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Members of National Nurses United (NNU), along with a broader coalition of pro-Medicare for All organizations rallied outside of the national headquarters of PhRMA in support of Medicare for All on April 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo: NNU/flickr/cc)
If you still wonder about the growing popularity of the movement for Medicare for All, consider this simple question @AllOnMedicare, one of the more active social media advocates of Medicare for All, posed on Twitter May 2 - "When did you become radicalized by the U.S. health care non-system?"
In short order, the tweet generated well over 4,000 re-tweets over 12,000 likes with more still coming in. The stories it prompted could fill a text book for why we so clearly need a dramatic overhaul of our broken, dysfunction, and often cruel health care system.
It ought to give the corporate execs bankrolling the anti-Medicare for All operation, the so-called Partnership for America's Health Care Future, funded by the biggest trillion-dollar pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital corporations, nightmares.
"It ought to give the corporate execs bankrolling the anti-Medicare for All operation, the so-called Partnership for America's Health Care Future, funded by the biggest trillion-dollar pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital corporations, nightmares."
When they read some of the responses, or other regular reports on social media, they might want to change their name to Partnership for American's Health Care Past.
When a good family friend died of Type 1 diabetes leaving 5 young kids fatherless, because he worked two jobs as an independent contractor, and neither gave him health insurance, and no private insurance would accept him with diabetes. He never told us he couldn't afford insulin
When my employer told me I needed to come back to work or else my families health insurance would lapse. I took that phone call while sitting in a PICU room next to my 4 year old who was in a medically induced coma
Watching my best friend's father go from serene acceptance of his lymphoma diagnosis to shame and despair on his deathbed two years later that his treatment had permanently impoverished his wife and son. When my father received his own diagnosis, he refused all treatment instead.
When my best friend couldn't afford a doctor--her employer had her work 38 hour weeks to avoid "giving" her healthcare--& when the pain got unbearable, she went to the ER, was admitted & diagnosed w/now-advanced cancer, & died. The hospital sent her grieving mom a bill for $80K+
When I finally had to grapple with what a $10,000 deductible means. Day before surgery the hospital asked me for $4,000. Or an $800 down payment with a payment plan.
The only reason I'm still alive is my mom and sister shelling out the money for an infection that started in my wisdom tooth, and became blood poisoning. I was, and remain, uninsured.
When my mom died of colon cancer because she waited to go to the hospital because she didn't have health insurance. She was stage IV by the time she found out. Now, she is a statistic
When my mother waited too long to go to the doctor when she found a breast lump. Being poor cost her life.
My father killed himself so he wouldn't bankrupt the family trying to treat his Parkinson's. He was my best friend. We did a Go Fund Me for his medical care and ended up using it for his funeral
Messages like this are provoking fear in the health care corporate board rooms. Signs of their alarm are evident in massive lobbying of Congress to support Medicare for some alternatives, hefty campaign donations to key players on key committees, and other political bullying.
The profiteers of pain probably also noticed some chilling new data, such as the study from the American Cancer Society that found 137 million U.S. adults have suffered due to exorbitant medical costs.
Or the report in the Los Angeles Times last week that one in six Americans who have employer-paid insurance made "difficult sacrifices" last year, such as cutting back on food, using up all or most of their savings, getting extra jobs, or moving in with friends, to be able to pay un-payable medical bills.
But it's likely not just stories and findings like these that probably keep the CEOs up at night, it's also the massive movement on the ground.
Since a week of mass movement building organizing meetings (barnstorms) in February, a National Nurses United grassroots campaign has been hosting canvassing and phonebanks across the U.S. at a rate of 150 a week.
They have generated thousands of person-to-person conversations that have resulted in well over 10,000 calls to legislators to support Medicare for All bills, especially the House bill, HR 1384, co-sponsored by Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Debbie Dingell that just had its first wildly successful hearing in the House Rules Committee and, as a result of mass pressure, will soon be the focus of a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee.
It's mass movement, of course, that has produced every major transformative social change in U.S. history, including banning child labor, women's suffrage, civil rights legislation, and passage of the original Medicare.
The corporate bosses might also have noticed another popular meme on social media - it shows a lonely person with a broom sweeping the beach trying vainly to hold back the tide. It's coming, and we won't be stopped.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
If you still wonder about the growing popularity of the movement for Medicare for All, consider this simple question @AllOnMedicare, one of the more active social media advocates of Medicare for All, posed on Twitter May 2 - "When did you become radicalized by the U.S. health care non-system?"
