As a lawyer, Mr. Nader, you may enjoy this from an online article from April 7, 2010: "Chester County [Pennsylvania] detectives claim that the ex-husband of the witness accessed her email accounts to read contents of her computer hard drive."
This was believed by the judge, the prosecutors, the public defenders, and (obviously) law enforcement. It was believed by the PA appellate judges, to include the PA Supreme Court.
When the ex-husband filed with the federal court for the eastern district of PA that this was ridiculous, the Judge Curtis Joyner claimed the defendant was unintelligible and incomprehensible, degrading the ex-husband in an angry tirade.
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals claimed the defendant was incapable of being pro se and must be required to hire a lawyer, as the 3rd Circuit wanted to vitiate Faretta v California (1975), at least for when there are appeals.
SCOTUS twice rejected to grant petitions for certiorari,, declaring the petitions were frivolous and based on meritless legal theory, and barred the petitioner from exercising his 1st Amendment right to peacefully redress grievances against the government.
This all occurred during Barack Obama's Reign of Arrogance.
Finally, some teenager told his dad,, a lawyer, that emails are stored on servers, not the computer, so it is impossible to read emails and read contents of a hard drive.
So, Microsoft Corp v US (2016) originates because of the aforementioned case.
Thanks Mr. Nader for your continuing, long-standing, thoughtful, concern and efforts.
1. users receive safety/error warning message upon clicking/selecting link to book by Erica Payne in your most recent email (using Chrome browser on Chrome OS ChromeBook - which are all NON-compliant with ADA accessibility standards, wince their inception by 2011:
This server could not prove that it is thenewpress.com; its security certificate is from *.hostingplatform.com. This may be caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your connection.
2. SubStack interface design violates both civil rights law ADA standards and Web Standards for accessible web design, under W3C standards (older) and newer standards
examples:
- failure to provide on-screen user controls of text-size - default text in both emails and websites like Ralph Nader Radio Hour are too small for the MAJORITY of U.S. citizens to easily read - as we are over 60 years of age and ALL experience natural decline in vision as well as increased likelihood of additional, specific diseases, disabling conditions - I've submitted direct feedback to SubStack - they are typical insensitive, irresponsible business and offer no response - also a violation of federal civil rights laws as well as various state and federal commercial regulations.
- there is NO compliance with web standards for providing text-size controllable "tool tips" or "text descriptions" for links in SubStack pages - again, the design is typical of 20 or 30 year old UI ONLY for web users with EXCELLENT vision, but the design is perfect model of complete disregard for Equal Acessibility. - YOu may have credible influence with SubStack - (I would urge your team to use open source alternative to SubStack platform, whether Blue-Sky, Mastodon or other - as SubStack has criminally negligent attitude and behavior - don't reward it with your name affiliation.)
- SubStack standard gray text color default on white background is both bad/failed graphic design, and measurably fails common user-centric measure for ease in legibility - decades old research supports this, and was basis for W3C standards in 1990s.)
- There is no easy to comprehend design for simple discerning among author/owner content/text and identity/links for commentors or Reply authors on SubStack. The entire site is like a tribute to out of date, 1980s era text "chat" or "discussion boards" with the Text Design standards of snobbish, 4 color print magazines within the architecture and graphics industries of the 1980s and the corollary lack of knowledge, compassion, respect for ANYONE who didn't have the perfect 20/20 vision of the overpaid, under-skilled "designers" who produced such failed media.
M A N Y generic, open source web site templates, even from the 2000s, are VASTLY SUPERIOR in accessibility design and compliance with federal civil rights ADA law. - PROVE ME WRONG, P L E A S E ! ! Or take a stand Mr.Nader. Simple automated website tools to scan and review and test websites for accessibility are freely available online - SubStack is unaware of ANY of these.
I operated DeafAccessFilms.com for over 20 years, providing means of compliance with ADA to Hollywood and simple access - for the first time - to Hollywood film showtime info for theatrical exhibition of films with captions/subtitles.
