Inequality and Poverty America Style–In Richness and in Health by Graham Peebles

Image by Public Citizen via Flickr

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
December 7, 2012

Irrespective of ones circumstances or stage of life, illness is never welcome, in America if you’re poor it can prove to be a total catastrophe, ending often in personal bankruptcy. “According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60% of the personal bankruptcies in the United States“[i]. Health care insurance an unaffordable luxury, for the 15% or 50 million people now living in ‘official’ poverty in America, anxiously relying on good luck and a poor diet to keep sickness at a bay.

Preserve Benefits: Cut Gouging and Inequities + Time to Counter the Corporate Domination by Ralph Nader

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
Nov. 14, 2012

Image by Glyn Lowe Photoworks via Flickr

Congress is still talking about a “Grand Bargain” that “balances” far more spending cuts than tax increases. That is another way of saying that you – the consumer of Medicare and Medicaid services, the recipient of Social Security, and the average taxpayer will take the brunt of the spending cuts, while the wealthy get their income taxes restored, not raised, to their pre-Bush modest levels. Don’t buy it!

When you f*ck around with God’s country, you pay a price! by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
July 3, 2012

Image by Takver via Flickr

The Anti-Empire Report

Julian Assange

I’m sure most Americans are mighty proud of the fact that Julian Assange is so frightened of falling into the custody of the United States that he had to seek sanctuary in the embassy of Ecuador, a tiny and poor Third World country, without any way of knowing how it would turn out. He might be forced to be there for years.

The Real Health Care Debate by Chris Hedges (repost)

Reposting in case you missed it.

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
April 9, 2012

Image by Public Citizen via Flickr

The debate surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act illustrates the impoverishment of our political life. Here is a law that had its origin in the right-wing Heritage Foundation, was first put into practice in 2006 in Massachusetts by then-Gov. Mitt Romney and was solidified into federal law after corporate lobbyists wrote legislation with more than 2,000 pages. It is a law that forces American citizens to buy a deeply defective product from private insurance companies. It is a law that is the equivalent of the bank bailout bill—some $447 billion in subsidies for insurance interests alone—for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. It is a law that is unconstitutional.

The Real Health Care Debate by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
April 9, 2012

Image by Public Citizen via Flickr

The debate surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act illustrates the impoverishment of our political life. Here is a law that had its origin in the right-wing Heritage Foundation, was first put into practice in 2006 in Massachusetts by then-Gov. Mitt Romney and was solidified into federal law after corporate lobbyists wrote legislation with more than 2,000 pages. It is a law that forces American citizens to buy a deeply defective product from private insurance companies. It is a law that is the equivalent of the bank bailout bill—some $447 billion in subsidies for insurance interests alone—for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. It is a law that is unconstitutional.

Free Market Health Care: True Stories by Michael Parenti

by Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Michael Parenti Blog
www.michaelparenti.org
2 March 2012

Image by Public Citizen via Flickr

I recently wrote an article about my personal experiences in dealing with the medical system while undergoing surgery (“Free Market Medicine: A Personal Account“). In response, a number of readers sent me accounts of their own experiences trying to get well in America.

Health care in this country is hailed by conservative boosters as “the best medical system in the world.” It certainly is the most expensive, most profitable, and most complicated system in the world, leaving millions of Americans in shock.

Follow the Bills by Ralph Nader

Image by Public Citizen via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
February 1, 2012

Looking at millions of individual bills that makeup the 2.7 trillion dollars of annual health care costs opens a gigantic window on the massive waste, redundancy, profiteering, fraud and sometimes criminal over-billing.

Here is a partial example of what I mean, in the words of Philip M. Boffey, the estimable science writer for the New York Times:

Free-Market Medicine – A Personal Account by Michael Parenti

by Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Michael Parenti Blog
www.michaelparenti.org
January 27, 2012

Image by spike55151 via Flickr

When I recently went to Alta Bates hospital for surgery, I discovered that legal procedures take precedence over medical ones. I had to sign intimidating statements about financial counseling, indemnity, patient responsibilities, consent to treatment, use of electronic technologies, and the like.

One of these documents committed me to the following: “The hospital pathologist is hereby authorized to use his/her discretion in disposing of any member, organ, or other tissue removed from my person during the procedure.” Any member? Any organ?

The Forthcoming “Gray Tsunami” by Guadamour

by Guadamour
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
August 30, 2011

In spite of Mark Twain’s assertion, “There are liars, Damn Liars and then there are Statisticians,” sometimes numbers can tell and paint a very bleak and vivid picture. Current life expectancy for the average 65-year-old is twenty years; In 2008, 35 million Americans  were  over age 65; By  2030 85 million Americans will be over age 65, and The Fastest growing segment of the population is those over 85.  In his monumental, extremely important and timely book,  Alone and Invisible No More (Chelsea Green Publishing 2011), Allan S. Teel, MD, a Maine Family Practice physician with a sub-specialization in geriatrics, uses facts like the above to underly the importance of the message he conveys:  The Baby Boom generation currently reaching retirement age is a “Gray Tsunami” threatening to bankrupt and swamp an already overburdened medical system unless changes are made.

America In Decline By Noam Chomsky

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By Noam Chomsky
Information Clearing House
August 06, 2011

“It is a common theme” that the United States, which “only a few years ago was hailed to stride the world as a colossus with unparalleled power and unmatched appeal is in decline, ominously facing the prospect of its final decay,” Giacomo Chiozza writes in the current Political Science Quarterly.

The theme is indeed widely believed. And with some reason, though a number of qualifications are in order. To start with, the decline has proceeded since the high point of U.S. power after World War II, and the remarkable triumphalism of the post-Gulf War ’90s was mostly self-delusion.

A Response to David Brooks’ NT Times Column “Death and Budgets” by Michael Lyon

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by Michael Lyon
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
July 17, 2011

A Response to David Brooks’ NT Times Column “Death and Budgets”

It’s clear now that business and government want healthcare “reform” to control costs, not provide everyone with comprehensive, affordable healthcare.

Yet business and government are unwilling to do the real things that could control costs:  (1)  eliminate private insurance with its profit, administrative and marketing costs,

Bernie Sanders: Shared Sacrifice (Full Speech)

Dandelion Salad

Image by Lisa Norwood via Flickr

SenatorSanders on Jun 27, 2011

As the debate over deficits ramped up in Washington on Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders laid out the compelling case not to slash programs for working families. Any deficit reduction package must rely on new revenue for at least half the reduction in red ink, he added in a major address in the Senate.

Chris Hedges: We’ve Been Frightened By the State

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with Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
June 17, 2011

cfini72 on Jun 15, 2011

Chris Hedges most insightful and timeless essays on our current political climate, the middle east, and the decline and decay of the American empire.

God Bless America. And its Bombs. by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
3 June, 2011

Image by Resident on Earth via Flickr

God Bless America. And its Bombs.

When they bombed Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador and Nicaragua I said nothing because I wasn’t a communist.

When they bombed China, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, and the Congo I said nothing because I didn’t know about it.

In Order to Form a More Perfect Union by Philip A. Farruggio

by Philip A. Farruggio
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
May 4, 2011

photo by mattietk

Key # 1 – End the Empire – We need to close our (approximately 800) military installations in over 100 different countries, and bring the equipment and personnel home. We need to stop occupying  Iraq & Afghanistan, cease our aerial bombings of Pakistan & Libya, and end covert operations in that whole region… ASAP. {As far as the killing of Osama Bin Laden, he could have been ‘taken out ‘in 2001 at Tora Bora.