therealnews--2020-03-26--Yesterday’s Man: Biden’s Neoliberal Economic, Foreign Policy Record

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Former vice president Joe Biden is ahead in the polls and pundits often claim that the reason for this is that Biden is the more electable of the democratic candidates .
But is he ?
Bernie Sanders recently pointed out that opinion polls regularly indicate that the US electorate ’ s policy preferences are more closely aligned with progressive policies , such as universal healthcare and free public college , but not with the supposedly more moderate policies of Joe Biden .
But exactly what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is his record ?
This is an issue that the debates and the analysts rarely examined in much detail .
A recently published book with the title Yesterday ’ s Man , The Case Against Joe Biden by Branko Marcetic does just that .
Branko joins me now for part two of my interview with him .
Thanks , again , Branko , for being here today .
Branko Marceti… : Yeah , it ’ s good to be here .
Greg Wilpert : In the first part of this interview we looked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial justice and environmental policy record .
In this second part , I want to focus on his economic and foreign policies .
Now with regard to Biden ’ s economic policy record , he was an early supporter of the shift towards neo-liberalism already during the presidency of Ronald Reagan .
Talk about the main economic policies that he has championed throughout his career from fiscal policy to trade policy .
Branko Marceti… : Yeah , from 1970 onwards , Biden became one of the leading Democrats calling for this kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ran in ’ 78 as a fiscal conservative .
He called for a massive tax cut .
He wanted a limit to the size of federal bureaucracy .
He even put forward sunset legislation that would basically make every government program automatically phase out unless it was a manually renewed and specifically each one .
That was really the path he followed for the next several decades .
Through the ’ 80s , he was constantly calling for the government to do something about the big deficit and the big spending in Washington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trying to outdo Reagan .
He would , for example when Reagan put forth a spending freeze , Biden put forward his own spending freeze with a couple of other Republicans that was even bigger than Reagan ’ s , and put Medicare and social security on the table as well .
Through the ’ 90s , he was constantly talking about the need to attack spending and the deficit .
He voted for the balanced budget constitutional amendment three years in a row , despite himself acknowledging every single time that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a terrible idea .
He voted for it each time because part of Biden ’ s career is that he feels the need to constantly posture and show the public that he is just as much of a conservative and can be just as right-wing and push these kind of same protocol policies as Republicans can .
We saw that even under Obama when he was vice president .
Biden ’ s task under Obama was , one , to root out fraud and so-called waste from the stimulus .
What that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that were maybe useful job-creating programs , but could be picked up by Republicans and sort of made fun of and used to attack Obama ; and that was his whole thing .
A month before the famous shellacking , the Democrats and Obama talk in 2010 , Biden gave Obama how much he had saved through all this rooting out of fraud and waste and that kind of thing .
In the grand scheme of things , not a very large amount and there was this very proud thing for Biden .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Democratic loss in 2010 , the public really didn ’ t care about this .
This wasn ’ t a priority for actual Americans , for actual working Americans .
It was a priority for the political class that Biden came out of , but that ’ s it .
I think that ’ s the same thing with the trade issues .
I mean , Biden , despite having a lifelong link to organized labor , despite getting a lot of support from unions from the very beginning of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ended up pushing and voting for NAFTA , not just to give Bush the fast track authority to negotiate it , but then under Clinton to ratify it , this major , major betrayal of labor .
And just similar to the support that we ’ re seeing from African Americans that Biden ’ s getting now , it ’ s a similar thing with labor , where labor… I ’ m sure people know that his actual record on labor is not very good .
He actually got one of the lowest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through the 1980s , about the same as Gary Hart , who was a famously anti-labor Democrat .
And yet laborers have been very loyal to him despite this and despite things like pushing for NAFTA , despite things like pushing for the TPP under Obama , which he has said that he still supports .
Which is remarkable if we ’ re talking about electability to be still supporting TPP while potentially facing up against Donald Trump in the general election .
Greg Wilpert : Now another area where Biden seems to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the reform of bankruptcy law and against financial regulation .
Now he represents the state of Delaware , which is notorious for being a tax haven and a corporate incorporation paradise .
How has that fact influenced his policies on the financial industry ?
Branko Marceti… : Well , there was the bankruptcy bill , of course , that made it a lot harder for middle and working class families to discharge their debts and it has been devastating for students who are grappling with student debt .
And that was pushed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ card company in Delaware .
Also it has to be understood that Delaware , because it ’ s this bankruptcy haven , a large part of its business , its local industry really is bankruptcy .
And so pushing this bill that was terrible for many , many , many people across the United States was good technically for the Delaware economy and it was good for the people who contribute to Biden ’ s campaigns .
Of course , MBNA is the credit card company that was his biggest contributor .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other things like repeal of Glass-Steagall , which Biden also voted for .
But Biden has beyond that worked to protect the status that Delaware has .
When a group of people tried to push what was called the Delaware Killer in the ’ 90s in Congress , which was this attempt to shift , to end Delaware ’ s favorability as a site of bankruptcy for corporations to be sort of friendly to them , Biden both times put up such a vehement fight against this , that the effort was killed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hands and said , “ Okay , well , I don ’ t want to go up against this.
” Yeah , Delaware ’ s status as this corporate haven has been really crucial to this snagging of sort of Biden ’ s votes .
But not just that , but you know also the presence of the DuPont Company , which has dominated that state for decades , really even longer than decades , centuries really ; and Biden drew a lot of his staffers from DuPont .
When he first selected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relationship with them because you sort of had to if you were to elected official in Delaware .
I think that ’ s also helps to explain some his corporatist leanings over the years .
Greg Wilpert : Now finally turning to foreign policy , Biden seems to have a bit of a mixed record in this regard .
That is , on the one hand in the 1970s , he opposed the Vietnam War and the US embargo on Cuba and also Reagan ’ s wars on Central America , but then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ troops surge in Afghanistan .
But in the 1990s , he became more hawkish in other aspects .
Talk about this transition and about where he stood on issues of US military intervention over the decades .
Branko Marceti… : Well , this is what we were talking about before .
Biden isn ’ t someone with a very substantive ideology .
I think he ’ s just someone who has always wanted to be in power .
He always wanted to be president and said it from a very young age , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him .
And so you ’ re exactly right .
Saying he was a New Deal liberal in the 1970s , he was also something of a dove on the Vietnam War because that was the prevailing mood at the time .
He actually has in his initial speech announcing saying his campaign for Senate , he didn ’ t even mention the Vietnam War despite speaking for 40 minutes and basically reporters had to ask him about it , and it was only then that he really developed this anti-war stance that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But by the 80s , in the same way that Reagan ’ s victories had really led Biden and other Democrats like him to reconsider the direction of the party on domestic policy and economics and that kind of thing , those victories also led Biden to rethink his stance on foreign policy .
Because he said clearly voters want someone who is more aggressive , who is more willing to use force overseas and Democrats are going to lose if we don ’ t embrace this philosophy more and more .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ pushes for , or at least actually supports a number of military interventions .
He supports Reagan ’ s bombing of Libya and his invasion of Granada .
He supports Bush ’ s invasion of Panama .
He opposes the Gulf War .
But when it ends up being a big political trial for Bush , he completely reverses it .
He says , “ You know what , I was wrong .
Credit where credit ’ s due .
Bush had courage to push this war that killed hundreds of thousands of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 90s , ends up being much more hawkish on the world stage where Republicans were actually less sort of in that decade .
He ’ s pushing for involvement in [ halcyon 00:10:38 ] and Kosovo .
And actually , by the end is even calling for Saddam ’ s ouster .
And that leads us to the the moment in 2002 when Biden spends that entire year as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee pushing for war with Iraq , which of course he ends up voting for one and ends up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , under Obama , he did take less interventionist positions and things like Libya and the surge Afghanistan .
It ’ s commendable .
I think it also shows the way that Biden just kind of goes along with whatever he feels that the prevailing political attitude is .
I think it ’ s also important to note that at the same time that he did take these more laudable stances , he was also the person who created or came up with the idea of that the “ counterterrorism plus ” strategy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Which , basically , instead of invading with boots on the ground , just bombed them remotely from drones and planes and sending special forces every now and then to come in and you raid some house and kill somebody .
