The Looting Class & It's Hoarded Gold

[TBF]

October 8, 2015 ~ Danny Katch

That's a drop in the bucket for insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, which made $10.3 billion in profits in 2014 and has seen its stock price rise almost 400 percent since the ACA's passage, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

Since Chochise Regional Hospital closed at the end of July, Gilbert Gutierrez has been worried about older people who don't have the transportation to get to the nearest medical center in Bisbee. "A 20-minute drive is really, may-make-it-or-not, life-and-death," Gutierrez told a reporter from Phoenix public radio.

To listen to Donald Trump and other fear-mongering politicians, you would think that the reason the hospital in Douglas went broke is too many Mexicans coming north to use its services.

In fact, Chochise closed because of the same problem that faces hospitals far from the border: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has cut Medicare payments and payments to hospitals for the uninsured, while many state governments haven't expanded their Medicaid coverage as the ACA dictated ...

<snip>

Days after the closure of Cochise Regional Hospital, the Hospital Corporation of America announced that its second-quarter profits had jumped to more than $500 million for three months ...

Much more here: http://socialistworker.org/2015/10/08/the-looting-class-and-its-hoarded-gold