Richard (RJ) Eskow is a consultant with experience in health policy and finance, communications, and IT. He has performed work for the World Bank, the State Department, the Harvard School of International Public Health, the Government of Hungary, the Rockefeller Foundation, and quite a few other public and private clients, in the U.S. and over 20 foreign countries. He has also held senior-level positions (including CEO) at several health and insurance-related companies.

Richard is currently working with the Campaign For America's Future to prevent the Senate's excise tax on middle-class health benefits from becoming law. In addition, he is a freelance writer for print and other media and an occasional radio host. Besides writing for The Huffington Post, he maintains his own blogs: A Night Light for politics & music and The Sentinel Effect for healthcare-related issues. He is a regular columnist for science and culture blog 3 Quarks Daily. He is an experienced speaker on politics, culture, management, and health care issues. He is also an occasionally working musician who may be available to provide accompaniment for your social or political event.

He can be reached at "rjeskow@gmail.com." His Twitter ID is "rjeskow."

Blog Entries by Richard (RJ) Eskow

The Health Bill, The Price of Everything, and What to Do Next

99 Comments | Posted December 19, 2009 | 04:39 PM (EST)


The CBO finally scored the redrafted Senate health care bill, saying it will cost $871 billion over the next ten years. Not that anybody waited for the numbers before cutting a deal. This was never really about the numbers. It was about coming in below an arbitrary figure and...

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Is Truth the Next Casualty in the White House's Push For the Senate Bill?

63 Comments | Posted December 17, 2009 | 06:46 PM (EST)


Many of us admire the wealth of talent on display in the White House, so it's disappointing when there's a breakdown in the accuracy or completeness of information being put forward by members of this Administration.

Take Jason Furman, the Deputy Director of the Administration's National Economic Council. We...

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Getting Real: Ten Myths Behind Progressive Support for the Senate Health Bill

66 Comments | Posted December 16, 2009 | 04:17 PM (EST)


We're hearing a lot of raised voices on the left side of the aisle as progressives square off into two camps. Some want to accept the Senate's health bill as is, while others want it scrapped. Both views deserve a hearing, but there are some assumptions behind the pro-Senate position...

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You Call That Health Reform?

25 Comments | Posted December 11, 2009 | 02:41 PM (EST)


These days when people ask about health reform, I'm reminded of Gandhi's visit to England in 1931. Somebody asked him what he thought of "Western civilization" and his answer was, "I think it would be a good idea."

That's how I feel about health reform: It would be a good...

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Blowback: New Evidence The Health Tax Is Unfair, Unwise ... and Could Be Political Suicide

22 Comments | Posted December 10, 2009 | 04:29 PM (EST)


First they came for the Cadillac plans and I didn't speak out, because I don't have a Cadillac ...

A flood of new information has been released in the last several days which demonstrates that the proposed excise tax on high-cost employer health plans is unfair, won't accomplish its...

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A Personal Appeal: The Middle-Class Health Tax Must Be Stopped

45 Comments | Posted December 8, 2009 | 10:32 AM (EST)


Liberal/Democratic Washington policy thinkers appear close to reaching the consensus view that the Senate's excise tax on higher-cost health plans is a good idea. Here's the problem: The consensus is wrong. The so-called (and misnamed) "Cadillac tax" is unfair and unwise. It's also a political landmine for its supporters, and...

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Phantom America, Thanks For Nothing!

24 Comments | Posted November 26, 2009 | 05:44 PM (EST)


The heart that struggles with disappointment and sadness believes too easily that hope is a lie, a fraud, another hustler's pitch to the next sucker walking down the street. Disillusionment with Obama and the Democrats can turn dark in just this way. The audacity of hope is really the asperity...

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No, Rachel, No! This "Health Reform" Could Lose the Middle Class for Dems

499 Comments | Posted November 13, 2009 | 01:07 PM (EST)


I read with interest Mike Elk's assertion that "liberal elitism will make Sarah Palin President," as well as Oliver Willis' response that "some people are, sadly, stupid." But if Democrats and progressives are really concerned about middle-class votes - and they should be - it's statements like this...

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A Short Vocabulary Lesson for Sen. Lieberman (With Some History Thrown In At No Extra Charge)

161 Comments | Posted November 11, 2009 | 12:42 AM (EST)


People who label Nidal Malik Hasan a "terrorist," like Joe Lieberman just did, literally don't understand the meaning of the word. And how can they keep us safe from terrorism if they don't even know what it is?

