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grayton downing

BBC News - Democrats lament Obamacare rollout glitches - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-us-canada-24647561

democrats news obamacare obama politics

shared by grayton downing on 23 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • President Barack Obama's Democratic allies have begun voicing frustration with widespread problems with aspects of his signature healthcare law
  • House Democrats have complained that technical issues with an insurance enrolment website had overshadowed the law's current and future benefits.
  • The health law, known formally as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and informally as Obamacare, was passed in 2010 and is Mr Obama's foremost domestic policy initiative.
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  • Mr Obama and the law's supporters say it will eventually reshape America's costly and inefficient healthcare industry and provide insurance to most of the estimated 46 million Americans who lack it.
  • The sites, known as exchanges, opened on 1 October. The White House aims to enrol as many as seven million people through the exchanges by the 31 March end of the enrolment period.
  • The Republicans, who have opposed the law from the beginning and have sought to undermine it at every turn, are now calling for the rollout to be delayed and for deadlines for enrolment to be pushed back. The Republicans have also loudly demanded an investigation into the exchanges' shortcomings.
  • "It is our job to hold them accountable, and when it comes to Obamacare clearly there is a lot to hold accountable," House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Wednesday.
  • "The president needs to man up, find out who was responsible, and fire them," Minnesota Congressman Richard Nolan said. "You don't get many second chances to get a good first impression."
proudsa

Bernie Sanders' Healthcare Dreams Are Revolutionary, Unaffordable And Unachievable - Fo... - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...rnie-sanders-healthcare-dreams

shared by proudsa on 30 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Unaffordable And Unachievable
    • proudsa
      proudsa on 30 Jan 16
       
      According to recent studies, with Bernie's plan, the US will be bankrupt in two years 
  • Bernie’s plan falls short of this imagined utopia and would fail for reasons fiscal, political, social and medical.
  • No American would have to come up with copays or satisfy deductibles, nor would they face the fear of losing coverage.
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  • Bernie’s proposal is, in a word, revolutionary–at least for Americans.
jayhandwerk

Senators reach bipartisan deal to salvage Obamacare subsidies Trump eliminated | US new... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...are-subsidies-trump-eliminated

politics US trump obamacare policy

shared by jayhandwerk on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Senators have moved to salvage Obamacare following Donald Trump’s decision last week to scrap critical subsidies that underpin the health law.
  • The president – who last week announced he was ending the subsidies to insurance companies while claiming the ACA was “imploding” – said he approved of the plan and that the White House had been involved in the negotiations.
  • Democrats have accused him of scrapping them to “sabotage” Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law following repeated failed attempts by Republicans to repeal it, and the president’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon has praised him because the decision is “gonna blow that thing [Obamacare] up”.
Javier E

Why Are Europeans (So Much) Happier Than Americans? - 0 views

eand.co/er-than-americans-6d26ccb71322

europe us happiness social democracy dignity capitalism culture

shared by Javier E on 20 Aug 19 - No Cached
  • Why are Europeans so much happier than Americans? Or, conversely, why are Europeans the happiest people in the world…in human history?
  • one answer to my question is obvious: social democracy. Europeans enjoy generous public goods — public healthcare, retirement, education, high speed rail, and so forth. And so they don’t live the lives of bruising, battering, endless — and pointless — competition that Americans do.
  • Americans work until their dying days now — the average American dies in debt.
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  • Europeans, in contrast, simply gave each other the very things Americans forced one another to compete for — healthcare, retirement, and so on.
  • The stakes in American life are therefore life and death, every single day — lost that job? Bang! You’re dead. European life is gentler — because social democracy is fundamentally more humane.
  • Europeans have much — much — more human contact than Americans do. They are much less isolated — but they are also able to be together not just more, but in better ways. The contact that they have with one another is fundamentally different, of a far richer and and more substantial and fundamental kind
  • It’s not just “warm cultures”, as the sociologists say: even in staid Germany or fusty Holland or cold Scandinavia, the American stereotype is wrong: far from being unfeeling, long, passionate, sophisticated discussions and interactions will ensue at the drop of a hat.
  • (What do we Americans do? We are always working. Working away in solitude. Not just on our jobs. But at our lives.
  • Life itself has become a kind of capitalist project for us, endless labour to produce the perfect self — and that way stand atop everyone else. But what’s the point?
  • Happiness as a hyperindividualistic quest to become the perfect, prettiest, richest, uberperson hasn’t worked, self-evidently.
  • How do Americans relate to each other? The first question, inevitably, is “what do you do?”, followed quickly by “where are you (really) from?” We’re trying to place the other person on our little ladder of status, our mental model of social structural power.
  • if I asked these question at my local dog park in London — or the one in Paris or Nice or Berlin or Barcelona — people would pretty quickly roll their eyes, stop talking to me, and avoid me whenever they could. They’d see me as a kind of gross simpleton, someone best not associated with. But why? What unsaid social norms have I violated?I’ve violated the norms of equality and dignity. It doesn’t matter what the other person does. Not in this space. In this park, cafe, bar, restaurant, square. Here, we are equals
  • Europe is more alive than America — in these very concrete terms. People are more alive. Life is more lively. There is more life to be lived there. That is because I have more to live — I am not just a consumer, producer, competitor. I am a human being, first — and so are you. Just being is OK — in fact, crucial, vital, necessary.
  • equality and dignity and nourished, maintained, sustained. People are able to relate to one another as true equals, with equivalent levels of dignity.
  • Life itself comes to be a much, much bigger thing than we Americans grant ourselves the power to enact, express, live.
  • These attitudes of equality and dignity, which are so firmly, gently, and beautifully woven carefully and delicately into not just the European project, but European culture, attitudes, values, norms. That sense of aliveness.
  • n America, we don’t have those norms. We have two forces that have produced just the opposite: capitalism and supremacy. We have centuries of slavery and segregation, and we have centuries of capitalism — so much so that they’re indistinguishable.
  • We’re asking: where do you sit on two hierarchies, two ladders. One, capitalism’s ladder of money, and two, whiteness’s ladder of purity. Together, we can quickly assess someone’s status — their utility, their usefulness to us.
brickol

