Medicare for all

The COVID-19 Pandemic Exposes Deep Flaws In America’s Broken Healthcare System

April 28, 2020 Margaret Flowers, RT. Educate! COVID-19, Healthcare crisis, Medicare for all, Pandemic

When it comes to the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, the United States is off the charts compared to other countries. Although the USA comprises five percent of the global population, 32 percent of Covid-19 cases and 25 percent of deaths worldwide are there. By contrast, China, where the novel coronavirus originated, has one-tenth of the number of cases and deaths, despite having a population that is four times larger. A disaster scenario is playing out across the United States, particularly in New York City where scores of refrigerator trucks have been brought in to hold the dead, hundreds of people are dying in their homes without medical attention every day, mass graves are being used to store bodies while mortuaries are overwhelmed, and health professionals lack basic personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and dialysis machines.

Biden Dismisses Democratic Party Base’s Support For Medicare For All

April 23, 2020 Bill Bianchi and Laura Christenson-Garcia, Popular Resistance. Educate! 2020 Elections, Democrats, Medicare for all, presidential elections

We often hear criticism of Donald Trump for, among other faults, his overwhelming Olympian arrogance, which drives millions of Democrats to pray daily for an end to his presidency. But on the topic of Medicare for All, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, exhibits similar heights of arrogance. Recently, Biden told MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell, that even if the Congress sent him a Medicare for All bill, he would veto it. And a week later, he confirmed that position. Under our current private, for-profit, health system, the lack of treatment and care for the 75 million uninsured and underinsured puts them at extreme risk. Now with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, that risk will extend to tens of millions of the newly unemployed in our country.

National Health Care Day Of Action April 15

April 14, 2020 Chris Brooks, Labor Notes. Resist! COVID-19, Health Care, Medicare for all, Nurses

We are health care workers on the front lines of the pandemic. Please support our National Day of Action on Tax Day, April 15, to tell the world that #TheSystemIsBroken and demand that we reorganize the U.S. health care system to prioritize the interests of patients over those of billionaires and corporations. Our private, for-profit health care system has left us with a deep scarcity of resources and properly trained health care workers. We are not heroes and we did not enlist to die in our jobs due to government inaction and corporate greed. The pandemic has clearly exposed why critical infrastructure, including our country’s health care, cannot be left to the market. The mass graves being dug for tomorrow are made deeper by the political choices made today.

Nearly 5 Million Lost Health Coverage In The Past Three Weeks

April 10, 2020 Physicians for a National Health Program. Educate! COVID-19, Employment, Health Insurance, Medicare for all

4,805,894 American workers and their dependents have lost health insurance coverage in the past three weeks, according to a new estimate by researchers at The City of New York’s Hunter College and Harvard Medical School. The researchers also estimate that a total of 13.475 million will join the ranks of the uninsured by June 30, raising the number of uninsured Americans to about 43 million. The new figures include coverage losses among newly-unemployed workers as well as their dependents covered under job-based family policies. The figures update previous estimates that the same researchers published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine on April 7, 2020. Those previous estimates only included workers themselves who were laid off during the last two weeks of March, and did not include dependents losing family coverage because of layoffs, or the most recent week of data.

On The Front Line Of COVID-19: Doctor Calls For System Change

March 31, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Capitalism, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Medicare for all, New York City (NYC)

New York is the area hardest hit by the coronavirus currently in the United States with over 60,000 cases and over 1,000 deaths, ranking it as the sixth highest number of cases in the world. The area in and around New York City has the most cases. Governor Cuomo is scrambling for hospital beds and equipment. The Army Corps of Engineers has been called in to convert convention centers and other large spaces into temporary hospitals. A naval hospital ship is heading up from southern Virginia to provide support. The city is bringing in refrigerated trucks to store dead bodies and China is sending planeloads of medical supplies. We speak with Dr. Mike Pappas, who is working on the front line of this crisis about COVID-19, how health professionals are handling it, how it is exposing the flaws in our healthcare and economic systems and what systems would protect people.

Vets Say We Need A Strong VA To Combat Coronavirus And Win Medicare For All

March 28, 2020 By Candice Bernd, Truthout.org Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, Medicare for all, Veterans

The Department of Veterans Affairs serves as a backup health care system in a national health emergency. Not many know about the Department of Veterans Affairs’s (VA) so-called “fourth mission.” In 1982, Congress expanded the VA’s role beyond providing care, benefits and burial services to the nearly 9 million veterans it currently serves. Its additional role is to provide a backup health care system in a national emergency — for example, taking on non-veteran patients in the event of a global pandemic. The agency’s Veterans Health Administration is the country’s largest government-run, integrated health system, with more than 300,000 staffers and 1,200 medical facilities across its sprawling administration. The agency stands ready to deploy 16,500 acute-care beds, including 1,000 isolation units and at least 3,000 ventilators.

The US Is Not Prepared For Coronavirus; We Need To Take Action

March 1, 2020 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance Newsletter Coronavirus, COVID-19, Healthcare, Medicare for all, Single payer health care

The coronavirus (COVID-19) is in its very early stages in the United States so it is too early to predict its full impacts. The World Health Organization reports that COVID-19 has stricken more than 86,000 people around the world, killing nearly 3,000 and has spread to at least 60 countries. The global march of COVID-19 looks unstoppable. Universal access to healthcare through National Improved Medicare for All (NIMA) would make a tremendous difference in both controlling the spread of the virus as well as making sure people receive the treatment they need.

