People who die due to lack of insurance

charlene dillI have written about the unbelievable cruelty shown by those states that refused to expand Medicaid so that those people who are too poor to be covered by the subsidies offered by the Affordable Care Act could obtain health insurance anyway. As a result, we have the predicable result that some people are now dying because they have no health insurance.

Bill Manes has written an excellent article about such cases, focusing on Charlene Dill, a 32-year old working mother of three small children. In the process, he also describes the complexities of life when one is poor.
[Read more…]

Too big to fail and too rich to jail

lady justiceIt has long been true that the rich and well-connected got better treatment from law enforcement and the justice system than the poor and powerless. But that brutal fact was usually hidden behind a façade that claimed that the system was impartial and fair. The image of the statue of a blindfolded Lady Justice holding evenly balanced scales (like the one on the right) is part of the architecture of the US Supreme Court building and is used to personify this idea that justice is dispensed without favor.
[Read more…]