Members of Congress race back for $2.2tn stimulus vote amid fears of delay | US news | ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...coronavirus-stimulus-bill-vote

COVID-19 us politics economics

shared by brickol on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • Members of Congress are racing back to Washington, despite social isolation guidelines, out of fear that a lawmaker could delay a Friday vote on the $2.2tn economic stimulus package designed to rush federal aid to workers, businesses and a healthcare system ravaged by the coronavirus.
  • There is no doubt the law has enough support to pass. The Senate approved the bill in a unanimous vote on Wednesday night. House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she expected broad bipartisan support and Donald Trump has said he would sign it into law.
  • On Capitol Hill, Massie dismissed concerns about legislators having to fly back to Washington, noting that he chose to drive and suggesting stranded colleagues might “hitch a ride with a trucker”.
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  • His colleagues are furious. At least two House members have tested positive for coronavirus, while a number of others are awaiting test results or in quarantine after coming into contact with an infected person.
  • Republican congressman Fred Upton of Michigan said he was “driving back to DC to help get this thing over the finish line” while several lawmakers from western states said they were jumping on red-eye flights to make it back in time.
  • “Members are advised that it is possible this measure will not pass by voice vote,” House majority leader Steny Hoyer wrote in an advisory to members on Thursday night. “Members are encouraged to follow the guidance of their local and state health officials, however if they are able and willing to be in Washington DC by 10am [Friday]. Members are encouraged to do so with caution.”
  • “We will be monitoring the number of members in the Capitol and on the floor to ensure we maintain safe social distancing at all times,” they added. “Members who are ill with respiratory symptoms or fever are discouraged from attending.”
  • Members of Congress are racing back to Washington, despite social isolation guidelines, out of fear that a lawmaker could delay a Friday vote on the $2.2tn economic stimulus package designed to rush federal aid to workers, businesses and a healthcare system ravaged by the coronavirus.
  • The desire by House leaders was to pass the bill with a “voice vote” – when everyone in the chamber shouts “aye” or “no” and the loudest group prevails. But any member of Congress can demand a rollcall vote and require a quorum, forcing at least 216 lawmakers to return to Washington in the midst of a pandemic to ensure the bill passes.
  • There is no doubt the law has enough support to pass.
  • His colleagues are furious. At least two House members have tested positive for coronavirus, while a number of others are awaiting test results or in quarantine after coming into contact with an infected person.
  • The House will convened at 9am ET. There will be three hours of debate on the legislation before they attempt to pass the bill by voice vote.
  • If a recorded vote is required, the House is planning to enforce strict social distancing guidelines, allowing members on the floor to vote in small groups to avoid crowding.
brookegoodman

Health care workers on frontlines feel like 'lambs to the slaughterhouse' - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

crisis culture

shared by brookegoodman on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • (CNN)An anesthesiologist in Arizona turned to eBay for N95 masks. A nurse in Ohio said she and her colleagues are forbidden from wearing any masks for fear that it would spread anxiety. A nursing home employee in Arkansas who developed a fever said she couldn't get tested.
  • The scarcity of equipment is at a critical stage, where medical workers are being asked do something that weeks ago would have brought reprimand or even termination: reuse supplies.
  • Although many hospitals and clinics are scrambling to refill dwindling supplies, the stories from health workers reflect a shaken American health care system that was caught flat-footed by the fast-spreading global pandemic.
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  • "It's unacceptable that we're sending medical professionals like lambs to the slaughterhouse without giving anything to protect themselves," said Dr. Marianne Hamra, who works in New Jersey. "Bandanas and scarves? C'mon CDC -- that's completely ridiculous."
  • Meanwhile, New York has now topped Washington state as the new epicenter of coronavirus cases with at least 20,875 infected, according to CNN's tally of cases.
  • In New Jersey, 35 physicians and nurses are no longer working at Holy Name Medical Center because they are either have or are suspected of having Covid-19.
  • "I'm very concerned that if things don't slow down, if the supply chains do not open up, if we don't figure out a way to get the nurses in here from the federal government (and) from the military," he said. "I feel in a week or so from now I may not be able to feel the same way."
  • A nurse in western Ohio said that, save for one specific unit where Covid-19 patients are supposed to be sent, nurses at the medical center are forbidden from wearing masks -- not just N95 masks, but surgical masks or any masks.
  • "I don't want to bring anything home to my kids," she said. "I'm a single mom. I signed up to be a frontline worker, but I don't have the equipment to do it."
  • Milla Kviatkovsky, a hospitalist physician in San Diego, helped launch a petition on Change.org called "US Physicians/Healthcare Workers For Personal Protective Equipment in Covid-19 Pandemic."
  • Many physicians, she said, worry about the ethical implications of institutions saying it's ok to perform procedures without protective gear when it's never been ok before.
  • "Are we doing more harm than good by going in there with no equipment and potentially spreading this to so many other people?" she said in an interview with CNN. "Are we taking out the front lines to our defense when we're so early on in the equivalent of a health care war right now?"
brickol

Coronavirus vaccine: when will it be ready? | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-vaccine-when-will-it-be-ready

