LINDA PENTZ GUNTER reports from the one of 2,700 protests against the Trump government’s power grabs, on a day when seven million people defied fear-mongering in a outpouring of joy and hope in what might be the biggest protest in US history
NHS privatisation: resisting Centene
NOAH TUCKER sounds the alarm on US-based private healthcare firm that is taking over GP surgeries in England, despite its shocking track record
ALEX HALL interviews PAUL HOLDEN, whose bombshell book uses leaked documents to expose how the Starmer faction used systematic dishonesty to seize power and reopen the door to the corrupting ecosystem of corporate lobbying and sleaze
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There is no chance of defending and renewing an NHS which is still savagely undermined by having to pay mark-ups of up to 23,000 per cent to Big Pharma — let’s take control of pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution, writes DREW GILCHRIST
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Lewisham People’s Assembly organiser BEN WOODWARD reports on uproar in south London as campaigners condemn an ‘undemocratic stitch-up’ after the council waved through redevelopment of a vibrant shopping centre into ‘luxury flats’
IN an alarming twist in the spiral of NHS privatisation, 49 GP surgeries serving 375,000 patients in 18 London boroughs are being taken over by Centene, a giant health insurance corporation which stands accused in the US courts of failing to provide adequate health provision, underpaying medical staff and conspiring to fleece taxpayers out of millions of dollars.
The GP practices affected include the St Ann’s Road Surgery, which is in the ward I represent on Haringey Council.
The ownership and control of GP practices by large private-sector companies is not new. Although it has been continued and entrenched by subsequent Tory administrations, it was the Blair and Brown Labour government, eager to expand the role of the market in healthcare, which opened up the NHS general practice sector to the profit motive and commercial operations in 2004.
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