In short order, the tweet generated well over 4,000 re-tweets over 12,000 likes with more still coming in. The stories it prompted could fill a text book for why we so clearly need a dramatic overhaul of our broken, dysfunction, and often cruel health care system.
It ought to give the corporate execs bankrolling the anti-Medicare for All operation, the so-called Partnership for America's Health Care Future, funded by the biggest trillion-dollar pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital corporations, nightmares.
"It ought to give the corporate execs bankrolling the anti-Medicare for All operation, the so-called Partnership for America's Health Care Future, funded by the biggest trillion-dollar pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital corporations, nightmares."
When they read some of the responses, or other regular reports on social media, they might want to change their name to Partnership for American's Health Care Past.
When a good family friend died of Type 1 diabetes leaving 5 young kids fatherless, because he worked two jobs as an independent contractor, and neither gave him health insurance, and no private insurance would accept him with diabetes. He never told us he couldn't afford insulin
When my employer told me I needed to come back to work or else my families health insurance would lapse. I took that phone call while sitting in a PICU room next to my 4 year old who was in a medically induced coma
Watching my best friend's father go from serene acceptance of his lymphoma diagnosis to shame and despair on his deathbed two years later that his treatment had permanently impoverished his wife and son. When my father received his own diagnosis, he refused all treatment instead.
When my best friend couldn't afford a doctor--her employer had her work 38 hour weeks to avoid "giving" her healthcare--& when the pain got unbearable, she went to the ER, was admitted & diagnosed w/now-advanced cancer, & died. The hospital sent her grieving mom a bill for $80K+
When I finally had to grapple with what a $10,000 deductible means. Day before surgery the hospital asked me for $4,000. Or an $800 down payment with a payment plan.
The only reason I'm still alive is my mom and sister shelling out the money for an infection that started in my wisdom tooth, and became blood poisoning. I was, and remain, uninsured.
When my mom died of colon cancer because she waited to go to the hospital because she didn't have health insurance. She was stage IV by the time she found out. Now, she is a statistic
When my mother waited too long to go to the doctor when she found a breast lump. Being poor cost her life.
My father killed himself so he wouldn't bankrupt the family trying to treat his Parkinson's. He was my best friend. We did a Go Fund Me for his medical care and ended up using it for his funeral
Messages like this are provoking fear in the health care corporate board rooms. Signs of their alarm are evident in massive lobbying of Congress to support Medicare for some alternatives, hefty campaign donations to key players on key committees, and other political bullying.
The profiteers of pain probably also noticed some chilling new data, such as the study from the American Cancer Society that found 137 million U.S. adults have suffered due to exorbitant medical costs.
Or the report in the Los Angeles Times last week that one in six Americans who have employer-paid insurance made "difficult sacrifices" last year, such as cutting back on food, using up all or most of their savings, getting extra jobs, or moving in with friends, to be able to pay un-payable medical bills.
But it's likely not just stories and findings like these that probably keep the CEOs up at night, it's also the massive movement on the ground.
Since a week of mass movement building organizing meetings (barnstorms) in February, a National Nurses United grassroots campaign has been hosting canvassing and phonebanks across the U.S. at a rate of 150 a week.
They have generated thousands of person-to-person conversations that have resulted in well over 10,000 calls to legislators to support Medicare for All bills, especially the House bill, HR 1384, co-sponsored by Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Debbie Dingell that just had its first wildly successful hearing in the House Rules Committee and, as a result of mass pressure, will soon be the focus of a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee.
It's mass movement, of course, that has produced every major transformative social change in U.S. history, including banning child labor, women's suffrage, civil rights legislation, and passage of the original Medicare.
The corporate bosses might also have noticed another popular meme on social media - it shows a lonely person with a broom sweeping the beach trying vainly to hold back the tide. It's coming, and we won't be stopped.
If you still wonder about the growing popularity of the movement for Medicare for All, consider this simple question @AllOnMedicare, one of the more active social media advocates of Medicare for All, posed on Twitter May 2 - "When did you become radicalized by the U.S. health care non-system?"
