Topical Emails from all different sites. Pulled from my In-Box and which I have no time to write about. Thinking, they still may be of interest to readers who visit Angry Bear. Please be topical or at least close. Healthcare Our Healthcare Data Infrastructure Is Abysmal, MedPage Today, John (Xuefeng) Jiang. Is our healthcare data infrastructure prepared for the next health crisis? Our research indicates it is alarmingly unprepared. A New Vaccination Crisis Has Emerged, The Atlantic. Daniel Engber. Many of the people most at risk of dying aren’t getting COVID shots. New York poised to extend Essential Plan eligibility to 250% FPL, xpostfactoid. Andrew Sprung. How can the state swap 73% AV for 92% AV coverage for a new income group, zero out
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Angry Bear considers the following as important: climate change, Education, Healthcare, In-Box, politics, Taxes/regulation, US EConomics
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Dean Baker writes Health insurance killing: Economics does have something to say
NewDealdemocrat writes Retail Real Sales
Angry Bear writes Planned Tariffs, An Economy Argument with Political Implications
Joel Eissenberg writes Will DOGE be an exercise in futility?
Topical Emails from all different sites. Pulled from my In-Box and which I have no time to write about. Thinking, they still may be of interest to readers who visit Angry Bear. Please be topical or at least close.
Healthcare
Our Healthcare Data Infrastructure Is Abysmal, MedPage Today, John (Xuefeng) Jiang. Is our healthcare data infrastructure prepared for the next health crisis? Our research indicates it is alarmingly unprepared.
A New Vaccination Crisis Has Emerged, The Atlantic. Daniel Engber. Many of the people most at risk of dying aren’t getting COVID shots.
New York poised to extend Essential Plan eligibility to 250% FPL, xpostfactoid. Andrew Sprung. How can the state swap 73% AV for 92% AV coverage for a new income group, zero out enrollee premiums for that group, pay providers 225% of Medicare, and not spend any additional (federal) money?
Is 2024 the start of a brave new world in drug pricing? 46brooklyn Research. We finished 2023 with just over 1,400 brand list price increases (about equal to the 2022 number).
Expanding Medicaid May Be Far Less Expensive Than It Looks, HuffPost Latest News, Jonathan Nicholson. A nonpartisan study says helping kids stay healthy has long-term fiscal benefits.
It’s High Time to Protect Farmworkers From Heat-Related Illness and Death, MedPage Today, Roxana Chicas.
Would You Switch a Patient’s Medication If You Knew the Cost? MedPage Today, Half of people struggle to afford their medical care and 31% of patients who have a prescription drug have skipped or cut back.
Opioid Settlement
The Sackler Family Can Act Today to Compensate Opioid Overdose Victims, MedPage Today, Regina LaBelle, and Madison Fields. David Sackler, Richard Sackler and Theresa Sackler listened and watched during the roughly two-hour long hearing as people described surviving addiction and spoke of losing loved ones to the epidemic.
Victims of the opioid crisis formally confront the Sackler family, NPR Brian Mann. or the first time during the long legal reckoning over the opioid crisis, members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma heard directly from people who say their company’s main product, Oxycontin, wrecked their lives.
Issues with Commercial Airlines.
United, Alaska Airlines CEOS slam Boeing after 737 Max 9 issues, axios.com, Shauneen Miranda. Boeing has an issue with “quality control” that extends past just one plane.
Profits And Payouts Over Passenger Safety, lever news Lucy Dean Stockton, Helen Santoro, Freddy Brewster. The companies responsible for the door plug that blew out of a plane in mid-air last week were cutting corners, out-sourcing manufacturing, laying off employees, and working to evade expensive safety upgrades. Top executives were given $817 million and Wall Street investors with $68 billion in dividends and stock buybacks over the past decade.
Boeing Supplier Ignored Warnings Of “Excessive Amount Of Defects,” Former Employees Allege, lever news. Weeks before Alaska Airlines’ terrifying debacle, one of the aircraft’s manufacturers was accused of ignoring safety problems.
Environment
Prepare for a ‘Gray Swan’ Climate, The Atlantic, Zoë Schlanger. The next climate extremes are both predictable and unprecedented, and they’re coming on fast.
Our Patients Need Us to Stand Up to Big Oil, MedPage Today, Lisa Patel. For decades, the industry has hidden the results of their findings that the burning of fossil fuels would cause dangerous global warming, mislead the public on climate science, and spend hundreds of millions of dollars blocking climate change policies.
