Republicans to target welfare, Medicare, Medicaid spending in 2018
By Jeff Stein in the Washington Post. NOTE: This article was first published on December 6, 2017. It is a good example of the misinformation that we can expect to see widely in the media this year. Members of Congress and their support team in the media and ‘think tanks’ will tell blame the deficit […]
How to Build a Single-Payer Health System
By Michael Corcoran for Truth Out. Photo: Leren Lu Lessons From Taiwan’s Turnaround This piece is part of Fighting for Our Lives: The Movement for Medicare for All, a Truthout original series. “Taiwan’s highly efficient system of national health insurance should humble and inspire the United States.” —Uwe Reinhardt (1937 – 2017) There are obvious reasons why some […]
Private Insurers Cherry Pick Medicare Patients
By Dr. Richard A. Damon in the Montana Standard. Medicare Advantage plans from the beginning have been advertised as better high-end coverage for elders at more stable premiums, based on receiving a per capita fee for each enrollee from the federal government. Medicare Advantage plans sold by private, for-profit insurers were federally over-rewarded with a […]
People Are Dying Younger in the US Than in Other Wealthy Nations
By Christopher Ingraham for The Washington Post. And public policy is largely to blame. American lives are shorter on average than those in other wealthy nations, and the gap is growing ever wider, according to the latest data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As recently as 1979, the typical American could expect to […]
The Feminist Case For Single Payer
By Natalie Shure for Jacobin Magazine. It’s time to take health care away from the power of bosses and spouses. In the spring of 1969, a dozen feminists gathered at a women’s conference in Boston and came to a sober conclusion: their encounters with the United States health-care system had been overwhelmingly negative. They felt […]
Luxury Socialized Medicine
By Meagan Day for Jacobin Magazine. Above Photo: The Doctor’s Visit by Jan Steen, circa 1660. Mauritshuis. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis / Wikimedia Forget rationing and waiting lists. Socialized medicine delivers comforts and convenience that Americans can only dream about. The standard case for a single-payer health insurance system is pretty well known. Anyone can get care […]
How Big Medicine can ruin Medicare for All
By Phillip Longman for The Guardian. Photo from Make It Our UPMC. NOTE: One of our criticisms of the Sanders’ Medicare for All Act is that it doesn’t get rid of investor-owned health facilities. Longman explains the problem with leaving profit in our healthcare system. The pursuit of a ‘single-payer’ healthcare system in the United […]
Trump’s HHS Secretary Pick comes from Big Pharma
By Alex Kotch and Lydia O’Neal for International Business Times. Presidential candidate Donald Trump was an outspoken critic of pharmaceutical companies and high drug prices. He told prospective voters that he’d allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies. President-elect Trump said Big Pharma was “getting away with murder” with its exorbitant prices for drugs and said […]
What Corporate Media Failed to Learn About Canadian Single-Payer
By Michael Corcoran for FAIR. Media responded to Bernie Sanders’ hospital tour of Canada with predictable dismissiveness. When it was announced that several journalists would travel with Sen. Bernie Sanders in October for a hospital tour of Canada to learn about its single-payer system, one question immediately sprang to mind: What would corporate media do to smear […]
Fragmented Health System Paves Way for CVS-Aetna Merger
By Aaron Mate for The Real News. William K. Black, author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. Black was a central figure in exposing […]