Connect the Dots – Margaret Flowers, MD, Green Candidate for Senator – 09.14.16

Listen to Margaret Flowers, MD, co-founder of Popular Resistance and #FlushtheTPP as she discusses her Senate run in the state of Maryland. A frequent guest on Connect the Dots and a long time champion of Single Payer Health Care, Flowers will discuss with Alison Rose Levy the role of third parties in breaking the two party duopoly and the deadlock it creates for democracy and protecting our environment.

The Obamacare Death Spiral

Obamacare is in big trouble. Major insurers—Aetna, Humana, and United Health (the nation’s largest)—are pulling out of most exchanges. Remaining companies are seeking double-digit premium increases (at least 25% in 20 different states, some over 60%), while increasingly offering only “narrow network” plans that severely restrict available doctors and hospitals. With these developments, the scam of Obamacare, and its inevitable failure, are becoming too …

Michael Snyder – As Predicted, Obamacare Is Absolutely Killing The Middle Class

The critics of Obamacare have been proven right.  The Obama administration promised that health insurance premiums would go down.  Instead, they have absolutely skyrocketed.  The Obama administration promised that Obamacare would not kill jobs.  Instead, firms are hiring fewer workers because of suffocating health care costs.  As you will see below, even the Federal Reserve is admitting this.  The Obama …

Lauren McCauley – Aetna’s Greed Proves That Medicare-for-All Is the Best Solution

Insurance behemoth Aetna announced late Monday that it is pulling out of Obamacare public exchanges in 11 states, citing projected financial losses because of the high number of people who—it turns out—need expensive medical care. Following a string of similar announcements, advocates of single-payer healthcare say that these departures only underscore the fact that “big commercial insurance corporations” will always “put profits …

Wendell Potter – It’s Way Past Time For Us To Stop Deluding Ourselves About Private Health Insurers

I didn’t think it was possible for me to get more disgusted with the industry I used to be a cheerleader for, but I was wrong. Health insurers—more specifically, the big for-profit health insurers that want to get even bigger through two pending mega-mergers (Anthem wants to buy Cigna and Aetna wants to buy Humana)—once again are demonstrating that nothing—absolutely …

Marcia Angell – How to provide Medicare for all

Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act, became law six years ago. The intention was to ensure that nearly all Americans have health insurance, while controlling costs. How did that work out? When the law was enacted, about 16 percent of Americans were uninsured. That has dropped to 10 percent. So instead of 50 million uninsured Americans, there are now about …

Obamacare’s 2017 Insurer Rate Requests Are Starting to Stream in, and the Figures Are Scary

It’s been more than two years since the Affordable Care Act, which you probably know better as Obamacare, went into full effect for individual consumers, and in that time the new health law has enrolled about 12.7 million people. Note that this doesn’t take into account the millions of Americans who’ve been able to get health insurance through the expansion …

Atul Gawande – Health Care’s Price Conundrum

The more expensive it is, the better it must be. That’s how people used to think about health-care costs. As has become apparent in recent years, however, this is flat wrong. The costs of care vary wildly depending on where you live—by three hundred per cent or more, as I reported in “The Cost Conundrum,” in 2009. And research has …

Obamacare Is Sucking Up To 10% Of Americans’ Incomes

The latest dilemma facing economists is why “unequivocally good” low oil prices haven’t sparked excuberant consumer spending across America. We have discussed the simple (though awkward for the establishment) answer many times – soaring costs for ‘shelter’ and healthcare have hoovered up every penny saved (and more); and now, a new study proves it– exposing the reality thatmany Obamacare customers pay …

William Greider – Hillary Clinton Is Whitewashing the Financial Catastrophe

illary Clinton’s recent op-ed in The New York Times, “How I’d Rein In Wall Street,” was intended to reassure nervous Democrats who fear she is still in thrall to those mega-bankers of New York who crashed the American economy. Clinton’s brisk recital of plausible reform ideas might convince wishful thinkers who are not familiar with the complexities of banking. But informed skeptics, myself …