BuildingGreen’s top ten products for 2024 are not the most boring ever, Carbon Upfront!, Lloyd Alter. Every year, the BuildingGreen gang produces its list of the top ten industry-changing products and every year, I make fun of them.
IEA Renewables 2023, windows.net, Page 15
Renewables overtake coal in early-2025 to become the largest energy source for electricity generation globally. . . By 2028, potential renewable electricity generation is expected to reach around 14 400 TWh, an increase of almost 70% from 2022. Over the next five years, several renewable energy milestones could be achieved:
– In 2024, variable renewable generation surpasses hydropower.
– In 2025, renewables surpass coal-fired electricity generation.
– In 2025, wind surpasses nuclear electricity generation.
– In 2026, solar PV surpasses nuclear electricity generation.
– In 2028, solar PV surpasses wind electricity generation.
Over the forecast period, potential renewable electricity generation growth exceeds global demand growth, indicating a slow decline in coal-based generation while natural gas remains stable. In 2028, renewable energy sources account for 42% of global electricity generation, with the wind and solar PV share making up 25%. In 2028, hydropower remains the largest renewable electricity source. However, renewable electricity generation needs to expand more quickly in many countries.
Politics
Trump adviser Peter Navarro sentenced to 4 months in prison for defying Jan. 6 committee subpoena, nbc news, Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison Thursday for criminal contempt of Congress, with a federal judge telling him he was “not a victim” or a target of political persecution, as much as he may have proclaimed otherwise. AB: I thought he would get more time.
The Left Behind, The American Prospect, Harold Meyerson. The cultural rifts between urban and rural America are a constant of our history. When they also become economic, they become dangerous.
Voters don’t always have final say — state legislatures and governors are increasingly undermining ballot measures that win, the conversation, Anne Whitesell. Less than half of Americans trust elected officials to act in the public’s interest.
Economy
Fifty Years of ‘Cut To Grow’: How Changing Narratives of Corporate Tax Policy Undermined Child and Family Well-Being, Roosevelt Institute, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Emily DiVito, Niko Lusiani. Supremacy of a “cut-to-grow” mentality has made it difficult for a more expansive, progressive vision of tax reform to break through—contributing to a decades-long stalemate in efforts toward real comprehensive corporate tax reform . . .
Time for a Victory Lap? The American Prospect, Joseph Stiglitz. Those who believed inflation would be transitory were proven right, and those who demanded the sacrifice of mass unemployment proven wrong.
Economic growth crushes expectations to close out strong 2023, The Hill, Sylvan Lane and Taylor Giorno. The U.S. economy grew 2.5 percent in 2023. It closed the year with slower but surprisingly strong growth, despite widespread fears of a recession.
Whitmer Focuses on Helping Citizens with Major Expenses in State-of-State Address, DBusiness Magazine, Jim Strickford. Michigan Gov. Grethen Whitmer began her State-of-the-State Address last night by stating Michigan has rolled back the retirement tax on seniors, saving a senior household an average of $1,000 a year.
Student Loans
CFPB Report Finds Long-Predicted Student Loan Servicer Problems, The American Prospect, Ryan Cooper. The problem is the dependence on mostly private companies to actually service the loans correctly.
Biden has forgiven billions in student loans. Who has gotten the relief? The Hill, Lexi Lonas. Those on IDR plans and in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, have received relief, but they represent only a small fraction of the 44.5 million Americans with student debt.
Biden-Harris Administration Announces Nearly $5 Billion in Additional Student Debt Relief, U.S. Department of Education, Administration announced the approval of an additional $4.8 billion in student loan debt relief for another 80,300 borrowers.
Manufacturing
Detroit Chosen as Site of Advanced EV Battery Manufacturing Facility, DBusiness Magazine. Global provider of zero emission resources based in Australia, Fortescue announces plans to establish its U.S. Advanced Manufacturing Center on 601 Piquette Ave. in downtown Detroit with support from the Michigan Strategic Fund.
China imports fewer semiconductors, more chipmaking machines, qz.com, Mary Hui. The trade numbers point to both progress and urgency in the Chinese semiconductor industry.
From Boardrooms to Bedrooms: A Record 55K Office-to-Apartments Expected in Major Cities, RentCafe rental blog, Andrea Neculae. From 2021 to 2024, the number of apartments scheduled for conversion from old office spaces increased from 12,100 to 55,300.