(2019-11-27). Australian bushfire crisis spreads as PM denies climate change link. mronline.org 
Even before summer has begun, bushfires and toxic smoke have threatened the lives, health and homes of millions of people in nearly every Australian state and territory this week. The fire emergencies that first erupted two weeks ago in two states have spread across the country, worsened by dust storms, asthma alerts and electricity blackouts. | Source
(2019-11-26). Empowering people living with HIV 'will end the epidemic', says AIDS agency chief. news.un.org When people living with HIV actively participate in their own care, new infections decline and more affected people access treatment, according to a new report launched on Tuesday by UNAIDS, the United Nations agency leading the fight against the disease.
(2019-11-26). Medicare for All Will Take a Movement, Not a Politician. commondreams.org Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during an event to introduce Sen. Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All Act of 2017 on Capitol Hill on Sept. 13, 2017. (Photo: Yuri Gripas/Reuters) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files… …
(2019-11-26). Riding Out for Medicare for All with a Back Full of Arrows. progressive.org The barrage of false narratives being fired from influential Democrats, including Barack Obama, is obscuring Medicare for All's unique programmatic strength and broad political support in rhetorical smoke.
(2019-11-26). Physicians for Social Responsibility Releases Report on "Climate and Health Risks of Liquified Natural Gas". commondreams.org ______________________________…
(2019-11-26). Physicians for Social Responsibility Releases Report on "Climate and Health Risks of Liquified Natural Gas". commondreams.org ______________________________…
(2019-11-26). So-Called 'Army Built to Fight Medicare for All,' Says Healthcare Expert, Really 'Just Hired Guns Hired by Corporate Stooges'. commondreams.org From patients and doctors to politicians and their staffers, advocates of Medicare for All reiterated their commitment to radically transforming the U.S. healthcare system in response to a Politico report Monday about how top health industry lobbies "have joined forces to take down socialized medicine." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files… …
(2019-11-25). Beware of the Medicare Disadvantage Corporate Trap — Wake Up AARP. counterpunch.org While the Democratic presidential candidates are debating full Medicare for All, giant insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare are advertising to the elderly in an attempt to lure them from Traditional Medicare (TM) to the so-called Medicare Advantage (MA) — a corporate plan that UnitedHealthcare promotes to turn a profit at the expense of enrollees. Almost one More
(2019-11-25). Polio Vaccine Infecting More than Wild Virus in Africa: Report. telesurenglish.net The World Health Organization said in a report published last week, as of Nov. 20, that nine new polio cases linked to the vaccine were witnessed in several African countries including Nigeria, Congo, Central African Republic, and Angola. | RELATED: | Measles a 'Global Health Crisis' With a 300% Surge in 2019 | Apart from these four countries, seven others in Africa have also experienced similar outbreaks, and cases have also been detected in Asia. | In Afghanistan and Pakistan wher…
(2019-11-25). No Billionaires, No Fascists, No Warmongers To the Socialist Future. counterpunch.org There's probably no bigger sin in American politics than to imagine a world without war, inequality, and capitalism. Actually, imagining just a kinder, more equitable version of capitalism, one in which the existence of elite wealth is tempered by the peoples' right to health care, a college education, affordable housing, strong workplace unions, full reproductive More
(2019-11-25). Headlines for November 25, 2019. democracynow.org Navy Secretary Ousted amid Dispute over Accused War Criminal Eddie Gallagher, Released State Dept. Emails Implicate Pompeo in Giuliani Ukraine Plot, Bloomberg Jumps into 2020 Race by Buying Millions in Campaign Ads, Sen. Graham Blocked Armenian Genocide Resolution at White House Request, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Released from Hospital in Good Health, Hong Kong: Pro-Democracy Candidates Win Nearly 90% Seats in Local Elections, Security Forces Raid Offices of Egypt's Last Independent Media Outlet, Iraqi Security Forces Kill 13 Protesters amid Anti-Government Demonstrations, Israel Deporting Head of Human Rights Watch's…
(2019-11-24). UN agencies ramp up Somalia measles and polio campaign. news.un.org A campaign to vaccinate some 1.7 million children in Somalia was launched on Sunday by the country's government, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
