Stephan: This is the horrific truth about the American illness profit system. I just find it astounding that the reality described in this Gallup survey is not a major story in the media. How can it be that in the midst of a lethal pandemic nearly 45 million, that's right 45 MILLION, Americans if they contracted Covid-19 would not feel they could seek medical care because of money.
How can the United States claim to be a civilized country? I just find this disgusting, and I find politicians Democrat and Republican to be loathsome little wimps to allow this to be the American truth. No wonder the rest of the world has begun to pity us.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Cost would discourage millions from seeking care for suspected COVID-19
Misunderstanding of primary symptoms likely playing a role
About 15 million have been denied care for themselves or a spouse
WASHINGTON, D.C. — One out of every seven (14%) U.S. adults report that they would avoid seeking healthcare for a fever and a dry cough for themselves or a member of their household due to concerns about their ability to pay for it. When framed explicitly as believing to have been infected by the novel coronavirus, 9% still report that they would avoid seeking care. Adults under 30, non-whites, those with a high school education or less and those in households with incomes under $40,000 per year are the groups most likely […]
Stephan: As I have said before when you stress a system its flaws and weaknesses are revealed and this Covid-19 pandemic is doing just that. As this report makes abundantly clear the American government and the laws have been deliberately skewed to grotesquely favor the rich. Trickle down neoliberalism has restructured America from the Age of Roosevelt, which produced the middle class, into.... this.
Local residents line up outside the Bed Stuy Campaign Against Hunger food pantry during the COVID-19 pandemic on April 23, 2020, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Credit: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty
The coronavirus — both the pandemic itself and the economic recession it caused — are hitting marginalized groups the hardest: low-wage workers, women and people of color (especially women of color) and small businesses. But instead of providing equitable relief targeted to the most disadvantaged households and businesses, Congress and the Federal Reserve are reinforcing many of the existing disparities that made our health care system and economy so fragile to begin with. Indeed, richer companies edged out smaller ones for pandemic aid, and wealthier individuals have already received their stimulus payment via direct deposit, while lower-income households still wait to receive their check in the mail.
Delivery systems for getting aid to individuals are either laggard or nonexistent in the U.S. The best we have is Social Security and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). There are 65 million individuals each receiving monthly Social Security payments. But that system is targeted only […]
Stephan: The data affirms the truth of this essay.
The corporate news media has defined the coronavirus pandemic as merely a public health crisis. It is that, of course — but it has exposed a political crisis, too, that is making the effects of the pandemic far worse than they would be if this were merely a public health issue.
We can’t cure what ails us until we figure out the disease that afflicts us. And so far, when it comes to COVID-19, the empirical science has been a moving target wrapped up in qualifications and hedges.
Jonathan Allen, Phil McCausland and Cyrus Farivar, - NBC News
Stephan: When you only have profit as your social priority, everything is a grift. QED.
WASHINGTON — In early March, Mike Bowen, the executive vice president of the medical mask manufacturer Prestige Ameritech, found the perfect way to drum up some federal business: He went on Steve Bannon’s podcast, which is highly popular at the White House.
“If the government wants to throw some money at it, we can hire more people and build more machines,” Bowen said during an appearance on the “War Room” podcast co-hosted by Bannon, who was the chief executive officer of Donald Trump’s presidential 2016 campaign. “We’re kind of out there on our own, and we are doing everything that we can possibly do on our own.”
A month later, at the explicit request of the White House, Prestige Ameritech had a $9.5 million contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It then won another deal with the state of Texas and was given 50 National Guard members, deployed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, to work shifts at its suburban Fort Worth manufacturing facility.
Bannon told NBC News that his team connected Bowen to Peter Navarro, a top economic […]
Stephan: At least a dozen of you have written to recommend to me Michael Moore's Planet of the Humans documentary. So two days ago I watched it. I have been a supporter of Moore's work for years, have featured it on SR. But this film is appalling. It is essentially a propaganda product against the Green Movement.
Like all such efforts it is superficially plausible but, in fact, profoundly factually inaccurate beneath the bumper sticker level. Today, a mathematician friend for whose intellect I have great respect, not knowing my reaction, wrote me with his, and it matched mine.
Michael Moore is a very smart person, and he did not do this casually. I have no idea what his motive is, but his product is abominable. It completely fails to recognize that we are in a transition out of the carbon/nuclear era, and like all transitions, it doesn't happen all at once. This is not acknowledged.
I'll give one example of what I mean about this "documentary." At one point the video segues into a sequence showing a lump of coal and a solar panel. We are told this polluting coal is used to make the panel, so solar is an illusion to make us feel good. So what's wrong with that? It's factually true, but only at a superficial level, and the deeper levels are never mentioned.
First, the coal is a one time pollution hit. The solar panel has a life span of 20 years and there is no further use for that coal, on a one-to-one basis.
Second, we are in a transition. Transitions are always messy with false starts because they are explorations into the unknown. Dozens of people tried to fly before two bicycle mechanics from Ohio built a tiny little plane took it to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and flew it to 852 feet and were airborne for 59 seconds. The world changed but it was only the beginning. The solar panels of 2040 will bear little resemblance to those of 2020, just as flight in 1918 did not technically resemble the Spitfire aircraft of World War II that became operational in 1938.
Third, children realize that we must change the way we obtain and use energy so that it does not degrade the biosphere. That's why there are so many young people are in the environmental movement. They realize there is no option about this. Why doesn't Michael Moore realize that?
PALM SPRINGS, CA – Giant wind turbines are powered by strong winds in front of solar panels in Palm Springs, California. According to reports, California continues to lead the nation in green technology and has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per capita, even with a growing economy and population. Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty
A new Michael Moore-produced documentary that takes aim at the supposed hypocrisy of the green movement is “dangerous, misleading and destructive” and should be removed from public viewing, according to an assortment of climate scientists and environmental campaigners.
The film, Planet of the Humans, was released on the eve of Earth Day last week by its producer, Michael Moore, the baseball cap-wearing documentarian known for Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine. Describing itself as a “full-frontal assault on our sacred cows”, the film argues that electric cars and solar energy are unreliable and rely upon fossil fuels to function. It also attacks figures including Al Gore for bolstering corporations that push flawed technologies over real solutions to the climate crisis.