COVID-19 crisis

shared by brickol on 28 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • Even at their most effective – and draconian – containment strategies have only slowed the spread of the respiratory disease Covid-19. With the World Health Organization finally declaring a pandemic, all eyes have turned to the prospect of a vaccine, because only a vaccine can prevent people from getting sick.
  • About 35 companies and academic institutions are racing to create such a vaccine, at least four of which already have candidates they have been testing in animals. The first of these – produced by Boston-based biotech firm Moderna – will enter human trials imminently.
  • This unprecedented speed is thanks in large part to early Chinese efforts to sequence the genetic material of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19
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  • Sars-CoV-2 shares between 80% and 90% of its genetic material with the virus that caused Sars – hence its name. Both consist of a strip of ribonucleic acid (RNA) inside a spherical protein capsule that is covered in spikes. The spikes lock on to receptors on the surface of cells lining the human lung – the same type of receptor in both cases – allowing the virus to break into the cell. Once inside, it hijacks the cell’s reproductive machinery to produce more copies of itself, before breaking out of the cell again and killing it in the process.
  • Coronaviruses have caused two other recent epidemics – severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in China in 2002-04, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), which started in Saudi Arabia in 2012. In both cases, work began on vaccines that were later shelved when the outbreaks were contained.
  • Though nobody could have predicted that the next infectious disease to threaten the globe would be caused by a coronavirus – flu is generally considered to pose the greatest pandemic risk – vaccinologists had hedged their bets by working on “prototype” pathogens.
  • All vaccines work according to the same basic principle. They present part or all of the pathogen to the human immune system, usually in the form of an injection and at a low dose, to prompt the system to produce antibodies to the pathogen. Antibodies are a kind of immune memory which, having been elicited once, can be quickly mobilised again if the person is exposed to the virus in its natural form.
  • Some of the Covid-19 vaccine projects are using these tried-and-tested approaches, but others are using newer technology.
  • Cepi’s original portfolio of four funded Covid-19 vaccine projects was heavily skewed towards these more innovative technologies, and last week it announced $4.4m (£3.4m) of partnership funding with Novavax and with a University of Oxford vectored vaccine project.
  • Clinical trials, an essential precursor to regulatory approval, usually take place in three phases. The first, involving a few dozen healthy volunteers, tests the vaccine for safety, monitoring for adverse effects. The second, involving several hundred people, usually in a part of the world affected by the disease, looks at how effective the vaccine is, and the third does the same in several thousand people. But there’s a high level of attrition as experimental vaccines pass through these phases.
  • There are good reasons for that. Either the candidates are unsafe, or they’re ineffective, or both. Screening out duds is essential, which is why clinical trials can’t be skipped or hurried. Approval can be accelerated if regulators have approved similar products before.
  • No vaccine made from genetic material – RNA or DNA – has been approved to date, for example. So the Covid-19 vaccine candidates have to be treated as brand new vaccines, and as Gellin says: “While there is a push to do things as fast as possible, it’s really important not to take shortcuts.”
  • It’s for these reasons that taking a vaccine candidate all the way to regulatory approval typically takes a decade or more, and why President Trump sowed confusion when, at a meeting at the White House on 2 March, he pressed for a vaccine to be ready by the US elections in November – an impossible deadline.
  • In the meantime, there is another potential problem. As soon as a vaccine is approved, it’s going to be needed in vast quantities – and many of the organisations in the Covid-19 vaccine race simply don’t have the necessary production capacity. Vaccine development is already a risky affair, in business terms, because so few candidates get anywhere near the clinic. Production facilities tend to be tailored to specific vaccines, and scaling these up when you don’t yet know if your product will succeed is not commercially feasible. Cepi and similar organisations exist to shoulder some of the risk, keeping companies incentivised to develop much-needed vaccines. Cepi plans to invest in developing a Covid-19 vaccine and boosting manufacturing capacity in parallel, and earlier this month it put out a call for $2bn to allow it to do so.
  • The problem is making sure the vaccine gets to all those who need it. This is a challenge even within countries, and some have worked out guidelines. In the scenario of a flu pandemic, for example, the UK would prioritise vaccinating healthcare and social care workers, along with those considered at highest medical risk – including children and pregnant women – with the overall goal of keeping sickness and death rates as low as possible. But in a pandemic, countries also have to compete with each other for medicines.
  • Because pandemics tend to hit hardest those countries that have the most fragile and underfunded healthcare systems, there is an inherent imbalance between need and purchasing power when it comes to vaccines.
  • Outside of pandemics, the WHO brings governments, charitable foundations and vaccine-makers together to agree an equitable global distribution strategy, and organisations like Gavi, the vaccine alliance, have come up with innovative funding mechanisms to raise money on the markets for ensuring supply to poorer countries. But each pandemic is different, and no country is bound by any arrangement the WHO proposes – leaving many unknowns.
brickol

$1,200 stimulus checks for all? All you need to know about the US coronavirus bailout |... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-bailout-what-you-need-to-know

us COVID-19 trump crisis economics

shared by brickol on 25 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • With large areas of the US shut down, stock markets crashing, industries facing collapse and soaring unemployment, the US government is set to pass the most expensive bailout in US history in attempts to save the US economy.Democrat and Republican leaders of Congress, along with White House officials, have been scrambling to make a deal in around-the-clock negotiations and finally announced early on Wednesday that they have reached an agreement. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill on Wednesday.
  • The bill is worth about $2tn, which will go to businesses, corporations and directly into the pockets of Americans. It has six main components: Direct payment to most Americans. $250bn to bolster unemployment insurance. $350bn in loans for small businesses that may be forgiven if firms use them to keep workers on payroll. $500bn in aid for hard-hit industries and states and $50bn for airlines. $130bn in aid to hospitals. $150bn to help state and local governments.
  • There has been some compromise. Republicans agreed to some major changes from their original bill. More money will be given to large companies in hard-hit industries, but Democrats have also pushed for strict oversight of the loans. More aid will also be given to the healthcare sector and more funds will be earmarked for unemployment insurance after pushes from Democrats.
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  • The plan is for individuals to get up to $1,200 and married couples to get up to $2,400, including $500 for each child. The size of a check would diminish gradually for those whose income is above $75,000, while individuals earning more than $99,000 and couples earning more than $198,000 will not be getting any checks. The checks will be based on a household or individual’s 2018 tax return unless they filed their 2019 tax return, in which case it will be based of their 2019 return.
  • Democrats and even some Republicans are adamant that corporations are given fair assistance that will not end up in the pockets of wealthy shareholders or corporate executives.
  • Companies who receive government assistance will also see restrictions on stock buybacks, which is when a company buys shares of its own stock to increase the value of its shares, ultimately helping their wealthy stockholders and corporate executives. Commercial airlines have been known for buying back their own shares.
  • The deal extends unemployment insurance by 13 weeks and covers self-employed and furloughed workers, offering workers $600 a week for those additional four months in addition to what a state will provide through their own program.
  • The bill will relieve burden on the healthcare sector by including a “Marshall Plan” that will give $130bn in grants and assistance to hospitals. The bill also boosts Medicare payments for hospitals treating patients with Covid-19.
andrespardo

