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- Is Neoliberalism to Blame for America’s Health Care Woes?
Last March, West Suburban Medical Center, a 230-bed safety-net hospital serving one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods, abruptly closed its doors. Area residents, whose average lifespan is two decades shorter than that of residents in wealthier parts of the city, must now drive or take public transit to access emergency room and clinical services that were once within walking distance. Shantis Johnson, 38 and pregnant when interviewed by the local public radio station, is asthmatic. She rushes to the hospital’s ER whenever struck by a debilitating attack. “What if people just start dying because they can’t get to the hospital on time?” she asked WBEZ. “That’s my biggest fear.” Safety-net hospitals, whether serving inner cities or rural areas, depend on state-run Medicaid programs, which are every hospital’s stingiest payer. As a result, they operate on shoestring budgets, often in depopulated areas, making it almost impossible to maintain the full range of care needed in their service territories. America’s Wrong Turn: US Health Care in the Neoliberal Era by John E. McDonough Johns Hopkins University Press, 472 pp. But over the last several decades, a new set of players has arrived on the scene, making it even harder to serve shrinking populations with high health care needs and low incomes. Private equity investors, claiming they could solve these hospitals’ financial woes through superior management skills and a tough-love approach toward staff, have taken over scores of safety-net hospitals across the United States. They include Cerberus Capital-owned Steward Health Care in Massachusetts; Leonard Green & Partners-owned Prospect Medical Holdings in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island; and Stanton Road Capital-owned Pipeline Health in California, Texas, and Illinois. The latter bought West Suburban and Weiss Memorial, another safety-net hospital in one of the poorest communities along Chicago’s lakefront. But instead of saving these hospitals, financial engineering by these operators, usually involving sale-leaseback arrangements of real estate and high management fees, led in almost every case to draining much-needed cash from their hospitals’ budgets. This led, in turn, to reductions in services and, eventually, to facility shutdowns. In West Suburban’s case, Pipeline unloaded it and Weiss Memorial to two small-time private equity “investors” in 2022. One took over the real estate; the other brought in his nascent management company. Neither had the financial resources, technical skills, or a real plan to save the facilities, according to… [TheTopNews] Read More.10 hours ago - The Grim Reality Behind a New Census Report
Earlier this month, the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual report on the nation’s poverty rate. At first glance, the announcement tells a rosy story: Real median household income is up, and the official poverty rate fell a half a percentage point. What the 2025 numbers reflect, however, is the status quo ante before President Donald Trump re-entered the White House. What the “official” numbers omit are the catastrophic impacts of his administration’s policies on low-income families, and immigrant households in particular. We should expect next year’s Census Bureau report to paint a much darker picture. On July 4, 2025, the president signed H.R.1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which passed along party lines. It shredded the social safety net—gutting essential programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—while transferring billions to the wealthy through tax cuts that drive up our national debt. By design, many of the bill’s cuts take effect in phases, kicking in only after the November midterm elections or in 2028. Already, a whopping 7.7 million people were pushed into poverty in 2025 due to out-of-pocket health care expenses, according to the Census Bureau. With millions more expected to lose Medicaid coverage in 2027 under Trump’s cuts, this population will surely grow. Also, due to H.R. 1, families began losing access to food benefits through SNAP and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program because of eligibility requirements and other burdensome barriers. Not all these losses are reflected in the data released this month. Arguably, immigrant households are the most harmed. Because of H.R.1, families without at least one parent with a Social Security number lost access to the Child Tax Credit, one of the most effective anti-poverty programs. These households included 2.6 million first-generation American children. Census data clocked the poverty rate for non-citizens at 24.3 percent in 2025, twice the rate of citizens. For decades, we’ve seen ample evidence of our nation’s indifference—even hostility—to immigrants. Let’s start with the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, known as “welfare reform,” which for 30 years (as of last month) has excluded non-citizens in the country legally, such as green card holders or those with Temporary Protected Status, from public benefit programs that address poverty. These include SNAP, Medicaid, and cash assistance through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). That was bad enough. But today’s… [TheTopNews] Read More.10 hours ago - All in the Mind
Plus, we reveal the All in the Mind Awards judging panel. [TheTopNews] Read More.10 hours ago - Read the October 2026 Issue of Radio World
The new AI law in California contains lessons for broadcasters nationally, attorney Gregg Skall writes. Also, we preview the NAB Show New York convention. Broadcasters seek to be visible in the new world of optimization for generative AI tools. Michael Baldauf writes about his experiences keeping a site on the air during the Aspen Acres fire. Find out why the SBE was impressed with a DIY project by John-Erick Rempillo. Buyer’s Guide offers 14 products for remote control, monitoring, EAS and test. Read it here. The post Read the October 2026 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World. [TheTopNews] Read More.10 hours ago - What is the triple lock and how much is the state pension worth?The triple lock guarantees that the state pension is not overtaken by inflation or wage increases. [TheTopNews] Read More.10 hours ago
