Part One:
CLIMATE CHANGE IS WORSENING CALIFORNIA’S HELLISH WILDFIRES
We speak with Dana Nuccitelli, who is reporting from California for Yale’s Climate Connections. He explains a wide variety of climate issues that have all been inundating California over the last few months:
A “fire tornado” near Lake Tahoe;
A series of summer lightning storms;
A “heat dome” sitting above California for days.
Wavy patterns in the Jetstream (which usually travels in a straight line”;
The fire weather index — when it is easier for fires to start — is staying high for a lot longer than it used to. (And it is only September — fire season usually occurs in the fall.)
At the same time, there is less rain falling on this heat, again because of climate change.
How will California survive this (even if we all address climate change tomorrow)? We will have to stay inside more often, because the air quality is unhealthy. Our unusual behavior to prevent Covid will have to continue!
Part Two:
THE SYMBIOTIC FLEECING OF OUR HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY AND ITS CUSTOMERS — US).
Marshall Allen is a reporter for ProPublica, where he investigates why we pay so much for health care in the United States and get so little in return. We discuss his shocking article: “A Doctor Went to His Own Employer for a COVID-19 Antibody Test, and It Cost $10,984.”
More than half of the charges were for tests and exams that never occurred. Even the portion that was not completely fraudulent was vastly overcharged: The testing materials cost only about $8! Even more surprising: The insurer paid in full.
What is going on? How can such gross overcharges occur without some kind of prosecution or other law enforcement? Why would an insurance company — that tries to maximize its profits — pay out so much money that was unjustified?
It turns out that this is how the American health care system operates. Medical providers, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and suppliers of medical equipment are entangled in a web of mutual profiteering, at the expense of society in general and medical consumers in particular. (After all, it is we consumers who pay the tab, in our premiums, co-pays and other charges. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.)
An equally important question is: Why hasn’t some political leader stood up to this criminal enterprise and led a righteous fight to rid our health care system of this incredible fleecing? Long before Rudy Giuliani became “America’s mayor” and Donald Trump’s legal adviser/ bag man. Giuliani made his reputation as US Attorney by arresting white collar criminals and perp walking them out of their Wall Street banks and brokerage houses to jail. If such narcissistic bravado worked for the likes of Giuliani, one would think that a genuinely altruistic people’s champion would step up to the plate and root out the corruption in the medical industry (the way Elizabeth Warren did with respect to the banks and consumer financial protection.
