Are entire parts of the economy, mostly under privatized profit making corporate control, coming apart at the seams? Transportation (rails and air), Healthcare meltdowns as Covid exposed the flaws in a profit making system. Note how many urgent care places are popping up. Note how many covid testing sites are all over the place. Note how healthcare professionals are stressed to the point of leaving. (Three of my doctors have retired in the past 5 months). Fact is Medicare - traditional medicare run by the federal government is one of the few bulwarks to meltdowns and Mulgrew/Weingarten are trying to undermine it by making it a sieve for more money to flow to profit but they try to fool people by branding Medicare Adv as just a version of Medicare. Does it Remind you of charter schools claiming to be public schools? See James' take down of leadership.
UFT INCONSISTENCY ON PRIVATIZING SCHOOLS VS HEALTHCARE COULD COME BACK TO BITE US
Meltdowns. If Mulgrew loses in the city council will Unity melt down?
If you can be there Jan. 4, 9 and 19th. De La Rosa is the target - she has been selling herself as a progressive - she won't live this one down. See A Message to NYC Council.
Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2022
The hits keep coming in - I started this blog post 5 days ago - the goal here is to link the attempted move of retirees to privatized Medicare Advantage as part of the 5 decade old neo-liberal project of both political parties. Medicare has been a target since almost its beginning in the 60s. But there's work to do as breaking events keep coming. Before I get to the stuff I wrote before the latest info, here are a few updated links:
-
- By Bob Hennelly with Joe Maniscalco
-
- “I
guess the MLC and the mayor decided they wanted retirees to ring in the
New Year with a ‘Screw you — we’re gonna do this when you’re not
looking!”
-
By Bob Hennelly
New
York City Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, chair of the Council’s
Civil Service and Labor Committee, will introduce a bill to change the
city’s Administrative Code that’s been sought by Mayor Adams and the
Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] to clear the way for its 250,000
retirees to be enrolled in a for-profit, privatized Medicare Advantage
plan. (READ MORE)
Back to business of trying to tie it all together by looking at the Southwest Airline debacle.
Are we in a stage of across the board meltdowns? Blame deregulation and the removal of public oversight.
I'm always trying to look for consistent themes and the recent airline chaos with Southwest struck a parallel with the healthcare crisis we seem to be in the midst of where at times of stress, things break down. And because we don't have built-in resiliency - which I attribute to our entire economic system being in the hands of private industry where profit and shareholder value are king and customer and employee needs are second.
There was a time where many industries did take care about their workforce which they viewed as an investment - they had good salaries - often forced on them by unions - and good pensions -- now rare as they've moved to 401.ks. Many observers believe this trend began in the 70s and accelerated into the increasing attacks on government involvement and regulations - call it the neo-liberal revolution where govt/bad, private/good.
That in the midst of one of the historic health crisis in recent history, our own union leaders would choose to attack one of the successful underpinnings of government over the past almost 60 years - Medicare -- is an astounding breach of faith. The leadership refer to people like me as charlatans -- only interested in political advantage -- like my own health security being threatened at the almost age of 78 is meaningless. But I will return to this theme in the future. Let me get onto the Southwest story, which is not as simple as presented.
Someone asked me the other day if Southwest will survive -- you know - the Wall St Journal etc says let the market make them pay, not the government. My answer was not only will SW survive, they will probably get bailed out by the government -- and the anti-government people won't say boo. Fact is SW has a monopoly over air travel on certain routes and it is low-cost and if they go under, whole areas won't have service, especially California.
The Southwest Airline story is even bigger than we think and the elements of big stock by-backs and dividends and profits over customers and employees is endemic to neoliberal "anything goes" thinking over the past 45 years, which is tied to the decimation of unions (they see unions as violating the free market -- let every employee negotiate their own contract - see charter schools for a perfect example.
So we have been pounding the very idea of Medicare Advantage private health insurance as doing exactly what Southwest has been doing -- profits, high exec compensation, stock buybacks, dividends over customer service. That is the future of Mulgrew/RandiCare. Why have we added RandiCare? Because she is also claiming and promoting Medicare Adv privatized programs as just a version of medicare for all. Randi talk out of 12 sides of her mouth? I'm shocked.
I saw samples of two contrasting editorials on Southwest from the Wall St. Journal and the Washington Post. The Post discussed the money that went to shareholder value instead of upgrading the system and called for government intervention. But who? Mayor Pete who doesn't want to offend potential corporate supporters for his future presidential ventures? He may go down as one of the biggest failures as transportation czar - don't forget his role in screwing the railway workers.
Bernie Sanders called for major fines for airlines. Let's not forget the scam they all pulled in taking a lot of pandemic money to keep people on the payroll and then drove people to retire.
I met a bunch of Southwest Airline pilots who put on a silent demo on Wall St. a couple of weeks ago.
Southwest Airlines pilots union official describes how ...
Below are a few articles from the NYT, WAPO and LATimes