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Last March, West Suburban Medical Center, a 230-bed safety-net hospital serving one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods, abruptly closed its doors. Area residents, whose average lifespan is two decades shorter than that of residents in wealthier parts of the city, must now drive or take public transit to access emergency room and clinical services that were once within walking distance. Shantis Johnson, 38 and pregnant when interviewed by the local public radio station, is asthmatic. She rushes to the hospital’s ER whenever struck by a debilitating attack. “What if people just start dying because they can’t get to the hospital on time?” she asked WBEZ. “That’s my biggest fear.” Safety-net hospitals, whether serving inner cities or rural areas, depend on state-run Medicaid programs, which are every hospital’s stingiest payer. As a result, they operate on shoestring budgets, often in depopulated areas, making it almost impossible to maintain the full range of care needed in their service territories. America’s Wrong Turn: US Health Care in the Neoliberal Era by John E. McDonough Johns Hopkins University Press, 472 pp. But over the last several decades, a new set of players has arrived on the scene, making it even harder to serve shrinking populations with high health care needs and low incomes. Private equity investors, claiming they could solve these hospitals’ financial woes through superior management skills and a tough-love approach toward staff, have taken over scores of safety-net hospitals across the United States. They include Cerberus Capital-owned Steward Health Care in Massachusetts; Leonard Green & Partners-owned Prospect Medical Holdings in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island; and Stanton Road Capital-owned Pipeline Health in California, Texas, and Illinois. The latter bought West Suburban and Weiss Memorial, another safety-net hospital in one of the poorest communities along Chicago’s lakefront. But instead of saving these hospitals, financial engineering by these operators, usually involving sale-leaseback arrangements of real estate and high management fees, led in almost every case to draining much-needed cash from their hospitals’ budgets. This led, in turn, to reductions in services and, eventually, to facility shutdowns. In West Suburban’s case, Pipeline unloaded it and Weiss Memorial to two small-time private equity “investors” in 2022. One took over the real estate; the other brought in his nascent management company. Neither had the financial resources, technical skills, or a real plan to save the facilities, according to… [TheTopNews] Read More.
10 hours ago
Earlier this month, the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual report on the nation’s poverty rate. At first glance, the announcement tells a rosy story: Real median household income is up, and the official poverty rate fell a half a percentage point. What the 2025 numbers reflect, however, is the status quo ante before President Donald Trump re-entered the White House. What the “official” numbers omit are the catastrophic impacts of his administration’s policies on low-income families, and immigrant households in particular. We should expect next year’s Census Bureau report to paint a much darker picture. On July 4, 2025, the president signed H.R.1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which passed along party lines. It shredded the social safety net—gutting essential programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—while transferring billions to the wealthy through tax cuts that drive up our national debt. By design, many of the bill’s cuts take effect in phases, kicking in only after the November midterm elections or in 2028. Already, a whopping 7.7 million people were pushed into poverty in 2025 due to out-of-pocket health care expenses, according to the Census Bureau. With millions more expected to lose Medicaid coverage in 2027 under Trump’s cuts, this population will surely grow. Also, due to H.R. 1, families began losing access to food benefits through SNAP and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program because of eligibility requirements and other burdensome barriers. Not all these losses are reflected in the data released this month. Arguably, immigrant households are the most harmed. Because of H.R.1, families without at least one parent with a Social Security number lost access to the Child Tax Credit, one of the most effective anti-poverty programs. These households included 2.6 million first-generation American children. Census data clocked the poverty rate for non-citizens at 24.3 percent in 2025, twice the rate of citizens. For decades, we’ve seen ample evidence of our nation’s indifference—even hostility—to immigrants. Let’s start with the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, known as “welfare reform,” which for 30 years (as of last month) has excluded non-citizens in the country legally, such as green card holders or those with Temporary Protected Status, from public benefit programs that address poverty. These include SNAP, Medicaid, and cash assistance through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). That was bad enough. But today’s… [TheTopNews] Read More.
10 hours ago
Plus, we reveal the All in the Mind Awards judging panel. [TheTopNews] Read More.
10 hours ago
The new AI law in California contains lessons for broadcasters nationally, attorney Gregg Skall writes. Also, we preview the NAB Show New York convention. Broadcasters seek to be visible in the new world of optimization for generative AI tools. Michael Baldauf writes about his experiences keeping a site on the air during the Aspen Acres fire. Find out why the SBE was impressed with a DIY project by John-Erick Rempillo. Buyer’s Guide offers 14 products for remote control, monitoring, EAS and test. Read it here. The post Read the October 2026 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World. [TheTopNews] Read More.
10 hours ago
The triple lock guarantees that the state pension is not overtaken by inflation or wage increases. [TheTopNews] Read More.
10 hours ago
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