Healthcare US style… or how neoliberalism really works

US healthcare pills and dollar billsRichard Falk is retired and lives in Santa Barbara, Califormnia

Along with several million, I suffer from the eye disease known as glaucoma. It can be managed, rather than cured, by taking eye drops several times a day. Based on the advice of my doctor, I rely on Azopt and Lumigen, two drugs produced by leading pharmaceutical companies.

A week ago, prior to an international trip, I stopped at a local pharmacy to renew my prescription of Azopt (produced by a Texas company Alcon that manufactures 86 drugs) because I feared that my supply would be exhausted during the trip. A day later the pharmacist called me back to say that my insurance would only cover the refill in mid-March when according to their records I should have finished the supply I had, and would be entitled to more. She added that the for 15 ml. of Azopt without insurance I would have to pay $445, which is double what it would cost after the insurance kicked in. I thanked her for letting me know this bad news, saying that I would wait until next month. Continue reading

Osborne stirs up more shit in which to bury himself in

Osborne digging a hole, based on original by by coljay72Quietly and surreptitiously Osborne is marking out his pitch for the leadership. The trouble is, it’s thoroughly bad pitch. By denigrating opponents of privatisation he has set his face against the 70% of the population who earnestly want rail re-nationalised, a proportion so large that it must include nearly half who’re Tories. Osborne must assume that the case for privatisation of rail, as for every other takeover or outsourcing of public assets, is done and dusted and nothing more now needs to be said. If so, that is a very arrogant assumption, easy to make if like Osborne you don’t listen to what people are really feeling. Rail privatisation in 1996-7 was an ideological exercise, never justified on the evidence. A former Tory MP described it as “the poll tax on wheels”. UK rail fares are now the most expensive in Europe by a measure of 40% and rail privatisation is now costing the UK taxpayer £4bn a year in subsidies, more than a third of the net cost of the EU to the UK. And half of the UK taxpayers most heavily hit are Tories! Well done, George. Continue reading

EU membership means no renationalisation

A Fractured EuropePublic ownership of gas and electricity is destined to become a cherished aim of the Labour Party. For years under privatisation, the swindling of the consumer has gone hand-in-hand with outrageous profit-taking by the corporate giants, to the loss of the public purse. Far from helping customers through keen competition, the main effect of energy privatisation has been – like austerity – a redistribution of wealth from the have-nots to the well-to-do.

What a pity, therefore, that Labour cannot renationalise it! Britain is a member of the European Union (EU)  and as such bound by the EU Treaties. Indeed, every British court is duty-bound to enforce every EU law in preference to any conflicting British statute. Under Article 106, the EU prohibits public monopolies exercising exclusive rights where this violates EU competition rules. The EU’s Court of Justice has interpreted Article 106 as giving private companies the right to argue before the national courts that services should continue to be open to private-sector competition. Nationalised services are prima facie suspect and must be analysed by the judiciary for their “necessity”. Thus the EU has given companies a legal right to run to court to scupper programmes of public ownership. Continue reading

It’s about the fundamentals, silly

bread and butterThe basic reason that the leadership election has been so disappointing, until Jeremy Corbyn came on the scene, was that it was stuck on issues (insofar as it was stuck on any issues at all) that, while certainly important, did not have the makings of a vision. Even when Corbyn prompted the others to produce some actual policies, they were not the real thing. Andy Burnham was right to praise land value tax and above all the need to integrate social care within the NHS, and Yvette Cooper was absolutely right to demand that Britain takes its proper share of Syrian refugees where the government response has been callously dehumanised. Bully for her. But these are not the fundamentals, and only Jeremy Corbyn seems to have grasped what this election is really all about. Continue reading

Osborne’s giveaways come back to haunt him

George 'Gideon' OsborneFollowing Osborne’s triumphant releasing of pensioners to unlock their annuity contracts to spend how they will, there were many siren voices raised that that risked exposing many vulnerable elderly people to crooks and scammers selling dud investment projects as the road to riches. The results have turned out even worse than feared. City of London police are now having to wage a huge campaign against the use of some of the Square Mile’s most prestigious addresses as a cover for scams purporting to sell overseas land for investment as well as wine, diamonds, etc. Police say such scams cost mostly elderly and vulnerable people at least £1.7bn last year, with fraudsters typically returning to their victims a second timein the guise of ‘asset recovery specialists’ who pursue lost money for a fee. Continue reading