Always on the cutting edge of innovation, the Trump administration has found a new way to enrich health insurance companies and screw workers in the middle of a pandemic: declaring that health insurance companies are not required to cover the costs of COVID-19 testing for workers returning to work.
Republicans would have a tough time convincing the country that reopening the economy is safe when it's actually extremely dangerous. But as bills pile up and fears of eviction grow, desperate Americans may come to see a premature reopening as the least bad option and head back to work — the outcome that the Right wanted all along.
Coronavirus has brought the United States to its knees not only due to our system’s countless weaknesses, but also because of our delusional self-assessment. Despite all evidence to the contrary, many believed that this country was invincible. That fantasy has been destroyed.
We talk to two public health experts about America's COVID-19 response and how poor households have borne a disproportionate share of the pandemic's hardship. We need to urgently fight for a more just society.
Some prominent academics have taken to lecturing teachers and their unions for insisting that reopening schools is still too dangerous. Those academics are wrong: teachers are insisting on a safe, solidaristic approach to opening schools back up that protects parents, students, staff, teachers, and all of us.
In last night’s debate, Joe Biden claimed that Italy shows public health care doesn’t help the response to coronavirus. But the Italian health service is providing a vital defense against mass infection — ensuring that any ill person can get proper treatment, regardless of their ability to pay.
Despite the strange circumstances and urgency of the coronavirus pandemic, last night’s debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders highlighted two visions of our political crises that largely haven’t changed: Biden arguing for a return to normalcy, Sanders insisting that something is deeply wrong in our society.
With the appalling Senate scandal over coronavirus insider trading, it is no longer possible to deny it: we are governed by a caste of the unimaginably rich who don’t care if we live or die.
The airline industry will not survive the coronavirus. Now is the time to nationalize it — and use this moment to chart a course to a low-carbon future.
Amazon workers are preparing to walk out of a Staten Island warehouse, claiming that COVID-19 is rampant there. “My job description says have a high school diploma and lift fifty pounds. It doesn't say risk my life working during a pandemic.”
Spain’s requisitioning of private hospitals is a fine example of government mobilization to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. Yet the country’s overwhelmed wards also show how neoliberal policies have chipped away at public health care — starving hospitals of resources while siphoning them off to paid-for alternatives.
Against CDC guidelines and health experts’ urgings, the DNC and Joe Biden’s campaign urged Americans to vote earlier this month — undoubtedly spreading coronavirus further. But don’t expect any accountability for it, from mainstream media or anyone else.
As the coronavirus sweeps the entire globe, democracy is becoming just another casualty.
Thursday’s Eurogroup agreement promised Italy loans to deal with the health care costs of coronavirus — but refused to help it stave off economic catastrophe. EU leaders have once again put neoliberal dogmas above the welfare of ordinary citizens — further undermining Italians’ once-dogged pro-Europeanism.
During the Great Depression, radicals played key roles in helping organize the worker upsurges that led to the New Deal’s pro-worker policies. We can do the same today in fighting back against the economic misery and unsafe working conditions of the coronavirus pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic is a reminder that as long as they’re making profits, capitalists don’t care if we live or die. But unions, at their best, fight for everyone.
The coronavirus has scattered the pieces on the geopolitical chessboard, revealing the fragility of just-in-time global production. Getting back to normal is the last thing we need.
With the appalling Senate scandal over coronavirus insider trading, it is no longer possible to deny it: we are governed by a caste of the unimaginably rich, far removed from our realities.
Making cities more resilient against coronavirus pandemics will require taking on the landlords, real estate developers, and elected officials who prop them up. We need safe, affordable housing.
Many colleges and universities around the country have insisted on reopening in-person classes and putting the burden of preventing coronavirus on individual college students. The administrators behind these decisions seem to care little for the obvious devastation this is wreaking among students.