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Dandelion Salad
April 7, 2023
with Chris Hedges and Margaret Flowers
TheRealNews on Apr 7, 2023
Dr. Margaret Flowers joins The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the toll that COVID denialism will have on our society, and the generally outrageous state of US healthcare.
The national emergency and public health emergency declarations related to the COVID-19 pandemic will terminate on May 11, 2023. These emergency declarations, in place since 2020, waived or modified requirements in a range of areas, including in the Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP programs, as well as in private health insurance.
The end of these special measures will see between 5 and 14 million Americans lose their Medicaid coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. More than 30 million Americans already don’t have health insurance and millions more are underinsured.
Even with insurance, medical costs are so high that medical bills cause of bankruptcy for half a million people each year in the United States, the number one cause of bankruptcy. The average American spends more than $12,500 per year on personal health care, some $4 trillion annually. A citizen in France spends $5,468, on Canada $5,905, and on Germany $7,382 for universal care to it citizens.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that, despite the high cost of U.S. health care, on nearly every critical ranking, from life expectancy at birth and deaths from avoidable conditions, the U.S. is consistently at the bottom.
68,000 Americans die every year because they are uninsured or under-insured. This is because the U.S. health care system does not serve the public. It serves the medical, insurance and drug companies whose lobbyists gut regulations and block health care reform.
In 2020, the CEOs of 178 major health care companies collectively made $3.2 billion in total compensation – up 31% from 2019 – all in the midst of the pandemic. According to Axios, in 2020, the CEO of Cigna, David Cordani, took home $79 million; the CEO of Centene, Michael Neidorff, made $59 million; and the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, Dave Wichmann, received $42 million in total compensation.
The CEO of Moderna got a $926 million golden parachute after his company received $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars from the Trump Administration to develop its COVID vaccine. These huge profits were being made when over 330,000 Americans died during the pandemic because they could not afford to go to a doctor on time.
Joining me to discuss the debacle that is the U.S. health care system is Dr. Margaret Flowers an adviser to the board of Physicians for a National Health Program and one of the nation’s most prominent advocates for single payer health insurance.
See also:
From the archives:
Bipartisan Slander of China: Lab Leak Theory Dead, U.S. War Drive Alive and Well, by Scott Scheffer
Ralph Nader: What Medicare for All Saves You!
U.S. Versus China Covid Deaths – A Symptom of Diseased Capitalism, by Finian Cunningham
Corporate Greed Keeps The Pandemic Alive, by Pete Dolack
Chris Hedges: It Exposes the Distortion of the Entire For-Profit Health Care System in the US
Wendell Potter: Medical Insurance Companies Can Decide Who Lives and Dies, Parts 1-7
Dandelion Salad 