Thanks for taking my question on this week's show. What a great buzz!
I made "Legalize marijuana" #10 because I thought it'd help get younger people to vote. After hearing what you said and doing some research, I've changed #10 to your recommendation - "Fighting climate violence and pandemics".
While much of the Erica Payne discussion was truly Klassic there is one political reality that was once again left out of the discussion- as long as the legislators are controlled by big money none of the legislation discussed will be passed in anything that is not superficial treatment of symptoms without solving the cause of the problems.
There was a brief mention of public financing of elections but since that requires legislation and possible constitutional amendments it is unlikely that sufficient legislation will be passed by big money controlled legislators anytime before Elon Musk's great great great great great grandchildren will be making campaign contributions.
The problem of big money corrupting our political process has to be solved before legislation to solve the problem can be passed.
The question is how do we replace the big money legislators with small donor legislators without legislation.
We demand small donor candidates and enforce that demand with our votes in 2026 which is a basic principle of democracy and build on that in 2028 and 2030 and we will be well on our way toward solving the problem in 4-6 years instead of waiting generations for the big money legislators to pass legislation to solve a problem the big money interests do not want solved.
Ralph has said that politicians want our votes more than big money.
Please Ralph, help me offer citizens this strategy that employs this basic principle of democracy or explain why democracy will not work.
The follow-up segment with Erica Payne about macroeconomic matters is certainly very interesting. Thanks for airing the follow-up. I’m pleased to hear that the Patriotic Millionaires had Stephanie Kelton speak at their recent conference. It is refreshing to hear a good rubbishing of the household budget analogy and of austerity. I also agree with Payne’s description of the left often wrongly clings to the ‘pay-for’ narrative.
I can understand the predicament that Payne is in about talking about these issues with various groups. It can be very difficult to speak truthfully about taxation when a large number of politicians and citizens are operating under the household budget analogy myth. Payne is in a different position than I am, and so her approach may differ from mine, but I believe it is vitally important to bring awareness to the empirical explanation of the monetary system. Someone has to inform the citizenry about how their federal budget works because that empirical knowledge is as vital to the restoration of democracy as anything else, in my opinion at least. So, with that in mind, I hope this is the beginning of the RNRH bringing this knowledge to the listeners.
Some fellow listeners might wonder why it is important to understand these macroeconomic matters. I think news from this weekend illustrates the importance of this matter as it pertains to strengthening democracy. Reuters published an article this weekend (‘Trump says he's OK with taxing the rich but warns of political fallout’) discussing an openness towards increasing taxes on the wealthy by Trump and some of the most conservative Congressional Republicans, including Rep. Andy Harris.
Some might view this as a positive sign and an indication that the Patriotic Millionares’ advocacy is working. Well, I won’t speak for the Patriotic Millionaires, but I think this situation shows why it is important to understand the macroeconomic situation to understand the difference between taxes on the wealthy which are part of a broader economic push to enhance democracy and taxes on the wealthy which are part of a broader economic push to harm democracy. We know from history that the hard monetarists never really had a problem with increasing taxes even if the perception is that these right-wingers are strongly anti-tax, especially on the wealthy. Increasing taxes and austerity were both vital parts of the hard monetarist strategy along with a high interest rate. Margaret Thatcher, the political face of monetarism, increased taxes during the hard monetarist era in 1981 even with the UK economy being in a recession at the time!
Donald Trump’s aborted campaign to be on the Reform Party presidential ticket in 2000 does not get much attention these days, but at the time, Trump proposed a significant tax on the wealthy. Of course, this was done with the intent of eliminating the national debt, and it is this philosophy which shows that not all proposals to implement increased taxes on the wealth are ones which will promote democracy. An austerity-minded approach of reducing the national debt is only going to further pinch the lower income citizens and reduce their ability to participate in the democratic process even if that is paired with tax increases on the wealthy.
