Health Care

A Judge Ruled A Louisiana Prison’s Health Care System Failed Inmates

July 28, 2024 Richard A. Webster, ProPublica. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Health Care, History, Legal System, Louisiana, Prison Industrial Complex

Several months ago, in a lawsuit that was in its ninth year, a federal judge blasted the medical care at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Many inmates hoped it would be a watershed moment. In her opinion, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick excoriated the state for its “callous and wanton disregard” for the health of those in its custody. “Rather than receiving medical ‘care,’ the inmates are instead subjected to cruel and unusual punishment,” Dick said in her November opinion. The “human cost,” she said, is “unspeakable.” She then ordered the appointment of three independent monitors to devise and implement a plan to reform the system.

Open Letter From US Physicians And Nurses After Visit To Gaza

July 25, 2024 Open Letter, Popular Resistance. Resist! Ceasefire, Doctors, Gaza, Health Care, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nurses

We are forty-five American physicians, surgeons, and nurses who have volunteered in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. We worked with various nongovernmental organizations and the World Health Organization in hospitals throughout the Strip. In addition to our medical and surgical expertise, many of us have a public health background, as well as experience working in humanitarian and conflict zones, including Ukraine during the brutal Russian invasion. Some of us are veterans of the United States Armed Forces. We are a multifaith and multiethnic group. None of us support the horrors committed on October 7 by Palestinian armed groups and individuals in Israel.

New York City Teacher Retirees Save Their Medicare

July 23, 2024 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. Resist! Health Care, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, New York City (NYC), Retirees, Unions, Victory

The dissident Retiree Advocate caucus in the giant New York City teachers union won a decisive victory over the incumbents in the retiree chapter election June 14, winning 63 percent of the 27,000 votes cast. Turnout jumped compared to previous elections. In addition to running the 70,000-member Retired Teachers Chapter, they will send 300 delegates to the union’s delegate assembly. The leadership of the union got the message and abruptly dropped its support for Medicare Advantage, after three years of vigorously campaigning to impose a for-profit plan on 250,000 city retirees to save money for city officials.

A Coastal Revolution In Hospital Food

July 14, 2024 Tim Lydon, The Tyee. Create! Food and Agriculture, Health Care, Hospitals, Indigenous foods

As executive chef and director of traditional foods at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, Amy Foote brightens patient menus with healthy Indigenous foods, including moose, salmon, fiddleheads and more. “Traditional foods connect patients to their land and culture, which can help with healing,” says Foote amid the clattering pans and hissing pipes of the hospital’s large kitchen. Incorporating traditional foods is no small task for a hospital serving over 5,000 meals daily to patients and their visiting families. But the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, which runs the hospital, is investing in the cause. As part of that, says Foote, its food service recently went “self-op,” meaning it no longer contracts out.

Medicare Dis-Advantage: Overpayments And Inequity

July 2, 2024 Adam Gaffney, David U. Himmelstein, and Steffie Woolhandler, Portside. Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Privatization

Medicare Advantage—the privatized Medicare plans run by insurance firms but funded by the federal government—rips off taxpayers. On this there is little controversy. In March, MedPAC, Congress’s nonpartisan advisory board on Medicare policy, estimated that this year alone taxpayers will overpay Medicare Advantage plans by $83 billion—the savings to Medicare if all of those plans’ enrollees were instead covered by the traditional, fully public Medicare program. A 2022 New York Times exposé, “’The Cash Monster Was Insatiable’: How Insurers Exploited Medicare for Billions,” lays out the gory mechanisms—like fraudulent schemes (known as “upcoding”) to make patients look sicker on paper, which ups payouts from the government.

Popular Health Mobile Clinic Brings Health To Communities In Zambia

July 1, 2024 Peoples Health Dispatch, People's Dispatch. Create! Cholera, Health Care, Mobile Health Clinic, Zambia

The World Health Organization defines cholera as a “disease of poverty”. It thrives in conditions of poor hygiene and sanitation services, overcrowding, malnourishment, and weak public health services. A third of the Zambian population has access to basic sanitation services, while a quarter have access to basic hygiene services. With at least 60% of the Zambian population living in poverty in 2022 (up 5.6% since 2015), cholera is endemic, and from October 2023 to March this year, it killed over 700 people. Cholera, more accurately, is therefore a disease of inequality. Born from this deadly cholera crisis and its roots in social inequality, the Popular Health Mobile Clinic has assisted more than 3,000 patients since its inception in January this year.

SCOTUS Overturns ‘Chevron’ Deference, Massive Transfer Of Power To Courts

June 30, 2024 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. Educate! Chevron, Chevron Deference, Corporatism, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Health Care, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Worker Rights and Jobs

The Supreme Court ruled along ideological lines on Friday to overturn a 40-year-old doctrine known as Chevron deference in a seismic decision that could see a major erosion of federal administrative rule in issues of public health, labor rights, environmental protection, food safety, and more. The Court ruled 6 to 3 in a pair of decisions that hands a massive amount of control over federal regulatory powers to the courts, overturning the doctrine that allowed federal agencies to have interpretive authority when there was any ambiguity in a law. Chevron deference allowed experts at federal agencies — as people better situated to make decisions on issues within their regulatory purview — to interpret statutes rather than judges.

Striking Nurses: ‘Patients Over Profits’

June 30, 2024 Lyn Neeley, Workers' World. Resist! Health Care, Nurses, Oregon, Portland, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

Portland, Oregon - Over 3,000 nurses from six Providence Corporation hospitals across Oregon completed a three-day strike on June 20, carrying signs saying, “Patients over profits.” Since December, the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) has been in negotiations with Providence for a contract that ensures safe staffing ratios, better hours, higher pay and improved health care benefits. The striking nurses shouted: “Heroes treated like zeros!” Providence, one of Oregon’s largest corporations, owns one-quarter of Oregon’s health care market. The yearly income of Providence CEOs has risen to $10 million.

