By Patrick Martin for WSWS. Senator Bernie Sanders took his campaign to whitewash the right-wing character of the Democratic Party to a new level Wednesday, introducing single-payer, “Medicare for all” legislation, co-sponsored by 15 Democratic senators, on the same day that House and Senate Democratic leaders were to visit the White House for cozy talks with President Trump on corporate tax cuts. The bill was given full-scale media promotion, including an op-ed column by Sanders in the New York Times, lengthy articles in all the major daily newspapers, and reports on the network and cable television news programs. This for a bill which has not the slightest chance of passage by the Republican-controlled Congress, which will never even hold a committee hearing, let alone bring it to a vote. This makes co-sponsorship an opportunity to strike a left pose without actually incurring the wrath of the insurance companies and other giant corporations that control the provision of health care in the United States. Accordingly, a half dozen Democratic senators who are beginning to promote themselves as potential 2020 presidential contenders signed on as co-sponsors—up from zero co-sponsors the last time Sanders introduced such a bill.
By Lauren Steiner for the Robust Opposition. The Democratic Party has called for a “Resistance Summer” to protest against Donald Trump. They are planning to hold events all over the country. This DNC video promotes “Resistance Summer” and features Rep. Keith Ellison pushing people to participate. Ellison is also featured in the Lauren Steiner “Robust Opposition” video below, where he is shown threatening to arrest an activist calling for single payer (at 7:29). At “Resistance Summer” event in southern California, the resistance turned from Donald Trump to the Democratic Party. People attending the event called for single payer, improved Medicare for all. This is a hot issue in California because healthcare activists are mobilized around a single payer bill that passed the senate but has been stalled by Assembly leader Anthony Rendon. The bill, SB 562, the Healthy California Act seeks to put in place single payer at the state level.
By Charles Ornstein for Pro Publica – The government had planned to share data with researchers on patients enrolled in Medicare Advantage health plans. Then, suddenly, it didn’t. In the past few years, many seniors and disabled people have eschewed traditional Medicare coverage to enroll in privately run health plans paid for by Medicare, which often come with lower out-of-pocket costs and some enhanced benefits. These so-called Medicare Advantage plans now enroll more than a third of the 58 million beneficiaries in the Medicare program, a share that grows by the month. But little is known about the care delivered to these people, from how many services they get to which doctors treat them to whether taxpayer money is being well-spent or misused. The government has collected data on patients’ diagnoses and the services they receive since 2012 and began using it last year to help calculate payments to private insurers, which run the Medicare Advantage plans. But it has never made that data public. Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have been validating the accuracy of the data and, in recent months, were preparing to release it to researchers. Medicare already shares data on the 38 million patients in the traditional Medicare program, which the government runs.
By Shannon Hefferan for WBEZ Chicago. The program is called Ujimaa Medics, or UMedics. Ujimaa means “collective work and responsibility” in Swahili. In 2013, the city’s inspector general released a report on how often paramedics took more than five minutes to get to a medical emergency. The results: longer response times were more common in some parts of the South Side. UMedics co-founder Martine Caverl said the city’s violence, along with health disparities and ambulance response times, can make people feel powerless. So she helped found the UMedics group, which led its first training in 2014. “We wanted to say to people … this is one thing we can do,” Caverl said. “You know, when we hear the gunshots we are going to make sure we are safe, but then we are likely to see what is going on because we have something we can offer.”
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. The United States is a failing empire: the domestic economy has fallen to a level equivalent to a developing nation for most of us while the stock markets, especially for weapons-makers, are at record levels. It has taken decades for the US to get here. Long-term mis-leadership created the environment where a “Make America Great Again” presidential candidate, whose fame came from being a reality-TV star and someone who put his name in giant gold letters on every business he ran, could con his way into office in large part because he is not a politician. Trump’s election woke a lot of people up and sparked new levels of activism. As we reach the one-hundredth day of this new administration, it’s a good time to reflect on the state of the union and of the movements for peace and justice.
By Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. Former President Obama seems to be cashing in or receiving a payoff for his policies as president. He will be receiving a $400,000 payment from a mid-size investment firm, Cantor FItzgerald to speak at a healthcare conference in September. Obama had the chance when his party controlled the House and Senate to actually solve the healthcare crisis by putting in place improved Medicare for all (and don’t fall for the BS that he could not have done it). Instead he put in place the failed Affordable Care Act whose centerpiece was to force people to buy inadequate health insurance. The ACA has failed to control the cost of premiums, co-pays and deductibles while providing shrinking health coverage. It was a gift to the insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry and investors who profit from healthcare. Cantor Fitzgerald is one of those healthcare profiteers that benefits greatly from the ACA.
By Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. The Republicans are taking another try at a healthcare law to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) after their stunning failure to even vote on the American Health Care Act (AHCA). Under the new bill, which has yet to be drafted, the current national requirements for what insurance must cover would be left up to the states to determine; and people with a serious illness could face a massive increase in premiums, putting insurance out of reach for many who need it most. The White House is pushing because a two-week spring recess begins at the end of the week, creating a sense of urgency for Republicans. Seek to rush the bill to the House Floor, without new committee review and without a Congressional Budget Office evaluation, by substituting the new bill for the failed ACHA. They need to rush this through because the more this is examined; the more people will see this bill is another terrible deal.
By Staff for Popular Resistance. The only way to achieve President Trump’s goals of lowering costs, giving people choice and improving the quality of healthcare is to put in place a National Improved Medicare for All. The policies the Republicans and the administration have been describing will lower the quality of healthcare, decrease people’s health coverage and while they may lower premiums, they will not lower costs. Achieving that outcome requires elected officials to stand up to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries as well as investers in for-profit healthcare. To achieve that people need to join the Health Over Profit campaign and work together over the next several years to achieve a historic change or putting in place a real health system in the United States that covers everyone with high quality healthcare from birth to death.