And that strategy has not only helped to completely undermine the gains in world opinion that Obama had engendered through his election and feel the kind of anti-Americanism and terrorism that the Obama had come in trying to end , but also is now that program ended up in the hands of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ danger of this where not has Trump stepped up all of these things , he ’ s stepped up drone attacks and everything , but also he used the drone to assassinate a foreign leader in the form of a General Soleimani , which nearly caused a war in the Middle East .
And that is a really important legacy of the strategy that Biden cooked up .
And if Trump wins another term , he ’ s going to have these expansive and dangerous powers at his disposal for another four years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come up to him to have the same powers .
Greg Wilpert : Now unfortunately , we can ’ t actually go through all of these policy areas .
We ’ ve covered a lot of ground .
There ’ s some that we had to skip , such as immigration and Biden ’ s role in the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court justices , but we ’ re going to have to leave it there .
But before we conclude , I just want to briefly try to see if we can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That is , more recently he ’ s been trying to portray himself as a progressive .
Now would you say that he ’ s actually become more progressive ?
You ’ ve mentioned before , he doesn ’ t really have a clear political ideology , so then is he continuing to just read the sign of the times , in other words , acting opportunistically ?
I mean , how would you characterize this briefly ?
Branko Marceti… : Yeah , definitely .
I mean , Biden , if you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always had a tendency to just say whatever he needed to say .
He caught himself .
He said , “ I ’ m not a liberal , ” in the 1970s .
“ I ’ m not that liberal .
People think I ’ m a liberal , but I ’ m actually quite conservative in things.
” And he would repeat that through the years .
He said a lot of things about his life that aren ’ t true .
He said that he was a civil rights activist for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be a lie .
He started saying that again now .
He said he was an anti-war activist for years .
That was also a lie .
He is now saying that he got arrested trying to meet up with Nelson Mandela in South Africa , which is a proverbial lie .
He ’ s lying about his Iraq war record .
He ’ s saying lately in the last however many debates , that when the Iraq war started , he immediately went into opposition mode .
Flatly contracted by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way he doesn ’ t know that this is untrue .
So I mean , Biden , even if you look at the social issues that Democrats have moved left on , even as they ’ ve stayed economically and otherwise conservative , Biden has always been lagging behind them .
I mean , it took him until 2019 for him to oppose the Hyde Amendment , a huge restriction on abortion rights in the US ; and that has been his position throughout his entire career .
I mean , Biden really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life .
And not just a conservative Democrat , but a conservative Democrat who any time the right wing in the United States does anything or move to the right , becomes more radical , Biden moves with them .
That ’ s his only way of combating them .
And again , as we watch the Republican party lurge ever rightward into a more concerning direction , we have to really think about what it ’ s going to be like to have some like Joe Biden either campaigning in their atmosphere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Greg Wilpert : Yeah , I think it ’ s really crucial what you ’ re saying , characterizing him as a conservative Democrat instead of just saying that he ’ s a moderate .
I think that ’ s probably a much more honest to say a conservative Democrat .
But we ’ re going to have to leave it there for now .
I was speaking to Branko Marcetic , author of the book Yesterday ’ s Man : The Case Against Joe Biden .
I highly recommend it .
Thanks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us today .
Branko Marceti… : Yeah , thanks for having me .
Greg Wilpert : And thank you for joining the Real News Network .

Branko Marcetic discusses Joe Biden’s neoliberal economic policy and his neoconservative foreign policy record, as covered in his book, “Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden.”
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Greg Wilpert : It’s the Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore.
Former vice president Joe Biden is ahead in the polls and pundits often claim that the reason for this is that Biden is the more electable of the democratic candidates. But is he?
Bernie Sanders recently pointed out that opinion polls regularly indicate that the US electorate’s policy preferences are more closely aligned with progressive policies, such as universal healthcare and free public college, but not with the supposedly more moderate policies of Joe Biden. But exactly what are Biden’s policies and what is his record? This is an issue that the debates and the analysts rarely examined in much detail.
A recently published book with the title Yesterday’s Man, The Case Against Joe Biden by Branko Marcetic does just that. Branko joins me now for part two of my interview with him. Thanks, again, Branko, for being here today.
Branko Marceti…: Yeah, it’s good to be here.
Greg Wilpert : In the first part of this interview we looked at Biden’s civil rights, racial justice and environmental policy record. In this second part, I want to focus on his economic and foreign policies.
Now with regard to Biden’s economic policy record, he was an early supporter of the shift towards neo-liberalism already during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Talk about the main economic policies that he has championed throughout his career from fiscal policy to trade policy.
Branko Marceti…: Yeah, from 1970 onwards, Biden became one of the leading Democrats calling for this kind of Reagan-light approach to budgetary policy. He ran in ’78 as a fiscal conservative. He called for a massive tax cut. He wanted a limit to the size of federal bureaucracy. He even put forward sunset legislation that would basically make every government program automatically phase out unless it was a manually renewed and specifically each one.
That was really the path he followed for the next several decades. Through the ’80s, he was constantly calling for the government to do something about the big deficit and the big spending in Washington. He was really in many ways trying to outdo Reagan. He would, for example when Reagan put forth a spending freeze, Biden put forward his own spending freeze with a couple of other Republicans that was even bigger than Reagan’s, and put Medicare and social security on the table as well.
Through the ’90s, he was constantly talking about the need to attack spending and the deficit. He voted for the balanced budget constitutional amendment three years in a row, despite himself acknowledging every single time that it would be a disaster and that it was a terrible idea. He voted for it each time because part of Biden’s career is that he feels the need to constantly posture and show the public that he is just as much of a conservative and can be just as right-wing and push these kind of same protocol policies as Republicans can.
We saw that even under Obama when he was vice president. Biden’s task under Obama was, one, to root out fraud and so-called waste from the stimulus. What that really meant was get rid of programs that were maybe useful job-creating programs, but could be picked up by Republicans and sort of made fun of and used to attack Obama; and that was his whole thing.
A month before the famous shellacking, the Democrats and Obama talk in 2010, Biden gave Obama how much he had saved through all this rooting out of fraud and waste and that kind of thing. In the grand scheme of things, not a very large amount and there was this very proud thing for Biden. But it showed that given the size of the Democratic loss in 2010, the public really didn’t care about this. This wasn’t a priority for actual Americans, for actual working Americans. It was a priority for the political class that Biden came out of, but that’s it.
I think that’s the same thing with the trade issues. I mean, Biden, despite having a lifelong link to organized labor, despite getting a lot of support from unions from the very beginning of his career to really even now, he ended up pushing and voting for NAFTA, not just to give Bush the fast track authority to negotiate it, but then under Clinton to ratify it, this major, major betrayal of labor.
And just similar to the support that we’re seeing from African Americans that Biden’s getting now, it’s a similar thing with labor, where labor… I’m sure people know that his actual record on labor is not very good. He actually got one of the lowest rating’s from the AFL/CIO consistently through the 1980s, about the same as Gary Hart, who was a famously anti-labor Democrat. And yet laborers have been very loyal to him despite this and despite things like pushing for NAFTA, despite things like pushing for the TPP under Obama, which he has said that he still supports. Which is remarkable if we’re talking about electability to be still supporting TPP while potentially facing up against Donald Trump in the general election.
Greg Wilpert : Now another area where Biden seems to have stood out is in his support for the reform of bankruptcy law and against financial regulation. Now he represents the state of Delaware, which is notorious for being a tax haven and a corporate incorporation paradise. How has that fact influenced his policies on the financial industry?
Branko Marceti…: Well, there was the bankruptcy bill, of course, that made it a lot harder for middle and working class families to discharge their debts and it has been devastating for students who are grappling with student debt. And that was pushed by MBNA, which is a credit card company in Delaware. Also it has to be understood that Delaware, because it’s this bankruptcy haven, a large part of its business, its local industry really is bankruptcy. And so pushing this bill that was terrible for many, many, many people across the United States was good technically for the Delaware economy and it was good for the people who contribute to Biden’s campaigns. Of course, MBNA is the credit card company that was his biggest contributor. They pushed that bill as well as some other things like repeal of Glass-Steagall, which Biden also voted for.
But Biden has beyond that worked to protect the status that Delaware has. When a group of people tried to push what was called the Delaware Killer in the ’90s in Congress, which was this attempt to shift, to end Delaware’s favorability as a site of bankruptcy for corporations to be sort of friendly to them, Biden both times put up such a vehement fight against this, that the effort was killed. One lawmaker just threw up his hands and said, “Okay, well, I don’t want to go up against this.”
