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Health Care

It Will Take National Single Payer To Save Rural Hospitals

After 30 years of service to a rural Nebraska community, the Curtis Medical Center will close. Troy Bruntz, CEO of Community Hospital which owns the Center, announced that the cuts to Medicaid in the budget reconciliation act of 2025 were the immediate cause. Those federal budget cuts have “made it impossible for us to continue operating all of our services, many of which have faced significant financial challenges for years,” said Bruntz. The closing of the Curtis Medical Center is just the beginning of the projected damage. About 15 million are expected to lose health care coverage from the Medicaid cuts and other provisions in the budget reconciliation bill passed on July 4.

Universal Health Coverage At A Crossroads

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) continues to dominate the global health agenda. At this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA78), UHC was again hailed as the cornerstone of resilient health systems. However, while governments reaffirmed their commitments, millions of people continue to face catastrophic health costs, essential services remain out of reach, and primary healthcare systems are stretched beyond breaking. The world is not on track to achieve UHC – and it is not because of a lack of guidance. It’s because of the wrong strategy.

Underpaid, Overworked Medical Residents Want A Union

Amid rising labor militancy over the past few years, one group of workers has gone under the radar: medical residents. Also known as resident physicians or housestaff, medical residents are doctors who have finished medical school and are working in hospitals as apprentices on the path to getting independently licensed. They are the patient-facing backbone of hospital operations, working extremely long hours under stressful conditions for mediocre pay. Over the past few years, from California to New England, medical residents have been unionizing and striking by the thousands.

Healthcare Workers Stand Strong 11 Days Into Open-Ended Strike

Duluth, MN – On Friday, July 19, striking workers were on the picket line at Essentia Health, Duluth Clinic 2nd Street. Friday marked the 11th day of an open-ended strike by around 700 Registered Nurses and Advanced Practice Providers (APP) who formed a union in 2024. The workers are demanding that management sit down with them and negotiate their first union contract, more than a year after they won their union election and formed a union. In February of 2024 the RNs at Essentia Clinics voted to join the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) and soon after, in July 2024, the Advanced Practice Providers also joined MNA.

Health Insurers Push Huge Premium Hikes As Profits Soar

The six largest health insurers reported more than $1 trillion in revenue and more than $31 billion in net income last year — and are now pushing to raise Americans’ premiums by as much as 66 percent for some policies, according to recent state regulatory filings. The proposed increases come as insurers dole out billions to further enrich top brass and shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends. In all, Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces across the country are projected to see the largest rate hikes in more than five years, driving up out-of-pocket premiums for individual plan policyholders by more than 75 percent on average, according to data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Mexico Raises The Flag For Health Sovereignty

The first week of July could go down in history as a milestone in Mexico’s pursuit of health sovereignty. At a press conference held on Friday, July 4, President Claudia Sheinbaum, along with Health Secretary David Kershenobich and Alejandro Svarch, head of IMSS-Bienestar (a public agency providing healthcare services), announced an ambitious plan to boost domestic production of medicines and medical supplies, aiming to reduce the country’s reliance on imports. The urgent need for such a policy shift was outlined during the mañanera – the daily press briefing hosted by Sheinbaum and her administration – recordings of which are available online.

Trump Is Trying To Dismantle Public Health

From the streets to town halls and the courts, it’s a race now. The Trump administration is fighting to remain a step ahead of the growing popular backlash to its draconian cuts to social programs that millions of Americans depend on — at least until the administration operationalizes enough of the police state it’s practicing on immigrants to put down any such objection. Budget proposals and “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) cuts switching out the public commons for a police state make the regime’s objectives clear.

Medicare Advantage Is Such A Threat To Workers, They Wrote A Paper On It

This past April, labor advocates for single payer health care published a white paper called, “Medicare Advantage: What Labor Leaders Need to Know.”In it, the authors remind labor leaders—including those in New York City who spent the last four years trying to push 250,000 municipal retirees into Medicare Advantage—that Medicare Advantage is “neither Medicare (the public, universal program without intermediaries between patients and the healthcare they need), nor is it an Advantage, except to profit-driven insurance companies.”

