BeckyDem
BeckyDem's Journal7 Bold Elizabeth Warren Proposals That Would Remake America
May 05, 2019
The spotlight has escaped her thus far this election cycle, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has nonetheless distinguished herself in a crowded Democratic field as a woman of substance.
Buried by student debt? She has a plan for that. Want to work but can’t afford child care? She’s got you covered. Victimized by a rigged economic system, corporate greed and income inequality? Check, check and check, Warren’s on it in a big way.
Throughout her nascent campaign, the Massachusetts senator hasn’t just presented an aspirational vision of the country but furnished a detailed roadmap how we get there. This begins with her proposed wealth tax, which 60 percent of respondents in the most recent Quinnipiac University national poll said they supported.
Taken together, these policy ideas are revolutionary in their scope, with a particular emphasis on creating an economic playing field that benefits more than just the rich.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/7-bold-elizabeth-warren-proposals-that-would-remake-america/
An Insurance Company Denied a Life-Saving Treatment. A Judge Just Called It An "Immoral" Decision.
( The time for Medicare for All is now. )
May 1, 2019
In a stunning court filing, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. made it very clear how he felt about United Healthcare.
Abigail Weinberg
When a personal injury attorney had to pay $85,000 out of pocket for a life-saving prostate cancer treatment, he filed a class-action lawsuit against his insurer, United Healthcare. On Monday, the judge assigned to hear the case recused himself: not only had he been recommended the same treatment for his own prostate cancer, but a friend of his had paid $150,000 for the treatment when United Healthcare denied him coverage.
Proton beam radiation therapy has been an accepted cancer treatment method since the 1980s, according to the Washington Post, but United Healthcare denied the treatment to Miami-based attorney Richard Cole on the grounds that it was “experimental,” Cole said. Although Cole was able to afford his medical care, he filed the lawsuit on behalf of the potentially thousands of others who had been denied treatment as well.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. recused himself from the case because he felt that his personal experiences with prostate cancer prevented him from viewing the situation impartially. He wrote in his order of recusal that although he opted for surgery rather than radiation therapy, medical experts’ positive opinions toward radiation still resonated with him. (Cole’s case has been reassigned to another judge.)
Two other judges had previously recused themselves, saying they knew Cole too well to judge his case fairly.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/united-healthcare-immoral-barbaric/
Apple Plans to Buy $75 Billion More of Its Own Stock
(Expect to hear candidates like Warren talk to the public about this insanity.)
By Jack Nicas
April 30, 2019
SAN FRANCISCO — Shortly after Apple used a new tax law last year to bring back most of the $252 billion it had held abroad, the company said it would buy back $100 billion of its stock.
On Tuesday, Apple announced its plans for another major chunk of the money: It will buy back a further $75 billion in stock.
“Our first priority is always looking after the business and making sure we continue to grow and invest,” Luca Maestri, Apple’s finance chief, said in an interview. “If there is excess cash, then obviously we want to return it to investors.”
Apple’s record buybacks should be welcome news to shareholders, as the stock price is likely to climb. But the buybacks could also expose the company to more criticism that the tax cuts it received have mostly benefited investors and executives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/technology/apple-stock-buyback-quarterly-results.html
The economy isn't getting better for most Americans. But there is a fix
Heather Boushey
US economic data leaves us in the dark. If we don’t change the way we measure such progress, we’re unlikely to have much of it
Read our entire Broken capitalism series
The economy is getting bigger, but not better. Not for most Americans, anyway. In the United States, additional income from productivity and growth has been going mostly to those at the top of the income and wealth ladder. Between 1979 and 2016, the US national income grew by nearly 60%, but after accounting for taxes and transfers, the bottom half of the income distribution experienced incomes rising by 22%, while those in the top 10% had income gains that were almost five times as much – 100%.
As income inequality widens, it’s calcified into some at the top accumulating larger and larger stocks of assets – money, but also property, stocks, bonds and other kinds of capital. In the United States, the distribution of wealth is even more severely unequal than income. Since 1979, wealth gains at the top have grown even faster than income; those in the top 1% now control about 40% of all wealth in the US economy, and the top 0.1% control more than 20% – three times as much as the late 1970s.
To put this into raw numbers, there are 160,000 families in the United States who hold more than $20m in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, and their average wealth was $72m. This group’s share of wealth was almost equal to that of the bottom 90% of Americans.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/01/broken-capitalism-economy-americans-fix?CMP=share_btn_tw