Yeah, Delaware’s status as this corporate haven has been really crucial to this snagging of sort of Biden’s votes. But not just that, but you know also the presence of the DuPont Company, which has dominated that state for decades, really even longer than decades, centuries really; and Biden drew a lot of his staffers from DuPont. When he first selected he sort of had this very friendly relationship with them because you sort of had to if you were to elected official in Delaware. I think that’s also helps to explain some his corporatist leanings over the years.
Greg Wilpert : Now finally turning to foreign policy, Biden seems to have a bit of a mixed record in this regard. That is, on the one hand in the 1970s, he opposed the Vietnam War and the US embargo on Cuba and also Reagan’s wars on Central America, but then also he argued against Obama’s troops surge in Afghanistan. But in the 1990s, he became more hawkish in other aspects. Talk about this transition and about where he stood on issues of US military intervention over the decades.
Branko Marceti…: Well, this is what we were talking about before. Biden isn’t someone with a very substantive ideology. I think he’s just someone who has always wanted to be in power. He always wanted to be president and said it from a very young age, and everything has been about that for him. And so you’re exactly right.
Saying he was a New Deal liberal in the 1970s, he was also something of a dove on the Vietnam War because that was the prevailing mood at the time. He actually has in his initial speech announcing saying his campaign for Senate, he didn’t even mention the Vietnam War despite speaking for 40 minutes and basically reporters had to ask him about it, and it was only then that he really developed this anti-war stance that he took into the next few years.
But by the 80s, in the same way that Reagan’s victories had really led Biden and other Democrats like him to reconsider the direction of the party on domestic policy and economics and that kind of thing, those victories also led Biden to rethink his stance on foreign policy. Because he said clearly voters want someone who is more aggressive, who is more willing to use force overseas and Democrats are going to lose if we don’t embrace this philosophy more and more. And so in the 80s he really pushes for, or at least actually supports a number of military interventions. He supports Reagan’s bombing of Libya and his invasion of Granada. He supports Bush’s invasion of Panama. He opposes the Gulf War.
But when it ends up being a big political trial for Bush, he completely reverses it. He says, “You know what, I was wrong. Credit where credit’s due. Bush had courage to push this war that killed hundreds of thousands of kids.” And so he through the 90s, ends up being much more hawkish on the world stage where Republicans were actually less sort of in that decade. He’s pushing for involvement in [halcyon 00:10:38] and Kosovo. And actually, by the end is even calling for Saddam’s ouster. And that leads us to the the moment in 2002 when Biden spends that entire year as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee pushing for war with Iraq, which of course he ends up voting for one and ends up getting.
And you’re right, under Obama, he did take less interventionist positions and things like Libya and the surge Afghanistan. It’s commendable. I think it also shows the way that Biden just kind of goes along with whatever he feels that the prevailing political attitude is. I think it’s also important to note that at the same time that he did take these more laudable stances, he was also the person who created or came up with the idea of that the “counterterrorism plus” strategy, which is what Obama did. Which, basically, instead of invading with boots on the ground, just bombed them remotely from drones and planes and sending special forces every now and then to come in and you raid some house and kill somebody.
And that strategy has not only helped to completely undermine the gains in world opinion that Obama had engendered through his election and feel the kind of anti-Americanism and terrorism that the Obama had come in trying to end, but also is now that program ended up in the hands of Donald Trump. And we saw the danger of this where not has Trump stepped up all of these things, he’s stepped up drone attacks and everything, but also he used the drone to assassinate a foreign leader in the form of a General Soleimani, which nearly caused a war in the Middle East. And that is a really important legacy of the strategy that Biden cooked up. And if Trump wins another term, he’s going to have these expansive and dangerous powers at his disposal for another four years, and then who knows who will come up to him to have the same powers.
Greg Wilpert : Now unfortunately, we can’t actually go through all of these policy areas. We’ve covered a lot of ground. There’s some that we had to skip, such as immigration and Biden’s role in the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court justices, but we’re going to have to leave it there. But before we conclude, I just want to briefly try to see if we can summarize this political portrait of Joe Biden. That is, more recently he’s been trying to portray himself as a progressive. Now would you say that he’s actually become more progressive? You’ve mentioned before, he doesn’t really have a clear political ideology, so then is he continuing to just read the sign of the times, in other words, acting opportunistically? I mean, how would you characterize this briefly?
Branko Marceti…: Yeah, definitely. I mean, Biden, if you look at his career, he is always had a tendency to just say whatever he needed to say. He caught himself. He said, “I’m not a liberal,” in the 1970s. “I’m not that liberal. People think I’m a liberal, but I’m actually quite conservative in things.” And he would repeat that through the years. He said a lot of things about his life that aren’t true. He said that he was a civil rights activist for years and years until that was proven to be a lie. He started saying that again now. He said he was an anti-war activist for years. That was also a lie. He is now saying that he got arrested trying to meet up with Nelson Mandela in South Africa, which is a proverbial lie. He’s lying about his Iraq war record. He’s saying lately in the last however many debates, that when the Iraq war started, he immediately went into opposition mode. Flatly contracted by the record, and there’s no way he doesn’t know that this is untrue.
So I mean, Biden, even if you look at the social issues that Democrats have moved left on, even as they’ve stayed economically and otherwise conservative, Biden has always been lagging behind them. I mean, it took him until 2019 for him to oppose the Hyde Amendment, a huge restriction on abortion rights in the US; and that has been his position throughout his entire career. I mean, Biden really has been a conservative Democrat his entire life. And not just a conservative Democrat, but a conservative Democrat who any time the right wing in the United States does anything or move to the right, becomes more radical, Biden moves with them. That’s his only way of combating them.
And again, as we watch the Republican party lurge ever rightward into a more concerning direction, we have to really think about what it’s going to be like to have some like Joe Biden either campaigning in their atmosphere or even governing in that atmosphere.
Greg Wilpert : Yeah, I think it’s really crucial what you’re saying, characterizing him as a conservative Democrat instead of just saying that he’s a moderate. I think that’s probably a much more honest to say a conservative Democrat.
But we’re going to have to leave it there for now. I was speaking to Branko Marcetic, author of the book Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden. I highly recommend it. Thanks again, Branko, for having joined us today.
Branko Marceti…: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Greg Wilpert : And thank you for joining the Real News Network.
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therealnews--2020-03-26--Sanitation Workers Strike Over Lack Of Protection From Coronavirus

Sanitation workers with Teamsters Local 249 in Pittsburgh were sent home with pay on March 25 after they carried out a wildcat strike—refused to work without strike authorization—due to unsafe working conditions and a lack of hazard pay .
The action comes at a time frontline ‘ essential ’ workers are increasingly speaking out over the unsafe conditions they face by working as the coronavirus pandemic spreads .
Workers are seeing strong support—even pop star Britney Spears shared an Instagram post calling for strikes and redistributions of wealth in response to COVID-19 .
“ We want better equipment , protective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” A worker told reporters at a press conference .
“ We want hazard pay … We have high co-payments—we risk our lives every time we grab a garbage bag , it could be a needle or something in it.
” Sanitation worker Fitzroy Moss , who posted the demonstration on Facebook , noted that two workers tested positive for the coronavirus and workers were not told by the city .
“ They don ’ t care about us , they just want to get the trash picked up , ” Moss said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If we take the virus home , who is going to pay the bills ?
” another worker said on the livestream .
Local media reported workers were sent home with pay , and told to return to work after their union negotiates with their employer .
As The Real News has reported , nurses have protested the shortage of personal protective equipment at hospitals across the country .
Some say they are being forced to reuse N95 masks which are intended for single use only , according to manufacturer ’ s instructions @

Sanitation workers with Teamsters Local 249 in Pittsburgh were sent home with pay on March 25 after they carried out a wildcat strike—refused to work without strike authorization—due to unsafe working conditions and a lack of hazard pay. The action comes at a time frontline ‘essential’ workers are increasingly speaking out over the unsafe conditions they face by working as the coronavirus pandemic spreads. Workers are seeing strong support—even pop star Britney Spears shared an Instagram post calling for strikes and redistributions of wealth in response to COVID-19.
“We want better equipment, protective gear, we have no masks,” A worker told reporters at a press conference. “We want hazard pay … We have high co-payments—we risk our lives every time we grab a garbage bag, it could be a needle or something in it.”