In short order, the tweet generated well over 4,000 re-tweets over 12,000 likes with more still coming in. The stories it prompted could fill a text book for why we so clearly need a dramatic overhaul of our broken, dysfunction, and often cruel health care system.
It ought to give the corporate execs bankrolling the anti-Medicare for All operation, the so-called Partnership for America's Health Care Future, funded by the biggest trillion-dollar pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital corporations, nightmares.
"It ought to give the corporate execs bankrolling the anti-Medicare for All operation, the so-called Partnership for America's Health Care Future, funded by the biggest trillion-dollar pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital corporations, nightmares."
When they read some of the responses, or other regular reports on social media, they might want to change their name to Partnership for American's Health Care Past.
When a good family friend died of Type 1 diabetes leaving 5 young kids fatherless, because he worked two jobs as an independent contractor, and neither gave him health insurance, and no private insurance would accept him with diabetes. He never told us he couldn't afford insulin
When my employer told me I needed to come back to work or else my families health insurance would lapse. I took that phone call while sitting in a PICU room next to my 4 year old who was in a medically induced coma
Watching my best friend's father go from serene acceptance of his lymphoma diagnosis to shame and despair on his deathbed two years later that his treatment had permanently impoverished his wife and son. When my father received his own diagnosis, he refused all treatment instead.
When my best friend couldn't afford a doctor--her employer had her work 38 hour weeks to avoid "giving" her healthcare--& when the pain got unbearable, she went to the ER, was admitted & diagnosed w/now-advanced cancer, & died. The hospital sent her grieving mom a bill for $80K+
When I finally had to grapple with what a $10,000 deductible means. Day before surgery the hospital asked me for $4,000. Or an $800 down payment with a payment plan.
The only reason I'm still alive is my mom and sister shelling out the money for an infection that started in my wisdom tooth, and became blood poisoning. I was, and remain, uninsured.
When my mom died of colon cancer because she waited to go to the hospital because she didn't have health insurance. She was stage IV by the time she found out. Now, she is a statistic
When my mother waited too long to go to the doctor when she found a breast lump. Being poor cost her life.
My father killed himself so he wouldn't bankrupt the family trying to treat his Parkinson's. He was my best friend. We did a Go Fund Me for his medical care and ended up using it for his funeral
Messages like this are provoking fear in the health care corporate board rooms. Signs of their alarm are evident in massive lobbying of Congress to support Medicare for some alternatives, hefty campaign donations to key players on key committees, and other political bullying.
The profiteers of pain probably also noticed some chilling new data, such as the study from the American Cancer Society that found 137 million U.S. adults have suffered due to exorbitant medical costs.
Or the report in the Los Angeles Times last week that one in six Americans who have employer-paid insurance made "difficult sacrifices" last year, such as cutting back on food, using up all or most of their savings, getting extra jobs, or moving in with friends, to be able to pay un-payable medical bills.
But it's likely not just stories and findings like these that probably keep the CEOs up at night, it's also the massive movement on the ground.
Since a week of mass movement building organizing meetings (barnstorms) in February, a National Nurses United grassroots campaign has been hosting canvassing and phonebanks across the U.S. at a rate of 150 a week.
They have generated thousands of person-to-person conversations that have resulted in well over 10,000 calls to legislators to support Medicare for All bills, especially the House bill, HR 1384, co-sponsored by Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Debbie Dingell that just had its first wildly successful hearing in the House Rules Committee and, as a result of mass pressure, will soon be the focus of a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee.
It's mass movement, of course, that has produced every major transformative social change in U.S. history, including banning child labor, women's suffrage, civil rights legislation, and passage of the original Medicare.
The corporate bosses might also have noticed another popular meme on social media - it shows a lonely person with a broom sweeping the beach trying vainly to hold back the tide. It's coming, and we won't be stopped.
"Corporations get let off the hook, Musk gets insider information, and the American people get hosed."
The latest U.S. agency in the crosshairs of billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is reportedly the Federal Trade Commission, an already-understaffed department tasked with preventing monopolistic practices and shielding consumers from corporate abuses.
Axios reported Friday that at least two DOGE staffers "now have offices at" the FTC. According to The Verge, two DOGE members "were spotted" at the agency's building this week and "are now listed in the FTC's internal directory."
