Looking back on 2024, several of my feature pieces were big explainer articles on the complex corruption of American capitalism, especially in the health insurance–industrial complex. The one that got the most attention was an investigative story on Epic Systems, the multibillion-dollar company that controls electronic patient record databases at most of America’s hospitals. Epic is used to help hospitals maximize income by the dark art of upcoding and is resented by clinicians as a time sink.
A related story, called “Fantasyland General,” investigated the byzantine pricing strategies of hospitals. And speaking of the health system, the murder of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson shined a spotlight on the nation’s worst, most corrupt health insurance conglomerate. I did a little digging on why the AARP would shill for this company, and found a billion-dollar-a-year kickback scheme.
Trump and company have been—on again, off again—threatening cuts in Medicare. I worry more about the slow destruction of Medicare by stealth.
In the run-up to the election, I wrote several stories warning of what Trump might do if elected to a second term. Unlike in his first term, he would not be pinned down by more mainstream corporate Republicans and honorable generals. In this piece, “The Left’s Fragile Foundations,” I discussed the possible weaponization of the IRS to go after the progressive ecosystem, which is so heavily dependent on 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and foundation grants.
I continue to follow globalization and trade. Trump’s Wall Street handlers will try to rein in his tariff craving. Tariffs are fine as part of a targeted strategy, as in the case of China, but Trump sees them as a panacea. Trump’s program of tariffs would not be enough to offset his proposed massive tax cuts. That in turn could increase the federal deficit, spooking the Fed into raising interest rates and setting off a stock market collapse.
And speaking of inflation, deportation is another Trump obsession that could blow up on him. Corporate America is heavily dependent on cheap, vulnerable migrant labor. Send them all home and costs skyrocket.
Financial regulation and deregulation has long been a subject I’ve followed. Even before Trump was elected, crypto managed to end-run its regulators, thanks to scads of campaign money. It promises to be the next great bubble.
I’ve also written several pieces about the Middle East—notably Biden’s failure to restrain Netanyahu and the human and political costs. And the bogus use of incidents of antisemitism in stampeding political opinion into supporting Israel right or wrong.
If you have your radar turned on, corrupted capitalism is everywhere. Thanks to rate-rigging, hurricanes turn out to be a profit center for insurance companies. The challenge for Democrats and progressives is to get better at connecting the dots between mass frustrations and debased capitalism—of which Donald Trump is the epitome. Narrating and explaining that meta-story of our era is why we are here.