'We can lose this election': what top Democrats fear could go wrong in 2020 | US news |... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ats-on-factors-losing-election

politics US election trump

shared by andrespardo on 07 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump has a huge campaign war chest and a vast, aggressive digital operation. And the US economy has shown stubborn resilience throughout the president’s three years in office, keeping unemployment levels low and stock markets high.
  • hat’s the overall sentiment of Democrats based on interviews with over a dozen senior party figures – including ex-mayors and former governors – and top strategists during a chaotic month in the Democratic primary leading up to the Iowa caucuses.
  • Bernie Sanders surging in Iowa, to the chagrin of centrist Democratic leaders who hoped a candidate like former vice-president Joe Biden or even the young and charismatic former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg might score an early win.
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  • “I’m still very bullish on 2020. I think Trump’s going to have a very difficult time winning re-election,” said the former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe.
  • Money money money!
  • “I think someone who’s not worried about the money is crazy. Trump’s sitting on $100m right now and we’re nowhere close to having a nominee and they will be able to raise money but we’re still so fractured,”
  • “I don’t think it’s going to be hard to raise all the money you need but that early advantage is not inconsequential given that this is coming down to a few voters in a few states,” Emanuel said.
  • $20m on more than 218,000 Facebook ads. And Democrats have noticed.
  • Incumbency
  • But Trump is a divisive figure, to put it mildly. Democrats point to their gains in suburban districts across the country and flipping seven governor’s mansions in the 2018 midterm elections. They see that as a herald of Democratic competitiveness in Republican-leaning parts of the country. Democratic strategists hope fatigue from seemingly daily national crises will see reluctant moderates and swing voters vote Trump out of office.
  • Emanuel said the deciding issues will be the key aspects of the economy versus a set of issues Democrats have run and won on in recent years.
  • The most persistent source of Democratic handwringing is a traditional aspect of any presidential cycle: the months-long primary where fellow candidates turn on each other. After months of relatively respectful campaigning, the knives are finally coming out just before the first vote in Iowa next week.
  • Running out of money – and a brokered convention?
  • Democrats worry a long, bloody primary could advantage Trump. It could also drain Democrats’ resources.
  • ppealing to swing voters A persistent fear throughout the Democratic primary has been picking a viable nominee. The 2020 Democratic primary has been full of ideological and policy debates over Medicare for All, immigration, a Green New Deal and whether a veteran or young charismatic leader can beat Trump.
  • “The thing that concerns me the absolute most right now is Bernie being the nominee,” a veteran Democratic strategist with ties to multiple candidates said.
  • The veteran Democratic strategist pointed to questions about where Warren stands on healthcare and Medicare for All. “I think Warren’s a problem. I think any candidate who would lose the healthcare debate to Trump is a problem. I think her stance is a problem. I think a lot of what’s ailing her is correctable. I think it’s not correctable with Bernie and he has no desire to correct it.”
andrespardo

African Americans bear the brunt of Covid-19's economic impact | US news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...yment-covid-19-economic-impact

inernational pandemic coronavirus crisis economics

shared by andrespardo on 28 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • African Americans bear the brunt of Covid-19's economic impact
  • Donald Trump once again praised his job creation record. “Black people right now are having the best, statistically, the best numbers that you’ve ever had, and it’s really an honor,” he said. “Nobody has done more for black people than I have. Nobody has done more.”
  • That was 27 February and Trump was also still claiming he had done an “incredible job” with the looming coronavirus pandemic. Now the virus has led 26 million Americans to file for unemployment. While the US Bureau of Labor Statistics will not release unemployment figures broken down by race until the beginning of next month, economists are certain that black Americans are suffering the brunt of Covid-19’s economic impact and will probably suffer the most dramatic consequences of the looming recession.
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  • 3.5%, a 50-year-low, the black unemployment rate was 5.8%. The white unemployment rate was 3.1%.
  • “Whatever is being projected for the national unemployment rate, in most instances, we expect to see something close to twice that for black Americans.”
  • For Yolanda Murray of Detroit, Michigan, not having savings meant weeks of panic trying to figure out how she was going to pay the bills that came on 1 April after she was furloughed from her job at a hotel.
  • last hired, first fired” phenomenon dramatically affects black Americans more than any other group in the US due to the country’s history of racism and segregation of black Americans in the work sector.
  • Working in these fields leads to lower wages – black Americans have the lowest median wage of any racial group in the US – and the jobs are often seen as the most expendable during an economic downturn.
  • Even with a low unemployment rate, wage growth for low-wage workers, especially for black workers, has been slow. Black Americans have seen the slowest wage growth compared with other groups of Americans, reaching a growth rate that was four times slower at certain wage distribution levels, according to a 2018 Economic Policy Institute report.
  • The reason why African Americans bear the brunt of downturns more is that when firing decisions start to occur the least educated and those with the least experience tend to be let go first. There is also continued discrimination in the workplace,” Rodgers said.
  • t’s like how am I going to maintain all of this?” Murray said. Weeks after she filed her application for unemployment insurance, payments started coming in and Murray was able to pay her bills again.
  • Murray and her unionized co-workers spent 28 days striking for higher wages and better healthcare. At the time, workers at the hotel had not had wage rises since before the last recession, and healthcare costs were so expensive that Murray could only afford to cover herself, leaving her two children out of her plan.
  • Trump’s repeated claims that he has been the best president for African Americans was repeatedly pegged to falling unemployment numbers. But those numbers only tell a partial story, as work by Rodgers and others has shown. Black families are especially vulnerable to economic downturns because they lack the savings that can act as a buffer against unexpected layoffs or lost wages. And during the last recovery they lost ground against their white peers.
  • compared with 9%, respectively. And the black homeownership rate is the lowest of any racial group in the US and has consistently been about 30% lower than the white homeownership rate over the years, even as the economy was getting stronger.
  • “Wealth allows you to respond to that unexpected health emergency, that broken hole in the tire you have to replace. It also allows you to buy a home, put your kids through school,” said Danyelle Solomon, vice-president of the race and ethnicity program at the Center for American Progress.
  • Experts agree that being poor has costly effects on a person’s health: for adults living in extreme poverty, being poor can cost up to 15 years of life expectancy.
  • ave seen higher death rates due to Covid-19 compared with any other group in the US. Black Americans made up 25% of deaths from Covid-19 in the US though they make up a little under 13% of the US population.
  • “National emergencies, pandemics, epidemics, what they do is they spotlight inequality,” Solomon said. “What we see in Covid-19 is no different. It’s highlighting racial disparities at every single level that have been with our society for a very long time.”
hannahcarter11

