Thursday, April 18th, 2019
, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: Here we see America's shame: the richest nation on earth does not offer its people healthcare, but an illness profit system whose purpose is not to produce wellbeing but profit.
Seniors’ Anxiety Over Healthcare Costs
77% of seniors, defined as those 65 and older, reported being concerned that rising healthcare costs will result in significant and lasting damage to the economy. This forward-looking pessimism is pervasive, with 92% of the older population expecting that healthcare costs will increase (73%) or stay about the same (19%).
But angst is not isolated to economic perspectives. The research also included qualitative interviews with healthcare experts and members of the Gallup Panel that illustrated the personal impact of healthcare costs. One of these interviews uncovered complexity as a serious obstacle in the current system. A healthcare expert at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation shared:
“[Last] Thanksgiving, I helped a person who said, ‘I’m going to drop my Medicare drug plan.’ Well, that’s a bad move because if he ever takes a lot of drugs, he’d pay a lifetime penalty. He decided to keep it. And I was like, ‘OK, let’s take a look then.’ I saved him an additional $750. Just by looking. There ought to be a way for people to get decent […]
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Thursday, April 18th, 2019
George Monbiot, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Here is an excellent assessment of Neoliberalism, a system created economists working for the rich for the benefit of the rich, to produce Neo-feudalism.
Thousands of people march through London to protest against underfunding and privatisation of the NHS.
Credit: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft
My life was saved last year by the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, through a skilful procedure to remove a cancer from my body. Now I will need another operation, to remove my jaw from the floor. I’ve just learned what was happening at the hospital while I was being treated. On the surface, it ran smoothly. Underneath, unknown to me, was fury and tumult. Many of the staff had objected to a decision by the National Health Service to privatise the hospital’s cancer scanning. They complained that the scanners the private company was offering were less sensitive than the hospital’s own machines. Privatisation, they said, would put patients at risk. In response, as the Guardian revealed last week, NHS England threatened to sue the hospital for libel if its staff continued to criticise the decision.
The dominant system of political […]
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Wednesday, April 17th, 2019
Paul Rosenberg, - Raw Story/Salon/Commentary
Stephan: As I have written several times before I consider fundamentalist christofascism to be the most dangerous fifth column in the United States. In substance they are little different than the Taliban. Here is a good presentation on what leads me to that conclusion.
Activists in Argentina wear the “Handmaid’s Tale” costume in August 2018 to protest the legalization of abortion.
On April 3, USA Today published an array of stories under the banner, “Copy, Paste, Legislate,” exploring the political impact of model bills on state-level legislation — more than 10,000 bills from 2010 to 2018 — based on a two-year joint investigation with the Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity. The lead story headline said it all: “You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead.“
OK, it wasn’t quite all. While corporate influence was the strongest, figures revealed that conservative groups weren’t far behind: There were 4,301 bills from industry and 4,012 from conservative groups, far more than the 1,602 from liberal groups or the 248 classified as “other.” The hidden origins of these bills often hides their true intent. The most notorious such group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, for instance combines business interests […]
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Wednesday, April 17th, 2019
Stephan: Climate change is already creating migrants within the U.S.. It is not drawing a lot of media attention... yet. Here is one of the stories I have begun to see.
Floodwaters in Hamburg, Iowa, March 20.
Credit: Scott Olson/Getty
Workers are permanently moving from flood-ravaged towns and cities in the U.S. Midwest, an exodus that could hurt already-struggling manufacturing and agriculture companies, according to a new report.
What’s happening: Flooding last month from heavy rains caused more than $3 billion in damage in Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Wisconsin and elsewhere, AP reports. Among companies sustaining damage were Big Ag’s Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill and Tyson.
- In a new report provided first to Axios, LinkedIn said members from flood zones are changing their place of residence in considerable numbers.
- Based on that, and what workers did in prior natural disasters — Miami for example had a 62.9% increase in net migration in the calendar year after Hurricane Irma in 2017 — LinkedIn forecasts a comparatively large migration to the Southwest in the coming months.
- “[W]e expect to see an increase in workers moving to: Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth, Seattle, and […]
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Wednesday, April 17th, 2019
Christopher Dawson, - CNN
Stephan: Another proof of the Theorem of Wellbeing.
It’s a sight more than 200 formerly homeless people are waking up to each morning at the
Community First! Village in Austin, Texas.
And they can take their time getting used to it; residents are invited to stay for the rest of their lives.
Community First! Village is built and run by the nonprofit
Mobile Loaves & Fishes to lift the most chronically homeless off the streets and into a place they can call home.
They live in about 100 RVs and 125 micro homes arranged on streets with names like “Peaceful Path” and “Goodness Way.”
Heavy machinery has broken ground on the neighboring 24 acres to add another 310 housing units. When complete, Mobile Loaves and Fishes believes it will be able to provide permanent homes for approximately 40% of the […]
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