Description

At last count in 1999, around 40 million Americans were without health insurance -- that's an increase of around 5 million since Bill Clinton and Al Gore took office in 1993. Clearly, Clinton and Gore had failed in their much-heralded effort to insure every American. But in addition to the extra uninsured, the Democratic Party has also taken a backward step in its promises -- the pledge to achieve universal health coverage was removed from the party platform at its Los Angeles conference in 2000. Meanwhile, the big insurance companies, HMOs and pharmaceutical manufacturers continue to register enormous profits -- in the case of the drug companies, some of the largest profits found anywhere in corporate America.

This working group will investigate and publicise these issues -- focusing in particular on massive number of uninsured Americans, on the profiteering and fraud of insurance companies and HMOs, and the excessive cost of prescription drugs. The group will also examine the pharmaceutical industry, the numerous patent giveaways and other forms of corporate welfare which benefit the drug companies, and the apathy of US corporations towards diseases and infected people in developing countries.

Given that New Jersey is the de-facto global capital of the pharmaceutical industry, we have plenty of work on our doorsteps. We'll also look out for pending congressional debates on prescription drugs and the efficacy of efforts to reduce the number of American children without health insurance.

Events/News/Updates

• 12/17/2000 Updated this page

Current Projects

Things you can do

• Join the mailing list
• Create a new project
• Share the resources (websites, mailing lists, books, magazines) you are using and that are relevant to this working groups

Resources