It's as if we lived in North Korea! The U.S. government & news media won't discuss that total US spending per capita is double per capita spending in dozens of countries who receive better health care:
2007,
2003, 1998
Health Care Reform Reality Check
Handy reference.
SOURCE: The White House | TIMELESS?
Health Care Reform: An Online Guide
Handy reference.
SOURCE: Slate Mag. | TIMELESS?
OECD Health Data 2009
[Subscribe to get detailed data.]
SOURCE: OECD | TIMELESS?
International Health Care Primer
[PDF] Handy reference.
SOURCE: American Medical Student Association | TIMELESS?
Videos of National Health Care Systems In Other Countries
SOURCE: Public Broadcasting System & ABC News | TIMELESS?
How We Pay for Pharma’s Crooked Dealings
We pay for drug company malfeasance in the form of higher prices. And when it comes to health care reform, we pay for their creeped out dealings in the form of reduced medical care – especially Medicare – negotiated by our representatives in the interests of fiscal restraint.
by James Ridgeway | 11.20.09
The Health Care Elephants in the Living Room
In Germany, where everyone has health insurance, the per-capita annual cost of health care is $3588 per year—10.4% of their GDP. By contrast, Americans are spending 16% of GDP on health care, or $7290 per person per year.
by Alice Cherbonnier | 11.19.09
Universal Single-Payer Healthcare Coverage: An Economic Stimulus Plan
If Obamacare is enacted, it will cost more, deliver less, leave millions uninsured, millions more underinsured and leave a broken system in place. It will enrich the insurance, drug and large hospital chain cartels at the expense of universal coverage.
by Stephen Lendman | 11.18.09
Let Them Eat Zoloft
US citizens could save $3000 every year if they could outsource to get healthcare from another country.
As the Senate takes up health care reform, we’re sure to be treated to yet more scenes of our elected officials bending over backwards to kiss the gold-plated butts of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. So far, just about every new turn in the health care battle is confirming what many have known for some time: The U.S. health care system is run largely for the benefit of these corporate giants, rather than of the American people, and no piece of legislation is likely to change that fact.
by James Ridgeway | 11.17.09
Health Care Reform: DOA
Because an outrageous amendment was attached to the House health reform bill, it gives hope to the notion that the disastrous so-called health reform legislation in Congress will die. And so it should.
by Dave Lindorff | 11.13.09
Suspected Hemorrhagic Pneumonia Outbreak Hits Ukraine
The plague or virus in the Ukraine has 10 times the mortality rate (attributed to) normal swine flu. It may signal what's soon heading everywhere.
by Stephen Lendman | 11.11.09
Why Lieberman Blocks a Public Option
With a shrunken "public option" no longer a threat to private insurers, why is Joe Lieberman vowing a filibuster?
by Robert Parry | 11.10.09
Catholic Bishops’ Faustian Bargain: “Burn Health Care Reform” to Advance Anti-Choice Cause
American public policy on health care and reproductive rights is being shaped not by a majority of voters or even a majority of Catholic voters, but by a bunch of celibate men in robes, and a reactionary 82-year-old German in the Vatican.
by James Ridgeway | 11.10.09
Democrats Won a Health Care Battle—But Are Losing the War
Continuing to spend double per capita compared to industrialized nations is NOT okay!
Health care ought to have nothing to do with profits. It should be a basic human right in a civilized society. But that’s precisely the kind of statement the Democrats are unwilling to make—so they end up saying nothing at all.
by James Ridgeway | 11.09.09
House Prepares to Vote on Health Care Reform
"In sum, this $1.055 trillion plan over ten years will not fix the major problems of cost and affordable access to health care in our deteriorating system, will add new layers of bureaucracy and complexity to the present system, is not fiscally responsible, and is not sustainable."
by James Ridgeway | 11.07.09
Hip to Profits: The Sleazy Business of Medical Device Manufacturing
The latest issue of Mother Jones includes an article by Peter Stone on the shady dealings and inflated profits of the medical device industry.
by James Ridgeway | 11.03.09
The Incredible Shrinking Public Option
Congressional concessions to the insurance industry have shrunk the public option to almost nothing.
by Robert Parry | 11.03.09
Global Warming LinksSOURCE: Readers | TIMELESS
Local Newsbriefs
Baltimore City Events Calendar
SOURE: City of Baltimore | TIMELESS
CityBizList.com
Provides small and minority non-profits & businesses with a platform to educate and inform the community.
