Charles Ornstein and Ryann Grochowski Jones, - Pro Publica
Stephan: Obamacare was a first step to universal healthcare but it is fatally flawed, and is so by design. As this report spells out we still do not have true healthcare in the United States because the purpose of the system remains profit not wellness. The best we can muster is a more efficient Illness Profit System. It is still grossly inferior to the true universal healthcare in the rest of the developed world, and it remains the most costly system in the world.
Few days went by last year when New Hampshire nephrologist Ana Stankovic didn’t receive a payment from a drug company.
All told, 29 different pharmaceutical companies paid her $594,363 in 2014, mostly for promotional speaking and consulting, but also for travel expenses and meals, according to data released Tuesday detailing payments by drug and device companies to U.S. doctors and teaching hospitals. (You can search for your doctor on ProPublica’s updated Dollars for Docs interactive database.)
Stankovic’s earnings were certainly high, ranking her about 250th among 606,000 doctors who received payments nationwide last year. What was more remarkable, though, was that she received payments on 242 different days — nearly every workday of last year.
Reached by telephone Tuesday, Stankovic declined to comment. On her LinkedIn page, Stankovic lists herself as vice chief of staff at Parkland Medical Center HCA Inc. in Derry, New Hampshire, and as medical director of peritoneal dialysis at DaVita Inc., also in Derry.
That doctors receive big money from the pharmaceutical industry is no surprise. The new data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services […]
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Paul Craig Roberts, Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy - Institute for Political Economy
Stephan: This essay is real geopolitical thinking about the Greek situation, devoid of the usual polemics and political posturing. It is an analysis of a long-term strategy. I agree with Roberts assessment and like him I think the American strategy is a mistake.
I think it is notable that from their comments it seems that not one of the Republican Presidential candidates understands what is going on under the headlines. Nor do they seem to understand America's role in this. Clinton is the establishment Democratic view. Bernie Sanders I think understands it, because he sees the data, and can see that it is a long-term mistake.
I doubt that there will be a Greek exit.
The Greek referendum, in which the Greek government’s position easily prevailed, tells the troika (EU Commission, European Central Bank, IMF, with of course Washington as the puppet master) that the Greek people support their government’s position that the years of austerity to which Greece has been subjected have seriously worsened the debt problem. The Greek government has been trying to turn the austerity approach into reforms that would lessen the debt burden via a rise in employment, GDP, and tax revenues.
The first response of most EU politicians to the Greek referendum outcome was to bluster about Greece exiting Europe. Washington is not prepared for this to happen and has told its vassals to give the Greeks a deal that they can accept that will keep them within the EU.
Washington has a higher interest than the interests of the US financial interests who purchased discounted sovereign debt with a view toward profiting from a deal that pays 100 cents on the dollar. Washington also has higher interest than the interests of the European One Percent intent on using Greece’s indebtedness to loot the country of its national assets. Washington’s higher interest is the […]
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Saturday, July 11th, 2015
Rakesh Kochhar, Associate Director of Research - Pew Research Center
Stephan: I do so appreciate data. Pew Research in this survey give us a real sense of wealth distribution, and the American place in that spectrum.
In addition to what the report emphasizes, what really struck me was the total spread of inequity. A Bengali peasant, and an American multi-billionaire, basically only have two things in common. Both are human and function with the basic human traits, and both live on the same planet. Otherwise they are in different worlds. The multi-billionaire makes more in a second, than the peasant makes in a lifetime.
Credit: Pew Research Center
By some key measures, the typical American household has slipped behind economically since the beginning of the 21st century.
In 2013, the median income of U.S. households was $51,939, down substantially from $55,562 in 2001 (figures in 2013 dollars). In addition to two recessions – in 2001 and from 2007 to 2009 – longer-run trends such as globalization, the decline of unions, technological change and the rising cost of benefits such as health care are factors that limit prospects for many Americans.
But how does the well-being of the American family compare with the well-being of people in other countries?
The U.S. still fares very well on that score. On a global scale, the vast majority of Americans are either upper-middle income or high income. And many Americans who are classified as “poor” by the U.S. government would be middle income globally, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.
![By a Global Standard, [...]
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Saturday, July 11th, 2015
Stephanie Pappas, - livescience
Stephan: Most of the gun debate, certainly the arguments advanced by the NRA and other gun groups are drivel. Emotionally compelling to some, but without factual basis. But that doesn't mean there isn't any data. This report tells the truth about the prevalence of guns and gun violence: There is absolutely no question where there are more guns there is more gun violence. But the data as you can see goes way past that.
Note also the lobbying effort of the NRA to simply stop federal research on gun data period, and their success in accomplishing this.
As a country we have moved passed the Second Amendment into the realm of psychosis. We have an epidemic killing tens of thousands of people each year, and we simply choose as a culture not to address it in any positive meaningful way. Gun violence is a defining characteristic of American society.
Credit: Burlingham/Shutterstock.com
A high-profile shooting, like the June 17 crime that left dead nine members of a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, is typically followed by calls for greater gun control, along with counter arguments that the best way to stop gun crimes is with more guns.
“The one thing that would have at least ameliorated the horrible situation in Charleston would have been that if somebody in that prayer meeting had a conceal carry or there had been either an off-duty policeman or an on-duty policeman, somebody with the legal authority to carry a firearm and could have stopped the shooter,” presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said in a Fox News interview on June 19.
A new study, however, throws cold water on the idea that a well-armed populace deters criminals or prevents murders. Instead, higher ownership of guns in a state is linked to more firearm robberies, more firearm assaults and more homicide in general. [5 Milestones in Gun Control History]
“We found no support for the hypothesis that owning more guns leads […]
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Saturday, July 11th, 2015
, - Reuters/The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Here is Pope Francis' latest. Note how much Bernie Sanders advances the same sentiments.
Pope Francis makes his speech in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where he called for the poor to have the “sacred rights” of labor, lodging and land.
Credit: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters
Pope Francis has urged the downtrodden to change the world economic order, denouncing a “new colonialism” by agencies that impose austerity programs and calling for the poor to have the “sacred rights” of labor, lodging and land.
In one of the longest, most passionate and sweeping speeches of his pontificate, the Argentine-born pope used his visit to Bolivia to ask forgiveness for the sins committed by the Roman Catholic church in its treatment of native Americans during what he called the “so-called conquest of America”.
The pontiff also demanded an immediate end to what he called the “genocide” of Christians taking place in the […]
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