The Real Illness Plaguing U.S. Health Care: Inequality

By Chris White, It's Our Economy Feb 8, 2014 In addition to doing nothing to address the problem of bankruptcy due to medical debt, the ACA, through Medicaid expansion, has increased the pool of resources that can be repossessed by state authorities to help defer the costs of the program. Dig deeper ( 4 Min. Read )

The Public-Private Profiteers

By Barbara Garson, TomDispatch Feb 6, 2014 In the cases of healthcare and underwater mortgages, the administration shied away from direct government aid. Instead, it subsidized private companies to serve the people. To get your government-subsidized mortgage modification, you applied at your bank; to get your government-mandated health coverage, you buy private insurance. Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )

Goodbye to the U.K.’s National Health Service?

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Jan 10, 2014 Britain may not have the world's model medical service for long. NHS official Kailash Chand predicts the inexpensive and efficient nationalized system could be replaced by a largely privatized version involving worse "access, equity, health outcomes and cost" within five years. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Idaho to Take Over Privately Run Prison

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Jan 5, 2014 Idaho Gov. C.L. Otter announced Friday that the state's corrections department would assume operation of the largest privately run prison there after more than a decade of mismanagement and other problems. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Diane Ravitch Reviews ‘Reign of Error’ Review: ‘Beautiful’

Staff / Truthdig Dec 18, 2013 It's always nice when, tasked with writing a book review involving a key figure in a certain field of which one is well acquainted, one ultimately has good things to say about the book in question. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Reign of Error

By Patrick Walsh Dec 6, 2013 As educational reforms themselves grow ever more strident, standardized and, yes, totalitarian in structure, Diane Ravitch embodies the institutional memory that no totalitarian system can abide.As educational reforms grow ever more strident, Diane Ravitch's new book embodies the institutional memory that no totalitarian system can abide. Dig deeper ( 6 Min. Read )

American Oligarchs Will Never Cancel the Debts Owed to Them

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Dec 1, 2013 University of Missouri economist Michael Hudson explains one of the best-kept and most pernicious secrets of contemporary capitalism: Unless the financial scheme underpinning society is restructured, the bulk of debts owed by working and poor Americans can't and won't be repaid. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Report Documents Abuse of Juveniles in Private Prisons

Peter Z. Scheer / Truthdig Oct 22, 2013 With some 40 percent of incarcerated youth held in private facilities, a Huffington Post investigation reveals abuse, neglect and other horrors visited upon American children in the name of profit. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Breaking Away: Top Public Universities Push for ‘Autonomy’ From States

Staff / Truthdig Oct 7, 2013 Public universities say they want more flexibility, but such plans threaten the college dreams of low-income students. Dig deeper ( 5 Min. Read )

When Schools Become Dead Zones of Imagination

By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout Aug 17, 2013 Like the dead space of the American mall, the school systems promoted by billionaire un-reformers and titans of finance such as Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, the Walton family and Michael Bloomberg offer the empty ideological seduction of consumerism as the ultimate form of citizenship and learning. Dig deeper ( 17 Min. Read )

Where Education Is ‘Sold to the Highest Bidder’

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Aug 13, 2013 The attack on the spirit of higher education is exemplified in the installation of former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a neoliberal archfiend of public schooling, as president of Purdue University. Dig deeper ( 4 Min. Read )

Liberal ‘Confusion’ About America’s Education Problem

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Aug 8, 2013 Neoliberalism, the economic doctrine that favors zero government regulation of commerce and other activities, is giving American education to the corporations, and well-meaning but deluded liberals are complicit in the takeover, Lois Weiner writes at Jacobin. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )