Monday, February 17th, 2020
Thomas Conway, International President United Steelworkers - truthout
Stephan: Day after day these are the trends of America's social order. All of them negative. Is there any aspect of social wellbeing that Trumplicans are not degrading in the service of their corporate masters? And yet there is this. The very people most affected by the depredations of Trump and his Trumplicans will still vote for him.
Chris Withers, who fears losing his pension, is pictured at the Stiles and Hart Brick Co. in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, on September 11, 2019. Stiles and Hart is one of scores of small businesses in the United States struggling to prop up about 120 multi-employer plans classified as critical and declining. That means their liabilities dwarf their assets, and they’re projected to go broke within 20 years.
Credit: John Tlumack/The Boston Globe/Getty
Glen Heck spent 28 years sweating in a Campti, Louisiana, paper mill that he likes to say was “hotter than nine kinds of hell.”
But now, Heck’s sacrifice may have been for nothing because his multiemployer pension plan is one of about 150 nationwide set to go broke. If that happens, the 78-year-old Heck will have to find a cheaper, lower-quality health plan and keep the beef herd he’s itching to sell.
The Democratic-controlled House passed—with bipartisan support—a commonsense plan to save Heck’s pension and those of another 1.3 million workers, retirees and widows. But Republican leaders in the Senate refuse to consider it.
In the […]
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Sunday, February 16th, 2020
IGOR DERYSH, Staff Writer - Salon
Stephan: When you hear someone tell you single-payer universal healthcare is too expensive, you can be certain you are hearing someone who is either willfully ignorant, or is obligated in some way to the illness profit system. How can I be so positive about this? Because we rank 37th in the quality of our healthcare, and yet pay orders of magnitude more than any other developed nation on earth. As to cost: it is projected that converting to single-payer universal healthcare will save more than $600 BILLION per year over the present system.
Think about what could be done to foster wellbeing with a sum that vast? Climate change is gathering momentum; America needs to prepare for what is coming, and the only way do that without disaster is to convert to a publicly financed universal healthcare system financed in some way such that profit is not a factor. We may share a border with Canada but, as this report describes, when it comes to healthcare we live in different worlds. Canada ranks, 9th in the world for quality of healthcare.
American VS Canadian Hospitals
Credit: Salon/Getty
The cost of administering health care in the United States costs four times as much as it does in Canada, which has had a single-payer system for nearly 60 years, according to a new study.
The average American pays a whopping $2,497 per year in administrative costs — which fund insurer overhead and salaries of administrative workers as well as executive pay packages and growing profits — compared to $551 per person per year in Canada, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine last month. The study estimated that cutting administrative costs to Canadian levels could save more than $600 billion per year.
The data contradicts claims by opponents of single-payer health care systems, who have argued that private programs are more efficient than government-run health care. The debate over the feasibility of a single-payer health care has dominated the Democratic presidential race, where candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., advocate for a system similar to Canada’s while moderates like former […]
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Sunday, February 16th, 2020
Stephan: In my view, the Democrats have a serious problem, and if they don't resolve it Trump could get re-elected. There is a great schism between the corporatists who believe profit should be the first priority, and the social progressives, who have made wellbeing their first priority. In the interest of full disclosure, I am most definitely on the side of fostering wellbeing, and Bernie Sanders is my candidate. With either Warren or Klobuchar as Vice President.
The whole capitalist vs. socialist argument is wrongly conceived and a crock, little more than a political trick to stir emotion. And the corporate media's deliberate smear of Bernie Sanders is despicable but predictable. The appropriate question is: Does a social policy foster wellbeing? If it does it will inevitably be more efficient, more effective, easier to implement, more productive, nicer to live under, and much, much, cheaper. Sanders is proposing programs that foster wellbeing and are affordable, as the previous story comparing Canadian and American healthcare costs and social outcomes demonstrate.
Bernie Sanders
Credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr
The results from the New Hampshire primary are in—mercifully quickly—showing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders victorious with 26% of the vote, ahead of former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg with 24%. However, it was third place Amy Klobuchar, with 20%, who seemed to draw the greatest media buzz. The Minnesota senator has received a lot of press attention of late—almost all of it positive.
Why Losing Is Actually Winning
CNN’s election panel (2/12/20) heaped praise upon her; former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe described her performance as “spectacular,” while Democratic strategist David Axelrod claimed she “has a great personal touch.” Vox’s Matthew Yglesias (2/11/20) called her “the thinking moderate Democrat’s electability candidate.” The Week (2/10/20) said she had “clearly touched a chord” with the electorate, and NPR (2/12/20) claimed her third place was a victory that “shocked the establishment.”
The Christian Science Monitor (2/11/20) suggested her rise was a win for Midwestern values and pragmatism, portraying her as the “kinder,” “forgiving” and “empathetic” candidate. […]
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Sunday, February 16th, 2020
Amy Littlefield, Investigative Reporter - truthout
Stephan: It isn't bad enough that in America we have a healthcare system based on profit. Oh no. It also has to be skewed to favor religious corporations with a long history of sexual dysfunction, and a commitment to male dominance.
Many patients have no choice but to visit Catholic hospitals.
Credit: Blue Planet Studio/ Getty
Nearly two in five women of reproductive age may face restricted access to services like abortion, contraception and sterilization, because they happen to live in a county where Catholic hospitals make up a high share of the market, according to a sweeping new report in JAMA Network Open.
In the first-ever study of its kind, researchers analyzed patient discharge data in almost every U.S. county to determine the market share of Catholic hospitals. They discovered that in 35 percent of U.S. counties, Catholic hospitals have a high or dominant market share, meaning they make up more than 20 percent of patient discharges. Combined, these counties serve an estimated 39 percent of U.S. women of reproductive age.
The findings have important implications for access to reproductive health care in these communities. Patients in Catholic hospitals have had their care dangerously delayed while suffering miscarriages, been pressured into burying their miscarried fetuses and had their gender-affirming surgeries canceled on religious grounds. But many […]
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Sunday, February 16th, 2020
Bryan Lufkin, - BBC Worklife (U.K.)
Stephan: Here is a very interesting example of the Theorem of Wellbeing filtered through the cultural prism of Japan. Look at the emphasis on values that produce policies fostering wellbeing.
Yusuke Tsuen, 38, is the proprietor of Kyoto’s Tsuen Tea, a tea house nearing 900 years old. He says picking up the family business was a no-brainer to him
Credit: Bryan Lufkin
Japan is changing: a rapidly ageing society, a record-breaking influx of visitors from overseas, and more robots than ever. That’s where the country’s young people come in. Gen J, a new series by BBC Worklife, keeps you up to speed on how the nation’s next generation is shaping the Japan of tomorrow.
Tsuen Tea sits on a street corner overlooking a large river and bridge in a sleepy outer suburb of Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital. In a city famous for extraordinary shrines, temples and gardens (and an inundation of tourists armed with selfie sticks), it’s a relatively unremarkable structure; a quiet place to enjoy some ice cream or green tea.
But there’s something special about Tsuen Tea: it’s been open since 1160 AD and claims to be the world’s oldest […]
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