Health Care

Punitive Enforcement Does Not Save Lives, Or Reduce Drug Supply

February 25, 2023 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Drug War, Drugs, Fentanyl, Health Care

When it comes to drugs—that is to say, when it comes to drugs whose use by some people in some contexts is officially deemed illicit—to suggest any other approach than criminalization is to be told you aren’t “taking the issue seriously.” That any response not involving jail, prison, loss of livelihood, family separation, is widely deemed, essentially, a non-response is indication of an impoverished state of conversation. But is that changing? Some pushback to the White House policy addressing fentanyl suggests that there is space for a new way to talk about drugs, and harm, and ways forward. Maritza Perez Medina is the director of the Office of Federal Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance.

The True Test Of A Civilisation Is The Absence Of Anxiety About Health

February 24, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute For Social Research. Educate! Germany, Health Care, Nicaragua, Sandinista Revolution

A few years ago, a minor medical problem took me to the Hospital Alemán-Nicaragüense in Nicaragua’s capital, Managua. While I was being treated, I asked the doctor, a kindly older man, if the hospital had been built in association with a German missionary organisation, given its name (in Spanish, alemán means ‘German’). No, he said: this hospital used to be called the Carlos Marx Hospital, and it was built in collaboration with the German Democratic Republic (DDR), or East Germany, in the 1980s. The DDR worked with Nicaragua’s Sandinista government to build the hospital in the working-class area of Xolotlán, where three hundred thousand people lived without access to health care.

Covid And The Way Of Death In US Prisons

February 24, 2023 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. Educate! COVID-19, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Health Care, Human Rights

The first comprehensive study of prisoner deaths during the Covid era shows that deaths in federal and state prisons rose nearly 50 percent during the first year of the pandemic, and in six states, they more than doubled. The New York Times reports that deaths in America’s prisons during 2020 showed more than twice the increase compared to deaths in the United States overall, and they even exceeded deaths in nursing homes, which were among the hardest hit sectors across the country. The Times found that it was not just the fact that Covid swept through already overcrowded prisons.

Hundreds Of Thousands Rally Across Spain Against Attack On Public Health

February 14, 2023 People's Dispatch. Resist! Health Care, Mass Action, Public Health, Spain

Spain - On Sunday, February 12, massive mobilizations took place in several cities across Spain, organized by health workers, trade unions, and left-wing groups. The protesters demanded an improvement in public health services, which are currently suffering from a lack of resources and understaffing. Protesters at a major mobilization in Madrid, attended by hundreds of thousands of people, condemned the apathy of the regional government led by the conservative People’s Party (PP) towards the needs of the public health sector. They also protested bids to privatize health care. The march in Madrid was organized by several organizations, including the Federation of Associations in Defense of Public Health (FADSP), and was backed by political groups including Communist Party of Spain (PCE), Podemos, the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE), and others.

Back The Nurses, Save The NHS

February 7, 2023 Taj Ali, Tribune Magazine. Resist! Health Care, NHS, Nurses, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

In 1990, Helen O’Connor came over from Ireland to train as a nurse at Whittington Hospital in North London. ‘In those days, you had decent pay, subsidised canteens, and subsidised accommodation,’ she explains. It was a great career. You could move up the grades, earn money to get a mortgage and buy a house. If you got to sister level, which I did, you could have a really good life. Today, things look different. Fourteen percent of nurses rely on foodbanks, a third have difficulty covering food and heating costs, and three in four NHS Trusts say more nurses are visiting mental health services because of stress, debt, and poverty. As a result of all of this, nurses are leaving the profession in droves. Where did it all go wrong — and how do we put it right?