With an informed view of macroeconomics, we know that the common narratives around deficits are wrong. They key to enhancing democracy is to avoid austerity, along with closing tax breaks and loopholes for those who use their wealth to buy influence via donations to PACs and other similar avenues which simply aren’t available to people with lesser wealth. Taxing the wealthy is also a strategy. The point of this taxation isn’t really to facilitate spending to avoid austerity, but rather to lessen the unequal influence the wealthiest have over the democratic process.
Hopefully this explanation helps explain why I abhor the monetarist messaging which we often see when the household budget analogy is used. Hopefully everyone is left more informed after this episode than they were after the previous episode when I at least was left bamboozled by the stark contradictions in Payne’s commentary.
On the topic of the job guarantee, let me first state that the term ‘job guarantee’ is much like ‘Medicare for All’ in that it often means very different things to different people to the point that it is hardly any kind of defined term. I get the sense that what Payne thinks of as a ‘job guarantee’ isn’t the same as what I have in mind.
Warren Mosler, who fits a similar profile as many of the Patriotic Millionaires, has discussed the JG, something closer to the type of JG I advocate for, with several right and left-wing groups and claims that right-wing groups are receptive to Mosler’s advocacy. The reasoning for this is that right-wingers like the idea of people working and maintaining their work skills as opposed to them not working and collecting unemployment. After all, as we saw early on in the Covid recovery and also during the GFC recovery, many employers felt that the labor available to them lacked basic job skills and that this erosion of skills happened even after a relatively short period of unemployment. A well-implemented JG should greatly reduce this problem. It also should reduce the problem facing the unemployed that private sector employers want to hire people who are already working and who have active references.
With this, I believe that if Payne presents the kind of JG which I have in mind, the more conservative parts of her group’s membership might be receptive to it. The other important factor on the minds of more conservative, business-minded people is that simply raising the minimum wage could lead to inflation risks. The whole topic of the ‘wage-price spiral’ and the validity of it is a macroeconomic topic itself, but simply, a properly implemented JG stabilizes prices by helping to maintain demand while also providing a buffer stock of employable labor during economic recoveries which helps reduce inflationary pressures. There likely will be one-time price level changes once the JG sets a de facto minimum wage at a livable level, but the nature of the JG will keep the price level stable. Certainly that would appeal to conservative groups, along with everyone else.
There’s a whole lot more which can be said about these topics. As we heard in this episode, the simple mentioning of macroeconomic narratives led to considerable relevant and needed discussion. Hopefully we can get further discussions about this on the RNRH because these matters are absolutely central to the goal of enhancing democracy.
I agree. Let's do one. I'm serious. Ralph, you pick the "where." Then your media operations will amplify the opportunities.
For decades, federal tax regulations advised (in reaction to a relevant code section) that healthcare is a business sector where capital is incidental rather than a material income producing factor. That may seem counterintuitive, but think about it. Consider the companies that have gone public driven by Medicare Advantage beneficiaries "subscribed" to their tech platform. Get enough subscribers, and capital will knock at the door.
And this conclusion (as illustrated in the tax regulations) was reached long before economist John Kay concluded that capital for good projects has evolved into a "service." See https://a.co/f03nMMR
Regardless of the theory, Ralph points out that the National Cooperative Bank will lend for the project (as well it should) if a good plan is put in place. We're good to go!
I don't believe that a good plan would focus directly on a cooperative hospital. A good hospital will likely result indirectly from focusing on cooperative primary healthcare and then scaling from there. Another of Kay's concepts is "Obliquity." See this TedX Talk: https://youtu.be/_BoAtYL3OWU
The healthcare industry is telegraphing that this is very doable. For that conclusion I refer the reader to this NYT article from 2017:
The patient decides who get paid (from the NYT article):
"But the frenzy of mergers and other alliances taking place also reveals a frantic attempt to court and capture patients as people have more choices about where to go for care. Patients are increasingly relying on walk-in clinics, urgent care centers or an app on their cellphone to check out a nasty rash or monitor their diabetes, and they are looking for places that are both less expensive and more convenient than a hospital emergency room or doctor’s office.