Fauci: Texas inviting another virus surge by lifting mask mandate | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...-surge-by-lifting-mask-mandate

texas virus mask Fauci

shared by hannahcarter11 on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Texas officially repealed its mask mandate on Wednesday and allowed businesses to reopen at full capacity. The changes came even as public health experts cautioned against reopening too soon, despite declining cases.
  • “We understand people’s need to get back to normal, and we’re going in that direction. But when you start doing things like completely putting aside all public health measures as if you’re turning a light switch off, that's quite risky,”
  • Fauci last week called the states’ moves “inexplicable” and suggested that it could lead to another surge.
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  • More than a dozen states currently do not have a mask mandate in effect, though Texas is now the largest without rules for face coverings.
  • Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) defended his decision against bipartisan criticism last week, saying that lifting the mask mandate “isn’t going to make that big of a change in the state of Texas.”
yehbru

International Women's Day 2021: Safe water is what women want (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics women WHO water access International

shared by yehbru on 07 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Of the many indirect consequences of Covid-19, growing gender inequality is an area of grave concern where the world is falling grievously behind. While women labor at the frontlines, comprising 70% of the world's healthcare workers, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), they are also leaving the workforce at a much higher rate than men, and doing over three-quarters of all unpaid care work, including the care of children.
  • according to the WHO, 2.2 billion people don't have 2faccess to safe drinking water and, according to UN Water, 4.2 billion don't have a safe place to use the toilet.
  • As healthcare facilities are overburdened during this pandemic, one study projects that 2fwithin six months, the world could see up to an additional 57,000 maternal and 1.2 million child deaths.
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  • In fact, basic and simple hygiene practices during antenatal care, labor and birth can reduce the risk of infections, sepsis and death for infants and mothers by up to 25%, according to the WHO
  • Even before the pandemic, approximately 2f 810 women died every day 2f from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth -- 94% of these deaths occurred in low and lower middle-income countries, according to UN Women.
  • Around the world, women and children spend 200 million hours every day collecting water, according to UNICEF. This makes up an additional 266 million hours of time each day lost because they have no toilet at home.
  • According to the World Bank, 18% of the workforce in water and sanitation are women, yet they make up less than one in four managerial or engineering staff, resulting in policies and systems that aren't designed for women's needs.
mimiterranova

GOP group 'Stop Stacey' targets Abrams ahead of expected 2022 run | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...ams-ahead-of-expected-2022-run

Politics Georgia targets

shared by mimiterranova on 12 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • GOP group 'Stop Stacey' targets Abrams ahead of expected 2022 run By Julia Manchester - 02/01/21 09:19 AM EST 863 17,083 AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookFacebookFacebookShare to TwitterTwitterTwitter Share   Just In... Fauci: CDC will release new guidance for vaccinated Americans 'very soon' Healthcare — 2m 39s ago Veteran PAC slams Tucker Carlson for comments on female service members BriefingRoom BlogRoll — 24m 3s ago US officials debating sending millions of AstraZeneca doses awaiting clearance overseas: report Administration — 48m 11s ago Biden denounces hate, violence against Asian Americans: 'It must stop' News — 1h 29m ago Biden administration to implement testing programs in schools as part of reopening effort field
  • publican strategists aligned with Georgia Gov. Brian KempBrian KempGeorgia Senate votes to repeal no-excuse absentee voting Two Republicans can stop voter suppression Trump fires back at WSJ editorial urging GOP to move on MORE (R) on Monday launched an outside group aimed at stopping a potential 2022 gubernatorial run by Democrat Stacey Abrams.
  • "We will do whatever it takes to expose Stacey Abrams’ radical network, highlight her dangerous agenda, and ultimately defeat her — and her left-wing candidates — at the ballot box," the group's senior strategist, Jeremy Brand, said in a statement. "There is no time to waste: We must stand up, fight back, and Stop Stacey.”
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  • In the two years since Abram's first run, her group Fair Fight has registered tens of thousands of voters in the Peach State and raised $100 million.
mimiterranova