The Verge noted that the FTC is "a fairly lean agency with fewer than 1,200 employees," a number that the Trump administration has already cut into with the firing of some of the department's consumer protection and antitrust staff.
At least two of Musk's companies, Tesla and X, have faced scrutiny in recent years from the FTC, which is now under the leadership of Trump appointee Andrew Ferguson, who previously pledged to roll back former chair Lina Khan's anti-monopoly legacy.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at the Demand Progress Education Fund, which referred to the operatives as Musk's "minions," said Friday that "DOGE is yet again raiding a federal watchdog tasked with protecting working Americans from Wall Street and Big Tech."
"The FTC has worked to stop monopolistic mergers that would have led to higher grocery prices and is now gearing up to go to court against Meta's social media monopoly," said Peterson-Cassin. "It's no surprise that at this moment, while the economy is in freefall and fraud is on the rise, DOGE is choosing to raid the federal watchdog that protects everyday Americans and threatens corporate monopolies and grifters."
News of DOGE staffers' infiltration of the FTC came as Trump's sweeping new tariffs continued to cause global economic turmoil and heightened concerns that companies in the U.S. will use the tariffs as a new excuse to jack up prices and pad their bottom lines.
Ferguson pledged in a social media post Thursday that under his leadership, the FTC "will be watching closely" to ensure companies don't view Trump's tariffs "as a green light for price fixing or any other unlawful behavior."
But Trump has hobbled the agency—and prompted yet another legal fight—by firing its two Democratic commissioners, a move that sparked fury and has already impacted the FTC's ability to pursue cases against large corporations.
Peterson-Cassin said Friday that "the only winners" of DOGE's targeting of the FTC "are Trump's billionaire besties like [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg and especially Musk, who now stands to gain access to confidential financial information about every company ever investigated by the FTC, including the auto manufacturers, aerospace firms, internet providers, tech companies, and banks that directly compete with his own companies."
"Corporations get let off the hook, Musk gets insider information, and the American people get hosed," Peterson-Cassin added.
"The president single-handedly wiped out Americans' retirement savings overnight and subjected businesses to intense whiplash with his increasingly erratic and chaotic policies that continue to drive consumer and business uncertainty."
Alarm over U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs continues to grow, with stocks plummeting and JPMorgan warning that "the risk of recession in the global economy this year is raised to 60%, up from 40%."
After China announced new 34% tariffs on all American goods beginning next week, The Associated Press reported Friday that "the S&P 500 was down 4.8% in afternoon trading, after earlier dropping more than 5%, following its worst day since Covid wrecked the global economy in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,719 points, or 4.3%, as of 1:08 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 4.9% lower."
Noting the state of Wall Street this week, Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens declared in a Friday statement that "Trump has officially brought the economy to its knees."
"The president single-handedly wiped out Americans' retirement savings overnight and subjected businesses to intense whiplash with his increasingly erratic and chaotic policies that continue to drive consumer and business uncertainty," she said. "To call this an economic downturn is an understatement; Trump is marching us straight into a depression."
Political and economic observers have been publicly wondering for weeks if Trump is intentionally crashing the economy. Further fueling those fears, he ramped up his trade war on Wednesday by announcing a minimum 10% tariff for imports, with higher levies for dozens of countries. Although he claimed those steeper duties are "reciprocal," his math "horrified" economists and has been called "crazy."
Responding in a Thursday note titled, There Will Be Blood, head of global economic research Bruce Kasman and other experts at JPMorgan wrote that "if sustained, this year's ~22%-point tariff increase would be the largest U.S. tax hike since 1968."
"The effect of this tax hike is likely to be magnified—through retaliation, a slide in U.S. business sentiment, and supply chain disruptions," states the note, which came before China's announcement.
As Bloomberg reported:
Several Wall Street firms on Thursday warned of a U.S. recession, with some making it their base case, after... Trump announced major levies on goods imported from countries around the world. Other economists, including those at JPMorgan, said the hit could be big, though they are taking a wait-and-see approach before revising their projections.
The announcement rocked global financial markets, and the S&P 500 suffered its worst day since 2020. Trump, speaking on Air Force One on Thursday afternoon, said he was open to reducing tariffs if trading partners were able to offer something "phenomenal."