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Gazette.net
Owned by Post-Newsweek Media, serving Southern Maryland
SOURE: Gazette.Net | TIMELESS
News Blog: Baltimore Brew
by Fern Shen | TIMELESS
News Blog: Investigative Voice
by Regina Holmes & Stephen Janis | TIMELESS
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The Nobel Peace Prize and The Morality of Not Doing
Is there not an old Arabic saying that goes, ‘He who would tell the truth better have one foot in the stirrup’?
by Publius* | 11.19.09
Days of Whine and Rogues: Palin’s Persecution Complex
The supposedly tough, indefatigable Palin–the woman who shoots wolves from helicopters and is proud of her high school nickname “Sarah Barracuda”–has in fact drawn virtually all of her political capital from depicting herself as a victim.
by James Ridgeway | 11.18.09
The Ugly Truth about Jobs
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke hints at how U.S. companies are learning to avoid hiring American workers.
by Robert Parry | 11.17.09
The Struggle for Net Neutrality
Giant providers want to overturn Net Neutrality for monopolistic power to provide higher-profit premium services. They're spending hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying Congress and the FCC to defeat Net Neutrality and jeopardize the Internet's future.
by Stephen Lendman | 11.16.09
Shining Light on Roots of Terrorism
A taboo in talking about 9/11 is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's stated motive, Israel's abuse of Palestinians.
by Ray McGovern | 11.15.09
Fort Hood Tragedy Sparks Islamophobic Response
Leaving Iraq occupied, letting conditions there fester, and expanding the Afghan-Pakistan theaters promise enough growing resentment in the ranks to perhaps cause the type Vietnam breakdown where troops will kill one another in large numbers.
by Stephen Lendman | 11.13.09
Catholic Hierarchy Attacks the Capital’s Homeless
Not since Reagan, who in cutting social services, dumped the poor onto the streets in the early 1980s, telling faith based charities to take care of them, has the prime source of charity – the church – made such a threat.
by James Ridgeway | 11.12.09
Duty to Warn: The Fort Hood Murders/Suicide and the Taboo Question
Why would someone who used to be known as a seemingly rational person suddenly perpetrate a gruesome, irrational act of violence?
by Gary G. Kohls, MD | 11.11.09
Obama's War and Remembrance Day
How dare the Afghan people fight U.S. military occupation!
I suggest it is time for progressives to start searching for a serious, gutsy, plain-speaking candidate to challenge Obama for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2012.
by Dave Lindorff | 11.10.09
Blaming the 'Dithering' Obama
By not getting tougher with Washington, President Obama is earning a risky reputation for "dithering."
by Robert Parry | 11.09.09
Saturday Night Special: "Historic" Vote Kills Health Care Reform for Another Generation
Well, the lipsticked pig has been set loose now. It'll be skittering and squealing around the Senate floor next, under the whiphand of master swineherd (and corporate bagman extraordinaire) Harry Reid, who makes Nancy Pelosi look like Robert LaFollette.
by Chris Floyd | 11.09.09
High Noon in Baltimore at CareFirst Blue Cross-Blue Shield
We protested for a Medicare for all system with no pay for treatment. We learned that going to jail gets you exactly what we've been fighting for!
by Charles Loubert | 11.09.09
Thinking about Signs
We need to feel an “optimism” about what will transpire in the coming months through New Years. Will what we experience (or perceive) be a real sense of progress to that desired end?
by Fred Cederholm | 11.09.09
Government of, by and for American? Corporations
The coup is complete and citizens who know are upset.
In place of efficient health care for Americans, there will be more profits for private insurance companies. In place of peace there will be more war.
by Paul Craig Roberts | 11.08.09
In America, Selfishness and Lack of Solidarity Know No Bounds
As the strike by transit workers in Philadelphia enters its fifth day, it is clear why unions have such a tough time in the United States, where fewer than one in eight workers is covered by a union contract.
by Dave Lindorff | 11.08.09
The Crazy October Surprise Debunking
To protect the Reagan-Bush-I legacy, Republicans and Democrats created absurd October Surprise alibis.
by Robert Parry | 11.07.09
Dark Glass: Hateful Echoes and Hidden Costs
Hitler and Himmler "justified" their extermination programs as "pre-emptive defense" against an existential threat. In a similar manner, all of our Terror Warriors – not just the strident Islamophobes, but the entire bipartisan political establishment, including the "progressive" president – paint the "Long War" as a strictly defensive measure against dark forces...
by Chris Floyd | 11.06.09
2014 or Bust
The Pentagon's Building Boom in Afghanistan Indicates a Long War Ahead
Forget for a moment the "debates" in Washington over Afghan War policy and, if you just focus on the construction activity and the flow of money into Afghanistan, what you see is a war that, from the point of view of the Pentagon, isn't going to end any time soon.
by Nick Turse | 11.06.09
How Two Elections Changed America
Secret Republican operations around elections in 1968 and 1980 set the U.S. on today's troubled course.
by Robert Parry | 11.05.09
Stone Walls and Steel Bars: America's War on its Own Keeps Raging
The size and the harshness of the America's domestic gulag have very little to do with the actual level of dangerous crime; they are instead tied far more closely to the agenda of money and power than any reality.
by Chris Floyd | 11.05.09
2010 Looms: Democrats Crash and Burn in Virginia and New Jersey
The results were a blow to the Barack Obama/Rahm Emanuel strategy of playing to the right, of avoiding confrontation in Congress and of ignoring the progressive voters whose enthusiasm in 2008 put Obama in office.
by Dave Lindorff | 11.04.09
Heeding George Kennan's Sage Advice
Famed diplomat George Kennan's early warning about Vietnam applies as well to Afghanistan today.
by Ray McGovern | 11.03.09
Country Joe, Kenny Rogers and Obama
What are we fighting for in Afghanistan? Don't ask me. I don't give a damn. And neither do most Americans.
by Dave Lindorff | 11.03.09
Thinking about Accelerations
We are witnessing quantum changes in almost every aspect of our lives (or should be). Is this good, or bad? The logical answer to such a rhetorical question is “that depends.”
by Fred Cederholm | 11.02.09
FBI Kills Islamic Cleric, Arrests Followers, for Being Muslims at the Wrong Time in America
Muslims are portrayed as "terrorists, inciters of religious hatred or of even trying to change the constitution of the country" where they live. They're vilified and denied their civil rights. In custody, they're neglected, brutalized, tortured, and forgotten as non-persons.
by Stephen Lendman | 11.02.09
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Why the Blasé Attitude about Torture
...why the lack of moral leadership in our [real] religious institutions?
by Ray McGovern | 11.13.09
Systemic Success: Blood Money and Black Gold in Iraq
Like Bush, Galbraith is a paradigm of how the system really works -- and how it is meant to work. Public service, private enrichment, principled stands, backroom dealing -- it's all one thing to our great and good. And behind it all is a willingness (when it is not an eagerness) to have many thousands upon thousands of people die, and many millions more suffer torment, ruin and grief, to keep the system's beneficiaries in their wonted, wadded place of power and privilege.
by Chris Floyd | 11.12.09
Master and Pupil: Sowing Tyranny in Iraq, Spreading Slaughter in Afghanistan
Quoting The Economist: "The Shia-led government has overseen a ballooning of the country’s security apparatus. Human-rights violations are becoming more common. In private many Iraqis, especially educated ones, are asking if their country may go back to being a police state."
by Chris Floyd | 11.11.09
Talking Blues: Gitmo Gets Harsher Under "Progressive" Rule
Is the Pentagon subordinate to the White House?
Just as our great and good "progressives" sell poor women down the river for a meaningless vote, they have also empowered a dim-witted extremist – Senator Joe Lieberman – for meaningless partisan advantage.
by Chris Floyd | 11.10.09
Cheney and the Plame-Gate Cover-up
Vice President Dick Cheney denied punishing Iraq War critic Joe Wilson and his CIA wife, Valerie Plame.
by Robert Parry | 11.02.09
Media Disseminated Myths about Obamacare
Who is fooling who?
In attacking the "liberal media," the right-wing Business & Media Institute's report claimed that "Network news fails to examine high cost and proven failures of government-run health care" even though House and Senate bills are rigorously private and enrich institutional providers hugely at the public's expense.
by Stephen Lendman | 11.19.09
Paid Lying: What Passes for Major Media Journalism
On vital issues today's major media journalism lies about or suppresses uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support for state and/or corporate interests – to the detriment of the greater good that's always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims.
by Stephen Lendman | 11.09.09
Failing the Midterms
Press overplays election results
It was very clear which set of elections corporate media wanted to portray as sending an important message about national politics--that voters were discontented with the White House and wanted Democrats to move to the right.
SOURCE: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) | 11.07.09
Bob Somerby's Daily Howler
Somerby is undoubtedly America's best mainstream media critic, holding both "conservatives" and "liberals" to account for unprofessional journalism. Updated every weekday around noon.
by Bob Somerby | TIMELESS
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Thinking about Buying
I fear that the foreign lending largess is soon about to end; and then, we as a nation will slip into a much more serious economic downturn.
by Fred Cederholm | 11.16.09
Goldman Sachs Tells How to Cash in on Health Care Reform
Best bet, says Goldman, is to jettison reform altogether and watch insurance stocks rise 59 percent.
by James Ridgeway | 11.14.09
Afghan Lessons from the Iraq War
As President Obama ponders more troops for Afghanistan, he is drawing mistaken lessons from Iraq.
by Ray McGovern | 11.18.09
Beloved Enemy: Paying for the Privilege of Perpetual War
Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into Taliban coffers every year from bribes offered to stop insurgents from attacking supply convoys.
by Chris Floyd | 11.14.09
The End of the Little Red Cars: Remembering East Berlin
They cheered on Gorbachev, whom they saw as emboldening their revolt, and they were hungry for news of dissdents in other parts of Eastern Europe. But not once did I hear any of them mention Ronald Reagan.
by James Ridgeway | 11.11.09
Honduran Accord Solidifies Coup D'Etat Rule
Key now is follow-through, persistence, and staying mobilized for the long haul. Popular victories come only at great cost after years of struggle. It's for Hondurans and oppressed people everywhere to understand, persevere, and endure, no matter what.
by Stephen Lendman | 11.06.09
Chomsky Doubts Change from Obama
Noam Chomsky says Barack Obama alone cannot change the course of U.S. foreign policy.
by Mamoon Alabbasi | 11.04.09
House Resolution Designates Venezuela a State Sponsor of Terrorism
State terrorism designation—if HR 872 passes—would mean halting normal relations, prohibiting US companies from exporting and operating there, and denying America vitally needed Venezuelan oil.
by Stephen Lendman | 11.04.09
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