Biden Expands Obamacare, Eliminates Trump-Era Abortion Policy : President Biden Takes O... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...care-with-new-executive-orders

biden obamacare policy Politics

shared by mimiterranova on 28 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • President Biden signed two executive actions Thursday that are designed to expand access to reproductive health care and health insurance through the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid.
  • "There's nothing new that we're doing here other than restoring the Affordable Care Act and restoring Medicaid to the way it was before [Donald] Trump became president. Because by fiat, he changed — made [it] more inaccessible, more expensive and more difficult for people to qualify for either of those two plans," Biden said in a brief Oval Office signing ceremony.
  • "This is going back to what the situation was prior to Trump's executive order."
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • instructs the Department of Health and Human Services to open a special enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act through HealthCare.gov,
  • "As we continue to battle COVID-19, it is even more critical that Americans have meaningful access to affordable care," a White House fact sheet reads.
  • His second executive action aims "to protect and expand access to comprehensive reproductive health care" by rescinding the Mexico City policy, also known as the global gag rule. This policy, reinstated and expanded by the Trump administration, bars international nongovernmental organizations that provide abortion counseling or referrals from receiving U.S. funding. Biden on Thursday called the gag rule an "attack on women's health access."
  • Last November, the Trump administration and several Republican-led states argued at the U.S. Supreme Court that the program should be voided, which would have eliminated popular elements of the law such as protections for those with preexisting conditions.
  • The Supreme Court will hear a case that could decide the legality of work requirements for Medicaid recipients.
  • Biden is reversing course and directing federal agencies to reconsider those work requirement rules. He is also asking agencies to review policies that undermined protections for people with preexisting conditions, including complications related to COVID-19.
  • The administration faced pressure to open HealthCare.gov for anyone to enroll in the Affordable Care Act in response to the pandemic, but it never did.
  • For decades, Democratic and Republican presidents have alternately rescinded or reinstated the global gag rule, with Democrats, such as Biden, opposing the policy. Republicans have argued that the rule would reduce the number of abortions.
  • However, a study released last year suggested the policy failed to reduce the rate of abortions and ultimately had the opposite effect. The study said the rate of abortions increased by about 40% in the countries studied — most likely because the funding ban caused a reduction in access to contraception and a consequent rise in unwanted pregnancies.
  • Under the actions announced on Thursday, the president is telling federal agencies to review a Trump-era rule that limited the use of Title X federal funds meant for family planning and reproductive health services for low-income patients. Under this program, organizations that provided abortions or abortion counseling could not have access to those federal funds. The White House said, "Across the country and around the world, people — particularly women, Black, Indigenous and other people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and those with low incomes — have been denied access to reproductive health care."
  • mimiterranova on 12 Mar 21
     
    I did highlights but they didn't show up
brickol

Democrats take control of Virginia and claim win in Kentucky governor's race | US news ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...r-race-andy-beshear-matt-bevin

trump Kentucky politics us

shared by brickol on 06 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • Democrats have won control of Virginia’s state legislature for the first time in a generation
  • The Democratic party prevailed in both the state house and senate in Virginia
  • In Kentucky, which Trump won by nearly 30 percentage points in the 2016 election, Andy Beshear – the Democratic challenger to unpopular incumbent governor Matt Bevin – declared victory as he was narrowly ahead of the Republican
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Tonight voters in Kentucky sent a message loud and clear for everyone to hear. It’s a message that says our elections don’t have to be about right versus left, they are still about right versus wrong,
  • Voters in suburban swaths of Kentucky and Virginia sided with Democrats, a trend that would complicate Trump’s path to re-election in 2020 if it holds. And the Democrats who made gains in Tuesday’s election did so by largely avoiding positions such as the government-run healthcare plan “Medicare for All” that have animated the party’s left flank in the Democratic presidential primary race.
  • Beshear declared himself the winner in Kentucky after securing 49.2% of the vote to Bevin’s 48.8%.
  • Bevin was elected in 2015 and had portrayed this election as a referendum on Trump, who stumped for the governor at a rally in Kentucky on Monday night and called Beshear “too liberal, too extreme and too dangerous”
  • A bullish Bevin had told the New York Times last month that he anticipated winning the election by between six and 10 points.
  • But while Trump won Kentucky with more than 60% of the vote in 2016 and remains popular in the state, with Republicans in other races there doing well on Tuesday, Bevin – who polls as one of America’s most unpopular governors – could not ride that popularity to victory.
  • Beshear, the state’s attorney general and the son of Kentucky’s last Democratic governor, made public education the cornerstone of his campaign, choosing a public high school assistant principal as his running mate and accusing Bevin of bullying schoolteachers who protested against proposed pension reforms.
  • Bevin, meanwhile, fought on broader, national and cultural issues, highlighting his relationship with Trump and his support for the second amendment, while touting himself as the “most pro-life” governor in America.
  • Kentucky’s race was one of several closely watched elections in states across the US on Tuesday. Republican Daniel Cameron made history in a resounding win in Kentucky’s election for attorney general, becoming the first African American to win the office.
  • Democrats have pledged that when they take power, they will pass an agenda that Republicans have blocked for years, including stricter gun laws, a higher minimum wage and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
brickol

The Democratic war council working to turn Florida blue in 2020 | US news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...florida-election-2020-strategy

