We’ve argued here numerous times that the state of the US healthcare system is an outrage. We spend almost double per capita what every other developed country spends, except Switzerland, which comes in at 70% of our per capita spending. An NPR report this morning (3.29.2023) (‘Live free and die?’ --->> read more -->>
In our continuing effort to find varied sources to illustrate the power of marketing and the costs of unregulated capitalism we return to John Oliver’s show Last Week Tonight for his segment on sugar in food. The food industry continues to put sugar in nearly every processed food and fights --->> read more -->>
Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Team Up to Try to Disrupt Health Care There was quite a bit of talk over the last couple of days about CEOs Bezos, Buffet, and Dimon teaming up to take on rising healthcare costs. The NYTimes weighed in with their story, “Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway --->> read more -->>
A consistent chattering point in American discussions of healthcare is the claim that if we can only bring transparency and competition to healthcare we will drive prices down and bring sanity to healthcare. The rest of the world knows that this is not the answer but we seem to remain --->> read more -->>
While our current attention is on the Republican Party’s transfer of wealth to the rich and corporations through the charade of a healthcare reform, the Democratic Party needs to face up to its future and the future of our healthcare system in particular. The Global Context The chart shown here --->> read more -->>
A brief review of how the so-called moderates and the fundamentalist right wing of the Republican Party are reacting to the Senates healthcare bill demonstrates how fundamentally vicious and immoral the whole party is. Though facts may be out of style lets just take note that we live in one --->> read more -->>
Adam Davidson writing today in The New Yorker offered us “A BIPARTISAN WAY TO IMPROVE MEDICAL CARE – A straightforward change would save money and improve health. So why isn’t Congress talking about it?” This is an astonishingly naive misleading bit of chatter about healthcare. Davidson summarizes William S. Jevons, --->> read more -->>
Jacob S. Hacker, Yale professor and author of many books and article critiquing the American political system, economy, and the fate of the poor and middle classes, reviewed a new book, AN AMERICAN SICKNESS: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal (NY: Penguin Press, --->> read more -->>
Today I received an email from my Congressman, John Faso, concerning the proposed American Health Care Act. It included a link to a Republican website that speaks to their proposed legislation and a link to the the actual legislation. Asking me to read the legislation is insulting because though I --->> read more -->>
– The Morning After – The election of Trump and the continued Republican control of both Congress and Senate guarantee that the rich will continue to get richer at the expense of the shrinking middle class and further aggravate conditions for the poor. Trickle down economics and tax subsidies will flow --->> read more -->>
The rhetoric about our health care system continues to center around market religions of one sort or another. For all of the blathering about “Obamacare” taking us over the edge into the territory of socialized medicine, it remains, like it’s progenitor dreamed up by Romney while governor of Massachusetts, a --->> read more -->>
It is fairly widely known that income and wealth inequality in the US is as high or higher than at any time except perhaps the Robber Baron period at the end of the 19th century. Lots of articles and books explain how this has come about over the last 30 --->> read more -->>