Here's what Sen. Lieberman said: ""There are very, very strong warning...

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Democratic Party Out of Bounds

90 Comments | Posted November 9, 2009 | 02:07 PM (EST)


Who's to blame when situations degenerate?
Disgusting things you'd never anticipate.
People get sick, they play the wrong games
Ya know, it can ruin your name!

- The B-52s, "Party Out of Bounds"

Would I have voted for the House health reform bill? Probably, although I'm...

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Base to Obama: Come In, Please

146 Comments | Posted November 3, 2009 | 07:28 PM (EST)


As Year One of the Obama Era draws to a close, the recent Arianna Huffington/David Plouffe exchange illustrates a structural defect in the coalition Obama's seeking to build. And make no mistake: Some might call it The Year of Living Non-Dangerously, but it looks more like a deliberate...

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Time to Kill the Pseudo-Public Option -- and Other Things to Tell Your Representative

92 Comments | Posted November 2, 2009 | 12:35 PM (EST)


The other day I wrote that the final Democratic bill was probably going to be worthy of support, however compromised it may be in certain ways. It should be understood that progressives won't get everything they want, or anything close to it, in the first go-round.

But, while...

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Three Reasons You May Be Uneasy With Health Reform

50 Comments | Posted October 29, 2009 | 03:44 PM (EST)


I'm hearing a lot of ambiguity about health reform today from people who support its objectives unequivocally. Providing coverage for those who can't afford it, allowing portability of insurance, ensuring that nobody can be denied coverage for preexisting conditions -- these are inspiring goals.

Still, there's an underlying sense...

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Health Reform: Look How Far We've Come. Now Where the Heck Are We?

50 Comments | Posted October 27, 2009 | 07:31 PM (EST)


The public option is dead: Long live the public option.

Wait. Maybe it is dead. The rocky road to health reform is likely to induce severe mood swings, considering the elation after Harry Reid's announcement yesterday and the gloom after Joe Lieberman's threatened defection today. Maybe the health reform...

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Health 'Opt-Out': Brilliant Maneuver or Crippling Compromise?

355 Comments | Posted October 8, 2009 | 10:40 PM (EST)


Democrats on the left and right are expressing interest in a new compromise that would provide a public option in the health bill but allow individual states to opt out of it. People may well be right when they say this is a deft way to pass a bill...

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Why Would Anyone Call Their Book "Going Rogue"? Answer Below.

192 Comments | Posted September 29, 2009 | 08:03 PM (EST)


Why would Sarah Palin - or anyone, for that matter - write a book about themselves and call it "Going Rogue"? Granted, she's not exactly going to write it, but that begs the question: Why that name? Consider the Free Dictionary's definitions of the word "rogue":

1. An unprincipled, deceitful,...

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Why, Oh Why, Do They Never Listen?

124 Comments | Posted September 21, 2009 | 03:17 PM (EST)


Why, oh why, do they never listen? I've been warning the Democrats since 2005 (not that I'm anybody special) that an individual mandate without meaningful out-of-pockets limits would be a hardship for working Americans -- and that eventually Republicans would figure out how to call it a tax hike and...

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Top Five Reasons the Baucus Bill Is Really, Really Bad

257 Comments | Posted September 16, 2009 | 07:45 PM (EST)


By now you've probably heard about the draft bill submitted by Sen. Max Baucus. You may even have heard it's not a very good bill -- for the American public, anyway. But it's a complex topic, and a complex bill (even though it has been written in relatively plain...

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Tone Deaf? The White House and Unemployment

63 Comments | Posted September 15, 2009 | 11:16 AM (EST)


Recently Larry Summers was quoted as saying that unemployment levels in the US are "unacceptably high." He then went on to say that unemployment "will on all forecasts remain unacceptably high for a number of, for a number of years."

Wait. If Larry Summers -- and presumably the...

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Why Did Health Insurance Stocks Go Up After The President's Speech?

102 Comments | Posted September 10, 2009 | 11:20 PM (EST)


The President gave a speech last night that was exciting, stirring, and unapologetic in its defense of government activism. He singled insurance companies out for special criticism, gave a convincing argument in favor of the public plan option, and forcefully stated that a health reform bill can and will be...

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