Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Why Are Insurance Giants Dumping a Million Seniors?
Two of the biggest Medicare Advantage insurers in America are getting ready to push more than a million seniors off their plans. Not because those seniors did anything wrong. Because they aren’t profitable enough. Humana’s chief financial officer told Wall Street the company is walking away from plans covering roughly 600,000 members to, in her words, “drive the intended margin expansion.” The goal is a profit margin of at least 3% by 2028. UnitedHealthcare, the largest Medicare Advantage insurer in the country, is doing the same thing. Healthcare Dive reports it expects to end this year with up to 1.1 million fewer members than it had last year. It pulled out of 109 counties, cut allowances for over-the-counter health items, pushed people into plans with skimpier doctor networks, and rewired broker commissions to steer seniors into whatever makes the company the most money. These seniors now get to scramble through open enrollment next month or fall back to traditional Medicare. Here’s the thing. Taxpayers handed these private plans more than $534 billion last year. That’s our money. And the moment a grandmother in a rural county stops pencilling out on a spreadsheet, she’s gone. And we call this health care. It looks more a profit machine wearing Medicare’s name.
Is Medicare for All Closer Than You Think?
Here’s a counterpoint to that story, and it comes from Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works and author of the new book The Road to Medicare for All. Writing at Common Dreams today, she argues the pessimists have it wrong. Yes, on the surface things look grim. Insurers dumping seniors. Republicans running Congress. Trump in the White House. But Altman says that view “sees only the waves at the surface.” Underneath, the ground is shifting. Polls show most Americans believe health coverage should be guaranteed. The fury that erupted after the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO in 2024 wasn’t about one man. It was millions of people telling stories of loved ones who died because a company said no. National Nurses United, the country’s largest nurses’ union, is organizing for single-payer nationwide. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill has more cosponsors than it did in the last Congress. And the insurers make Altman’s case every time they dump a senior for profit. Her message is simple. This won’t happen without a fight, but it’s a fight we can win. We’re not behind the rest of the world because we can’t do this. We’re behind because a few people get rich keeping it that way.
Oil Hits $107 as Trump’s War Sends Borrowing Costs Soaring
The bill for Trump’s war with Iran just landed on your kitchen table. Oil jumped 6% Thursday to more than $107 a barrel after Houthi rebels advanced along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, raising fears they could choke off Saudi crude exports. That sent investors around the world dumping government bonds. The yield on the 10-year Treasury shot up to 4.92%, the highest since 2023. The 30-year hit its highest level since 2007. That’s your mortgage rate, your car loan, your credit card. The European Central Bank raised rates Thursday, with Christine Lagarde warning inflation will last longer than expected. Trump suggested Wednesday the war could go on until “immediately after” the midterm elections, and then, he claims, oil prices will come tumbling down. He’s timing a war to an election. Meanwhile he’s promising a 5,000 dollar check to every adult if Republicans win in November, one reason bond traders are panicking about runaway borrowing. The Fed meets next week under Trump’s handpicked chair, Kevin Warsh, and markets expect a rate hike, not the cut Trump keeps demanding. Working people pay for this war twice. Once at the pump and once at the bank.
Will Armed ICE Agents Be Waiting at Your Polling Place?
A coalition of civil rights groups and the city of Denver went to federal court Thursday to stop Donald Trump from putting armed ICE agents inside polling places this November. UnidosUS, Common Cause, and the League of United Latin American Citizens filed the suit with the legal group Democracy Forward. It asks a federal judge in Washington to declare that stationing armed federal agents at the polls is illegal. Federal law makes it a felony to send armed men to any place where an election is held unless they’re needed to repel armed enemies of the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said this month ICE officers will be allowed into polling places to serve warrants or respond to a threat. Steve Bannon put it more bluntly on his podcast. “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November.” The suit points out ICE has unlawfully detained more than 170 US citizens and killed at least three since Trump took office. Janet Murguía of UnidosUS says this isn’t immigration enforcement, it’s voter suppression, plain and simple. Noncitizens already can’t vote in federal elections, so this was never about immigration. Armed men at the polls is what dictators do. Our courts need to say so before early voting starts.
Supreme Court Slams the Door on Trump’s Missouri Gerrymander
For the second time in one week, the United States Supreme Court told Missouri Republicans no. On Thursday the justices blocked a federal judge’s order that would have forced the state to use a Trump-backed congressional map this November. No dissents. The map was drawn last year at Trump’s urging to carve up Kansas City and take out Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, giving Republicans seven of the state’s eight House seats. But voters fought back. A group called People Not Politicians gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures for a referendum to put the map on the ballot. Under Missouri law, that freezes the new map until the people vote. Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins sat on those signatures from December until August, then rejected them on primary day. The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled he had no right to do that. When a Trump-appointed federal judge tried to override the state court Tuesday, Hoskins ordered local officials to use the gerrymander anyway. So the state’s highest court hauled him in for a contempt hearing Thursday morning. Now the 2022 map stands, and ballots go out September 19. Missouri voters beat a rigged map with clipboards and signatures. That’s what democracy looks like when people refuse to give it up.
What Did the Navy Chief Just Admit About Bahrain?
Sometimes the truth slips out when nobody’s watching. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao gave an interview to the conservative Epoch Times, and the reporter previewed it Thursday on social media. Cao said Iranian forces “blew the hell out of Bahrain.” That’s the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet. For months the Pentagon insisted Iranian strikes on that base didn’t significantly affect operations, and it refused to tell Congress what the damage cost. When Pete Hegseth was pressed for a number at a May hearing, he answered with a question of his own, asking what the cost of Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be. The Wall Street Journal has reported some structures on the base were hit so badly they may never be rebuilt. Fox News’ own Pentagon correspondent, Jennifer Griffin, called Cao’s remark a stunning admission and said no senior official had acknowledged it on the record until now. A war most Americans oppose. A president who says it might last until right after the election. And a Pentagon that hides the damage to our own bases from the people who pay for them. If they’ll stonewall Congress about a Navy base, ask yourself what else they’re not telling you.
And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday September 10, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