Sanitation worker Fitzroy Moss, who posted the demonstration on Facebook, noted that two workers tested positive for the coronavirus and workers were not told by the city.
“They don’t care about us, they just want to get the trash picked up,” Moss said.
“We need hazard pay. If we take the virus home, who is going to pay the bills?” another worker said on the livestream.
Local media reported workers were sent home with pay, and told to return to work after their union negotiates with their employer.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced a stay-at-home order for Pittsburgh beginning March 23 at 8 p.m.
As The Real News has reported, nurses have protested the shortage of personal protective equipment at hospitals across the country. Some say they are being forced to reuse N95 masks which are intended for single use only, according to manufacturer’s instructions.
https://therealnews-launch.newspackstaging.com/columns/nurses-protest-lack-of-personal-protective-equipment-in-covid-19-pandemic
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therealnews--2020-03-26--What’s Being Done To Prevent Deaths in Detention Centers, Prisons?

Eddie Conway talks to ACLU Maryland attorney Sonia Kumar , Never Again Action organizer Hallie Berkson-Gold , and ICE Free @ @ @ @ @ .

Eddie Conway talks to ACLU Maryland attorney Sonia Kumar, Never Again Action organizer Hallie Berkson-Gold, and ICE Free New Jersey activist Jorge Torres.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Eddie Conway: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Eddie Conway coming to you from Baltimore. Thanks for joining me for this episode of Rattling the Bars. There’s been a lot of attention on the Coronavirus and a lot of attention on the economy, suggestions that everybody shelter in place. It’s sweeping across the country. There’s been little or no attention on something that could prove to be a humanitarian disaster. That is the 2.3 million people held in prisons and jails across America. It’s clear that they are just very in most cases, feets apart in dormitory situations. They might be as close as two feet and it might be 100 or 200 people held in those dormitories. If the virus gets out in the prison systems, it’s going to impact a lot of people, probably a good proportion of prisoners now in America because of the craziness of the lengthy sentences.
Senior citizens, they have respiratory and other immune compromising diseases, so this would definitely be devastating and it would be close, and this is just my opinion as one person that’s been in prison for a number of decades, it would be close to the genocide that was practiced in Germany against the Jewish population and other populations of color and so on.
It’s clear that 75% of the prison population in the United States of America are people of color. There’s been calls across the country about the release of some of these aging and elderly and perhaps infirmed prisoners. Join me today to talk about debt and to talk about the conditions in the ICE facilities. Also a number of people, first Sonia Kumar is from the ACLU, and she’s going to talk about what’s happening in Maryland. And [Holly Go 00:03:00] is from Never Again Action, and Jorge Torres is from ICE Free New Jersey. Thank you, Sonia, Holly, Jorge for joining me. I’d like to start with a Sonia. Tell me about the letter that the ACLU have written to the governor and what’s in it and what do you expect?
Sonia Kumar : Thank you, Eddie for raising this important issue. As everyone knows, public officials around the country soon after we learned of the virus, began taking steps to educate all of us about what we need to do to keep us all safe and to minimize the spread of the virus. One of the places, as you noted and you’re aware there has been a sort of deafening silence is in relation to our prisons and jails. For example, in the beginning of March, Governor Hogan in Maryland began issuing executive orders and making various statements about what Marylanders needed to do. As of this date, there has been no public action relating to our prisons and jails or our criminal legal system generally or public guidance even other than an announcement on March 12th that they were going to suspend visits in the prisons indefinitely or for two weeks, I believe at that time.
Last week, the ACLU coordinated, but it was, we did a letter on behalf of a number of more than a dozen organizations. I think at this point we have more than 300 signatories urging the governor to treat this crisis with the same attention that we’ve seen in other contexts like in the business context for example. And what we were urging the governor to do is to first reject baseless claims that have been circulating that somehow people could be safer in our prisons and jails than in the community. That was number one. We’re hearing that there are prosecutors making those claims. The governor himself repeated that claim at a press conference. And then second, we urged him to take swift steps to make clear to all of the stakeholders of the criminal legal system that the status quo can’t be allowed to continue.
And so there were three primary areas of focus. One was doing everything possible to limit new admissions to our prisons and jails, and that involves coordinating among law enforcement as well as prosecutors and judges. A second was looking for ways to expedite the release of people who can safely return to our communities from our prisons and jails. As you know, we have tens of thousands of people in Maryland who are incarcerated in our prisons and jails, many of whom could safely return as well as many of whom are elderly, many of whom who have medical issues. And it’s important that we decrease the density, the population density in our prisons and jails as quickly as possible.
Then finally, for those who remain in the prisons and jails, we urged the governor to take swift steps to ensure that we’re doing everything possible to maintain their safety in terms of identifying people who are most vulnerable to serious risk of harm if they are, if they contract the virus, as well as really doing everything possible to empower people inside, to take steps to protect themselves and to help in managing this crisis.
Eddie Conway: Okay, let’s look at New Jersey for a minute. Jorge, the ICE Free New Jersey has organized an action outside of the detention center. You want to bring us up to date on what happened and what’s happening?
Jorge Torres: The invitation to this, do your show. What’s going on is a couple of days ago we had hear from a lot of the inmates inside that they were very worried about how people that was the detained at the border was transferring to the detention centers and also people that was detaining in New York City, what is the epicenter of this pandemic, has been transferred to Essex and Hudson County Detention Center as well. It was a very … We were very concerned about inmates. We work closely with First Friends, which is an organization that do a lot of jail visits. And then what we’ve been hearing was that in Hudson County Detention Center, they couldn’t even have soap. They were not getting sanitizers or anything like that to this disinfect themselves or to or even to prevent this pandemic to be spread in a month to other inmates as well.
We were very worried about these cases, and then we just decided that it was important to inmates to start getting together and to start organizing. They put together a hunger strike in the Essex Detention Center. Then [inaudible 00:08:48] Never Again and ICE Free New Jersey organized the first rally outside of the Essex Detention Center. And then on Sunday we got contacted from some other groups as well, and then we organized together with other organizations outside of the rally in the cars outside of the Hudson Detention Center just to support. That it was another hunger strike that the inmates to start. And now it’s another one in the [inaudible 00:09:20] Detention Center too. The inhumane part of it is that everything is close. And now the detention center, I mean we’re demanding that Governor Murphy should use his executive power to close the detention centers and to release inmates from the ICE detention centers.
Eddie Conway: Holly, you joined in this action. Tell me a little bit about why your group came out and what you expect to happen as a result of this.
Holly: It was super important to support this action and really put capacity into this action because any detention center is at serious risk for everybody inside getting Coronavirus, and it’s only a matter of time before these detention centers become death camps with everybody trapped inside because of course you can’t socially distance inside a prison. It’s not possible. And so yeah, it was usually important for Never Again to demand the release of everybody in detention at this moment. And one of the things that we had then encouraging our public to do as well and taking a lot of different distributed actions across the country and all different detention centers across the country.
We reminded people too that like people like Anne Frank, victims of the Holocaust, she didn’t actually die in a gas chamber. She died of typhus, which was a disease caught in a concentration camp. And so we wanted to remind our greater public of that and encourage them to realize that this is an issue that they should care about too. Yeah, it’s been super important for us to really bring in what we could and turn out as many cars as possible in order to make the actions effective and makes sure that everybody can get released now, yesterday, as soon as possible.
Eddie Conway: Jorge, there was an announcement yesterday that a 1,000 prisoners in New Jersey was going to be released, but I didn’t get the impression that it had anything to do with the ICE detention centers. Are you following that? Can you give us some insight on who those prisoners were and how that relates to your action on the ground?
Jorge Torres: I mean, I think what the administration and yes, I mean they are going to be released. They’re going to release 1,000 inmates, but it’s more for the side of the criminal justice side of it and it’s people that has been sick, people that has been very high … pretend to get the virus. It’s 1,000 inmates. I think it’s the right thing to do. I think in this time it is … It is also a lot of people from … people that has been detained from ICE. It is no one that is moving no fingers to release them. It is a lot of people sick inside as well that could get the virus. We definitely wanted to keep pushing for that.
Eddie Conway: Sonia, I see that the ACLU was part of that campaign to get those prisoners released in New Jersey. Is this something that ACLU is trying to do across the country? Can you talk a little bit about that? Are you aware of it?
