Health Care

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) — Congress enacted Medicare in July,1965, to provide health insurance for people ages 65 and older and the disabled regardless of income or medical history. In the 55 years since, Medicare has become living proof that public, universal health insurance is superior to private insurance in every way. Medicare […]

Donald Trump

How Trump broke America: Economy plummets historic 33%, Covid Deaths at 1500/ day, and 40 mn could lose Homes

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s refusal last winter to pull out all the stops to mount an effective national coronavirus response has broken the legs of America. On Wednesday, over 1500 coronavirus deaths were reported nationwide, a tally not seen since May. Over 150,000 Americans have died of the disease, and the prospect is […]

Epidemics

The Virus That’s Really Killing Americans? Greed and Corporate Profiteering

Jim Hightower

( Otherwords.org ) – Health care giants are taking COVID-19 relief money while cutting jobs and paying CEOs millions. By Jim Hightower | July 29, 2020 The holy mantra of health professionals was coined about 2,500 years ago by the Greek physician Hippocrates: “Do no harm.” Of course, that was before corporate healthcare took charge […]

Epidemics

Is the Coronavirus deflating the Far Right?

The Conversation

By Georgios Samaras | – In recent years, far-right political parties in Europe have capitalised on crises to build their support bases. Many have made it to positions of power as a result of these efforts. The financial crisis of 2008, the refugee crisis that began in 2014 and the ongoing debate around climate change […]

Authoritarianism

The Worst Possible Leader in a Pandemic: Trump’s Authoritarianism is all about Him

Jill Richardson

( Otherwords.org ) – The Trump administration is apparently undertaking its latest effort to make 2020 more of a Kafkaesque nightmare than it already is. Yes, we’ve got murder hornets and a swarm of flying ants that can be seen from space over in Ireland, but maybe the scariest plague of the year is the […]

Epidemics

Essential Work suddenly Valued during Pandemic: Why does it Pay so Little, Cost so Much?

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – In two weeks, my partner and I were supposed to leave San Francisco for Reno, Nevada, where we’d be spending the next three months focused on the 2020 presidential election. As we did in 2018, we’d be working with UNITE-HERE, the hospitality industry union, only this time on the campaign to […]

Health Care

Can we afford Medicare for All? The Truth is, we can’t afford not to have it

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida — In the US, 30 million people have no health insurance, and the per capita cost of health care is far higher than it is in other countries. On top of this, the recent COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences have caused the greatest losses in health insurance enrollment in U.S. history: 5.4 […]

Epidemics

Taxpayers are Funding Coronavirus Vaccines, but Big Pharma will Profit

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – The business press is full of stories about the race for a Covid—19 vaccine. The corporations that succeed in cracking the biological mystery stand to make billions, and the success of the vaccine will likely “open up” the economy. What receives less attention, however, is the question […]

Epidemics

Cut the Pentagon 10 Percent, Invest in Public Health

OtherWords

By Lindsay Koshgarian ( Otherwords.org ) – It feels like the world is falling apart. But with a pandemic raging and an eviction crisis looming, the Senate is preparing to spend three quarters of a trillion dollars… not on public health or housing, but on the Pentagon. The United States may be going down, but […]