How to Build a Single-Payer Health System: Lessons From Taiwan's Turnaround

[t]   Wednesday, January 3, 2018 [t r u t h o u t] [View Recent Newsletters]( [Tell a friend about Truthout!]( [Donate Today!](   Truthout is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization; donations are tax deductible.   BuzzFlash Trump's War on Justice [Read the Article at The Week](   Time for Truth-Telling on Immigration [Read the Article at BuzzFlash](   Orrin Hatch Could Have Been Worse -- but Mostly, He Could Have Been a Lot Better [Read the Article at Esquire](   Another Government Shutdown Threat Looms [Reads the Article at Politico](   Trump's Pick to Run 2020 Census Has Defended Racial Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression Laws [Read the Article at Mother Jones](   2017: A Watershed Year for the Intersection of Sports and Politics [Read the Article at BuzzFlash](   DHS Weighs Major Change to H-1B Foreign Tech Worker Visa Program [Read the Article at the Miami Herald](     Fearless, honest reporting has never been more needed. Support Truthout's nonprofit journalism today. [Donate Now]( [How to Build a Single-Payer Health System: Lessons From Taiwan's Turnaround]( Michael Corcoran, Truthout: Even liberal critics of Medicare for All like to argue that such a large-scale reform would be disruptive, if not impossible. This is not true, according to William Hsiao, who led the construction and implementation of Taiwan's single-payer system. He argues that the United States can learn a lot from Taiwan, among other countries, about how to implement a single-payer system that creates universal coverage while saving money. [Read the Article]( ["Working People Are the Real Experts on Their Lives": How a Grassroots Group in North Carolina Is Fighting Trump's Betrayal]( Sarah Jaffe, Truthout: North Carolina's working poor thought they were being listened to -- now they feel betrayed and duped, say Down Home North Carolina organizers. The organization, which grew out of the ashes of the 2016 election, is allowing people in rural North Carolina to tap into their own talent as organizers to help their communities fight for the power they need to make their lives better. [Read the Interview and Listen to the Audio]( [Tweeting About Size of His "Nuclear Button," Trump Disrupts Peace Effort With Childish Threat]( Jake Johnson, Common Dreams: Just as it appeared that long-inflamed tensions on the Korean Peninsula were beginning to wane, President Donald Trump further demonstrated his willingness to drag the world to the brink of nuclear war Tuesday night with a tweet boasting of the size and power of the US's (nonexistent) "nuclear button." [Read the Article]( [Libraries Under Capitalism: The Enclosure of the Literary Commons]( Gus Bagakis, Truthout: Public libraries have functioned as a commons for public education, community dialogue and organizing. But over three decades of neoliberal policies have forced public libraries from a service model to a business-and-profit model that is destroying our public space. An understanding of US public libraries in the context of our economic history could help us protect these important literary commons. [Read the Article]( [Trump's Vow to Support Iran Opposition Carries "No Credibility" as Demonstrations Enter Sixth Day]( Amy Goodman and Juan González, Democracy Now!: Anti-government demonstrations entered their second week in Iran and have spread to several key cities. Tehran-based reporter Reza Sayah and Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council, point to one contributing factor: a new budget deal in Iran's parliament that would cut government payments to the poor and raise fuel prices 50 percent. [Watch the Video and Read the Transcript]( [The Explosive Compound RDX May Be the Greatest Threat to the US's Health]( Ranjani Chakraborty and Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica: The Pentagon has catalogued more than 40,000 contaminated sites across US states and territories, and it has so far spent more than $40 billion attempting to clean them up while minimizing fault. Perhaps nothing better exemplifies the Pentagon's approach to its pollution problem than the story of RDX, one of the world's most powerful conventional explosives. [Read the Article and Watch the Video]( [How to Defend Voting Rights in 2018]( s.e. smith, Care2: As the GOP tries to maintain its majority in 2018, numerous people who never expected to run for office are plunging into politics. Meanwhile, a number of states are pushing through discriminatory voter suppression laws. At a time when democracy is under perpetual strain, it's critical to defend the right to vote. [Read the Article]( [Ten Photos: I Saw What Native Resilience Looks Like]( Mary Annette Pember, YES! Magazine: By the numbers, Native Americans reliably top lists of poverty, unemployment, victimization and addiction in the United States. Taken alone, the data paint a dismal picture of intractable, inescapable poverty. Yet Native folks will continue, and reinvent, and even laugh, as they've always done. That's resilience. [Read the Article and View the Photos]( [What Makes Muslim Ban 3.0 So Dangerous]( Maha Hilal, Foreign Policy in Focus: Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump has sought to put three different Muslim bans into place, with the last now making its way through the courts. For many Muslims, the bans indicate that institutionalized Islamophobia isn't going anywhere anytime soon. [Read the Article]( [Want to strengthen Truthout and help us plan for the future? 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