Sonia Kumar : Yes. I think as all of us are saying, there’s a recognition that in this time of crisis, we have to do everything possible to get as many people out of harm’s way as we can. Every state of course is different, but we share these common concerns. And so there is I think very much a movement of which they solely was part to try every strategy possible to get people out. And so I think one of the … The ACLU in New Jersey along with my understanding is their public defender’s office did a lot of work to help elevate the issues in the courts to get to the decision makers who actually had the authority to let people out.
The governor of Wisconsin recently ordered that state’s prison system to limit prison admissions to the degree possible. There are a huge number I think of local actions also happening. We’ve been talking about the state level but also local actions happening in terms of local corrections officials, local prosecutors to try to stem the tide. Right here in Maryland, the state’s attorney of Baltimore City and the state’s attorney of Prince George’s County have really helped elevate those concerns as well.
Eddie Conway: Okay. Has there been any prisoners released in Maryland, and if not, what action does the public need to take to help facilitate that?
Sonia Kumar : In Maryland, our understanding is that there’ve been people who have been, who have avoided pre-trial detention as a result of the attempts to mitigate harm by new admissions to the jails. But we’re not aware of anyone who’s been released from the DOC as a result of the virus. I think number one is making clear as members of the public that we recognize that this is a crisis. It’s a matter of when, not if, and that we really care about … we see the connection between what happens in our prisons and jails and what is happening in the outside world. And so I think number one is making sure that the governor feels that sense of urgency and appreciates that that is something that folks care about. And I think in the same way, just continuing to do the education and the various kinds of actions that we can all take in our respective capacities.
Eddie Conway: Okay. I want to just narrow this down. Is there a legal action that can be taken because there seems to be a liberty interests in terms of someone goes into prison, they received 10 years. They are in there during this pandemic, they lose their life. Is there a liberty interest, a legal action that can be taken on behalf of at least prisoners that are at risk, over 60, et cetera, et cetera? Is there anything that can be done legally?
Sonia Kumar : I think that’s a question we’re all trying to answer. I think as you know, courts have traditionally been very hostile to efforts to address the crisis in prisons and jails before the pandemic, including releasing people from those cruel conditions. That is certainly something that I think lawyers and advocates across the country are exploring. I think every system is going to be a little bit different in terms of what is possible. That’s the most I can say right now.
Eddie Conway: Okay. Holly, since it’s clear that the hunger strikes are growing in New Jersey, it’s also clear that there’s a case, not a case, but a dozen cases or more in Rikers Island, and that’s probably going to increase as days go by. What can people on the ground do besides, I mean the protest is good, the motorcades, that kind of stuff. What else needs to happen, Holly?
Holly: Honestly, I think in this period of time, we’re just seeing the beginning of some different creative action tactics that are COVID-safe. I think continued, sustained, targeted action will continue hopefully to move people in time. I know one thing, there’s a Never Again group in New York City, and they’re in the process of planning particular targeted actions. I’m not honestly clear on what. I think they’re working on deciding what their tactics are going to be.
But there have been other actions in light of COVID that are COVID-safe, but that have been things like projection. In New York City, there was a projection on the immigration court house demanding that people be released, both in immigration detention and in places like Rikers. Yeah, I think honestly a lot of people because we’re in the middle of going through this, we’re just seeing the beginnings of different possible tactics that people can use that are less harmful than marching together close by, which is not something we are unfortunately able to do as much with the Coronavirus spreading so quickly.
But yeah, the long and short of it is that lots of people on the ground in lots of different places including new Jersey and New York City, there were actions in California too, targeting their governor as well. People are coming up with all different types of ways to do targeted direct action in a different way than they had before. A whole diversity of tactics.
Eddie Conway: Jorge.
Jorge Torres: Can I …
Eddie Conway: You get the final question. And the question is, from where you sit, what do you think people can do that can be safe but most helpful to put pressure and bring attention to the conditions in these detention centers and prisoners in the jails?
Jorge Torres: I think that it’s about time to get unified. I think it’s about time for the criminal justice advocacies and also the immigration and ICE attention, abolishing advocacies to get together. This is not about if you are detainee in ICE or you are the detainee on the criminal justice system. I feel that this is about being a human being. This is about putting profit over families and people, they are just get angrier and angrier and angrier. I know and I believe that this will be escalating and it will be escalation on actions if we don’t get what is to be right to do as a moral and humanity way to do it.
I feel that this is about saving lives. This is not about just saving people that [inaudible 00:22:31] and one side of it is another side. I think it’s about being a human and also, we totally believe that this Coronavirus is just about getting to reach people and people of color, put ourselves in one side of another side. This is not about your color, the color of your skin. This is about being human and doing the correct things to do. Then, I mean what other peoples can do is, I mean join all those actions. There is always a risk, but if we talk about risk, undocumented people, there’s always being a risk. People that is in detention centers, people of color being at risk.
There’s risks of being in your car and then just go and beep outside of the detention center. It’s not too much. I feel like it is time to get together. I think it’s time to send a correct message, and it’s time for people that does policy, for people that do direct actions, I think it’s about to send them a collective message that we could to achieve this goal, which is something that is just humane and stop putting profit over families.
Eddie Conway: Thank you for joining me, Sonia, Holly, Jorge.
Sonia Kumar : Thank you.
Holly: Thank you for having us. Thank you very much.
Jorge Torres: Thanks for the attention and let’s keep doing this kind of progress.
Eddie Conway: Okay. All right. And we will, and thank you for joining this episode of Rattling the Bars for The Real News.
Studio: Cameron Granadino
Production: Cameron Granadino, Ericka Blount
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therealnews--2020-03-31--Who Would Really Be Sacrificed To Save The Economy From COVID-19?

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
As the US finally begins to respond in full with measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 , there is a heated discussion going on among the rich and powerful about opening businesses in weeks rather than months , to save the economy , even if that means sacrificing some people .
Donald Trump tweeted about how when trying to stop the coronavirus , he said , “ We can not let the cure the worse than the problem itself.
” Scott McMillan , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ California near San Diego responded in more detail tweeting , “ The fundamental problem is whether we ’ re going to tank the entire economy to save 2.5 % of the population is one , generally expensive to maintain , and two , not productive.
” If you aren ’ t clear , Trump was saying that letting the economy stall to preserve people ’ s health and safety was a worst cure than having people die from a virus that could be slowed and controlled by just having people not go to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 2.5 percent of the population are old people who costs too much to take care of and they don ’ t do anything to earn their keep anyway .
They weren ’ t the only one saying it either .
Glenn Beck said he ’ d rather die than kill the country , telling older Americans to get back to work as he identified that he is in the danger zone himself at 56 years old .
Dan Patrick , Texas ’ Republican Lieutenant Governor , suggested that he and other grandparents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and even their lives in order for the United States to get back to work amid the coronavirus pandemic .
He said , “ Those of us who are 70-plus , we ’ ll take care of ourselves , but don ’ t sacrifice the country.
” New York times columnist Thomas Friedman made a similar argument in an op-ed piece , writing that “ Either we let many of us get the coronavirus , recover , and get back to work while doing our utmost to protect those most vulnerable to being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down for months to try to save everyone everywhere from the virus no matter their risk profile and kill many people by other means , ” I don ’ t even know what that means , “ Kill our economy and maybe kill our future.
” Yes , he did write more about pushing for mandatory and expanded testing and targeted quarantines protecting vulnerable populations .
But , we know this is not going to happen in this capitalist market-first country in which the president has been slow to take control of businesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Defense Production Act .
Let ’ s be clear on what ’ s being said here .
These people are arguing that we should sacrifice older people by making them go back to work to save the economy for their future generations .
First , it ’ s obscene that people are equating the economy of this country with the country itself , but that obscenity is at the very root of the problem with American exceptionalism .
This ideology that this country is exceptional because of the wealth that was generated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that was welded over the world because of it .
Well , what isn ’ t talked about in this ideology is how that wealth was and is generated , and on whose backs .
And that is the particular obscenity in these comments about letting older people die to save the economy .
You see , none of these people saying that we should let old people die so the kids can have a stable economy will actually be sending their old parents off to work at McDonald ’ s .
All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ access to untold reserves of money , have access to the best health insurance , and they themselves don ’ t have to work if they don ’ t want to .
So I know their elderly parents don ’ t have to work , but elderly black and Latinx , people working at McDonald ’ s , and Burger King , and Walmart , and in fields picking our produce right now , they ’ re being sacrificed already .
