Steve Smith: Walmart and other large companies don’t think twice about cutting workers’ hours and wages to such a low level that workers have to get health care through taxpayer-funded Medi-Cal.
Life on the Streets – July 17th Forum
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Men, women, and children living on the streets, in cars, or motels, – Los Angeles County has more than 50,000 homeless people
Wal-Fare Benefits: Facts About Walmart Employee Plans
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Bobbi Murray: Walmart has repeatedly come under fire from labor and community groups, as well as states, for promoting a health care structure that encouraged employee reliance on Medicaid.
Congress: Still Working Hard at Being Ineffective, Useless Seat-Warmers
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Tina Dupuy: American people are paying more for less, working more for less and asking more…and Congress is doing (wait for it) LESS.
The Great Health Care Takeaway
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Shamus Cooke: Most workers now understand that there is a difference between apparently having health care and actually having health care: if you are technically “insured” but cannot afford doctor visits due to high deductibles and co-pays, you really aren’t insured.
Walter M. Plumbs the Depths of Homophobia
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Adam Eran: Intolerance is costly in other ways, too. The U.S. doesn’t get the cheaper, more effective single-payer health care now because racist Dixiecrats in Congress were concerned that federally-sponsored health care would mix the races in Southern hospitals.
The Dichotomy of Mitt Romney
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Tracy Emblem: Mitt Romney offers no solutions on how individuals and states will be able to reduce health care costs. Without buying power or other cost containment provisions, the economics of “market” is always what the market will bear. There is no incentive to lower costs because people need medical care – it’s a commodity that must be purchased.
The Republican Death Wish
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Robert Reich: Instead of talking about Medicare as a problem to be fixed, Democrats should start talking about it as a potential solution to the challenge of rising health-care costs — as well as to our long-term budget problem.
Democrats Should Never Have Started Paying Ransom
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Robert Reich: Problem is, when you pay ransom once, you’re almost begging to pay it again. And that’s exactly the pickle the Obama administration is finding itself in.
MLK’s Fight For Unions Still Essential
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Michael Honey: In light of the clash of wills in Wisconsin, we should remember the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One of King’s slogans that we rarely hear is this one: “all labor has dignity.”
National Fiscal Hypocrisy Week
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Robert Reich: The best outcome would be an agreement to extend the tax cuts for the bottom 99 percent, for two years. This would stimulate the economy in the short term when it most needs it, and reduce the long-term deficit.
Why We Should Beware Budget-Deficit Mania
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Robert Reich: The first draft of the President’s deficit commission, written by its co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, is a pastiche of ideas – some good, some dumb, some intriguing, some wacky. The only unifying principle behind their effort seems to be to throw enough at the wall that something’s bound to stick.
Universal Healthcare is Still Needed
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Is Universal Healthcare still on our radar now that the Obama Administration and congress has passed the healthcare reform bill?
An Extraordinary Achievement
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Joseph Palermo: President Barack Obama Tuesday morning gave Democrats a blueprint for what to do in November: back in your districts surround yourself with ordinary Americans who would be denied care if the federal government did not step in to bend the corporate imperatives of profits and share prices to fit the human needs of people who pay their taxes, play by the rules, and whose only “crime” is to have gotten sick.
Continuing Bad Job Numbers Make It Harder — But Even More Important — to Pass Health Care Reform
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Robert Reich: In politics as in economics and love, timing is everything. Obama can’t wait much longer if he wants to convince waivering and worried conservative Dems to join him in a last ditch 51-vote reconciliation measure to get health care through the Senate. We’re already in the gravititational pull of November’s mid-term elections. But the economy is taking a longer time to turn around than anyone expected, and telling Americans the jobs numbers are getting worse more slowly isn’t exactly reassuring.
On Curling, U.S.-Canada Relations, and Tiger Woods
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Randy Shaw: The worldwide recession deepens, the impacts of climate change worsen, and health care costs continue to skyrocket — yet people are primarily discussing other matters. Chief among them is why curling is an Olympic sport, since it is the on-ice equivalent of bocce or shuffleboard, two games that do not require much athletic talent.
US Political Process Haunted by Paralysis
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Ron Wolff: “So we’re paralyzed in the face of mass unemployment and out-of-control health care costs…Blame our political culture, a culture that rewards hypocrisy and irresponsibility rather than serious efforts to solve America’s problems…I’m sorry to say this, but the state of the union — not the speech, but the thing itself — isn’t looking very good.”
The Last Big Question: Will Health Care Reform Be Paid For By The Rich or the Middle Class?
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Robert Reich: Some say the Senate’s excise tax is the only way to control long-term health care costs. Baloney. If a portion of the middle class loses their health care, they won’t get the preventive care that’s so crucial to containing long-term costs.
An Open Letter to Harry Reid on Controlling Health Care Costs
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Wrap these reforms together — a public option open to everyone (allow states to opt out of this if they dare), Medicare-negotiated drug benefits, no 12-year monopoly for new drugs, and a major squeeze on Medicare reimbursements for doctors — and have CBO score the savings. I guarantee you, the number will be large. Then you should dare anyone, Democrat or Republican, to vote against saving Americans so much money in years ahead.
Medical Journal Health Affairs Bends Over and Coughs for Aetna
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Health Affairs made a deal with Aetna to sponsor the current issue of the journal. The problem is that the theme of the edition is “Bending the Cost Curve.” That’s wonk speak for “controlling or containing medical costs in ways that send shivers up the spine of Aetna.”
The Practical Case For Extending Benefits To ‘Really, Really Poor’ Immigrants
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Any investment in preventive care services will ultimately help control health care costs by successfully preventing and managing expensive chronic conditions. This is especially true for uninsured immigrants
On Town Halls and Health Care Reform: Wasn’t Hitler the One With the Gun?
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As the GOP and their allies have concluded that all is fair in their attempts to either destroy health care reform (of any kind) and/or gain political leverage against a popular President, I am feeling the need to don a bullet-proof vest.
Mr. Becerra: Go to Washington! We Need a Hero in Health Care Reform
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I met you at a town hall meeting and was so impressed with how conscientiously you listened to every person in attendance and how sensitively you represent our district. I know you will not fail us now on this most important issue of health care reform.
The Public Option’s Last Stand, and the Public’s
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Without a public, Medicare-like option, health care reform is a bandaid for a system in critical condition. There’s no way to push private insurers to become more efficient and provide better value to Americans without being forced to compete with a public option.
Rep. Michele Bachmann Distorts Immigration To Block Health Care Bill
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Bachmann doesn’t point out that 9.5 million of uninsured noncitizens that she cites includes both legal and undocumented immigrants.
The Future of Universal Health Care, as of Now
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If you’re able and willing I’d urge you to descend on Washington the moment Congress returns from recess. There is nothing quite as persuasive to a member of Congress as real live constituent demanding real reform.
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