Contradictions in US Health Care: Syllabus
Sandy Eaton, RN, Center for Marxist Education, 2014

Session 1. April 14, 2014: Health Care USA: Social Good versus Corporate Wealth

Comprising 17.9% of the US economy, the healthcare industry incorporates Minute Clinics and GE, for-profit and not-for-profit conglomerates, community health centers and academic medical centers, drug and device manufacturers, public and private insurance and funding streams. How did it get this way? Where is it going?

Health Care USA: Social Good versus Corporate Wealth

Session 2. May 12, 2014: Massachusetts Miracle: Access to Insurance, Not Access to Care

Neoliberal laboratory: deregulation and privatization, putting “all the scorpions in a bottle” to see who will survive. Rich institutions grow fatter. Poor institution go under, are taken over, or teeter on the edge. Communities suffer and people die. Reform movements try new tactics. Mass-Care turns its face to the working class.

Massachusetts Health Reform in Practice - Executive Summary

Health Care Reform in Massachusetts: Is It Working?

Building the Massachusetts Myth

Session 3. June 9, 2014: US Health: Limitations of Insurance Reform Only

The tectonic clashes and confluence of mighty economic forces have shaped today’s US healthcare terrain. You can get as much health care as you can afford. Hundreds of thousands now die unnecessarily each year as care delivery is molded into an assembly line. Millions still succumb to medical bankruptcy. Forces arise to oppose and repair the damage.

The Neoliberal Turn in American Health Care

Is Obamacare In the Interest of Workers?

Session 4. July 14, 2014: Prospects: Labor’s Role in Driving out Profiteers

From the Vermont Workers’ Center to the Labor Campaign for Single Payer, working people are giving increasing leadership to initiatives to create a just healthcare system, one that addresses access, affordability, quality and equality together: enhanced Medicare for all. Toward a national health service and socialism. We have much to learn from other countries.

AFL-CIO Resolution 4: Health Care Reform Now, 2009

AFL-CIO Resolution 34: The Social Insurance Model for Health Care Reform, 2009

AFL-CIO Resolution 54: On the Affordable Care Act, 2013

Watch Out: The ACA is Coming!
10 Things Unions Need to Look Out for When Bargaining Under Obamacare.

Organizing Our Way Out of “Labor’s Healthcare Muddle”

Resources:

Health Care NOW!
Labor Campaign for Single Payer
Mass-Care
Physicians for a National Health Program
Seachange Bulletin