Reclaiming Drug Discovery: Why We Need Public Pharma

Big pharma loves to present itself as the driving force of medical breakthroughs – an industry tirelessly pushing the boundaries of science to deliver life-saving treatments. Yet, behind the grand narratives of “innovation”, the truth is far more calculated. Rather than committing to the expensive, high-risk process of true scientific discovery, pharmaceutical giants like Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Roche, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), Merck, and AstraZeneca have refined a more strategic and profitable approach: let others take risks, then swoop in to take the rewards.

Union Healthcare Workers Strike Across Minnesota

Minneapolis, MN – On Tuesday, July 8 around 300 registered nurses working at clinics for Essentia Health In Northern Minnesota began an open-ended strike. The nurses are represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) and have filed unfair labor practice charges against their boss Essentia Health. Management is refusing to bargain in good faith with the unionized workers. Two days into the nurses’ strike, on July 10, around 430 MNA members, advanced practice providers (APP), also walked off the job in dozens of locations. These workers began an open-ended strike of their own against Essentia Health.

Trump’s Big, Beautiful Attack On Public Health

On July 4, President Trump signed his 1,000-page “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) into law. The bill permanently enacts several income tax cuts that were originally passed in 2017 while providing additional benefits to the wealthiest. It also includes significant funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while rolling back environmental protections. The bill is a massive attack on the working class and will harm the most marginalized, all while adding $3.3 trillion to the national debt. It makes severe cuts to the social safety net, especially healthcare programs like Medicaid and Medicare, as well as other programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps.

Austerity Linked To Over One Million Preventable Deaths In Eu

More than 1 million people in the European Union died from avoidable causes in 2022, according to new data from a Eurostats report. Of these, over 386,000 deaths were attributed to diseases treatable with quality healthcare, while at least 725,000 could have been prevented through effective public health interventions. The conditions cited include heart disease, COVID-19, and several cancers – such as colon, breast, and lung cancer – that experts have long said could be more effectively addressed with proper investment in screening and treatment. Despite these warnings, European authorities continue to slash funding for health and care services while committing record sums to military spending.

Health-Care Workers Mobilize Against Massive Medicaid Cuts

“Medicaid! “Saves Lives!” health-care workers chanted in call-and- response outside New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Washington Heights June 23. The overhead passageway between two buildings provided a bit of shade but no protection from the 93-degree heat. “Keep the hospitals open,” called out a woman with “Healthcare Hero” on the back of her shirt, despite the oppressive temps. The rally, a rotating cast of dozens of people in purple 1199SEIU T-shirts, maroon scrubs, and navy-blue mechanics’ gear, and environmental-services workers in sky-blue hair coverings, was one of 11 street actions the union organized in New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley to protest congressional plans to cut close to $1 trillion from Medicaid in next year’s federal budget.

Congress Is Pushing For A Medicaid Work Requirement

Congressional Republicans, looking for ways to offset their proposed tax cuts, are seeking to mandate that millions of Americans work in order to receive federally subsidized health insurance. The GOP tax and budget bill passed the House in May, and Senate Republicans are working feverishly to advance their draft of federal spending cuts in the coming days. Georgia, the only state with a Medicaid work mandate, started experimenting with the requirement on July 1, 2023. As the Medicaid program’s two-year anniversary approaches, Georgia has enrolled just a fraction of those eligible, a result health policy researchers largely attribute to bureaucratic hurdles in the state’s work verification system. As of May 2025, approximately 7,500 of the nearly 250,000 eligible Georgians were enrolled, even though state statistics show 64% of that group is working.

After National Day Of Action For Single Payer; Best Defense Is A Good Offense

Activists on May 31 made bold demands, refusing to believe the wealthiest country should have a separate healthcare system for the poor, or that we should wait until we are 65 to access a public healthcare system into which we pay all our working lives. On May 31, activists demanded an end to a system where health insurance CEOs, who worry more about “disappointing investors” than patients, control our health. On May 31, we demanded the end of a system where insurance companies get to make trillions of dollars in earnings and spend millions on federal lobbying to influence government officials who write the laws to benefit the owners and not the people who suffer under it.
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