24 May 2019 — Countercurrents Team
The World Health Organization (WHO) has cited the universal healthcare system in Bolivia as a model for all.
Tag: healthcare
How to abolish a free health service, step one By David Cullen
22 October 2013 — Our NHS
The migrant NHS plans are just the first and politically easiest step to ending a ‘free at the point of use’ NHS.
Paying for private failure in England’s NHS – again By Caroline Molloy
8 August 2013 — Our NHS
The NHS is paying millions to a failed private Treatment Centre to escape a contract after a series of patient deaths – and the figures don’t quite add up.
Opposition Terrorists Target Hospital: Largest Cancer Treating Hospital in Syria Closed ‘Temporarily’ By Arabi Souri
2 June 2013 — SANA
Al-Biruni University Hospital near Harasta, Damascus countryside, was closed ‘temporarily’ last Wednesday 29 May 2013 due to the security situation near the location, the patients were discharged, 2 only were transferred to Public Muwassat Hospital for monitoring.
European Trade Unions and the Struggle for Public Services By Christoph Hermann
4 April 2013 — The Bullet • Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 797
The public sector is a key battleground for a progressive trade union strategy and for an alternative to neoliberalism in Europe. On the one hand the existence of a public sector is a continuing example that a not for profit driven production of goods and services is not only possible in the 21st century – it is also preferable. Continue reading
Does Hugo Chavez Keep Fooling Venezuelans? By Peter Hart
13 December 2012 — FAIR
The New York Times updates readers today (12/13/12) on the health status of left-wing Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and the political implications for his country. But the paper starts out by suggesting that the people who keep electing him must have some kind of problem.
Hungary: The gallows of capitalism By Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
16 February 2012 — Pravda.ru
It will come as no surprise to find out that the Hungarian Government has outlawed homelessness and that people who have lost their jobs and homes, with nowhere to go, now face criminal sanctions. Let us be honest, being born in Hell would be better than being born in Hungary. The actions taken today serve to explain many untold stories in the past.To call Hungary the gallows of capitalism is as right as calling it the gallows of human decency. Recently, the Hungarian Parliament legislated that homelessness is a criminal activity, meaning that those forced to live on the streets, through no fault of their own, can be thrown into a jail and be locked away. So inhumane is the nature of the new laws that the United Nations Organization has stepped in.
Robert Samuelson: We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Old
29 July 2011 — Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
When your column is headlined ‘It’s the Elderly, Stupid,’ I guess readers should know what to expect. Robert Samuelson delivers in today’s Washington Post (a column that will appear elsewhere around the country, unfortunately), in a nasty diatribe about the kind of debt debate he thinks the country should be having–one that blames older people:
Wiki wha? By William Bowles
9 June 2011
The monopolization and digitization of the media has standardized and concentrated the production process. This has resulted in virtually identical output regardless of its source. Not only the nature of the ‘news’ but also what is considered to be worthy of our attention comes at us in lockstep regardless of where we are or the medium, blanketing out any alternate views on the subject.
ICH 5 April, 2010: Time For Another War, Folks? – 59% of America Says YOU BETCHA!!!!
ICH 2 April, 2010: Workhouse Nation: The Plight of Mass Unemployment in America
MEDIA LENS ALERT: VICTORY FOR THE OVERLORDS – OBAMA’S HEALTHCARE REFORM
30 March, 2010 — MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
In November 2008, the historic importance of Barack Obama’s presidential victory was a relentless theme across the media spectrum. Even the pretence of a mainstream commitment to balanced reporting vanished from sight in deference to the self-evident Truth. The Guardian led the way, gushing almost exactly as it had over Blair in 1997:
They did it. They really did it. So often crudely caricatured by others, the American people yesterday stood in the eye of history and made an emphatic choice for change for themselves and the world… Today is for celebration, for happiness and for reflected human glory. Savour those words: President Barack Obama, America’s hope and, in no small way, ours too. (www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/06/barackobama-uselections2008)
The former Europe minister and arch-Blairite, Denis MacShane, sounded a rare, unwitting note of caution:
“I shut my eyes when I listen to this guy [Obama] and it could be Tony. He is doing the same thing that we did in 1997.” (Tom Baldwin, Blair team look in mirror of history, The Times, November 8, 2008)
Lily Tomlin as Ernestine on Single Payer Health Care
23 March, 2010 — California One Care
Speaking for Controlled Healthcare Insurance Corp., the incomparable Ernestine tells a patient, “Life itself is a pre-existing condition. Our prescription for it: Don’t get sick!” That’s the only way to stay ahead of the insurance companies who’s only concern is profits. As Ernestine says, “It takes big bucks to run an insurance company, medical care is the least of it.”
Submit an ad. Be a key part of this historic movement by creating and submitting your own personal message and creation. Click here for easy directions.
Healthcare Revolution That is Second to None By Netfa Freeman
22 September, 2009 — Black Agenda Report
The U.S. health care jungle fares badly when compared to health care systems in other wealthy, capitalist countries. However, even western Europe and Canada can learn a great deal from the examples of Cuba and Venezuela, where health care is a human and constitutional right and the wellbeing of the people is central to the national mission. Now, that’s real socialized medicine.
‘Instead of closing public hospitals, as is happening across the US, Cuba and Venezuela are building them.’
SNUFFING GRANDMA By Joe Bageant
The Entertainment Value of Snuffing Grandma — A nation of children roots for the Mafia
Every day I get letters asking me to weigh in on the health care fracas. As if a redneck writer armed with a keyboard, a pack of smokes and all the misinformation and vitriol available on the Internet could contribute anything to the crap storm already in progress. Besides that, my unreasoned but noisy take on this issue is often about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. None of which has ever stopped me from making a fool of myself in the past. So here goes.
There ain’t any healthcare debate going on, Bubba. What is going on are mob negotiations about insurance, and which mob gets the biggest chunk of the dough, be it our taxpayer dough or the geet that isn’t in ole Jim’s impoverished purse. The hoo-ha is about the insurance racket, not the delivery of health care to human beings. It’s simply another form of extorting the people regarding a fundamental need — health.
Media Lens: Burma And The Making Of Iraq’s Ghost Towns
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
May 28, 2008
The Rules Of The Game
The psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan once commented on “how suavely we simply ignore great bodies of experience, any clearly analysed instance of which might present us with a very real necessity for change.” (Quoted, Daniel Goleman, ‘Vital Lies, Simple Truths – The Psychology of Self-Deception’, Bloomsbury 1997, p.124)
The problem for professional journalists is that they are not free to change. Or at least, they are not free to change +and+ flourish in their chosen careers. Ex-CBS producer Richard Cohen explained the relationship between media and politics:
“Everyone plays by the rules of the game if they want to stay in the game.” (Quoted, Daniel Schechter, ‘The More You Watch, The Less You Know’, Seven Stories Press, 1997, p.39)
The New Dark Age 