"We are not making immediate changes to our forecasts and want to see the initial implementation and negotiation process that takes hold," the JPMorgan note says. "However, we view the full implementation of announced policies as a substantial macroeconomic shock not currently incorporated in our forecasts. We thus emphasize that these policies, if sustained, would likely push the U.S. and possibly global economy into recession this year."
The team also pointed out that the United States is in potential danger no matter how other countries are ultimately impacted, calling a "scenario where rest of world muddles through a U.S. recession possible but less likely than global downturn."
As Common Dreams reported last week, in anticipation of Trump's tariff announcement, Goldman Sachs published a research note projecting that the odds of a recession in the next year are 35%, up from 20%.
Other financial industry research firms that have recently warned of a possible recession include Barclays, BofA Global Research, Deutsche Bank, RBC Capital Markets, and UBS Global Wealth Management, according to Reuters.
"This is a game-changer, not only for the U.S. economy, but for the global economy. Many countries will likely end up in a recession," Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings, said in a late Wednesday note about the levies. "You can throw most forecasts out the door, if this tariff rate stays on for an extended period of time."
Experts have made similar comments to the press in the wake of the president's Rose Garden remarks on Wednesday. Time on Friday shared some from Brian Bethune, a Boston College economics professor:
"[Consumers] are not even going to the grocery store and paying more for vegetables because there's none available from Mexico, or going to Whole Foods, for example, and finding the big sections of fresh fruit are being shut down. They haven't really felt the full impact [yet], and they're already saying something isn't right," Bethune says.
However, while some economists... are more cautious in their discussion about a possible recession, Bethune says it's "inevitable." The question, he says, is just how long until it happens and for how long will it occur? He sees Trump's admission of there being " some pain" on the horizon as only proof of the inevitability.
"At least they [the Trump administration] are not pretending that it's not disruptive, but they're basically soft-selling it, reflecting their ignorance about the way business operates," Bethune claims.
Also on Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest U.S. jobs data. Although the unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.2% in March, the economy added 228,000 jobs, which was better than expected.
However, economists warn of what lies ahead. As University of Michican economics professor Betsey Stevenson put it, "Today's jobs report is like looking at your vacation photos after you had a horrible car crash on the way home."
"Immigration. Medicaid. Workers' rights. Unions. Education. You name it—we're drawing the line," wrote one union.
In what one outlet has reported is slated to be the largest single-day action to resist the Trump administration since U.S. President Donald Trump's return to power, hundreds of thousands of people nationwide are planning to mobilize on Saturday to say: "Hands Off!"
A list of locations for the events, which are not all slated to start at the same time on Saturday, can be found here.
Trump and Musk "think this country belongs to them," according to a website for the Hands Off! events. "This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history."
"They want to strip America for parts—shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid—all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam. They're handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich," according to the website's about page, which also notes nonviolent action is a "core principle" behind the events.
A spokesperson for the events told Common Dreams on Friday afternoon that the events have generated over 500,000 signups nationally, a number that is "growing rapidly," and there are over 1,000 events taking place on Saturday, a number that is "also growing steadily."
The actions are the latest warning sign for the Republican Party under Trump, who has allowed Elon Musk to play a core role in his administration, particularly in the administration's efforts to carry out cuts to federal personnel and spending.
Musk poured millions of dollars into a high-profile Wisconsin Supreme Court election that took place on April 1—helping to make it the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history by one tally—only to have his preferred candidate, judge Brad Schimel, lose.
"This is a huge signal from a battleground state that Americans are genuinely upset, genuinely angry, I think, with Trump and with Musk," said John Nichols, a correspondent for That Nation, when recapping the outcome of the race on Democracy Now!
Dozens of unions, watchdogs, and advocacy groups—such as Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Americans for Tax Fairness, and Accountable.US—are supporting the action as partners.
"People nationwide are rising up at hundreds of events to say one thing loud and clear: Hands Off!" wrote SEIU on the platform X, which is owned by Musk, on Friday. "Immigration. Medicaid. Workers' rights. Unions. Education. You name it—we're drawing the line."
The environmentalist iIll McKibben wrote on Bluesky on Wednesday: "Expect to see a lot of gray hair at the April 5 Hands Off rallies—we've been organizing like crazy at Third Act," a group that mobilizes Americans over the age of 60.
In early February, anti-Trump "Movement 50501" protests took place nationwide and protestors united under the slogan #TakedownTesla have also targeted Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle company, in recent weeks.