The Life-Threatening Consequences Of Rural ‘Maternity-Care Deserts’

February 3, 2023 Sarah Melotte and ShelHarris, In These Times. Educate! Health Care, Maternal Mortality, North Carolina, Pregnant

North Carolina - As her husband drove through Western North Carolina’s winding mountain roads in December 2018, Katlyn Moss repeated instructions to him in case something went wrong. It was nighttime and snowing, and Moss was nine months pregnant. At the time, she was also an OB-GYN nurse. As her husband drove through the snowy terrain of North Carolina’s mountain region, Moss rehashed their plan for what to do if she went into labor during the 107-mile drive from her home in rural Clay County to Mission Hospital in Asheville. “I had a conversation with my husband, like, ‘If we deliver on the side of the road, this is what you’re responsible for, and this is what we’re going to do, and this is who you should call,’” Moss said. Recounting her experience last November on a mild morning in Hayesville, Moss said she knows several women from rural parts of the state who have similar delivery stories.

Silencing Another Jailed Whistleblower

February 2, 2023 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Health Care, Marty Gottesfeld, Whistleblowers

I’ve written extensively about whistleblower and “hacktivist” Marty Gottesfeld, who was given a draconian 10-year sentence for initiating a directed denial-of-service attack on the fundraising website of Boston Children’s Hospital to protest its treatment of a young girl who’d been forcibly taken from her parents at the insistence of doctors at the hospital. The doctors maintained that the girl, Justina Pelletier, was a victim of parental abuse. It turned out they were wrong. Instead, she suffered from a rare genetic disorder, which Children’s Hospital had misdiagnosed. But it was Gottesfeld who became the bad guy and the government’s target. The doctors who had snatched a little girl from her parents and then accused her parents of unspeakable crimes against their own child, remain free and working at the hospital.

Massive Rally Demands More Staff In Health And Non-Profit Sectors

February 2, 2023 People's Dispatch. Resist! Belgium, Brussels, Health Care, Worker Rights and Jobs

Brussels - On Tuesday, January 31, workers from non-profit sectors in Belgium demonstrated in capital Brussels to defend the futures of the care, culture, and welfare in the country. More than 20,000 people participated in the march, which was organized by trade unions such as the Union of Employees, Technicians, and Managers (SETCa), General Labor Federation of Belgium (FGTB/ABVV) affiliate General Union of Public Services (CGSP), and Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (CSC)’s affiliate CNE, along with organizations such as La santé en lutte and Medicine for the People (MPLP). The participants in the march demanded an increase in wages, better staffing, and refinancing of the health and non-profit sectors. Activists from the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB), Communist Party of Belgium (PCB), and others also participated in the protest and extended their support and solidarity to workers.

Ambulance Drivers Join Cost Of Living Strike Wave Sweeping Britain

February 2, 2023 Ross Domoney, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Health Care, National Strike, United Kingdom (UK), Worker Rights and Jobs

Spiking inflation is generating a global cost of living crisis, and Britain is no exception. As workers across industries hit the picket lines to denounce privatization and demand action from the Tory government to raise wages, ambulance workers are now joining the fray—with a major strike action planned later in February. TRNN speaks directly with ambulance drivers and emergency medical personnel who say their real wages are falling as Downing Street’s schemes to further privatize the National Health Service only continue. This video is part of a special Workers of the World series on the cost of living crisis in Europe.

What Nurses And Teachers Won By Withholding Their ‘Feminized Labor’

January 28, 2023 Amie Stager, Workday Magazine. Resist! Education, Health Care, Labor Movement, Protests, Women's Activism, Worker Rights and Jobs

At the intensive care unit at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, nurse Kelley Anaas has cared for a lot of people who have gotten sick with Covid-19 during the pandemic. “I took care of plenty of people who got sick at their work,” said Anaas, who has been a nurse for 14 years and is a steward with the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA). “I remember taking care of a woman five years older than me, who didn’t make it, who got her job working in a liquor store. Her family’s not gonna get a dime for the sacrifice she made and the choice she didn’t have. I saw the ramifications of that in a much more real way than, you know, lawmakers.” The surge of collective actions by workers in 2022 indicates momentum in the labor movement. Much of this resurgence has been led by workers on the front lines of the pandemic, who have been most at risk when it comes to health and safety.