(2019-11-24). Giuliani says his 'dead man's switch' not about Trump, but Biden's alleged corruption spanning a decade. rt.com 
President Donald Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has claimed he keeps compromising files on the Bidens in a safe, which would be made public if he vanishes. He brushed off reports that his 'insurance policy' relates to Trump. | Giuliani has dismissed the notion that he has "an insurance policy" in case he falls out with his most famous client. The report stems from Trump's personal lawyer's heated interview with Fox News' Ed Henry on Saturday. | Asked if he has spoken to Trump recently, Guiliani refused to answer, citing attorney-client privilege, but stressed that his relationship with Trump could not be bet…
(2019-11-22). In WWII-Era Fashion, the Saudi-led Coalition is Weaponizing Disease in Yemen. mintpressnews.com 
TAIZ, YEMEN — Beyond the devastation it has caused on the back of tens of thousands of airstrikes, a crippling blockade and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure, the Saudi-led coalition supported by the United States has sparked an outbreak of disease and epidemics in Yemen in a manner not seen since World War II. | Yemeni activist Aseel Sweid told MintPress News how a young boy, Abdulkarim al-Ma'amari, "died of dengue fever after it spread with alarming speed in Taiz, threatening many innocents." Sweid added that three of his own brothers had been infected with dengue. "There are a huge amo…
(2019-11-22). Beware of the Medicare Disadvantage Corporate Trap. dissidentvoice.org While the Democratic presidential candidates are debating full Medicare for All, giant insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare are advertising to the elderly in an attempt to lure them from Traditional Medicare (TM) to the so-called Medicare Advantage (MA) — a corporate plan that UnitedHealthcare promotes to turn a profit at the expense of enrollees. Almost one …
(2019-11-22). Ebola in DR Congo: New transmission chain risks reversing major gains. news.un.org Amid multiple deadly attacks on civilians by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), an Ebola death "unlinked to any chain of transmission" risks reversing major gains against the epidemic, which is now down to just a handful of cases, a top UN medic said on Friday.
(2019-11-21). Thursday's Daily Brief: Deadly Syria violence, risks of working at sea, poor health in jail, concern over ISIL suspect, and her child. news.un.org A recap of Thursday's stories in brief: Syria's violence continues to strike children; governments must do more for human rights in business; poor health in Europe's prisons; rights experts' concern over Irish ISIL bride and her child in Turkey; Fishing workers face huge risks at sea.
(2019-11-21). Four in five adolescents failing to exercise for even 60 minutes a day, UN health agency warns. news.un.org An alarming lack of exercise among adolescents across the world risks seriously compromising their health into adulthood, the UN said on Thursday.
(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…
(2019-11-20). Make Dental Care a Health Care Benefit. progressive.org Dental care is not a luxury—it is essential for overall health.
(2019-11-19). All out for relaunching of the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression. fightbacknews.org Fight Back! interviews Frank Chapman on the November 22-24 Chicago conference to refound the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression. | Fight Back!: Could you say a few words about what the conference to relaunch the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression will look like? | Frank Chapman: The most powerful incentive for the relaunching of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression is the national epidemic in police crimes and state violence being perpetrated against Black and brown people, LBGTQ and trans people. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than th…
(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…
(2019-10-16). The Urban Institute Report Did Not Score Medicare for All. peoplespolicyproject.org The Urban Institute and The Commonwealth Fund put out a report today that provided cost estimates for 8 different health care reforms. One of those eight reforms, which is called "Single Payer Enhanced," describes a comprehensive, no-cost-sharing, national health plan similar to Medicare for All (M4A). However, the Urban plan uses hospital reimbursement rates that are 15 percent higher than the rates in the M4A legislation, meaning that its cost estimates are much…
(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 …