Working Life

Massive people activism dealt the Grim Reaper of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, a giant middle finger…from his own caucus. But, it ain’t over. I use this moment to talk to health care expert Dean Baker about a couple of critical work-related Obamacare benefits that not many people talk about. I also take a harrowing […]

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The House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act is done. I have a piece posted on CNN.com moments after the vote that argues that it is time for us to rise up, to organize and to demand single-payer, “Medicare for All” health care. Here is the piece The first two paragraphs: Democrats are denouncing […]

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This is just a renegade company that can’t help itself. Greed is endemic.

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A few days ago, I was having a drink with a friend and we ended up talking about healthcare (don’t you wish you were there for that fun, huh?). I said, “well, she should have been fired long ago.” Not claiming any kind of inside info, it felt so obvious — and, yet, the defense of her tenure on the part of ACA supporters is really dumb.

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    You may join me in the celebration of failure–a celebration I have been urging we look forward to for a very long time. Do not listen to the hand-wringing and whining about the implosion of the Catfood Commission II. This is a great thing. It is fabulous.    BUT…    Let us also pause, […]

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Each year, I pause on this day to remember Paul Wellstone, one of the truly great Senators in my lifetime. Eight years ago, Paul died in a plane crash. I will always remember where I was when I heard the news, in the way we all remember momentous events. And his absence seems even more […]

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   So, it’s probably a bad sign about my own priorities that I flip on C-SPAN at night and, having stumbled on the debate in the Senate Nevada race, I stuck with it–without running for a large glass of wine. Or maybe something stronger.    Oh my god.    It was a muddle. I can’t […]

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   This is the definition of perversion (the dictionary tells us that something perverted is "deviating from what is considered right or acceptable; wrong , improper, etc. or corrupt, wicked, etc."). The real unemployment rate is around 16 percent, millions of people are struggling partly because of the behavior of the people running the financial […]

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    At first blush, when I saw today’s front-page headline in The New York Times entitled "A Health Plan For Wal-Mart: Less Stinginess",  thought…hmmm…what’s up here? The upshot of the story: The company, according to data available for the first time, is offering better coverage to a greater number of workers. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest […]

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Most of the MSM reporting on the opening yesterday of the negotiations between the UAW and General Motors and Ford was pretty standard fare. The New York Times article doesn’t reveal a lot but there are two things of note. First, from UAW prez Ron Gettelfinger:   Mr. Gettelfinger, too, sees the outcome of the […]

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