By Dominic Rushe and Tom Pietrasik for the Guardian. Momentive’s workers are not alone in their grievances. In 2016 dollars, the average hourly wage of a high school educated worker was $18.29 in 1973, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Last year it was $17.25. Ignoring minor bumps and dips, it’s fair to say that a quarter of the US workforce (those with no more than high school education) have seen their wages barely keep up with inflation for more than 40 years – a period that enjoyed decades of spectacular economic growth, particularly for the top 1%. Chatting over a beer after a day on the lines, Benny Patrignani, Dominick’s brother, says he has hope that Trump will bring change. “Both parties are so busy hitting each other, they haven’t been interested in us,” he says. The choice, he said, was: “Do you want to die by drowning or die by fire?”
Newsletter Capitalism, Commons, Education, Education reform, Healthcare, Keystone XL, National Improved Medicare for All, No DAPL, Private Prisons, Privatization, Public-Private Partnerships, TISA, TTIP, TTP By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org
February 25th, 2017
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The essence of privatization today is to turn a public good into a profit center for Wall Street. US economic policy has created a wealth class that is grotesquely wealthy and under-taxed so that it has the money government needs to provide public services. This forces the government to borrow money from or sell a public service to the privateers or to create a public-private partnership (disguised corporate welfare and crony capitalism) in order to provide essential services. There is another way. We’ve reached a tipping point, as evidenced by the worldwide revolt through Occupy, the Arab Spring, the Indignados and other movements. We can reverse the trend toward privatization and inequality by claiming the commons for our mutual prosperity. If we believe in a more just, sustainable and democratic world, a world based on the common good, we will build the foundation for a world in which people work together to solve common problems and create an equitable economy that betters the lives for all.
Newsletter #NoDAPL, Betsy DeVos, Black Lives Matter, Charter Schools, Deportations, Donald Trump, Education, Healthcare, Immigration, Keystone XL, National Improved Medicare for All, Police Brutrality, Racism, Russia, TISA, Trade, War and Militarism By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org
February 11th, 2017
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. People are recognizing that they have power to protest in a lot of areas. Some see the potential for protest at work, such as the resistance and non-cooperation among federal workers. And, many are planning on building toward a general strike, something unheard of in US history. State officials are even talking about protesting by not paying federal taxes. Early in the Trump era, protest is working and the potential ahead is for an even larger resistance movement. The dysfunctional nature of government will add to protest movements, making the country ungovernable. We can defeat the oligarchy, as currently represented by Trump, but which began long before him, by remaining independent of the corporate parties and fighting for the changes we need.
Newsletter Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Healthcare, Immigration, Inequality, Iran, Lebanon, NAFTA, National Improved Medicare for All, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, War and Militarism, Yemen By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org
February 4th, 2017
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The awakening of mass protests against Donald Trump’s executive orders and appointments could become a real movement, but it must realize a critically important point: Trump is not the problem, the system is. Illusion of Democracy hides oligarchyTrump is a symptom of a long-term trend of a failing democracy that is too closely tied to Wall Street and the war machine. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are part of this failed system that does not represent the people of the United States. We are all working to build a mass movement for economic, racial and environmental justice that is bigger than Donald Trump. As the extremist actions of the Trump administration are put in place we need to remember that extremism for the wealthy, for war and ignoring of environmental catastrophe is consistent with the actions of all recent presidents and the leadership of both corporate parties.
By Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. On Thursday afternoon the protests grew filling the streets of downtown Philadelphia when Trump arrived at noon. People were protesting a host of extreme right wing issues that Trump and the GOP are pursuing including immigration, healthcare, women’s rights, the drug war and civil liberties, urged tolerance and love as an antidote to hate. Thousands of people filled city blocks around the Loews Hotel. People also protested his executive orders that seek to complete the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone Pipeline as well as Trump’s threats to the environment.
By Susan J. Douglas for In These Times – Donald Trump, at age 70, will be the oldest person to assume the presidency. He is part of a major demographic revolution—the aging of the baby boom—which received minimal attention during the campaign. But now Trump seems poised to declare war on his own generation, or at least the portion that doesn’t live in gilt towers in Manhattan. And judging from the comments section on the AARP website, his cohort is more than ready to fight back. In typical Trump fashion, the candidate who promised not to cut Medicare or Social Security now has a new pledge: to “modernize” Medicare, which in Trump-speak may mean “annihilate.”
Newsletter 2016 Elections, Corporate Media, Democracy, Donald Trump, Healthcare, Hillary Clinton, Human Rights, Immigrant Rights, Indigenous Rights, Medicare for all, oligarchy, People's Agenda, Propaganda, Public Banking, Russia, Vladimir Putin By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org
December 18th, 2016
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. As the day that the Electoral College casts its vote for President draws near, so does the frenzy of accusations that Russians hacked the election to benefit Donald Trump and are spreading ‘fake news’ full of Russian propaganda. It seems like everyone is jumping on the anti-Russia bandwagon, including past Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and most of the organizations affiliated with the Democratic Party. Many are calling for the Electors to switch their votes to Hillary Clinton. Russian spying image from the Intercept Russian spying image from the Intercept The absurdity of the 2016 Presidential election doesn’t seem to have an end. We urge readers not to get drawn into the manufactured distractions of the day. We have real work to do, no matter who is elected, to organize across multiple fronts of struggle.
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