Democrats Team Up With Trump To Maintain Disastrous Healthcare System

February 15, 2020 Mike Pappas, Left Voice. Educate! Democrats, Healthcare, Medicare for all, Trump

On Tuesday, February 4, Donald Trump delivered his third State of the Union (SOTU) address. As expected, it was filled with contradictions, falsehoods, and distortions. Among other things, Trump spoke for close to ten minutes about health care in the U.S., claiming that he “will always protect Medicare.” However, neither Trump and the Republicans, nor the Democrats can be trusted when it comes to health care. Just last week, for example, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump suggested he would think about cutting Medicare and Social Security to reduce the federal deficit. The Trump administration also recently announced it would take steps to overhaul Medicaid through a program ironically named “Healthy Adult Opportunity,” allowing states to choose to cut federal government funding they receive at a lump sum or block grant instead of paying a fixed percentage of costs.

Review Of 22 Studies All Agree Medicare For All Less Expensive Than Insurance-System

January 18, 2020 By Laura Kurtzman, Ucsf.edu Educate! Health Care, Medicare for all

A single-payer healthcare system would save money over time, likely even during the first year of operation, according to nearly two dozen analyses of national and statewide single payer proposals made over the past 30 years. The study, published Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020, in PLOS Medicine, comes as California Gov. Gavin Newsom has created a state commission to find ways to achieve universal coverage, possibly through a single-payer system, and as the Democratic presidential candidates are debating “Medicare for All” proposals on the national stage.

What Medicare For All Really Looks Like

January 13, 2020 By Caitlin Kelly, Prospect.org Create! Health Care, Medicare for all, Reform

He spends long days navigating Toronto’s miserable traffic, finding whatever’s needed for his work as a freelance production designer for film and commercials. It’s demanding physical labor, with injury a daily possibility. Like so many these days, David Dennis, 28, is an independent worker. But he pays nothing for his health insurance. Simply being a tax-paying Canadian is enough. As an Ontario resident, Dennis’ OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) card entitles him to see a physician, visit an urgent-care clinic or any hospital, and receive whatever services...

Can Now Really Be The Best Time To Be Alive?

December 29, 2019 George Lakey and Yotam Marom, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Activism, Climate Change, Medicare for all, wealth inequality

Whenever I muster the courage to stop and think about it, I feel pretty unlucky to be alive at this time. I wake up with the sense that we might have a chance to overcome the many political, economic and social crises we’re facing. But climate change makes the stakes completely existential, and puts a time limit on what we can do about it. I live with a quiet dread, a constant sadness at the loss people around the world are already facing, a nagging fear of what’s to come and a sort of ashamed hopelessness about what we can do to stop it. I don’t think I’m alone in that. It seems that other folks in my peer group, people in our 30s, feel similarly. Younger generations — kids in high school now — are reportedly showing deeper signs of depression.

‘All I Want For Christmas Is A Chance To Live’

December 24, 2019 The Backbone Campaign, Popular Resistance. Create! Corporatism, Health Insurance, Healthcare, Medicare for all

CareFirst has denied cancer patient and Annapolis resident Phil Ateto access to life saving drugs. The Chicago-based medical insurance company is superseding the wishes of Phil’s oncology team. To expose that CareFirst’s choice to put profits first is condemning him to die. On Monday night December 23rd, Phil Ateto went to their Baltimore office to shine a spotlight on their greed and urge them to reverse their “death panel” decision. Phil is a renown artful activist with a group called Backbone Campaign that uses creative means such as light projection to support progressive causes around the country. Phil has tirelessly fought for economic and environmental justice, opposed racism and endless wars that squander lives and resources, and he’s long advocated for universal human rights.

Insurance Companies Are Spending Millions On Attack Ads Against Medicare For All

December 7, 2019 By Alan Macleod, Mintpressnews.com Educate! Health Care, Insurance, Medicare for all, Reform

The privatized, for-profit healthcare industry is close to panicking over the prospect of a nationalized system along the lines of other advanced countries. Healthcare corporations are spending millions of dollars on astroturfed attack ads against Medicare for All. The Partnership for America’s Healthcare Future, for example, a coalition of hospitals and insurance companies, has spent $1 million on a television campaign against changes to the current healthcare system they profit from.

Dying Too Young

December 5, 2019 David F. Ruccio, Anticap.wordpress.com Educate! Health Care, Medicare for all, Reform

If there ever was an argument in support of Medicare for All it’s this: despite spending more on health care than any other country, the United States has seen increasing mortality and falling life expectancy for people ages 25 to 64, who should be in the prime of their lives. A new report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association paints a bleak picture: overall life expectancy in the United States, which had increased for most of the past 60 years, has actually fallen for three consecutive years. But this is not just a recent trend. U.S. life expectancy began to lose pace with other countries in the 1980s, and...

Southern Workers Unite Around Medicare For All

November 24, 2019 Jonathan Michels, In These Times. Create! Black Working Class, Health Care, Medicare for all, Workers

Charlotte, N.C.—A line of cars rolls up to the government center of the largest city in a state tied with neighbor South Carolina for least unionized in the country. Members of the Southern Workers Assembly (SWA) emerge from the cars and join a picket line of Charlotte city workers. They hoist a banner declaring “The City Works Because We Do” and chant “What do we want? Medicare for All! When do we want it? Now!” SWA is a coalition of worker committees and labor unions, including National Nurses United (NNU), the International Longshoremen’s Association, and United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. Members from across the South converged September 21 to kick off a campaign for the immediate passage of Medicare for All, known in the House as H.R. 1384.

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