Healthcare

Nurse Whistle-Blower Not Guilty for Reporting Doctor
Texas Nurse Fired After Sheriff Seizes Computer and Finds Letter of Complaint
By Susan Donaldson James, Steve Osunsami and Michael Murray | ABC News

A Texas jury has found veteran nurse Anne Mitchell not guilty of harassment after she wrote a confidential letter to the Texas Medical Board complaining about a doctor she believed practiced shoddy medicine.

Her lawyer, John Cook, announced the verdict today on the fourth day of the trial in Andrew, Texas.

Mitchell, 52, could have faced 10 years in prison for doing what she believed was her obligation under the law -- to report unsafe medical practices.

The verdict could have had a profound effect on whistle-blowers in Texas and nationwide. People are certainly talking. Phil Parks told ABC News, "I think that nurses must be on the side of patients. They spend more time with patients than doctors do." Read more.

Kucinich: Medicare for All, the Idea Whose Time Has Come | Press Release

Washington D.C. (February 8, 2010) – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today sent a letter to President Obama commending him for calling for new ideas and a renewed discussion about health care reform. Kucinich requested that supporters of Medicare for All be represented at the upcoming February 25 health care summit.

“I hope you will invite a representative of the community that is advocating for the only health care that has consistently proven to address each of the criteria you have outlined for a satisfactory health care plan: Medicare for All,” wrote Kucinich.

Kucinich, who co-authored HR 676, Medicare for All, with Representative John Conyers (D-MI), further pointed out that many states have embraced a single-payer system of health care. Most recently, the California State Senate passed a single-payer health care bill on January 27, 2010.

Read the full letter here.

By John Marty, Minnesota State Senator, Candidate for Governor

If 21st Century Progressives led the 19th Century Abolition Movement, we'd still have slavery, but we'd have limited it to 40 hour work weeks, and we'd be so proud of the progress we'd made.

In earlier eras of U.S. history, progressives believed they could fight injustice and move society forward, and they did so. Today however, many progressives have lost faith in their ability to affect significant change. Many are content simply to tinker with problems, whether the issue is getting living wages for work, ending poverty, or removing toxins from our food supply.

Nurse Whistle-Blower Charged for Reporting Doctor
Texas Nurse Fired After Sheriff Seizes Computer and Finds Letter of Complaint
By Susan Donaldson James | ABC News

When veteran nurse Anne Mitchell wrote a confidential letter last year to the Texas Medical Board, complaining about a doctor she thought practiced shoddy medicine, she assumed it would be anonymous.

Instead, Dr. Rolando Arafiles Jr. fired her after reporting her to the local sheriff -- a former patient and admirer of the doctor -- for maliciously ruining his reputation.

Police in Kermit, Texas, searched Mitchell's computer and found the letter, then charged her with "misuse of official information" in her role at Winkler Memorial Hospital, a third-degree felony in Texas under an abuse-of-power statute.

Today, 52 and out of work, Mitchell could face 10 years in prison for doing what she believed was her obligation under the law -- to report unsafe medical practices.

"She's devastated," Mitchell's lawyer Brian Carney told "Good Morning America." "It has hurt her financially. Personally, it's hard on her family to say that she has done something wrong when, in fact, she has done nothing but do her duty." Read more.

http://healthcare4allpa.org

Lancaster – The Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee today unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for passage of single payer healthcare, Senate Bill 400 and House Bill 1660, also known as the "Family and Business Healthcare Security Act."

Given the healthcare reform deadlock in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania’s nation-leading status in the battle for state-based “Medicare for All,” is all the more significant.

“Not only does Pennsylvania now have the Democratic Party on board with the Single Payer healthcare for all,” said Healthcare for All PA executive director Chuck Pennacchio, “we also have the promised signature of our governor and the active support of Republican and Democratic leaders in both the State Senate and State House.”

Visit John on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.

The Courage of our Convictions
By MN State Senator John Marty | FireDogLake

Fellow progressives, my name is John Marty; I am entering my 24th year in the Minnesota Senate, where I have fought for social and economic justice since day one.

In the Senate, I’ve championed LGBT rights (I am chief author of marriage equality legislation), I’ve fought for government ethics reform, I’ve designed and authored single-payer healthcare (www.mnhealthplan.org), I’ve taken on powerful interest groups to protect our environment, and I’ve championed legislation to get living wage jobs and move our economy forward. We now have over 70 co-authors on my single payer legislation — over a third of the legislature!

I am a Democratic candidate for Governor in 2010 running on true progressive principles, like Senator Paul Wellstone, principles that I hold with deep conviction. In 1994, I was the DFL nominee for governor, but like many other progressives running that year, the Gingrich Revolution and his "Contract ON America." made our attempts unsuccessful."

Never wavering from my progressive principles, we’ve established viability with a team of supporters focused on reclaiming the governorship. With our election, we can have a national impact across this country.

Imagine a governor with the courage to break the insurance industry’s grip on our health care system, passing single payer. Imagine making healthcare a right, not a privilege.

Just imagine what the national implications would be! Imagine the precedent we would set for Democratic Party candidates throughout this country to have a genuine, principled progressive as governor of a state.

Imagine a governor who puts LGBT marriage equality, ethics reform, living wages for workers, and environmental protection, front and center on the state’s agenda.

Over next several months, I will reach out here and on other blogs across the country to keep you updated about our campaign. Please take a minute to read this recent column I wrote about the need for political courage. Feel free to share it with friends.

Thank you and I look forward to reading your comments below.

Sincerely,

John
John Marty

The Courage of our Convictions
By Sen. John Marty

If 21st Century Progressives led the 19th Century Abolition Movement, we’d still have slavery, but we’d have limited it to 40 hour work weeks, and we’d be so proud of the progress we’d made.

In earlier eras of U.S. history, progressives believed they could fight injustice and move society forward, and they did so. Today however, many progressives have lost faith in their ability to affect significant change. Many are content simply to tinker with problems, whether the issue is getting living wages for work, ending poverty, or removing toxins from our food supply.

Robert Pollin: There are ways to cut the deficit without freezing social spending

To watch Part 2, click here.

For additional information on the Strategic Oil Reserves, click here.

PBS' Bill Moyers Journal: Dr. Margaret Flowers on Single Payer, Medicare for All

BILL MOYERS: Make me an offer I can't refuse. That's what President Obama said, when he talks about health care reform during his State of the Union last week.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: If anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Let me know. Let me know. I'm eager to see it.

BILL MOYERS: Dr. Margaret Flowers took him at his word.

MALE VOICE: Can I help you?

DR. MARGARET FLOWERS: Well, last night the President gave his State of the Union address, and I'm a physician. I'm the Congressional Fellow with Physicians for National Health Program.

BILL MOYERS: The very next day she was outside the White House with a letter urging the President to revive the idea of single-payer healthcare. Medicare for all.

MALE VOICE: We can't accept anything, so you'll have to send it through the mail.

BILL MOYERS: The Secret Service turned Dr. Flowers away, but she didn't give up. She tried again the next day in Baltimore, where once again, President Obama made his offer to hear ideas on health reform and once again, she tried to deliver her letter.

DR. MARGARET FLOWERS: Is there somebody here who's in charge that can have somebody who's a representative of the President, come and take this?

BILL MOYERS: This time, she and her colleague, Dr. Carol Paris, refused to move when security told them to, because Dr. Flowers said, "We didn't want to continue to be excluded, marginalized and ignored."

They were arrested.

DR. MARGARET FLOWERS: And we haven't been heard. They continue to exclude us. Read transcript, watch video.

By Dave Lindorff

There were two points in President Obama’s State of the Union address that provoked resounding and universal applause in the chamber from the assembled senators and representatives of both parties. One point was when the president said he wanted to start his job-creation program “in small businesses, companies that begin when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides its time she became her own boss.” The other point was when he said, “While we're at it, let's also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment; and provide a tax incentive for all businesses, large and small, to invest in new plants and equipment.”

On tonight's "Bill Moyers Journal," Friday, Feb. 5, 2010, the program will feature one of my favorite activist, Dr. Margaret Flowers of Baltimore County, Maryland, and the relevant and important issue of "Medicare for All." Check you local pbs station for the time in your area.