The Air In Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is Even Worse Than Expected

June 22, 2024 Naveena Sadasivam, DeSmog. Educate! Cancer, Cancer Alley, EPA, Health Care, Human Rights, Louisiana, pollution

Since the 1980s, the 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that connects New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has been known as “Cancer Alley.” The name stems from the fact that the area’s residents have a 95 percent greater chance of developing cancer than the average American. A big reason for this is the concentration of industrial facilities along the corridor — particularly petrochemical manufacturing plants, many of which emit ethylene oxide, an extremely potent toxin that is considered a carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency and has been linked to breast and lung cancers.

Insurgent Slate Wins UFT Retiree Chapter Election

June 20, 2024 Crystal Lewis, Portside. Organize! Education, Health Care, Medicare, Retirees, Teachers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In a significant setback to the union’s leadership, former educators with the Retiree Advocate caucus of the United Federation of Teachers have ousted the incumbent Unity slate. In balloting for leadership of the union’s Retired Teachers chapter, the Retiree Advocate slate received 17,226 votes, or 63 percent of the total, while Unity, which is aligned with UFT President Michael Mulgrew, got 10,114 votes, according to unofficial results. Members of the Retiree Advocate had campaigned in opposition to the city’s efforts to switch retired city workers to a Medicare Advantage plan from their traditional Medicare. The plan is backed by the Municipal Labor Committee, of which Mulgrew is the executive vice-chair.

Healthcare Workers Protest AMA’s Silence On Genocide In Gaza

June 14, 2024 Candice Choo-Kang, People's Dispatch. Resist! American Medical Association (AMA), Doctors Against Genocide (DAG), Gaza, Genocide, Health Care, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, Palestine

On June 8, about 75 nurses, physicians, other health professionals, and students protested at the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates meeting in Chicago, demanding the AMA recognize the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. Protestors, some in white coats, chanted, “Every day the AMA stands still, another day that children are killed!” Delegates reportedly heard the chants while the meeting was underway. Dr. Gulrana Syed, a physician, told People’s Health Dispatch that the group is urging the “AMA [to] stand up for healthcare workers in Gaza, who are deliberately targeted [by violence]” and to protest “the [AMA’s] lack of care for mass casualties.”

Global People’s Health Movement Calls For A New International Economic, Political, And Social Order

June 9, 2024 Wim De Ceukelaire and Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch. Strategize! Capitalism, Ecosystems, Gender, Health Care, Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

Hundreds of health activists gathered in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in April to reinvigorate the struggle for health rights. This fifth global assembly since 2000 underscored the enduring vibrancy of the People’s Health Movement (PHM), a prime advocate for health as a human right for all. Established after the first People’s Health Assembly in 2000, PHM is a global network of activists, social movements, and organizations advocating for health as a fundamental human right, promoting comprehensive primary health care, and striving for equitable health systems. The fifth People’s Health Assembly featured plenary sessions, sub-plenaries, and interactive workshops focused on five key themes: resistance to war, occupation, and forced migration; traditional ancestral and popular knowledge; gender justice in health; transformation of health systems; and ecosystem health.

Wins At The Ballot Box For Abortion Rights Still Mean Court Battles

June 7, 2024 Bram Sable-Smith, Scheer Post. Strategize! Abortion Rights, Health Care, State Legislatures, Women's Rights

Before Ohio voters amended their constitution last year to protect abortion rights, the state’s attorney general, an anti-abortion Republican, said that doing so would upend at least 10 state laws limiting abortions. But those laws remain a hurdle and straightforward access to abortions has yet to resume, said Bethany Lewis, executive director of the Preterm abortion clinic in Cleveland. “Legally, what actually happened in practice was not much,” she said. Today, most of those laws limiting abortions — including a 24-hour waiting period and a 20-week abortion ban — continue to govern Ohio health providers, despite the constitutional amendment’s passage with nearly 57% of the vote. For abortion rights advocates, it’s going to take time and money to challenge the laws in the courts.

Doctors Against Genocide Is Bringing Medicine Back To The Side Of Humanity

May 30, 2024 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Strategize! Doctors, Doctors Against Genocide (DAG), Gaza, Genocide, Health Care, Health workers, Israel, Joe Biden, Palestine

At the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Peoples Dispatch spoke to two doctors with Doctors Against Genocide (DAG), which organizes those in the medical community in the US to form a powerful voice of opposition to the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Since its founding less than one year ago, DAG has engaged in a variety of organizing work, including marching in mass mobilizations, disrupting powerful healthcare officials, and testifying before the United Nations. The goals of DAG have always been all-encompassing, with a hope that as “our resources and numbers grow we hope to combat genocides and injustices all around the world.”

Over 400 Physicians From Delaware’s Christiana Care Move To Unionize

May 29, 2024 Jennifer Henderson, MedPage Today. Organize! Delaware, Doctors, Health Care, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

More than 400 physicians from Delaware's Christiana Hospital, Wilmington Hospital, and Middletown Free-standing Emergency Department -- all part of the ChristianaCare health system -- filed to unionize with Doctors Council SEIU Local 10MD. "If successful, this will be the first physician union in Delaware and the first union of any kind at ChristianaCare," Doctors Council SEIU said in an announcement of the filing, which pointed to the ongoing corporatization of medicine as driving the physicians' efforts. Some of the specific concerns that physicians detailed in regard to their filing included understaffing and inadequate resources, corporate influence on medical decision making, limited input in matters affecting patient care and physician safety and autonomy, and moral injury caused by pressure to place profit over patients.

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