According to Americans for Financial Reform, the Health over Wealth bill would make these positive requirements:

• Transparency: Required reporting will ensure the public is able to know the status of healthcare entities owned by private equity firms with regard to their debt, executive pay, political spending, patient costs, and any reductions in patient services or staff wages and benefits.
• Continuity of Care Protections: The bill would require private equity firms to establish escrow accounts sufficient to cover five years of operation beyond any financial disruptions or facility closures and fund neighboring providers in case of closure.
• Public Accountability: The bill would require private equity firms to obtain a license in order to purchase healthcare entities in whole or part. This license could be revoked in the event of understaffing, price-gouging, or reducing patients’ access to care.
• Community Protections: The bill would require the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to review, and possibly block, any sales of hospitals or facilities by private equity Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) if the sale would threaten the facility’s financial status or the public health.
• The Role of Private Equity: The bill would establish an HHS Task Force to monitor and examine changes in the marketplace and any patterns of private equity ownership that result in excessive consolidation or inequities in access or quality or services.
• Accessibility, Safety, and Quality: The bill would prevent the stripping of assets from healthcare facilities by private equity firms necessary for assuring the safety and quality of healthcare services and retain staff in any bankruptcy.

I am in favor of each of them, but this approach is nibbling around the edges of a large problem which applies to many fields, including retail sales and home rentals. We should address the whole problem fully.

So I urge we either (1) prohibit private equity organizations from owning medical facilities or practices, or (2) subject private equity organizations to the same SEC rules as public equity corporations.

Any requirements of the Health above Wealth Act that do not currently exist for public corporations should be imposed on all of them.

The level of fluoride that people add to tap water is safe, but there are places where tap water naturally has a higher level, and that level is associated with neurological damage.

Petaluma, California, has introduced a municipal system of multi-use coffee cups. You drop the cup in a bin when you're done with it. It gets cleaned and delivered again to a coffee shop.

The UK has sentenced a bigot to almost three years in prison for shouting insults -- and nothing else.

He received the same sentence as another rioter who kicked and threw bottles. There ie evidently injustice here. Worse than that, to convict people for insults -- even insults that are foolish and false right-wing nonsense -- tramples freedom of speech.

Some US employers are getting warnings in advance when an OSHA inspection is coming. Congress is investigating.