The battle is over “the control of the patient,” said Rob Fuller, a heath care lawyer at Nelson Hardiman and a former hospital administrator. As hospital executives see the continued decline of care being delivered within a hospital’s four walls, he said they want to make sure they still have a say over where patients go after a hospital stay or to get treatment for a chronic condition."
When capital is incidental, it follows that all the "potential equity" will flow to the "finder" function. The finder function is attracting and retaining the "check-writer." Insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and charitable funding makes the consumer (the patient) the real check-writers. They decide who gets to be a check-casher. If the check-writers want the check-cashers to be local, even if that is rural, they can make it so with coordinated effort.
And that might lead to vibrant local hospitals that still provide maternity services.
Gary Cohn was the director of the National Economic Council and chief economic advisor to President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2018. He essentially ran the Treasury Department while Steven Mnuchin's nomination to be Secretary of Treasury was pending in the Senate. He is credited with leading the effort to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017. He resigned after Trump proposed import tariffs on steel and aluminum
RFK Jr. is Trump's only legitimate pick. If he is serious about “Making America Healthy,” he needs to change the food pyramid to one not influenced by food lobbyists. If RFK Jr. is allowed to call the shots at the HHS, then he should also initiate the end of the law that Reagan signed in 1986, which granted pharmaceutical companies immunity from lawsuits related to vaccine injuries. Pharmaceutical companies must be held accountable for any injuries caused by their products. This accountability will ensure that safety testing is more thorough and that products are not rushed to market. Finally, he needs to establish a universal single-payer national health insurance system (Medicare for All) in the United States.
Love hearing from Erica Payne & Questions to Ralph. Thank you for another great hour of education. ✌️
As a lawyer, Mr. Nader, you may enjoy this from an online article from April 7, 2010: "Chester County [Pennsylvania] detectives claim that the ex-husband of the witness accessed her email accounts to read contents of her computer hard drive."
This was believed by the judge, the prosecutors, the public defenders, and (obviously) law enforcement. It was believed by the PA appellate judges, to include the PA Supreme Court.
When the ex-husband filed with the federal court for the eastern district of PA that this was ridiculous, the Judge Curtis Joyner claimed the defendant was unintelligible and incomprehensible, degrading the ex-husband in an angry tirade.
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals claimed the defendant was incapable of being pro se and must be required to hire a lawyer, as the 3rd Circuit wanted to vitiate Faretta v California (1975), at least for when there are appeals.
SCOTUS twice rejected to grant petitions for certiorari,, declaring the petitions were frivolous and based on meritless legal theory, and barred the petitioner from exercising his 1st Amendment right to peacefully redress grievances against the government.
This all occurred during Barack Obama's Reign of Arrogance.
Finally, some teenager told his dad,, a lawyer, that emails are stored on servers, not the computer, so it is impossible to read emails and read contents of a hard drive.
So, Microsoft Corp v US (2016) originates because of the aforementioned case.
Thanks Mr. Nader for your continuing, long-standing, thoughtful, concern and efforts.
1. users receive safety/error warning message upon clicking/selecting link to book by Erica Payne in your most recent email (using Chrome browser on Chrome OS ChromeBook - which are all NON-compliant with ADA accessibility standards, wince their inception by 2011:
This server could not prove that it is thenewpress.com; its security certificate is from *.hostingplatform.com. This may be caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your connection.
Proceed to thenewpress.com (unsafe)
2. SubStack interface design violates both civil rights law ADA standards and Web Standards for accessible web design, under W3C standards (older) and newer standards
examples:
- failure to provide on-screen user controls of text-size - default text in both emails and websites like Ralph Nader Radio Hour are too small for the MAJORITY of U.S. citizens to easily read - as we are over 60 years of age and ALL experience natural decline in vision as well as increased likelihood of additional, specific diseases, disabling conditions - I've submitted direct feedback to SubStack - they are typical insensitive, irresponsible business and offer no response - also a violation of federal civil rights laws as well as various state and federal commercial regulations.
