Protest of the day

Thousands of California nurses, members of National Nurses United, went on strike for 24 hours last Thursday. Then, a quarter of them were locked out for a further four days by the hospital chain Sutter Health and the independent Children’s hospital in Oakland. One patient died on Saturday, when she was administered a “non-prescribed dosage [...]

The dreaded “A” word

In Britain, the United States has come to represent everything bad when it comes to healthcare and higher education. “American-style” is the specter haunting the coalition government’s plan to privatize the National Health System. Ask a Briton to describe “American-style” healthcare, and you’ll hear a catalog of horrors that include grossly expensive and unnecessary medical [...]

Cartoon of the day

Proletarianization and politics

  Historically, the proletarianization of different social groups—craft workers, peasants, small business people, and so on—has led to a move to the Left in their politics. The latest group to be forced to have the freedom to sell their labor power, and to undergo a change in their politics, are medical doctors. According to the [...]

United states of inequality: fact #11

The Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality has collected 20 facts about inequality in the United States that “everyone should know.” The eleventh one, illustrated above, refers to health insurance inequalities (measured in terms of the percentage of uninsured children by poverty status, age, and race and Hispanic origin): In 2007, 8.1 [...]

Unfinished business

I still have some pieces of unfinished business. . . Like the latest report [pdf] from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, which looks at changes in homelessness nationwide from 2008 to 2009. The findings—for example, that homelessness rose (in 31 states and the District of Columbia) after years of declining rates and numbers of [...]

United states of missing health insurance

Percent without Health Insurance Coverage Universe: Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population Data Set: 2009 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates Survey: American Community Survey, Puerto Rico Community Survey United States by State

Picking workers’ pockets

Unemployment ruins the health of people who have lost their jobs, or worry about losing their jobs. Now, it’s costing those who have not yet lost their jobs more to keep their health insurance. That’s because corporations are requiring workers to pay a larger percentage of their health plan coverage. According to a new study [...]

Capitalism kills

Capitalism kills. Literally. According to a new study published in the British Medical Journal (as reported in the Guardian), in 2007, for every 100 people under 65 dying in the best-off areas of England, Scotland, and Wales, 199 were dying in the poorest. Among under-75s, for every 100 people dying in the best-off areas, 188 [...]

Capitalist austerity costs lives

The new austerity measures being proposed are going to cost lives. The health care system itself may be protected but, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal, cuts elsewhere are going to be hazardous to our health. That’s because there’s more to health than health care. “These cuts will result in [...]