In the 1980s, US hospitals began to transform from institutions providing comprehensive care, no matter how long it took, to healthcare factories intent on shuffling patients in and out as quickly as possible. While this was meant to save money, shortages of basic equipment during the coronavirus outbreak have revealed the high price of these cost-cutting measures.
The catastrophe demonstrates the results when public health is subordinate to private profit and to a governmental apparatus that adulates the superiority of private over public administration. The catastrophe we are living through was caused by a capitalist system that could not anticipate, plan for, or cope with the coronavirus. To “get through” this catastrophe yet leave the system intact will guarantee the next catastrophe.
Detroit bus drivers collectively declared Tuesday morning that they weren’t going to work without safety precautions. Bus service was canceled throughout the city because of “the driver shortage,” as city officials put it.
The drivers’ union backed them up and their brief work stoppage, less than 24 hours, won all their demands. Fares will not be collected for the duration of the coronavirus crisis.
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Gov. Kristi Noem’s proposal to revive the state’s criminal and civil punishments for riots passed a final Senate vote on Thursday and will next proceed to her desk.