Excerpt from Bill Moyers Journal: While many in Congress, the press and the public have given up on the idea of even a limited public option in health care reform, Flowers and her group, Physicians for a National Health Program, are standing firm for a single-payer plan. Specifically, they want to extend the Medicare program, which they see as a functioning single-player plan, to the nation as a whole. Flowers has testified before Congress and penned Op-Eds and she has been arrested three times in her attempts to get Congress and the White House to pay attention to single-payer. Read more.

Read Dr. Flowers' open letter to President Obama

Airport Body Scanning Raises Radiation Exposure, Committee Says
By Jonathan Tirone | Bloomberg

Air passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings and governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation, an inter-agency report said.

Pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, even though the radiation dose from body scanners is “extremely small,” said the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety report, which is restricted to the agencies concerned and not meant for public circulation. The group includes the European Commission, International Atomic Energy Agency, Nuclear Energy Agency and the World Health Organization.

A more accurate assessment about the health risks of the screening won’t be possible until governments decide whether all passengers will be systematically scanned or randomly selected, the report said. Governments must justify the additional risk posed to assengers, and should consider “other techniques to achieve the same end without the use of ionizing radiation.”

President Barack Obama has pledged $734 million to deploy airport scanners that use x-rays and other technology to detect explosives, guns and other contraband. The U.S. and European countries including the U.K. have been deploying more scanners at airports after the attempted bombing on Christmas Day of a Detroit-bound Northwest airline flight.

“There is little doubt that the doses from the backscatter x-ray systems being proposed for airport security purposes are very low,” Health Protection Agency doctor Michael Clark said by phone from Didcot, England. “The issue raised by the report is that even though doses from the systems are very low, they feel there is still a need for countries to justify exposures.” Read more.

This is the first good thing Perriello has done on healthcare, very much to be applauded. Of course very hard to pass the Senate and very hard to enforce without, you know, having a government that enforces laws. But much better than the worse-than-nothing "reform" bills. Next and more important step would be to introduce as separate legislation the language facilitating state-level healthcare solutions that was passed in committee by Kucinich and stripped out of the bill. And the sort of step that would indicate our representative was with us even if it meant defying Obama would be 1) opposing the corporate bailout "reform" bill and/or 2) refusing to vote more money for wars and the military, a small fraction of which could solve the healthcare mess.

Read this important letter: PDF.

What I Have Learned Doing Civil Disobedience for Single Payer
by Carol Paris | Common Dreams

Note: During President Obama's recent visit to Baltimore, Drs. Margaret Flowers and Carol Paris attempted to deliver to an explanation of why Single-Payer is comprehensive and cost-effective, and better serves the needs of the nation's patients and doctors. They were prevented from delivering their message to the President, despite his invitation that if someone has a better plan than the one cobbled together in Congress he "wanted to hear it." ~Chip :)

"People should go where they are not supposed to go, say what they are not supposed to say, and stay when they are told to leave." --Howard Zinn

Well, that quote pretty well sums up "what to do." But my biggest challenge is "how." Specifically, how do I neutralize some pretty powerful fear?

I was scared Friday when I joined Margaret Flowers to attempt to deliver a message to the President. My thoughts raced. We're talking secret service.

"How do I get myself into these things?"

"This is crazy."

"This is pointless."

"I can't even make sensible statements; I know what I want to say but I'm so nervous."

"Other people are so much more knowledgeable and speak so much more eloquently."

"But I am doing it!"

We stood in front of the Harbor Hotel in Baltimore clutching a banner that read "Letting you know. Medicare for all" and Margaret's letter for the President written in response to his appeal for solutions to health reform. The hotel manager, police and secret service surrounded us and asked us to move.

If you watch the video, you'll see that there was a point, a moment, which felt suspended in time, when Margaret looked at me and I looked at her and we both knew "we ain't goin' across the street." Read more.

ScienceDaily (Feb. 1, 2010) — Psychologists and psychiatrists should not be expected to participate in torture as they do not have the expertise to assess individual pain or the long-term effects of interrogation, says experts in an analysis posted online in the British Medical Journal.

