Between The Lines - Dr. Steffie Woolhandler: Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (Week Ending July 13, 2012)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

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Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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After Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare, Single-Payer Advocates Vow to Continue Fight for Medicare For All

RealAudio MP3

Posted July 4, 2012

Interview with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor of public health at City University of New York, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, conducted by Scott Harris

In a long-awaited decision from the Supreme Court, the justices handed down a 5 to 4 ruling on June 28 that upheld the constitutionality of President Obama's Afordable Care Act, which mandates that all citizens who are financially able purchase private health insurance, or be subject to a tax or penalty. Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts surprised many by siding with the court's liberal members, providing a majority opinion that will allow the health care reform legislation to be implemented as planned by 2014. However, in writing the court's opinion, Roberts explained that he upheld the legislation's individual mandate as a tax, not as a valid exercise of Congress' commerce clause power.

The court's decision trimmed back the power of the federal government to impose the Affordable Care Act's goal of expanding Medicaid eligibility in the states. By a 7 to 2 vote, the justices prohibited Washington from withdrawing all Medicaid funds to states that refuse to participate in the expansion.

Despite the court's ruling, public opinion polls find that the nation remains largely split on their support or opposition to the health care reform law. However, the reasons many oppose the bill vary widely. Advocates for a single-payer universal health care system that exists in most other industrialized nations of the world, are critical of the Affordable Care Act for its severe limitations. They point out that once fully implemented, some 26 million Americans will not be covered under the law, and that the measure won't do much to effectively contain sharply rising health care costs. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor of public health at the City University of New York and co-founder of the group Physicians for a National Health Program. Here, she assesses the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, and the way forward for advocates of a single-payer healthcare system.

DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: You know it's a good thing that the Supreme Court decided to obey the Constitution rather than play politics. I think them playing politics and overturning the law on really bogus grounds would've been a very bad thing. The law has some modest benefits, but they are modest indeed, and there are also some very big downsides to the Obamacare law.

One of the biggest downsides is that when it's fully implemented, the law will leave 26 million Americans completely uninsured. We know from some prior work we've done that when you have 26 million Americans you can expect to have about 26,000 deaths annually caused by lack of health insurance. So, 26 million uninsured Americans is simply unacceptable to me as a physician. And it means that we need to be moving forward to that single-payer, expanded, improved Medicare for all that you were talking about earlier.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Dr. Woolhandler, from your perspective of being an advocate of single-payer, is having the Affordable Care Act in place after the Supreme Court ruling a better place, a better starting point for universal coverage than if the law was struck down by the Supreme Court or repealed in the near future?

DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: Well, it's hard to say. At this point, the Obamacare is the law of the land. I doubt it's going repealed, so I think that's the base we're starting from. So, the slogan we're using is "Forward to Single-payer." Whether you think Obamacare was a slight step forward, a step backward, a step to the side, is somewhat irrelevant now because this is what we have, and it's clear that it's not a solution. That we're still going to have 26 million uninsured people, that we're still going to have tens of millions more middle-class people who buy health insurance in good faith only to find that when they get serious illness and their insurance fails them. There's too many gaps like co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services so that despite having health insurance, they still can't afford the care. And the health care costs are still going to go through the roof. And, all of those things are going to push us to a new round of reform.

I don't expect to hear much about that until 2014, when the law goes into effect and people get a chance to look at what it is and say, "Wow, this is in effect? It's fully implemented and there's nothing here for my family and there's nothing for me. My health care's still too (un)affordable and I can't get the health care I need and deserve. So we do expect the debate to re-open after full implementation in 2014. Until then, I think a lot of folks will continue to be very confused about what's in the bill and what isn't. Some of that confusion is by this crazy talk that the Republicans have been doing. But some of the confusion actually is done by people who support President Obama and feel that they can say a word that's bad about anything he's doing. I certainly hope Obama beats Romney in the next election, but I don't think it's reasonable for people to keep their mouths shut and not tell the truth about the problems in some of these laws that Obama passed.

BETWEEN THE LINES: The political reality in the estimation of many observers is that the giant insurance and pharmaceutical companies call the shots in Washington. The question really is, "How can their power and money be defeated and allow a single-payer or Medicare-for-all system to go forward? What's the focus of your work going to be in the coming months and years?

DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: We think we need to build a movement. The way we got civil rights in this country was not a bunch of politicians talking about it, but building a movement to win civil rights. The way we ended the Vietnam War in this country wasn't persuading politicians; it was a political movement. And the American people are really suffering under the current health care system. They may like the doctors in hospitals, but they're tormented by the payments, knowing that when they get sick they could be bankrupted, that if they somehow manage to get care, they're ruining their grandkids' future by spending all the family assets. So people really suffer under the current health care system and I think it's really not possible, but probable that we'll be able to build a movement of the American people to demand a single-payer movement. I'm very unhappy with corporate power in Washington, but we're not giving up on democracy. We still think we can make democracy work if people get involved.

Learn more about Physicians for a National Health Program's grassroots effort for a single-payer health care system by visiting PNHP.org.

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