Physicians Tell Biden HHS To End Medicare Privatization Pilot

January 27, 2023 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Resist! Health Care, Joe Biden, Medicare, Privatization

A national physician group this week called for the complete termination of a Medicare privatization scheme that the Biden White House inherited from the Trump administration and later rebranded—while keeping intact its most dangerous components. Now known as the Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (ACO REACH) Model, the experiment inserts a for-profit entity between traditional Medicare beneficiaries and healthcare providers. The federal government pays the ACO REACH middlemen to cover patients' care while allowing them to pocket a significant chunk of the fee as profit. The rebranded pilot program, which was launched without congressional approval and is set to run through at least 2026, officially began this month, and progressive healthcare advocates fear the experiment could be allowed to engulf traditional Medicare.

America’s Very Broken Healthcare System

January 25, 2023 Michael Sainato, The Real News Network. Educate! health, Health Care, Medical Debt, Privatization

The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world without universal healthcare. Instead, Americans are forced to rely on a mixture of profit and nonprofit private and public healthcare insurers and providers. The United States federal government provides healthcare coverage through Medicare to individuals ages 65 years and older, and to some individuals with disabilities, military veterans, and children through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Around 26 million Americans, about 8% of the population, including just under 2% of children, have no health insurance coverage at all. Low-income families are more likely to be uninsured, with the high cost of health insurance cited as the main factor as to why people remain uninsured in the US. The lack of coverage significantly worsens Americans’ access to health care and many face unaffordable out-of-pocket medical bills if they do seek care.

AARP And The AFL CIO Are Pushing Medicare Disadvantage

January 23, 2023 Corporate Crime Reporter. Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Medicare for all, Privatization

Medicare Disadvantage insurance plans induce seniors by offering advantages that traditional Medicare doesn’t offer – like vision and dental coverage. That’s the upside. The downside is that when you actually get seriously ill, the disadvantage is that when you get sick, you might not get the coverage you were promised. Now, about half of all seniors in the United States are in Medicare Disadvantage. The unions should be fighting against the move to privatize Medicare. Instead of fighting, they are joining with the insurance companies to corporatize Medicare. The big daddy of unions, the AFL-CIO, is itself now partnering with the giant insurance company Anthem to push Medicare Disadvantage plans on its retired union members. The first ad for the campaign read: “Introducing AFL-CIO Medicare Advantage group plans, provided by Anthem. Comprehensive coverage available exclusively to retired union members.”

Privatization Scam Threatens To Replace Traditional Medicare

January 13, 2023 John Geyman, Truthout. Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Privatization

In 2016, the Trump administration instituted a new little-known federal agency, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, which has been moving enrollees, often without their consent, to for-profit middlemen known as Direct Contracting Entities (DCEs). Rather than saving money and supposed greater efficiency, they add to the cost of coverage by taking their own cut of profits. As a redesign of the DCE model, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has allowed an expanded ACO REACH (Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health) program to start on January 1, 2023, with more than twice the number of DCEs. This is a corporate agenda being promoted and accelerated by CMS, with the ultimate goal to privatize and replace traditional Medicare altogether by 2030, without even a vote in Congress. Despite all those good words in its title — equity, access and community health — the 35-year track record of Medicare Advantage has failed on all of those counts.

As Nurses Strike, Hospital CEOs Pocket Millions

January 11, 2023 Matthew Cunningham-Cook, The Lever. Educate! Health Care, New York (NY), New York City (NYC), Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

As nurses from two New York hospitals fight for better treatment, the executives in charge have been boosting their own pay and slashing charity care. On Monday, 7,000 New York nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan went on strike over massive short staffing. While a Montefiore spokesperson said “the union leadership’s decision will spark fear” in the public, and a Mount Sinai representative called the strike “reckless,” the hospitals have understaffed while boosting executive pay and slashing charity care.

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