Not only are black and Latinx people more likely to work jobs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from home like food service , construction , and health care .
But according to the Bureau of labor Statistics , the number of older black people in the workforce is growing .
The labor force share of black people aged 55 and older was larger in 2016 , and is projected to be larger in 2026 than that of the 16 to 24 year old group .
And why is that ?
Why are more elderly black people working ?
Because of poverty .
Among racial and ethnic groups , African Americans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ % followed only by Latinx people at 26.6 % , and whites , a distant 9.9 % .
45.8 % of young black children under the age of six live in poverty compared to only 14.5 % of white children .
And poverty affects the elderly who have to deal with increasing medical issues .
Black people are more likely than whites to suffer medical conditions that lead to more severe health problems , and higher health care , and insurance costs as they grow older .
Their health problems are exacerbated by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lower home ownership rates , and lower Social Security income than whites .
And that stems from black people just having lower income than white people in this country .
In a country where black and Latinx people in general are overrepresented in occupations that are lower paid , not low skilled as they are often called , and also have less access to quality health care , paid sick leave , and affordable childcare , most of the black and brown working class all ready , literally , can not afford to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do not eat .
So it should be easy to see that as more older black and Latinx people have to be in the workforce , they are literally having to decide if they should protect their health and stay home as there are more vulnerable to COVID-19 should they become infected , or should they go to work because they need to buy food , medicine , and pay their rent , and mortgage .
And no , it ’ s not that no older white people have to make this decision @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a higher percentage of older black and Latinx people who experienced this , even though black people are only 13 % of the population .
So let ’ s be very clear on this .
When rich people talk about sacrificing a population that they claim is expensive to maintain , and is unproductive in order to save future generations any context in this country , they are not talking about their parents and grandparents .
These people aren ’ t going to pull their grandparents out of their comfortable retirement and send @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Walmart , or a teller at a bank to keep the economy , which is their real country , going .
No , they ’ re talking about ours .
Our black , and Latinx , and poor white , and poor Asian , and other immigrant community parents and grandparents who are already being sacrificed at altar of their God of money .
The high priests of capitalism already don ’ t share the bounty with the workers .
No , they keep all that for themselves .
This is Jacqueline Luqman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , DC .

Whose families do the high priests of capitalism really intend to sacrifice to their god of money?
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
As the US finally begins to respond in full with measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, there is a heated discussion going on among the rich and powerful about opening businesses in weeks rather than months, to save the economy, even if that means sacrificing some people. Donald Trump tweeted about how when trying to stop the coronavirus, he said, “We cannot let the cure the worse than the problem itself.” Scott McMillan, a 56 year old lawyer in Mesa, California near San Diego responded in more detail tweeting, “The fundamental problem is whether we’re going to tank the entire economy to save 2.5% of the population is one, generally expensive to maintain, and two, not productive.”
If you aren’t clear, Trump was saying that letting the economy stall to preserve people’s health and safety was a worst cure than having people die from a virus that could be slowed and controlled by just having people not go to work.
McMillan agreed, arguing that the 2.5 percent of the population are old people who costs too much to take care of and they don’t do anything to earn their keep anyway. They weren’t the only one saying it either. Glenn Beck said he’d rather die than kill the country, telling older Americans to get back to work as he identified that he is in the danger zone himself at 56 years old.
Dan Patrick, Texas’ Republican Lieutenant Governor, suggested that he and other grandparents would be willing to risk their health and even their lives in order for the United States to get back to work amid the coronavirus pandemic. He said, “Those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves, but don’t sacrifice the country.”
New York times columnist Thomas Friedman made a similar argument in an op-ed piece, writing that “Either we let many of us get the coronavirus, recover, and get back to work while doing our utmost to protect those most vulnerable to being killed by it, or we shut down for months to try to save everyone everywhere from the virus no matter their risk profile and kill many people by other means,” I don’t even know what that means, “Kill our economy and maybe kill our future.”
Yes, he did write more about pushing for mandatory and expanded testing and targeted quarantines protecting vulnerable populations. But, we know this is not going to happen in this capitalist market-first country in which the president has been slow to take control of businesses to manufacturer desperately needed medical supplies under the Defense Production Act. Let’s be clear on what’s being said here. These people are arguing that we should sacrifice older people by making them go back to work to save the economy for their future generations. First, it’s obscene that people are equating the economy of this country with the country itself, but that obscenity is at the very root of the problem with American exceptionalism. This ideology that this country is exceptional because of the wealth that was generated over its existence, and the power that was welded over the world because of it.
Well, what isn’t talked about in this ideology is how that wealth was and is generated, and on whose backs. And that is the particular obscenity in these comments about letting older people die to save the economy. You see, none of these people saying that we should let old people die so the kids can have a stable economy will actually be sending their old parents off to work at McDonald’s. All these folks are wealthy. They have access to untold reserves of money, have access to the best health insurance, and they themselves don’t have to work if they don’t want to. So I know their elderly parents don’t have to work, but elderly black and Latinx, people working at McDonald’s, and Burger King, and Walmart, and in fields picking our produce right now, they’re being sacrificed already.
Not only are black and Latinx people more likely to work jobs that do not enable them to work from home like food service, construction, and health care. But according to the Bureau of labor Statistics, the number of older black people in the workforce is growing. The labor force share of black people aged 55 and older was larger in 2016, and is projected to be larger in 2026 than that of the 16 to 24 year old group. And why is that? Why are more elderly black people working? Because of poverty. Among racial and ethnic groups, African Americans have the highest poverty rate at 27.4% followed only by Latinx people at 26.6%, and whites, a distant 9.9%. 45.8% of young black children under the age of six live in poverty compared to only 14.5% of white children. And poverty affects the elderly who have to deal with increasing medical issues.
Black people are more likely than whites to suffer medical conditions that lead to more severe health problems, and higher health care, and insurance costs as they grow older. Their health problems are exacerbated by financial troubles that include lower savings, lower home ownership rates, and lower Social Security income than whites. And that stems from black people just having lower income than white people in this country.
In a country where black and Latinx people in general are overrepresented in occupations that are lower paid, not low skilled as they are often called, and also have less access to quality health care, paid sick leave, and affordable childcare, most of the black and brown working class all ready, literally, cannot afford to stay home from work or else they do not eat. So it should be easy to see that as more older black and Latinx people have to be in the workforce, they are literally having to decide if they should protect their health and stay home as there are more vulnerable to COVID-19 should they become infected, or should they go to work because they need to buy food, medicine, and pay their rent, and mortgage. And no, it’s not that no older white people have to make this decision. The issue is that there is a higher percentage of older black and Latinx people who experienced this, even though black people are only 13% of the population.
So let’s be very clear on this. When rich people talk about sacrificing a population that they claim is expensive to maintain, and is unproductive in order to save future generations any context in this country, they are not talking about their parents and grandparents. These people aren’t going to pull their grandparents out of their comfortable retirement and send them to work as a greeter at Walmart, or a teller at a bank to keep the economy, which is their real country, going. No, they’re talking about ours. Our black, and Latinx, and poor white, and poor Asian, and other immigrant community parents and grandparents who are already being sacrificed at altar of their God of money. The high priests of capitalism already don’t share the bounty with the workers. No, they keep all that for themselves.
This is Jacqueline Luqman with The Real News Network in Washington, DC.
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therealnews--2020-03-31--Insurance Companies Already Know How They’ll Profit From COVID-19

KIM BROWN : Welcome to The Real News .
I ’ m Kim Brown .
As the federal government readies its response to the COVID-19 pandemic , both from a public health perspective and an economic bailout perspective , one industry you may not think is faring very well during this pandemic is actually doing better than you think .
And of course I ’ m talking about the healthcare insurance lobby and the companies themselves with many stock prices of different healthcare companies that we all know and are familiar with have risen on Wall Street in the past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ critical .
Why is that ?
And that doesn ’ t sound like a very good thing for the average American , especially for those who are dealing with fighting the Coronavirus infection themselves .
To get some clarity on this , we ’ re joined today with Wendell Potter .
Wendell is a former executive , former VP at Cigna Healthcare .
He has since become a whistleblower .
He ’ s also president of the organization , Medicare for All Now and he joins us today from Philadelphia .
Wendell , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here on The Real News .
WENDELL POTTER : Thank you , Kim .
Glad to be here .
