Portside

It’s true that the number of uninsured Americans has dropped to an all-time low. But that fact obscures the failures of our patchwork, profit-driven health care system.

The Medicare privatization program "presents a threat to the integrity of traditional Medicare, and an opportunity for corporations to take money from taxpayers while denying care to beneficiaries," said Physicians for a National Health Program.

While a big victory, Medicare did not provide full coverage for all services, and from its inception, there has been a drive to privatize and hand it over to profiteers. With privatization, profits ensue as additional restrictions are imposed.....

As yet another scandal involving Medicare Advantage made headlines this week, progressive U.S. lawmakers and advocates renewed calls to abolish the private health insurance program.

AARP, the advocacy organization is welcoming the for-profit takeover of its members’ national health insurance program — because it earns hundreds of millions as part of the deal.

Is it possible that the people of these rural communities, under the stress of a broken health care system, can spark a movement to fix health care for the nation?

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With M4A, citizens are guaranteed access to health care while achieving significant overall savings compared to our existing obsolete system. This is accomplished by lowering administrative and eliminating profiteering Big Insurance costs, controlling Big Pharma prices of prescription drugs, fees for physicians and other health-care professionals and hospitals, reducing unnecessary treatments and expanding preventative care.

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In the past five years, more than half of U.S. adults report they've gone into debt because of medical or dental bills. "Debt is no longer just a bug in our system. It is one of the main products. We have a health care system almost perfectly designed to create debt."