us politics trump

shared by brickol on 18 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by fewer than 113,000 of the 9.4m votes cast in Florida’s 2016 presidential election, it came as little surprise in a state accustomed to razor-thin margins.
  • when lightning struck again in the 2018 midterms and the Democratic candidates for state governor and the US Senate were edged out after close recounts, it was time for some profound introspection.
  • the state’s Democratic leaders convened a top-level war council to plot strategy for the 2020 presidential election, now just 12 months away
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • From aiming to register hundreds of thousands of new voters to earlier and better on-the-ground canvassing, and from investing millions of dollars in recruiting local organizers to more finely focused outreach efforts on a sizable Hispanic and African American communities, Democrats are going all out to reverse the notion that Florida is unassailable Trump country
  • There was a great sense of dissatisfaction amongst a lot of Democratic voters after the primary. A lot of them stayed home, a lot of them voted for Trump as a protest, so you look at the turnout and adjust it for population growth, it’s one of the lowest turnouts we’ve ever had
  • We can’t make that mistake again. Vote for who you want in the primary, but come together afterwards
  • party leaders agree it will take more than just the unquestioned loyalty of existing supporters to turn Florida blue. New voters are needed, lots of them, and in May the party announced a “monumental” $2m investment to register 200,000 statewide before the 2020 election
  • Florida is one of the seven key battleground states targeted by Democrats nationally as part of their Organizing Corps 2020 campaign launched earlier this year
  • In Palm Beach county we have passed 400,000 Democrats for the first time ever. We are out-registering the Republicans and pulling away. And that’s a blue county. The Republicans are making an effort there
  • For those already knocking on Floridians’ doors, the key issues are clear. “The first thing is healthcare, then affordable housing and jobs and the economy,” said Melanie McRae, a Miami-based electoral field organizer for New Florida Majority, an independent political action and advocacy group that works mostly with “marginalized and excluded” communities.
  • A study published in April by the Miami Urban Future Initiative, a collaboration between Florida International University and urban researchers at the Creative Class Group, found that there were stark racial dimensions to the city’s high rate of poverty.
  • 14.3% of Miami residents lived in poverty, affecting African Americans at two and a half times the rate of white Americans and Hispanics at twice the rate of whites.
  • McRae, who organizes small teams of canvassers knocking on up to 100 doors a day in Miami’s ethnically diverse neighborhoods, stresses that her organization is non-partisan. “We are not the Democratic party, we are not politicians, so we don’t come to ask for your vote. We’re here year-round motivating, educating and advocating for a better Florida,” she said.
  • many of New Florida Majority’s ideals – including racial and social equality, criminal justice reform, care of the environment and tackling the climate crisis – are shared by most Democrats and will be huge motivating factors for voters in next year’s election
  • What I’m getting from voters is anger, disgust, a little bit of hopelessness, which we’re trying to use as fuel to get them out,” she said. “We’re not preparing for 2020. 2020 is already here.”
  • Educating voters so they know the issues is going to be critical. Healthcare is number one for Floridians and Republicans are attempting to wipe out the Affordable Care Act. The environment is another huge issue where Democrats are full of positive change, while the Trump administration wants to have offshore drilling off Florida.
  • Ultimately, as in so many recent elections, the result in Florida is going to be a simple numbers game. The party that engages and recruits more supporters will carry off the state’s 29 electoral college votes, and with them probably the White House.
anonymous

How Many Lawmakers Got The Coronavirus Or Self-Quarantined? : NPR - 1 views

www.npr.org/...individual-members-of-congress

shared by anonymous on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Now, some are hopeful that they could stem the flow of cases with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine now available to all members of Congress.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 Jan 21
       
      Vaccines should go to healthcare workers and nursing home residents and workers who really need it instead of members of congress.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 Jan 21
       
      Vaccines should go to healthcare workers and nursing home residents and workers who really need it instead of members of congess.
  • "will be provided with a specific number of COVID19 vaccine doses to meet long-standing requirements for continuity of government operations,"
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 Jan 21
       
      Most government officials can probably do their government operations from home, they don't need the vaccine to meet "long-standing requirements."
  • more than 220 workers tested positive, or were presumed so, for the illness.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • both chambers of Congress recessed multiple times throughout the year as the Capitol went largely without a widespread testing program.
  • the Democrat-controlled House installed emergency proxy voting and remote hearings
  • Pelosi triggered a broader COVID-19 testing program for Congress following new requirement for travelers to the Washington, D.C., area.
  • But efforts to test as many as 2,000 a week still falls short for a Capitol complex that includes more than 530 lawmakers and a workforce of 20,000 or more.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 Jan 21
       
      How does the government know how many vaccines they're going to need if they can't even test everyone properly?
  • A previous outbreak in September was tied to a White House Rose Garden ceremony to announce Amy Coney Barrett as President Trump's Supreme Court justice nominee.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 Jan 21
       
      The government is causing more outbreaks of covid, they don't deserve to be the 1st people vaccinated.
  • By this summer, dozens of Capitol workers reported a positive test or were presumed so, and Gary Tibbetts, a longtime staffer for Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida, died from COVID-19 on July 24.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 Jan 21
       
      What could all of these government officials possibly be doing for all of them to get sick?
Javier E

How the West Got Covid So Wrong. Covid is a Test of Civilization, and… | by u... - 0 views

eand.co/ot-covid-so-wrong-766772322a3b

western civilization eastern civilization(s) east west civilization leadership history crisis Culture politics pandemic freedom responsibility

