affordable Care Act. http://news.linktv.org/videos/reaction-health-care-law-making-problems-worse?start=0 Mitch McConnell, the Senate's minority leader, says the president's health care law is making life harder for Americans, and has yet to solve any of the problems it was designed to tackle. Thu, 28 Jun 2012 09:18:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/reaction-health-care-law-making-problems-worse Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Mitch McConnell, US health care reform, Supreme Court of the United States, Tax, Health insurance, Politics of the United States, Health care, Barack Obama, Medicare Mitch McConnell, the Senate's minority leader, says the president's health care law is making life harder for Americans, and has yet to solve any of the problems it was designed to tackle. http://news.linktv.org/videos/senate-majority-leader-harry-reid-no-more-fear-of-losing-health-insurance?start=0 Reacting to the Supreme Court's decision to uphold much of Obamacare, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that millions of Americans will benefit from the law. Thu, 28 Jun 2012 09:10:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/senate-majority-leader-harry-reid-no-more-fear-of-losing-health-insurance Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Harry Reid, Supreme Court of the United States, US health care reform, Health insurance, Politics of the United States, Health care, Health care reform, US Senate, Pre-existing condition Reacting to the Supreme Court's decision to uphold much of Obamacare, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that millions of Americans will benefit from the law. http://news.linktv.org/videos/us-supreme-court-upholds-health-care-law?start=0 The Supreme Court has upheld the individual insurance requirement at the heart of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Thu, 28 Jun 2012 08:47:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/us-supreme-court-upholds-health-care-law Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Supreme Court of the United States, US health care reform, Health insurance mandate, Politics of the United States, Individual mandate, Health care, Medicaid, Health care reform, Health insurance The Supreme Court has upheld the individual insurance requirement at the heart of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.