- there is NO compliance with web standards for providing text-size controllable "tool tips" or "text descriptions" for links in SubStack pages - again, the design is typical of 20 or 30 year old UI ONLY for web users with EXCELLENT vision, but the design is perfect model of complete disregard for Equal Acessibility. - YOu may have credible influence with SubStack - (I would urge your team to use open source alternative to SubStack platform, whether Blue-Sky, Mastodon or other - as SubStack has criminally negligent attitude and behavior - don't reward it with your name affiliation.)
- SubStack standard gray text color default on white background is both bad/failed graphic design, and measurably fails common user-centric measure for ease in legibility - decades old research supports this, and was basis for W3C standards in 1990s.)
- There is no easy to comprehend design for simple discerning among author/owner content/text and identity/links for commentors or Reply authors on SubStack. The entire site is like a tribute to out of date, 1980s era text "chat" or "discussion boards" with the Text Design standards of snobbish, 4 color print magazines within the architecture and graphics industries of the 1980s and the corollary lack of knowledge, compassion, respect for ANYONE who didn't have the perfect 20/20 vision of the overpaid, under-skilled "designers" who produced such failed media.
M A N Y generic, open source web site templates, even from the 2000s, are VASTLY SUPERIOR in accessibility design and compliance with federal civil rights ADA law. - PROVE ME WRONG, P L E A S E ! ! Or take a stand Mr.Nader. Simple automated website tools to scan and review and test websites for accessibility are freely available online - SubStack is unaware of ANY of these.
I operated DeafAccessFilms.com for over 20 years, providing means of compliance with ADA to Hollywood and simple access - for the first time - to Hollywood film showtime info for theatrical exhibition of films with captions/subtitles.
Hey Ralph,
Thanks for taking my question on this week's show. What a great buzz!
I made "Legalize marijuana" #10 because I thought it'd help get younger people to vote. After hearing what you said and doing some research, I've changed #10 to your recommendation - "Fighting climate violence and pandemics".
I've updated the agenda on the website.
https://www.townhallcitizen.com/ralph-nader-gives-thumbs-up-to-town-hall-citizen-platform/
Thanks so much, Ralph!
While much of the Erica Payne discussion was truly Klassic there is one political reality that was once again left out of the discussion- as long as the legislators are controlled by big money none of the legislation discussed will be passed in anything that is not superficial treatment of symptoms without solving the cause of the problems.
There was a brief mention of public financing of elections but since that requires legislation and possible constitutional amendments it is unlikely that sufficient legislation will be passed by big money controlled legislators anytime before Elon Musk's great great great great great grandchildren will be making campaign contributions.
The problem of big money corrupting our political process has to be solved before legislation to solve the problem can be passed.
The question is how do we replace the big money legislators with small donor legislators without legislation.
We demand small donor candidates and enforce that demand with our votes in 2026 which is a basic principle of democracy and build on that in 2028 and 2030 and we will be well on our way toward solving the problem in 4-6 years instead of waiting generations for the big money legislators to pass legislation to solve a problem the big money interests do not want solved.
Ralph has said that politicians want our votes more than big money.
Please Ralph, help me offer citizens this strategy that employs this basic principle of democracy or explain why democracy will not work.
The follow-up segment with Erica Payne about macroeconomic matters is certainly very interesting. Thanks for airing the follow-up. I’m pleased to hear that the Patriotic Millionaires had Stephanie Kelton speak at their recent conference. It is refreshing to hear a good rubbishing of the household budget analogy and of austerity. I also agree with Payne’s description of the left often wrongly clings to the ‘pay-for’ narrative.
