(2019-12-04). What the U.K. Election Tells Us About Universal Health Care. commondreams.org Trump-style politics, and particularly American-style privatized healthcare, are the bogeymen of the U.K. election. (Photo: The Progressive) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files… …
(2019-12-04). "Dark Waters": DuPont Chemical's Toxic Profits. peoplesworld.org 
All one needs to know about American corporate capitalism is brilliantly laid out in Mark Ruffalo's new movie Dark Waters. Big company, in this case DuPont, manufactures toxic nightmare. Results fatal. Cover-up just as scary. Story heart-wrenching, infuriating and all true. West Virginia farmer Wilbur Tennant's cows are dying. Over half of a once healthy …
(2019-12-04). Insurance Companies Are Spending Millions on Attack Ads Against Medicare for All. mintpressnews.com Healthcare corporations are spending millions of dollars on astroturfed attack ads against Medicare for All. The Partnership for America's Healthcare Future, for example, a coalition of hospitals and insurance companies, has spent $1 million on a television campaign against changes to the current healthcare system they profit from. | The commercial presents the Partnership as a grassroots organization of concerned citizens, rather than that corporate front group exposed by The Intercept that it is. It features a range of actors of different races, ages and occupations expressing their concern over Medicare for Al…
(2019-12-04). If factory farm conditions are unhealthy for animals, they're bad for people too. nationofchange.org Lack of governmental oversight of factory farms has created a public health crisis of antibiotic-resistance diseases in people.
(2019-12-04). Is Boris Johnson a Liar? Denies He Will Sell Off UK National Health Service to Trump. globalresearch.ca 'A plot against the whole country' declared Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as he brandished a wad of leaked documents last week which he said proves that the UK National Health Service would indeed be 'on the table' when it came …
(2019-12-04). Moral injury and America's endless conflicts. nationofchange.org Moral injury is not a recognized psychiatric diagnosis. Yet the concept began to take root among mental health specialists.
(2019-12-04). Malaria: Focus on pregnant women and children, stresses UN health agency report. news.un.org While more pregnant women and children are being protected against malaria than before, more fast-tracking and greater funding are needed to reinvigorate the global response, according to a new United Nations report launched on Wednesday.
(2019-12-04). 'Another Victory for #MedicareForAll!' Says Jayapal as Fourth House Hearing on Proposal Is Announced. commondreams.org The Washington Democrat called the development "proof of the historic momentum we have in our fight to ensure quality, affordable healthcare for everyone." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files… …
(2019-12-03). Dying too young. mronline.org 
If there ever was an argument in support of Medicare for All it's this: despite spending more on health care than any other country, the United States has seen increasing mortality and falling life expectancy for people ages 25 to 64, who should be in the prime of their lives. | Source
(2019-12-03). Tuesday's Daily Brief: climate crisis reports, renewal in Iraq, Zimbabwe's hunger crisis, Disabilities Day. news.un.org A recap of Tuesday's stories: New climate change reports on human health and global warming; Zimbabwe's 'worst hunger crisis in a decade'; protests and civil unrest show 'renewed sense of patriotism' in Iraq; UN 'determined to lead by example' on disability rights.
(2019-12-03). Bolivians in Poor Communities Suffer Lack of Healthcare. telesurenglish.net Many Bolivian families in remote communities and populous cities like El Alto today do not have access to physicians and health personnel, whose presence was reduced or eliminated after the coup d'état against Evo Morales. | RELATED: | Morales Accuses Bolivian Gov't of Blocking His Migratory Status | In most of these places, Cuban doctors offered their services by virtue of cooperation agreements signed during the Evo Morales admini…
(2019-12-03). What the U.K. Election Tells Us About Universal Health Care. progressive.org Across the political spectrum, the British are clear: American-style health care is a terrible idea.
(2019-12-03). Only one in five countries has a healthcare strategy to deal with climate change. news.un.org Protecting people's health from climate change dangers such as heat stress, storms and tsunamis has never been more important, yet most countries are doing too little about it, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
(2019-12-03). UN Warns Half of Zimbabwe's People Face Severe Hunger. telesurenglish.net About half of Zimbabwe's population faces severe hunger amid a devastating drought and economic collapse, the United Nations warned Tuesday. | RELATED: | Tens of Thousands of Algerians March To Cancel Election | The World Food Program said it that in total, 5.5 million people in the countryside and 2.2 million in urban areas need help, and acute malnutrition has risen from 2.5 percent last year to 3.6 percent. | Nearly US$300 million are urgently needed to provide 240,000 tons of hum…
(2019-12-02). Are numbers of species a true measure of ecosystem health? mronline.org 
A recent study that found no general decline in the numbers of species in individual ecosystems has sparked controversy. Some scientists see it as evidence of how species adapt, while others see it as a sign that common invasive species, such as rats and mosquitoes, are the real winners. | Source
(2019-12-02). Plants, the 'core basis for life on Earth', under increasing threat, warns UN food agency. news.un.org Plants, which make up 80 percent of the food we eat, and produce 98 percent of the oxygen we breathe, are "under constant and increasing threat from pests and diseases", the UN food agency, FAO, warned on Tuesday, at an event at the agency's headquarters in Rome, to designate 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health.
