Subjects Archives: Health

  In June of 2004, I went to Haiti with two other members of the Haiti Action Committee.  We were there to investigate the effects of the political earthquake in which the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been overthrown by a coup orchestrated by the United States, France and Canada. What we […]

Dec. 22, 2009 A national organization of 17,000 physicians who favor a single-payer health care system called on the U.S. Senate today to defeat the health care legislation presently before it and to immediately consider the adoption of an expanded and improved Medicare-for-All program. While noting that the Senate bill includes some “salutary provisions” like […]

  Cf.  “In Mao’s era the health of the population was one of the country’s proudest boasts.  But the market-oriented reforms of the 1980s and 1990s gradually shattered the country’s social safety nets, including its once famous healthcare system, making it difficult for many rural and urban residents to afford treatment.  In reaction to this, […]

  A rocky, remote region of southern Iran may not seem the most likely place to look for a health care delivery model that would work in the U.S.  But the remarkable success of Iran’s health house concept — in which small primary care centers are located in each community — is providing hope and […]

The news from the Danish capital gives a picture of chaos. After planning a conference with about 40 thousand people in attendance, the hosts find it impossible to honor their promise. Evo, the first of the two presidents of ALBA-member countries to arrive, stated some truths derived from the millennium-old culture of his people.

The battle for health care reform is heating up in Congress.  The House has already passed one bill, and the Senate is debating another version.  But as Dr. Andy Coates explains, both bills will fail in solving the health care crisis — and, in fact, place a greater financial burden than ever on working people.  […]

  Leo Panitch and Colin Leys have just brought out the 2010 annual volume of the Socialist Register, Morbid Symptoms: Health under Capitalism, published by Merlin Press in London, Monthly Review Press in the US, and Fernwood Books in Canada.   The book provides a path-breaking assessment of health under capitalism, providing a systematic account of […]

“The health insurance companies are going to make an extra 70 billion dollars as a result of Americans being forced to buy their health insurance.  What company wouldn’t love this bill?” — Michael Moore, Toronto, 17 November 2009 Video via MichaelMoore.com. | | Print

  Kill so-called health care reform legislation UNLESS: 1) the public option is available to ALL; 2) the status quo ante is restored for private insurance coverage of reproductive decisions, including abortion; 3) public option coverage for individuals honors the complete reproductive rights of individuals; 4) the provision for government intervention into low income families […]

Significant events have taken place in our country lately.

  Twenty years ago, 60,000 workers from New York City to Maine rallied against healthcare cost-shifting at the telecom giant then known as NYNEX (since “rebranded” as Verizon). NYNEX was a very profitable, multinational company seeking to capitalize on a demoralizing decade of lost strikes, contract givebacks and widespread unionbusting.  At a time when many […]

Whereas: The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, attacks on Pakistan, military aid to Colombia, Israel and many of the countries that use US aid for repression of indigenous and popular movements, are making the people of the US and the world less safe. And Whereas: These wars and military aid are bankrupting the people of the […]

In June, the People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project visited Venezuela in order to assess the state of its healthcare system.  The People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project models itself on the Cuban community-based approach to healthcare, and has established a project along those lines in a small neighborhood in Washington, DC.  The visit was […]

“Around Jerusalem the average ambulance journey time for a Palestinian is now almost 2 hours, compared to 10 minutes in 2001. In the West Bank alone there are more than 600 internal military checkpoints and road blocks. At these checkpoints, Palestinians in need of immediate medical attention are routinely refused passage, denied medical help, forced to give birth, injured and even shot dead. This film is dedicated to them.”

If Obama was awarded the Nobel for winning the elections in a racist society despite his being African American, Evo deserves it for winning them in his country despite his being a native, and his having delivered on his promises.

  In a brash move, the White House is again demonstrating the exclusion of those who advocate for real health reform.  At the end of August, in response to the heated Town Halls and the opposition to health reform, Physicians for a National Health Program and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care sent letters […]

  The momentous decision to reject any public option by the Senate Finance Committee today underscores how completely private insurance companies dominate Congressional activity.  The author of the bill for the committee, Liz Fowler, is herself a former VP of WellPoint, the nation’s largest private health insurer.  This highlights the importance of the single payer, […]

Lack of health insurance now more lethal. A new study estimates that nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance.  That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002. The new study, “Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults,” appears […]

I would not have wished to utter any harsh criticism against any of the companies that manufacture medical equipment, whose profits do not derive from the production of weapons to kill, but from the combat of diseases, suffering and death. That is why I have always treated all of them with respect, and I liked to exchange with them about their scientific advances.

The United States owns the most patents in the world. It has stolen scientists from every country, developed or developing, who are undertaking research in a myriad of spheres, from the production of weapons of mass destruction to medicines and medical equipment. For that reason, the economic and technological blockade is not something that merely serves as a pretext for blaming the empire for our own difficulties.