The authors, Derrick Silove and Susan Rees, from the University of New South Wales in Australia, say some senior members of the US military have argued that a psychologist's presence is necessary to protect the prisoner or detainee from the "severe physical or mental pain or suffering resulting in prolonged mental harm."

Did someone just chuck pre-existing conditions overboard?
By John Aravosis | America Blog

So I'm reading the latest NYT article about the health care mayhem going on in Washington today, and the article throws out some possible "compromises" a new pared-down health care bill could contain. And I see this:

Lawmakers, Congressional aides and health policy experts said the package might plausibly include these elements:

¶Insurers could not deny coverage to children under the age of 19 on account of pre-existing medical conditions.

The only reason to specify that children under the age of 19 won't be denied coverage is because you plan on letting everyone 19 and over BE denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. Even the lousy Senate and House bills outlawed that. But here's the rub. Read more.

Why do people often vote against their own interests? | BBC

"Obama's administration made a tremendous mistake by not immediately branding the economic collapse that we had just had as the Republicans' Depression, caused by the Bush administration's ideology of unregulated greed. The result is that now people blame him." [Thomas Frank] He believes that the voters' preference for emotional engagement over reasonable argument has allowed the Republican Party to blind them to their own real interests. The Republicans have learnt how to stoke up resentment against the patronising liberal elite, all those do-gooders who assume they know what poor people ought to be thinking.

The Republicans' shock victory in the election for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts meant the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. This makes it even harder for the Obama administration to get healthcare reform passed in the US.

Political scientist Dr David Runciman looks at why is there often such deep opposition to reforms that appear to be of obvious benefit to voters.

Last year, in a series of "town-hall meetings" across the country, Americans got the chance to debate President Obama's proposed healthcare reforms.

What happened was an explosion of rage and barely suppressed violence.

...But it is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform - the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state - are often the ones it seems designed to help.

In Texas, where barely two-thirds of the population have full health insurance and over a fifth of all children have no cover at all, opposition to the legislation is currently running at 87%. Read more.

The price of reform: Our new health care system has not been a Massachusetts miracle
By Timothy P Cahill, Treasurer, Massachusetts State | Commonwealth Magazine

From an economic standpoint, health care reform has proven to be an unsustainable financial burden that poses a long-term risk to the state’s fiscal health. According to the state information statement submitted to bondholders in August 2008, the cost of the Commonwealth Care program has more than doubled since its inception, increasing from $630 million in 2007 to $1.1 billion in FY08 and over $1.3 billion in FY09. This trend is projected to continue, as state estimates reported by the Boston Globe indicate that the Commonwealth’s subsidized insurance plan will top $1.35 billion in annual expenses by the beginning of FY12. With significant unemployment and budget revenues increasingly scarce, our health care system is currently on the brink of representing another significant unfunded liability.

Rather than providing a solution, the Massachusetts health care laws have only created more problems, both on the state’s balance sheet and in struggling households across the state. Our residents deserve accessible, affordable health care that will not jeopardize the Commonwealth’s fiscal health, goals we cannot attain under the current system.

One of the hallmarks of a successful and compassionate society is its ability to provide care for its citizens. I believe that every individual and family in the Commonwealth should have access to quality, affordable health care. However, it’s equally important to take affirmative steps to ensure the stability of the Massachusetts economy, and not place unnecessary fiscal burdens on our taxpayers. As we review the performance of our state’s health care system since the passage of reform in 2006, it is imperative that we balance these objectives.

Health care reform has not been a Massachusetts miracle. The state’s new health care system has been fraught with problems from the start, from excessive costs to taxpayers to unaffordable insurance options for families. An analysis shows that the Commonwealth’s program has not been able to fully provide efficient, affordable health care in a fiscally responsible manner....

Here’s just one example. A report prepared by Drs. Rachel Nardin, David Himmelstein, and Steffie Woolhandler of Harvard Medical School states that the least expensive plan available to a middle-income, 56-year-old individual costs $4,872 in annual premiums. That does not include a $2,000 deductible if the person actually gets sick, or the 20 percent of the person’s medical costs — up to $3,000 a year — he or she is required to pay, meaning that an individual’s total annual bill for health care could reach $9,872. Read more.

