En Passant

The real threat at the moment to Medicare is not privatisation. It is underfunding. Underfunding is the half way house on the way to privatisation and Labor by its failure to commit to restoring previously agreed $57 billion of funding is a key party to the long term destruction of Medicare.

Let’s have demonstrations rather than forums across Australia to stop the $5 cut to standard Medicare rebates and the freezing of indexation of those rebates so that ordinary people can express their anger with this rotten government and its attacks on Medicare. This is a weak government. They have already suffered one major defeat in their long term attempts to smash Medicare. Let’s make sure they suffer more defeats. Let’s organise massive demonstrations on 8 February to defend Medicare.

Capitalism is such a sick system today that it cannot provide free or even adequate health care to all those who need it. Right now our side should be shouting ‘Abbott, get your hands off Medicare’ and organising the fightback. We struck in 1976 to defend Medibank. We can do so again today to defend Medicare.

The discussion about breast cancer and its causes – and the health care industry’s failures – needs to be brought out of the shadows, writes Leela Yellesetty in Socialist Worker US.

Any genuine policy to provide the needs of people with chronic disease or disabilities could, and should, make them accessible through improvements to Medicare. A universal health scheme which pays for the actual needs of people, not just those the government deems worthy of funding, is what we need.

Historic. Unprecedented. Landmark. These are just some of the lies the liberal press are using to describe Barack Obama’s healthcare changes. But the legislation is a con, a massive transfer of working people’s wealth to private insurers. Reforms they aren’t. These changes are worse than doing nothing. The new laws will force the poor who […]

The Democrats are in a mad rush to pass health care legislation that is a disaster in the making for working people and a massive giveaway to the industry.

Empower hospital staff to run their hospitals. Fund them adequately. Pay nurses more. Tax the rich to provide every Australian with a free universal health care system.

People weren’t voting for the Republicans in Massachusetts. They were voting against Obama’s business as usual administration.