I can understand the predicament that Payne is in about talking about these issues with various groups. It can be very difficult to speak truthfully about taxation when a large number of politicians and citizens are operating under the household budget analogy myth. Payne is in a different position than I am, and so her approach may differ from mine, but I believe it is vitally important to bring awareness to the empirical explanation of the monetary system. Someone has to inform the citizenry about how their federal budget works because that empirical knowledge is as vital to the restoration of democracy as anything else, in my opinion at least. So, with that in mind, I hope this is the beginning of the RNRH bringing this knowledge to the listeners.
Some fellow listeners might wonder why it is important to understand these macroeconomic matters. I think news from this weekend illustrates the importance of this matter as it pertains to strengthening democracy. Reuters published an article this weekend (‘Trump says he's OK with taxing the rich but warns of political fallout’) discussing an openness towards increasing taxes on the wealthy by Trump and some of the most conservative Congressional Republicans, including Rep. Andy Harris.
Some might view this as a positive sign and an indication that the Patriotic Millionares’ advocacy is working. Well, I won’t speak for the Patriotic Millionaires, but I think this situation shows why it is important to understand the macroeconomic situation to understand the difference between taxes on the wealthy which are part of a broader economic push to enhance democracy and taxes on the wealthy which are part of a broader economic push to harm democracy. We know from history that the hard monetarists never really had a problem with increasing taxes even if the perception is that these right-wingers are strongly anti-tax, especially on the wealthy. Increasing taxes and austerity were both vital parts of the hard monetarist strategy along with a high interest rate. Margaret Thatcher, the political face of monetarism, increased taxes during the hard monetarist era in 1981 even with the UK economy being in a recession at the time!
Donald Trump’s aborted campaign to be on the Reform Party presidential ticket in 2000 does not get much attention these days, but at the time, Trump proposed a significant tax on the wealthy. Of course, this was done with the intent of eliminating the national debt, and it is this philosophy which shows that not all proposals to implement increased taxes on the wealth are ones which will promote democracy. An austerity-minded approach of reducing the national debt is only going to further pinch the lower income citizens and reduce their ability to participate in the democratic process even if that is paired with tax increases on the wealthy.
With an informed view of macroeconomics, we know that the common narratives around deficits are wrong. They key to enhancing democracy is to avoid austerity, along with closing tax breaks and loopholes for those who use their wealth to buy influence via donations to PACs and other similar avenues which simply aren’t available to people with lesser wealth. Taxing the wealthy is also a strategy. The point of this taxation isn’t really to facilitate spending to avoid austerity, but rather to lessen the unequal influence the wealthiest have over the democratic process.
Hopefully this explanation helps explain why I abhor the monetarist messaging which we often see when the household budget analogy is used. Hopefully everyone is left more informed after this episode than they were after the previous episode when I at least was left bamboozled by the stark contradictions in Payne’s commentary.
On the topic of the job guarantee, let me first state that the term ‘job guarantee’ is much like ‘Medicare for All’ in that it often means very different things to different people to the point that it is hardly any kind of defined term. I get the sense that what Payne thinks of as a ‘job guarantee’ isn’t the same as what I have in mind.
Warren Mosler, who fits a similar profile as many of the Patriotic Millionaires, has discussed the JG, something closer to the type of JG I advocate for, with several right and left-wing groups and claims that right-wing groups are receptive to Mosler’s advocacy. The reasoning for this is that right-wingers like the idea of people working and maintaining their work skills as opposed to them not working and collecting unemployment. After all, as we saw early on in the Covid recovery and also during the GFC recovery, many employers felt that the labor available to them lacked basic job skills and that this erosion of skills happened even after a relatively short period of unemployment. A well-implemented JG should greatly reduce this problem. It also should reduce the problem facing the unemployed that private sector employers want to hire people who are already working and who have active references.
