More Poverty, Lower Wages, Shrinking Health Care. The USA Today
New data out from the U.S. Census Bureau yesterday show a nation on the decline: Millions more Americans are in poverty and hundreds of thousands more are without health insurance compared with a year ago—and our median household income is now the lowest since 1997.
As Time’s Justin Fox puts it:
I don’t know how much of this was bad luck and how much was bad policy (nobody does), but there’s really no getting around the fact that the Bush presidency was an economic debacle. Americans got poorer on his watch.
Big-Money Corporate Consultants Fight to Kill Employee Free Choice, Health Care
Behind the wide and well-funded disinformation campaign against pro-worker policies like the Employee Free Choice Act is a network of corporate funders and high-priced lobbying firms, aimed at distracting and confusing the public and the press on key issues. At the Center for American Progress’ Wonk Room blog, Pat Garofalo takes a close look at one such consulting firm, DDC, that is whipping up opposition to health insurance reform and the freedom to form unions.
DDC is being paid by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), an insurance industry lobbying group, to oppose a public option in health care. It’s also running an anti-Employee Free Choice Act website funded by Koch Industries, an oil company whose ample dollars flow to lobbying, political contributions and a broad array of right-wing organizations with innocuous-sounding names like “Americans for Prosperity” (AFP).
Her Son’s a Quadriplegic. That’s the Least of Her Worries
It was tragic enough that her 11-year-old son became a quadriplegic after gunshots hit him while he was playing outside. But now Alberta, a single mother, worries every day because she can’t leave her job to take care of her son. Without her job, she has no way to get, or pay for, health coverage for her son.
Alberta told us her story as part of the AFL-CIO and Working America 2009 Health Care for America Survey. She did so because, as she put it:
I wanted to share this story because I just wanted people to understand that your life could change so much in just a few seconds and if the safety enjoyed by those of us who have insurance provided by work could be shattered. Health care is necessary and I didn’t think much about it until I was faced with tragedy and met so many others that were in similar situations some of which have lost everything as a result.
