May 20 - Credit Suisse Pays a Fine but Doesn't Have to Hand Over List of U.S. Tax Cheaters; How Americans Pay More and Get Less; The VA Healthcare System Compared to the Overall U.S. Healthcare System that Kills 225,000 Americans a Year

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the guilty plea for helping wealthy Americans avoid taxes from the second largest Swiss bank Credit Suisse, whose stock just went up in spite of a $2.6 billion fine and the “too big to jail” bank did not have to hand over a list of 22,000 American tax-cheaters, or fire any top officials. James Henry, the former chief economist at McKinsey & Co who is a senior advisor with the Tax Justice Network and a Senior Fellow at the Columbia University Center for Sustainable International Investment joins us to discuss the contrast of bankers getting away with massive fraud while an Occupy Wall street protester in New York is sentenced to jail for allegedly striking a plainclothes police officer who grabbed her from behind, a reflexive response for which she was severely beaten by police.

Part 2

Then we speak with Joshua Freedman, a policy analyst in the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation where he has a new report at newamerica.net “Pay More, Get Less: How American Socio-Economic Policy is Falling Short”. We discuss how in terms of a social contract, Americans pay more and receive fewer benefits than citizens in other advanced industrialized countries as prices for health care, higher education, retirement and other services like banking and the Internet increase on a middle class trapped between low, stagnant wages and an increasingly expensive set of social and economic supports.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the scandal in the Department of Veterans Affairs over the manipulation of wait times for patients to see physicians and speak with Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the Washington Monthly and author of “Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Healthcare Would Work Better for Everyone”.  He testified last week to the Senate Committee on Veteran Affairs and we discuss a healthcare system now embroiled in scandal that, compared to the overall U.S. healthcare system that kills 225,000 American per year, is widely recognized as leading the nation in terms of both quality and costs.