(2019-12-02). Political solution 'long overdue' to protect the children of eastern Ukraine. news.un.org Nearly half a million children in eastern Ukraine continue to face "grave risks" to their physical health and psychological well-being, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Monday.
(2019-11-21). Congress Just Temporarily Extended the Government's Spying Powers. aclu.org Congress today temporarily extended the NSA's spying powers that time and again have been used to violate our rights. Disturbingly, this three-month extension was snuck into a broader funding bill, forcing members of Congress to choose between extending this program and causing a government shutdown. The extension is an unnecessary lifeline to spying programs that are plagued with compliance violations, have no proven intelligence value, and violate our rights. | Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, one of the spying | powers extended, the government believes it has the right to collect our | personal inform…
(2019-11-17). Warren's Head Tax Is Not More Popular Than A Payroll Tax. peoplespolicyproject.org As we know by now, Elizabeth Warren's Medicare head tax proposal is a regressive mess ( I, II, III, IV). Warren's team knows this. The goal of the proposal i…
(2019-11-17). CAP's Topher Spiro Is Trying to Deceive Journalists By Lying. peoplespolicyproject.org 
It's been fun to see how the Center for American Progress (CAP) navigates this year's presidential election. For insider political reasons, they can't support Biden or Sanders. But for a long time, it was unclear who the alternative candidate they could support would be. | When Kamala Harris was rising, CAP's staff was doing overtime boosting her on Twitter and in the press, including boosting Harris's absurd health care proposal. But Harris's collapse put an end to that strategy. Recently Warren has risen as the alternative and so CAP has been working to promote her campaign, which puts CAP in the comical positi…
(2019-11-03). Warren's Medicare Head Tax Would Be About $9,500. peoplespolicyproject.org On Friday, I wrote a piece arguing that Elizabeth Warren's use of an employer head tax was not a good way to fund Medicare for All and that instead the more conventional choices of income and payroll taxes would be better. The reason they are better is because income and payroll taxes are based on how much income you receive while a head tax charges the same dollar amount for every worker regardless of their income, making it much more onerous on the lower and middle classes. | This point holds…
(2019-11-02). What Is a Middle Class Tax Hike? Am I Losing My Mind? peoplespolicyproject.org I have been swimming in the Medicare for All waters for over a decade now, going back to when I worked on the Ralph Nader presidential campaign that made Medicare for All its number one issue. And during this time, I developed a specific understanding of what we might call the M4A Financing Problem. | The Problem: | The M4A Financing Problem, in simple terms, is that even if you bring in existing federal spending on health care, existing state spending on health care, and a bunch of new rich-people taxes, you still fall short of financing the program. Thus to actually complete the financing, you have to u…
(2019-11-01). Warren's Perpetual Medicare Head Tax Is Unworkable and Bad. peoplespolicyproject.org 
Elizabeth Warren released her Medicare for All financing plan today. The main purpose of the proposal appears to be to find a plan that you can message as "not increasing middle class taxes," which is of course a nonsensical goal insofar, as Warren herself has said, what matters is middle class health care costs, not whether you categorize those costs as premiums, taxes, or out-of-pocket expenses. | Nonetheless, bowing to the stupid media discourse on this, Warren put forward a financing pro…
(2019-10-24). New Poll Finds Voters Strongly Oppose Employer Insurance. peoplespolicyproject.org Many centrist pundits have convinced themselves that Medicare for All (M4A) is unpopular because, when you include certain details about M4A in polling questions, support levels drop significantly. But in convincing themselves of this, centrist pundits seem remarkably incurious about whether this same thing occurs for employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) when you include certain details about it in polling questions. | Earlier this week, Emerson Polling helped answer this question when it aske…
(2019-06-19). House Casts Historic Vote to Repeal Authorization for Endless War. peaceaction.org Washington, D.C. — June 19, 2019 — In response to the House of Representatives passing H.R. 2740 (Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Legislative Branch, Defense, State, Foreign Operations, and Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2020), which includes language to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) eight months after …