KIM BROWN : So Wendell , we have a lot of ground to cover here , but you are the author of a viral thread on Twitter where you talked about how in the midst of a pandemic , healthcare insurance companies are about to be raking in lots of profits .
How is that even possible ?
WENDELL POTTER : Well , in a number of ways , they ’ ve really got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often said the one thing that health insurance companies know how to do is to make money under almost any circumstance .
One thing that they ’ re doing is , they ’ re requiring people to pay a lot of money out of their own pockets these days before their coverage kicks in .
Most of us are in high deductible plans .
In many cases , Americans have this they paid thousands of dollars out of their own pockets before insurance companies will pay a dime .
So the first dollars @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a hospital or to doctors for treatment come out of our own pockets , even with insurance .
And that means that a high percentage of us now are under-insured and most of us quite frankly don ’ t have a lot of money in the bank to even cover our deductibles .
The other is that because we don ’ t really have an alternative , these companies know that if they do start having to pay more claims this year , what they will do next year , and they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a conference call with financial analysts on Wall Street , they ’ ll just increase their premiums next year significantly .
The other thing that ’ s important is that insurance companies know that because a lot of hospitals are canceling a lot of procedures that are not related to the pandemic like knee replacements or anything that ’ s not emergency related , those patients are not being admitted now and in many cases are being released from the hospital to make way for COVID-19 patients .
So as a result @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insurance companies would have been paying for their treatment are not there now .
And to the point that one of the CEOs of a big insurance company said that he can see that the insurance industry might have even a net savings this year because of the epidemic , which is kind of astonishing .
KIM BROWN : Wendell , near the onset of when I suppose the White House began to take this pandemic seriously , President Trump said that he got on the phone with the heads of the big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ waive copays for COVID-19 testing .
But that has not actually been true .
WENDELL POTTER : Yeah .
What he said was that they had agreed to waive both the co-payments and deductibles for testing and treatment and some of them have said that they will waive the co-payments for testing , which can be expensive , but it ’ s not nearly , nearly as expensive as treatment is .
So testing is one thing , treatment is another , and it ’ s estimated that in some cases , treatment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So insurance companies were very , very quick to correct the president and say that , “ No , that ’ s not the case .
We have not agreed to cover the co-insurance or co-payments and deductibles for treatment of COVID-19.
” KIM BROWN : Wendell , a lot of experts of the healthcare field , like yourself and others , have said that part of the reason why the COVID-19 pandemic is probably going to be worse here in the United States because so many people ’ s healthcare coverage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you recently pinned an out bed in The Guardian talking about just that and how the US healthcare system is set up basically for people not to survive this .
Can you talk about why this is so critical as opposed to having a Medicare For All system that as people lose their jobs , they lose their access to healthcare and as you said , are going to be facing massive out of pocket costs to even treat this illness ?
WENDELL POTTER : Yeah .
And that ’ s one huge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just as bad and in many cases a lot worse is that as any of us are expecting that by the middle of April , just three weeks from now , 40 million Americans may have lost their jobs because of all the shutdowns and companies all across the country are laying people off .
Just this week we saw that 3.3 million people filed for unemployment compensation .
So we have lived with this system of most people getting their coverage through their employers and even the Democrats .
And this makes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we saw last year and earlier this year , Democrats like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden said , “ People will have their private insurance .
They don ’ t want to be kicked off of their private insurance plans.
” I would love to get those people on the stage right now and say , “ Now you answer that question because people are losing their jobs every single day .
Every single day , people are losing their jobs and along with it , their health insurance.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ really up a creek because people , not only if they have insurance , have to pay a lot of money out of their own pocket before insurance companies will pay a dime .
And then because so many people get their covers through their jobs that are going away , they ’ re now in the ranks of the uninsured .
So it ’ s just an incredible mess that we have allowed to continue and our policymakers , Democrats and Republicans alike are complicit in it .
KIM BROWN : Wendell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and contrast of how other nations are dealing with the outbreak and the pandemic .
In Ireland on the 24th of March , the Irish prime minister and the minister of health declared that anyone who was infected with COVID-19 will be treated for free in Ireland , and all private hospitals will be made public there temporarily , at least right now , nationalizing their hospital system and people are going to be receiving treatment for free .
Now , I hate to sound pessimistic , but number one , is something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
And second of all , what would that mean for people ?
What would that look like if everyone who went to the doctor fearing that they had this infection could get tested and also be treated without cost ?
WENDELL POTTER : It very well could happen .
I wouldn ’ t say that it ’ s out of the realm of possibilities .
Already , hospitals are stretched , they too are suffering under the constraints or the way the insurance companies make them beg for compensation or be paid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have staffs of people who do nothing but that .
But now we ’ re seeing that they ’ re potentially going to be overflowing with patients .
And as this gets worse in this country , which it undoubtedly will , it could be so bad that the government might have to say that we need to take over a lot of these hospitals .
And already we ’ re seeing that hotels , I think I read this in California , some of the hotels out there , many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t traveling , will be used to isolate people who have COVID-19 .
So we ’ re going to see some things that this country has never seen before , I believe , with the government having to step in and take over facilities or require that they be made available to patients who have COVID .
KIM BROWN : If President Donald Trump called you today and said , “ Wendell , I want you on this Coronavirus task force , ” what advice would you give him ?
WENDELL POTTER : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make sure that everyone in this country has no worry of any financial problems if they get tested or if they get treatment .
I would say that you need to by executive order or whatever means necessary to make sure that insurance companies are not serving as barriers to people getting tested and the care that they need .
And I would say that we need to pull out all the stops to make sure the hospitals have the resources they need .
And that includes having ventilators , which he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seem to be quite as much of a problem as Governor Paul and others are saying it is .
But also protective gear for doctors and nurses .
I ’ ve heard from so many people who are on the front lines , doctors as well as nurses who say that even their hospital administrators are saying , “ Don ’ t wear your protective gear outside of the rooms of any patients other than those being treated for COVID-19 , ” because the administrators are concerned that that might alarm other patients @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an insane thing that ’ s going on and the government really needs to step in and do a lot more to make sure that doctors and nurses are protected .
We can ’ t afford for them to get sick and not be able to treat patients .
Hospitals need to make sure that they ’ re getting paid appropriately and timely and not have to spend enormous amounts of staff time dealing with insurance companies .
And patients need to make sure that they ’ re not going to be harmed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ BROWN : And lastly , Wendell , you ’ re joining us today from Philadelphia .
Can you give us an idea about how things look from your corner of the world ?
What are the streets like ?
How are the people responding to the new measures that we all are dealing with ?
And also how , in your opinion , are Philadelphia and Pennsylvania ’ s elected officials and healthcare officials effectively handling this pandemic ?
WENDELL POTTER : Here in Philadelphia , it ’ s always sunny in Philadelphia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sunny day here .
It ’ s very pleasant .
But you go outside–and I ’ d walked my dog outside a couple of times now–the streets , there are very , very few cars , very few people on the sidewalks .
It ’ s almost like a holiday , like Christmas , which most people are staying inside .
It ’ s been that way for days .
Mayor Kenney of Philadelphia and Governor Wolf of Pennsylvania , I think , have been appropriately advising people and making sure that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are critical to be open and to have people make sure that they ’ re staying in and keeping six feet apart .
People here , at least in Philadelphia that I ’ ve seen , seem to be taking that to heed and I know my family and I are .
KIM BROWN : We ’ ve been speaking with Wendell Potter .
Wendell is the President of Medicare For All Now .
He ’ s also a former health insurance CEO , formerly of Cigna , now turned whistleblower .
His @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Millions of Americans are about to lose their health insurance in a pandemic .
Be sure to check it out .
Wendell , we appreciate your time and your expertise today ?
Thank you so much .
KIM BROWN : And thank you for watching The Real News .

40 million people may lose their jobs in the coronavirus crisis. Former Cigna VP Wendell Potter says tying health insurance to employment has made the outbreak devastating for people, but not for insurance companies.
Story Transcript
KIM BROWN: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Kim Brown.
As the federal government readies its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, both from a public health perspective and an economic bailout perspective, one industry you may not think is faring very well during this pandemic is actually doing better than you think. And of course I’m talking about the healthcare insurance lobby and the companies themselves with many stock prices of different healthcare companies that we all know and are familiar with have risen on Wall Street in the past several days since this pandemic has become critical. Why is that? And that doesn’t sound like a very good thing for the average American, especially for those who are dealing with fighting the Coronavirus infection themselves.