shared by Javier E on 01 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • In Britain, Covid now “exceeds the worst-case scenario.” In America, a thousand people die a day, and cases are skyrocketing. In Europe, the numbers are exploding. Covid is ripping savagely across the West. But in the East, meanwhile, life is slowly returning to some semblance of normality.
  • That’s a remarkable development — the West, after all, is made up of the world’s richest, most powerful societies. And yet it seems they couldn’t defeat something as tiny as a virus. The East is far poorer, less developed — and yet, it was able to defeat Covid, while the West is in the grip of the pandemic, all over again, worse than before.
  • So how did the West get Covid so wrong?
  • ...37 more annotations...
  • Now, to the East, this behaviour is both jaw-dropping and bewildering. It goes beyond mere irresponsibility, and is considered something more like stupidity, ignorance, malice, deceit, or all four
  • That is what civilization is, and where it begins: the presence of the very first kind of enlightened mind, which can nourish, protect, and elevate another
  • What does Mead’s Femur have do with the West’s stunning failure that let Covid spiral out of control? As it turns out, everything.
  • These days, the tourists are gone, mostly. But — and here’s the point — the bars, restaurants, and clubs are still full. I pass by them on my daily walk to the park and wonder: what are these people doing? How are they sitting there so close to one another, with no social distancing in place, laughing, joking in the middle of a literal pandemic that’s exploding all around them? What the?
  • The people I pass by in the bars are made of two social groups, largely. Young people, and the working class. That’s the same group, in a sense, since most young people are working class, until they amass enough wealth to rise beyond it
  • They have made a choice. Their beer and burger or cocktail and steak matters more than stopping the spread of a deadly disease. What the?
  • This group is putting the most vulnerable in society at profound risk. Those who are already ill, and immunocompromised. Those even lower down the socioeconomic ladder than them — minorities, the underclass, and so forth, among whom death rates are astronomical. The elderly, the frail, the aged.
  • Certain groups in Western society have made the decision that the vulnerable’s lives matter less than their right to party, to have a beer and a burger, a cocktail and a steak, a laugh at the pub with friends. What the?
  • The groups who are now apparently completely indifferent to spreading Covid seem to have taken their cues from leaders. Young people and the working class seem to have no conscience or compunction left whatsoever about spreading Covid
  • To act in such a way as to put your elders, or the ill, especially, at risk, is something that is a grave violation of social norms. Easterners can’t understand why Westerners are behaving like…spoiled children. Are they right?
  • There is a kind of toxic indifference that seems to have spread through Western societies. Life itself is treated with a kind of shrugging fatalism — especially those of the vulnerable. It is literally valued less than a night out at the pub by much of society.
  • The attitude of toxic indifference is what the West seems to share in common now, and that is why it has been brought to its knees by Covid.
  • the West” is not monolithic. Certainly, toxic indifference is not at the same level across all of it
  • let me discuss the most extreme examples — America and Britain — to highlight where toxic indifference comes from: leadership.
  • In Britain and America, Covid cases have now exploded well past their first peak. America is approaching 100,000 cases per day — the point at which social breakdown will begin. Britain is hitting more than that, on a per capita basis. And yet neither of these societies has a national lockdown.
  • uccessful societies — New Zealand, Taiwan, Vietnam, and many more — deliberately crunched the curve. Their strategy was to eradicate Covid, through what’s now a global template of best practices — lock down, test, trace, quarantine, isolate, and so forth.
  • The approach of Western leaders, in other words, was reactive, hesitant, and cautious, not decisive, swift, and proactive:
  • Margaret Mead once said that the beginning of human civilisation was found in a healed femur. That that single, simple discovery meant that someone took the time to invest in healing someone else’s broken leg — without which they surely would have died
  • Western leaders, in other words, modelled toxic indifference for their societies. They gave people a license to be indifferent, by acting largely indifferent themselves.
  • Young people justify it by saying that “they need to have social lives” — as if they weren’t spending most of their social lives online before Covid, and the working class by saying they need to work. Both of those arguments are partially true. But it’s truer to say that these are groups which have become dangerously indifferent to preserving the value of the lives of the vulnerable.
  • The young and the working class are punching down, as American leftists would put it.
  • More formally, more accurately, Covid has made Western societies predatory ones. The young and working class are exploiting and abusing those more powerless than them
  • Neither group seems to consider the possibility much that society needs to come together to defeat the pandemic, once and for all, and the only way that can be done is to put the vulnerable first.
  • America treating Covid indifferently is no surprise, after all — it’s a nation where kids are gunned down in schools, diabetics are simply left to die, people beg strangers online for money to pay for crippling healthcare costs
  • But it’s more surprising to see Europe turning predatory due to Covid, or having Covid expose its vulnerability to becoming predatory
  • I don’t mean to single the young and working class out. That is missing my point. What I am saying is that toxic indifference is trickling down in the West. From elites, like leaders, to the bourgeois — that’s been the case for the last few decades
  • Indifference is trickling down from the elite and the bourgeois, to the working class and the young.
  • we know where a society of indifference ends. It ends in America. In stupidity, ignorance, violence, hate, racism, brutality, and the poverty and despair which underlies it all.
  • The indifferent cannot act collectively, therefore they cannot invest, transform, change, unite, come together, and therefore they cannot live in a modern, functioning society, with an expansive, sophisticated, supportive, generous social contract
  • So what about climate change? Mass extinction? Ecological collapse? The massive waves of depression and ruin those will unleash — in the next decade? How can societies that can’t unite, act wisely, behave responsibly to fight Covid come together to do much about even larger catastrophes?
  • Covid reveals the decivilizing of the West. As I mentioned, Margaret Mead said the fundamental test of civilization is the healed femur: that someone took the time and effort to heal someone else. It is the absence of indifference and the presence of care, in other words
  • What made the West special, once upon a time, was not its brutality, but its idea of civilization, as the elevation and nourishment of every life, with dignity, purpose, belonging, truth, justice, and, more crucially, the idea that freedom was a society that was able to act in a civilised way.
  • freedom became free-dumb: the idea that my right to be abusive, exploitative, ignorant, violent, selfish — to carry a gun to Starbucks or deny you healthcare and retirement — came to prevail
  • If the pattern of the West’s decaying attitudes, the spread of the foolish American idea of free-dumb as “freedom,” is what Covid has revealed — I punch down, on the person below me, I exploit and abuse the person even lower than me in the socioeconomic hierarchy, because that is what I must do to survive, or at least what I have been taught to do to feel good and worthy — then the simple fact is that the West has little future
  • Their failure teaches us something. Civilization matters. When a society gives up on the idea of being civilized, it collapses harder and faster than its most learned wise men often imagine. That is because no society can withstand a tidal wave of stupidity and violence. Is that where the West is headed?
  • In a simpler way, maybe the simplest, what I am talking about is a lack of simple human goodness. That is what Mead’s Femur points to — the presence of goodness — and it is what is missing in America and Britain. They are now societies with a massive, gaping, jaw-dropping lack of human goodness, and Covid is just the latest example. But that deficit spells real trouble — it isn’t some kind of abstract moral concern.
  • Covid is a cold wind, and it shows that the flame is flickering. If anything, it shows us the future of civilization — in Mead’s sense, as the absence of violence, and the presence of decency, dignity, care, nourishment, equality, of human goodness realized — may lie in the East.
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