On Jan. 29, 2010, Doctors Margaret Flowers and Carol Paris were arrested outside a hotel, at the Inner Harbor, in Baltimore, MD, where President Barack Obama was to give a speech. They were on a sidewalk outside the Renaissance hotel holding a banner. The doctors had a letter that they wanted to give to the President and/or one of his aides, re: Medicare for All. They were arrested for trespassing, according to to a police officer at the scene. Later after getting into a police car, this reporter was advised, the two doctors were released, without going to the local lockup. Each was then given" a citation" for trespassing. For background on this issue, check out Dr. Flowers visit to the White House, on Jan. 28, 2010 here.

'There is a better health plan, Mr. President' | Press Release
Medicare-for-All doctors available for comment on State of the Union speech

Rising to President Obama's challenge to others in his State of the Union address that they come up with a better approach to health care reform than his own, physicians who advocate for a single-payer program stepped forward this morning to again make the case for their alternative, which they say has solid public support.

Among them is Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician and congressional fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of 17,000 physicians who support a single-payer system, who is traveling to the White House today to deliver an open letter to the president calling on him to meet with her and other Medicare-for-All advocates.

Also speaking out today are Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, co-founders of PNHP, primary care physicians in Cambridge, Mass., and professors at Harvard Medical School, who provided commentary in a blog in today's New York Times.

In her letter to Obama, Flowers notes how surprised she and others were when single-payer advocates were excluded from the early stages of the discussions on health reform. Flowers was one of several physicians, nurses and reform advocates who were arrested at Senate Finance Committee hearings last spring for standing up and asking in a dignified way why the Medicare-for-All option was "off the table."

Leno´s Single-Payer, Universal Health Care Bill Clears Senate
California Political Desk

January 29, 2010
SACRAMENTO – The California Senate today passed legislation that guarantees all Californians comprehensive, universal health care. The California Universal Health Care Act, authored by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), is the only health care reform proposal that is proven to contain health care costs while simultaneously improving quality of care and the delivery of services.

READ THE REST.

Dear Friend,

From the beginning of this campaign, I have been clear: as a U.S. Senator, I will support President Obama where he is right AND push him hard to take positions I believe the people need so we can have real change in our country.

Yesterday, The New York Times, when it took the time to be serious, described my positions this way: “He is against the health care bill, and wants Medicare for all. He is against the dual wars (“I will not vote for a single penny to continue either war”). He wants to increase the minimum wage immediately to $10 an hour and see it quickly reach $15 to $20. He wants a stronger labor movement. (“People say you’re antibusiness. I’m pro-business because I want jobs. What I’m against is foolishness.”) He wants a tax on every transaction on Wall Street. He supports gay marriage and gun control.”

Last night, the president was right to focus on the jobs crisis in America, and he correctly criticized the immoral and irresponsible behavior of too many Wall Street bankers and the Supreme Court’s decision to let corporations buy our democracy.

But, we clearly need a Democratic Party that is willing to fight for deeper, real change.

I want a health care bill that is not shaped by Joe Lieberman and Democrats who are handing a windfall to the insurance industry.

I want a party that freezes and ends immoral wars that destroy societies, not a party that freezes the programs that build a healthy society.

I believe we need to stop acting like Republicans: we don’t have a “fiscal deficit” problem (my opponent Kirsten Gillibrand voted on Tuesday for a Commission that would cut Medicare and Social Security). We have a crisis that threatens the American Dream because one in five Americans do not have good-paying jobs. Giving people real jobs should be our passion—not acting as narrow-minded accountants.

Real change means we need to confront the truth: we accept poverty in our nation as a way of doing business. That is morally unacceptable.

Real change means understanding that a good job is not simply a focus on education but giving people the power to form unions so they can act as a balance to private capital.

Please let me know what YOU think “change” means in our country.

Thanks for all you are doing.