To get some clarity on this, we’re joined today with Wendell Potter. Wendell is a former executive, former VP at Cigna Healthcare. He has since become a whistleblower. He’s also president of the organization, Medicare for All Now and he joins us today from Philadelphia. Wendell, thank you so much for joining us here on The Real News.
WENDELL POTTER: Thank you, Kim. Glad to be here.
KIM BROWN: So Wendell, we have a lot of ground to cover here, but you are the author of a viral thread on Twitter where you talked about how in the midst of a pandemic, healthcare insurance companies are about to be raking in lots of profits. How is that even possible?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, in a number of ways, they’ve really got it figured out. I’ve often said the one thing that health insurance companies know how to do is to make money under almost any circumstance. One thing that they’re doing is, they’re requiring people to pay a lot of money out of their own pockets these days before their coverage kicks in. Most of us are in high deductible plans. In many cases, Americans have this they paid thousands of dollars out of their own pockets before insurance companies will pay a dime. So the first dollars that would need to be paid for a hospital or to doctors for treatment come out of our own pockets, even with insurance. And that means that a high percentage of us now are under-insured and most of us quite frankly don’t have a lot of money in the bank to even cover our deductibles.
The other is that because we don’t really have an alternative, these companies know that if they do start having to pay more claims this year, what they will do next year, and they’ve already said they will do this in a conference call with financial analysts on Wall Street, they’ll just increase their premiums next year significantly. The other thing that’s important is that insurance companies know that because a lot of hospitals are canceling a lot of procedures that are not related to the pandemic like knee replacements or anything that’s not emergency related, those patients are not being admitted now and in many cases are being released from the hospital to make way for COVID-19 patients.
So as a result, a lot of the patients that insurance companies would have been paying for their treatment are not there now. And to the point that one of the CEOs of a big insurance company said that he can see that the insurance industry might have even a net savings this year because of the epidemic, which is kind of astonishing.
KIM BROWN: Wendell, near the onset of when I suppose the White House began to take this pandemic seriously, President Trump said that he got on the phone with the heads of the big insurance companies and they have agreed to waive copays for COVID-19 testing. But that has not actually been true.
WENDELL POTTER: Yeah. What he said was that they had agreed to waive both the co-payments and deductibles for testing and treatment and some of them have said that they will waive the co-payments for testing, which can be expensive, but it’s not nearly, nearly as expensive as treatment is. So testing is one thing, treatment is another, and it’s estimated that in some cases, treatment for COVID-19 can be over $30,000. So insurance companies were very, very quick to correct the president and say that, “No, that’s not the case. We have not agreed to cover the co-insurance or co-payments and deductibles for treatment of COVID-19.”
KIM BROWN: Wendell, a lot of experts of the healthcare field, like yourself and others, have said that part of the reason why the COVID-19 pandemic is probably going to be worse here in the United States because so many people’s healthcare coverage is tied to their employer. And you recently pinned an out bed in The Guardian talking about just that and how the US healthcare system is set up basically for people not to survive this. Can you talk about why this is so critical as opposed to having a Medicare For All system that as people lose their jobs, they lose their access to healthcare and as you said, are going to be facing massive out of pocket costs to even treat this illness?
WENDELL POTTER: Yeah. And that’s one huge problem for so many people, but just as bad and in many cases a lot worse is that as any of us are expecting that by the middle of April, just three weeks from now, 40 million Americans may have lost their jobs because of all the shutdowns and companies all across the country are laying people off. Just this week we saw that 3.3 million people filed for unemployment compensation.
So we have lived with this system of most people getting their coverage through their employers and even the Democrats. And this makes me so mad. During the debates that we saw last year and earlier this year, Democrats like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden said, “People will have their private insurance. They don’t want to be kicked off of their private insurance plans.” I would love to get those people on the stage right now and say, “Now you answer that question because people are losing their jobs every single day. Every single day, people are losing their jobs and along with it, their health insurance.”
So we are as a country really up a creek because people, not only if they have insurance, have to pay a lot of money out of their own pocket before insurance companies will pay a dime. And then because so many people get their covers through their jobs that are going away, they’re now in the ranks of the uninsured. So it’s just an incredible mess that we have allowed to continue and our policymakers, Democrats and Republicans alike are complicit in it.
KIM BROWN: Wendell, to sort of do a compare and contrast of how other nations are dealing with the outbreak and the pandemic. In Ireland on the 24th of March, the Irish prime minister and the minister of health declared that anyone who was infected with COVID-19 will be treated for free in Ireland, and all private hospitals will be made public there temporarily, at least right now, nationalizing their hospital system and people are going to be receiving treatment for free. Now, I hate to sound pessimistic, but number one, is something like that likely to ever happen here? And second of all, what would that mean for people? What would that look like if everyone who went to the doctor fearing that they had this infection could get tested and also be treated without cost?
WENDELL POTTER: It very well could happen. I wouldn’t say that it’s out of the realm of possibilities. Already, hospitals are stretched, they too are suffering under the constraints or the way the insurance companies make them beg for compensation or be paid appropriately and timely. So they have to have staffs of people who do nothing but that. But now we’re seeing that they’re potentially going to be overflowing with patients. And as this gets worse in this country, which it undoubtedly will, it could be so bad that the government might have to say that we need to take over a lot of these hospitals.
And already we’re seeing that hotels, I think I read this in California, some of the hotels out there, many of them largely vacant because people aren’t traveling, will be used to isolate people who have COVID-19. So we’re going to see some things that this country has never seen before, I believe, with the government having to step in and take over facilities or require that they be made available to patients who have COVID.
KIM BROWN: If President Donald Trump called you today and said, “Wendell, I want you on this Coronavirus task force,” what advice would you give him?
WENDELL POTTER: I would give him that we need to make sure that everyone in this country has no worry of any financial problems if they get tested or if they get treatment. I would say that you need to by executive order or whatever means necessary to make sure that insurance companies are not serving as barriers to people getting tested and the care that they need. And I would say that we need to pull out all the stops to make sure the hospitals have the resources they need. And that includes having ventilators, which he’s saying that doesn’t seem to be quite as much of a problem as Governor Paul and others are saying it is.
But also protective gear for doctors and nurses. I’ve heard from so many people who are on the front lines, doctors as well as nurses who say that even their hospital administrators are saying, “Don’t wear your protective gear outside of the rooms of any patients other than those being treated for COVID-19,” because the administrators are concerned that that might alarm other patients and visitors.
It’s just an insane thing that’s going on and the government really needs to step in and do a lot more to make sure that doctors and nurses are protected. We can’t afford for them to get sick and not be able to treat patients. Hospitals need to make sure that they’re getting paid appropriately and timely and not have to spend enormous amounts of staff time dealing with insurance companies. And patients need to make sure that they’re not going to be harmed financially if they get sick.
KIM BROWN: And lastly, Wendell, you’re joining us today from Philadelphia. Can you give us an idea about how things look from your corner of the world? What are the streets like? How are the people responding to the new measures that we all are dealing with? And also how, in your opinion, are Philadelphia and Pennsylvania’s elected officials and healthcare officials effectively handling this pandemic?
WENDELL POTTER: Here in Philadelphia, it’s always sunny in Philadelphia, right? We’ve got a sunny day here. It’s very pleasant. But you go outside–and I’d walked my dog outside a couple of times now–the streets, there are very, very few cars, very few people on the sidewalks. It’s almost like a holiday, like Christmas, which most people are staying inside. It’s been that way for days. Mayor Kenney of Philadelphia and Governor Wolf of Pennsylvania, I think, have been appropriately advising people and making sure that businesses are shut down except those that are critical to be open and to have people make sure that they’re staying in and keeping six feet apart. People here, at least in Philadelphia that I’ve seen, seem to be taking that to heed and I know my family and I are.
KIM BROWN: We’ve been speaking with Wendell Potter. Wendell is the President of Medicare For All Now. He’s also a former health insurance CEO, formerly of Cigna, now turned whistleblower. His latest piece in The Guardian is titled: Millions of Americans are about to lose their health insurance in a pandemic. Be sure to check it out. Wendell, we appreciate your time and your expertise today? Thank you so much.
WENDELL POTTER: Thank you, Kim.
KIM BROWN: And thank you for watching The Real News.
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