North Carolina teachers on Wednesday joined the fight for funding teachers have been waging across the country. Teachers went the state capital of Raleigh to demand better pay and benefits, annual cost-of-living increases, and more education funding in general.
The rally will be different from some of the longer work stoppages in Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Arizona, since teachers are taking just one personal day to rally at the legislative building in Raleigh. The March for Studen...
ThinkProgress
Tuesday night was a big night for socialist and progressive women
Tuesday night’s primaries shaped up to be big for socialist and progressive women.
In Pittsburgh, two socialists with the backing of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) beat two different members of the center-left Costa family, a political dynasty in the state. Another DSA-backed candidate in Philadelphia beat three men and secured 51 percent of the vote to win her primary, while two women, one in Pennsylvania and another in Nebraska, running on a platform of Medicare for ...
A remapped Pennsylvania spells serious trouble for Keith Rothfus
WEXFORD, PENNSYLVANIA — In the days following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, western Pennsylvania resident Linda Bishop was scouring Facebook to find progressives, like herself, who felt lost and were eager to take action.
“I didn’t know what to do after the election. So I just started going to all kinds of [progressive] meetings … I just was trying to find a home,” said Bishop.
Bishop recalled attending a meeting organized by a group of progressives from Frank...
Here is Trump’s alternative to Medicare drug negotiation after breaking populist promise
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar is doing damage control, pushing back against criticism that President Donald Trump broke a key campaign pledge to have the federal government directly negotiate Medicare drug prices.
On Friday, Trump gave an underwhelming speech that spared drug companies and also released an ‘American Patients First’ blueprint that prompted more questions than answers — 135 questions to be exact. And on Monday, Azar defended him...
Trump breaks key populist campaign promise to negotiate Medicare drug prices
On the campaign trail, candidate Trump promised to save hundreds of billions of dollars standing up to the pharmaceutical industry, and said he’d “negotiate like crazy” to bring down Medicare prescription drug prices.
Allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies for better prices has long been a goal for progressives, and when voters heard Trump stray from the Republican party orthodoxy, railing against Big Pharma as he asked for their support, many ...
Health Department secretary open to national Medicaid work requirements
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told a Senate panel Thursday that he’s willing to work with Congress on legislation that would require people to work a designated amount of hours or lose Medicaid.
States that want to implement Medicaid work requirements have so far sought federal permission to do so, by waiver, but now, Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) is aiming to go further by proposing that the federal government impose work requirements across the board in ever...
Pharmaceutical giant paid Michael Cohen over $1 million — for work he was ‘unable’ to complete
The drug giant Novartis paid Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and longtime “fixer,” more than $1 million for health care policy consulting work — and then continued to pay him even after the company quickly realized Cohen couldn’t help them.
Cohen signed a one-year contract with Novartis in February 2017, at the cost of $100,000 a month, allegedly to advise the company on “how the Trump administration might approach certai...
Trump reportedly won’t sign farm bill unless it includes work requirements for poor people
President Donald Trump is expected to tell lawmakers Wednesday that he intends to veto the farm bill unless it includes tighter work requirements for individuals receiving food stamps, two people familiar with the deliberations told the Wall Street Journal.
Work requirements for food stamps, known officially as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), are the most controversial portion of the farm bill, which provides funding for SNAP and must be re-authorized by the ...
New insurance rates prove Trump’s policies have increased Obamacare premiums
Early signs show health insurance companies are trying to exponentially raise prices for plans sold on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace — and for people who don’t qualify for federal assistance, there’s no relief in sight.
Insurers in Maryland and Virginia are asking for double-digit premium increases to 2019 monthly plans. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield CEO Chet Burrell said that Maryland’s exchange is in the “advanced stages of a death spiral.̶...
Trump tries to fix deficit caused by tax cuts by cutting billions from children’s health care
The Trump administration is set to ask Congress to claw back $15 billion in federal spending. If passed, it would be the largest “rescission” package passed in American history.
Nearly half of the cuts — roughly $7 billion — would come from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a program many low-income families depend on for coverage. The White House claims the cuts will not have an impact on the program, which currently has an enrollment of about 9 mill...