SEATTLE. Twenty-nine-year-old Helen Fowler has amassed $50,000 in medical bills for emergency hospitalization and surgery while on the waiting list for the Washington State Basic Health Plan. Now she’s joined the Sisters Organize for Survival (SOS) campaign to save and expand the publicly subsidized insurance that currently serves 60,000 low-income residents.

Is the White House Pressuring DOJ to Delay Torture Report Until Health Care Bill Passes?
By Jason Leopold | Truthout

Did the Obama administration pressure the Department of Justice (DOJ) to suppress a long-awaited report from one of the agency's watchdogs on issues revolving around torture until Congress passes a health care bill?

That's what senior aides to two Democratic lawmakers who have been closely tracking the report have alleged in interviews conducted over the past month.

The report, prepared by the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), examined the legal work former Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attorneys John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury performed for the Bush administration after 9/11 and is said to have reached damning conclusions.

It was supposed to be released last November, according to testimony Attorney General Eric Holder gave to Congress, after a career prosecutor completed a review, which Holder said at the time was in its "final stages."

But the aides said in December, a couple of weeks after Holder testified, they participated in an informal meeting about the possibility of holding hearings when the report was released. During the discussion, someone raised questions about why the report was not yet released as Holder had promised.

The aides said that a senator, whose name they would not reveal, then disclosed that he was told by senior White House officials that if the report were released as planned it would have hurt the administration's efforts to get a health care bill passed and impact the possibility of trying to win Republican support for the legislation, which never came to pass.

So, in early December, the senator claimed, according to the account given by the aides, the administration told the DOJ to delay releasing it. Read more.

Poll Shouts The Message Massachusetts Voters Were Sending
By Isaiah J. Poole | Our Future

The numbers in the Research 2000 exit poll released Wednesday by MoveOn.org and Democracy for America speak for themselves: The Massachusetts election was not a call to go back to conservatism. It was, as Robert Borosage on our site said earlier today and as such commentators as Katrina vanden Heuvel are saying, a call for Democrats to be bolder, more audacious and unapologetic in pursuing the populist reforms the public thought it was going to get after the 2008 elections.

The poll focused on Massachusetts residents who voted for President Obama in 2008 but who either voted for Senate republican candidate Scott Brown or did not vote at all. These responses from Brown voters should stand out:

• Generally speaking do you think Barack Obama and Democrats in Washington, DC are delivering enough on the change Obama promised to bring to America during the campaign?

  Yes 31%
  No 57%
  Not sure 12%

• Do you think Democrats in Washington, D.C. are fighting hard enough to challenge the Republican policies of the Bush years, aren’t fighting hard enough to change those policies, or are fighting about right?

  Not Enough 37%
  About Right 21%
  Too Hard 15%
  Not Sure 27% Read more.

By Dave Lindorff

President Obama gives a good speech. He's smooth, unruffled by audience response, good at a timely ad-lib remark, and knows how to win over a tough crowd--all skills that were in evidence at last night's State of the Union address. But he's also good at telling whoppers.

Here are a few.

Talking about health care, and the stalled bills in House and Senate which have become so encrusted with pro-industry amendments that the whole process should be referred to as the Health Industry Enrichment Act, Obama said at one point, addressing the doubts many in Congress and among the broader public have about those bills, "If anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Let me know. Let me know. I'm eager to see it."

Integrating Private Insurance With Public Health Would Improve US Health Care, Researchers Say

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2010) — The United States has an inefficient and expensive health care system, but it could be improved with a new integrated health care system detailed in a new study in the American Journal of Public Health.

According to researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and UCLA, the American healthcare system is riddled with inefficiencies due to a lack of an integrated system that could promote an optimal mix of personal medical care and population health measures.

Increased Co-Payments for Doctor Visits Boost Health-Care Costs for Seniors

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2010) — For years many health experts believed that increasing insurance co-payments for routine doctor visits helped control costs. Patients faced with the higher price tag, they theorized, would simply cut back unnecessary visits, saving themselves and insurers money.

Brown University researchers now believe that the practice of increasing co-payments for outpatient visits -- at least for senior citizens -- may actually make care far more expensive. They determined that patients faced with higher co-payments did cut back on their doctor visits. But those same elderly patients ultimately required expensive hospital care because their illnesses worsened.