Affordable Care Act – Green Social Thought

How We, the People, Can Save the Planet

Mon, 04 Mar 2019 15:23:22 +0000

by Gary Null and Richard Gale

The recent release of the proposed Green New Deal is a template, an outline identifying some of the most crucial issues facing the nation regarding climate change and a wish list of measures to address those issues.

But there are plenty of legitimate criticisms too, and progressives would be wise not to let their desire to see pro-environmental legislation enacted at last blind them to the very real problems with Ocasio-Cortez and a legislative blueprint that could very easily become as much of a giveaway to multinational corporations as the Affordable Care Act was to insurance companies.

Pelosi’s deceptive plan to ‘protect’ people from tax increases: Blocking a Medicare Payroll Tax Rise Could Rule Out Medicare-for-All and Bolstering Social Security

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 15:34:21 +0000

by Dave Lindorff

Posted on November 17, 2018 by Dave Lindorff

Pelosi’s deceptive plan to ‘protect’ people from tax increases: Blocking a Medicare Payroll Tax Rise Could Rule Out Medicare-for-All and Bolstering Social Security

By Dave Lindorff

In the surreal alternative reality world of the US Congress, there are many bills passed each year that on the surface may sound like good ideas — they even give them high-sounding names like the US PATRIOT ACT or Better Care and Reconciliation Act, that in fact are the opposite of what they claim to be (the former actually being an unpatriotic undermining of the Bill of Rights and the latter actually being an unsuccessful attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act (itself a deceptively named bill that forced middle-income families to buy hugely expensive insurance plans or pay a tax penalty).

Medicine for the People: Single-Payer and Beyond

Wed, 17 Jan 2018 15:54:21 +0000

by MARK HARRIS

The movement for a single-payer health care system in the United States represents a vision of basic access to health care for everyone. As popularly expressed, the demand for “Improved Medicare for All” rightly embraces the idea that health care should be every human being’s right, not a privilege dependent on a person’s income, wealth, or age.

Who could object to such a simple concept of justice, right? Actually, for decades the answer in the United States is just about everyone with money, influence, and power. The historic opponents of health care human rights include the insurance industry, Wall Street, the national leadership of both Republican and Democratic parties, and even the American Medical Association (AMA). All have long stood as obstacles to establishing health care as a human right. In the 1960s, right-wing ideologue Ronald Reagan and others of his persuasion even opposed the establishment of Medicare, likening it to the second coming of Bolshevism.