Tag: Healthcare

Graph Shows When the U.S. Healthcare System Went off the Rails

Nixon's Healthcare Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 played an early role in enabling corporations to profit off sick and dying Americans

Jon Ponder
Chart source: Our World in Data

This graph shows the point at which the efficacy of healthcare in the United States diverged from the systems of its peer and competitor countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France and Japan. It shows that at the point when healthcare spending skyrocketed in the United States, the results of the enormous spending began to falter as measured by life expectancy.

Obviously, there were many factors that led to this divergence. But one factor in particular stands out. In 1973, President Nixon pushed through Congress and then signed into law the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, which changed the operating parameters of HMOs and other pre-paid medical plans. Its advocate was Edgar Kaiser, a wealthy California donor and president of Kaiser Permanente.

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Potential Result of Florida’s Six-Week Abortion Ban — A Dearth of Doctors

Florida's Republican legislature didn't consider the unintended consequences

Buck Banks

(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

In the wake of the Trump-packed Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that undid 50 years of Roe v. Wade abortion rights protections, the notoriously short-sighted and dim-witted Republican-run Florida legislature passed a law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which went into effect in May.

Besides being one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country, the ban appears to be affecting the number of medical students applying for residencies in the state and is reducing the number of young physicians who plan to practice in Florida, reports the Tampa Bay Times.

According to an analysis by researchers at the nonprofit Association of American Medical Colleges, in the two residency application cycles following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, states with near-total abortion bans and states with gestational limits, such as Florida, saw larger year-over-year declines in residency applicants compared to states where the procedure is legal.

According to the Tampa Bay Times:
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Trump’s Biggest Healthcare Lie

Buck Banks

“Since he began running for president, Donald Trump has been lying about health care in general, and protections for patients with preexisting conditions in particular. Trump’s long-standing lie is that he has a plan to help people with preexisting conditions afford insurance, or will shortly unveil such a plan. His most recent version of this lie goes even farther. Trump is now saying that he actually created the protection for preexisting conditions, and that Democrats are trying to take it away. … This is the literal polar opposite of reality.”

— Jonathan Chait

Trump Vulnerable on Healthcare in Key States

Buck Banks

52%

A Public Policy Polling survey in four battleground states — Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — found that 52% of respondents said they trust Democrats more on health care than President Trump. Key finding: “The poll also found that 72% of respondents would not vote for a candidate who supports health plans that would eliminate health care protections for people with pre-existing conditions.”