The Real Story: Presidential Politics | 10/9

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The Kind Of Health Care System We Need Is Not Likely To Be The One We Will Get

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Our nation's health care system is broken. More than 45 million Americans are without health insurance. Many of the uninsured pay dearly for their lack of coverage. Experts estimate that roughly 22,000 people die annually because they are not covered by an insurance plan. Like most Americans, I've had a very difficult time following the health care debate in Washington. The competing claims about what ails our health care system are nearly as difficult to follow as the competing policy prescriptions being offered to fix it. What I am most certain of, however, is that repairing our nation's health care system is of critical importance to communities of color. A report released earlier this year by the Connecticut Citizen Action Group (CCAG) as part of Heath Care for American Now (HCAN) – a coalition of over 1,000 organizations – makes a compelling case that communities of color would benefit most from comprehensive health reform. "Throughout the nation's history, ...
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Neoliberalism, the Fiscal Cliff, and the Fate of Black People

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As was the case in 2008, when I voted for Barack Obama for president in 2012, I did not embrace the fantasy (perhaps, it should be referred to as "the delusion") that many of my liberal and progressive friends had that Obama was secretly a "lefty" and shared our values and that his "middle of the road approach" on the campaign trail was a ruse, a stratagem, subterfuge, a cleaver maneuver on his part designed to hoodwink white people hesitant to support a black man for president. Once in office, some black people I know invoking a righteously indignant tone preached to me, the president would be the progressive we had all been hoping and praying for after 8 years of George W. Bush. Reality has set in for most people on the left. The president is not a "lefty." Although I believe he is slightly left of center, he does not share our core leftist values or our leftist economic and political agenda. But I voted for him two times. Explain y...
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