With this, I believe that if Payne presents the kind of JG which I have in mind, the more conservative parts of her group’s membership might be receptive to it. The other important factor on the minds of more conservative, business-minded people is that simply raising the minimum wage could lead to inflation risks. The whole topic of the ‘wage-price spiral’ and the validity of it is a macroeconomic topic itself, but simply, a properly implemented JG stabilizes prices by helping to maintain demand while also providing a buffer stock of employable labor during economic recoveries which helps reduce inflationary pressures. There likely will be one-time price level changes once the JG sets a de facto minimum wage at a livable level, but the nature of the JG will keep the price level stable. Certainly that would appeal to conservative groups, along with everyone else.
There’s a whole lot more which can be said about these topics. As we heard in this episode, the simple mentioning of macroeconomic narratives led to considerable relevant and needed discussion. Hopefully we can get further discussions about this on the RNRH because these matters are absolutely central to the goal of enhancing democracy.
Re: Rural Cooperative Hospital.
I agree. Let's do one. I'm serious. Ralph, you pick the "where." Then your media operations will amplify the opportunities.
For decades, federal tax regulations advised (in reaction to a relevant code section) that healthcare is a business sector where capital is incidental rather than a material income producing factor. That may seem counterintuitive, but think about it. Consider the companies that have gone public driven by Medicare Advantage beneficiaries "subscribed" to their tech platform. Get enough subscribers, and capital will knock at the door.
And this conclusion (as illustrated in the tax regulations) was reached long before economist John Kay concluded that capital for good projects has evolved into a "service." See https://a.co/f03nMMR
Regardless of the theory, Ralph points out that the National Cooperative Bank will lend for the project (as well it should) if a good plan is put in place. We're good to go!
I don't believe that a good plan would focus directly on a cooperative hospital. A good hospital will likely result indirectly from focusing on cooperative primary healthcare and then scaling from there. Another of Kay's concepts is "Obliquity." See this TedX Talk: https://youtu.be/_BoAtYL3OWU
The healthcare industry is telegraphing that this is very doable. For that conclusion I refer the reader to this NYT article from 2017:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/health/hospitals-mergers-patients.html#story-continues-2
The patient decides who get paid (from the NYT article):
"But the frenzy of mergers and other alliances taking place also reveals a frantic attempt to court and capture patients as people have more choices about where to go for care. Patients are increasingly relying on walk-in clinics, urgent care centers or an app on their cellphone to check out a nasty rash or monitor their diabetes, and they are looking for places that are both less expensive and more convenient than a hospital emergency room or doctor’s office.
The battle is over “the control of the patient,” said Rob Fuller, a heath care lawyer at Nelson Hardiman and a former hospital administrator. As hospital executives see the continued decline of care being delivered within a hospital’s four walls, he said they want to make sure they still have a say over where patients go after a hospital stay or to get treatment for a chronic condition."
When capital is incidental, it follows that all the "potential equity" will flow to the "finder" function. The finder function is attracting and retaining the "check-writer." Insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and charitable funding makes the consumer (the patient) the real check-writers. They decide who gets to be a check-casher. If the check-writers want the check-cashers to be local, even if that is rural, they can make it so with coordinated effort.
And that might lead to vibrant local hospitals that still provide maternity services.
Gary Cohn was the director of the National Economic Council and chief economic advisor to President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2018. He essentially ran the Treasury Department while Steven Mnuchin's nomination to be Secretary of Treasury was pending in the Senate. He is credited with leading the effort to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017. He resigned after Trump proposed import tariffs on steel and aluminum
RFK Jr. is Trump's only legitimate pick. If he is serious about “Making America Healthy,” he needs to change the food pyramid to one not influenced by food lobbyists. If RFK Jr. is allowed to call the shots at the HHS, then he should also initiate the end of the law that Reagan signed in 1986, which granted pharmaceutical companies immunity from lawsuits related to vaccine injuries. Pharmaceutical companies must be held accountable for any injuries caused by their products. This accountability will ensure that safety testing is more thorough and that products are not rushed to market. Finally, he needs to establish a universal single-payer national health insurance system (Medicare for All) in the United States.