today in 'what [blank] looks like'

What profiteering privatization looks like: this amazing story, cross-posted from feminist philosophers, comes from the UK, which has hired a private contractor (something called 'Atos') to assess applications for government disability benefits:

"My friend Polly has a severe form of Crohn’s disease. She’s been given countless different medications, and operations to remove parts of her small intestine. In fact, her Crohn’s is so resistant to the strongest medications and surgery available that she was referred to an experimental chemotherapy and stem cell transplant medical trial.... Atos sent a doctor to assess whether she could re-qualify for benefits. On arrival, he told her that he’d never heard of Crohn’s Disease. Forgive me for being pedantic, but a doctor who hasn’t heard of Crohn’s Disease isn’t a doctor."

It gets worse from there. (The original story appears here.) This is the future most western policymakers envision - heck, it's the present they embrace - and the one that, in a different form, the Chicago Teachers Union is resisting.