I am late in posting “In-Box” due to other things going on at home. Talk of Healthcare? I fractured a tooth. It now has to be replaced with a bridge. I did not like the idea of a Sears Best drilling a hole in my jaw-bone for a stud to mount a tooth. Next up an eye operation which Medicare will cover. Then down to the VA to make contact again. This week there were a lot of interesting subjects to read. So many of them, I could double the length of this post on Angry Bear. Anyway, have a good one and keep in touch. Healthcare Millions of children are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage starting in April, CNN Politics, Tami Luhby. At risk are 6.7 million children of losing coverage once states restart their reviews of recipients’ eligibility.
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I am late in posting “In-Box” due to other things going on at home. Talk of Healthcare? I fractured a tooth. It now has to be replaced with a bridge. I did not like the idea of a Sears Best drilling a hole in my jaw-bone for a stud to mount a tooth. Next up an eye operation which Medicare will cover. Then down to the VA to make contact again.
This week there were a lot of interesting subjects to read. So many of them, I could double the length of this post on Angry Bear. Anyway, have a good one and keep in touch.
Healthcare
Millions of children are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage starting in April, CNN Politics, Tami Luhby. At risk are 6.7 million children of losing coverage once states restart their reviews of recipients’ eligibility.
How States Are Holding Payers And Providers Accountable For Health Cost Growth, Health Affairs, Authors. Consistently healthcare exceeds growth in the gross domestic product. The rising costs of health care impose an increasing burden on consumers, employers, and federal and state budgets. It crowds out other critical public investments, such as education and housing.
State-Level Variation In Low-Value Care For Commercially Insured And Medicare Advantage Populations, Health Affairs, Authors. Low-value care and associated spending remain prevalent among commercially insured and Medicare Advantage enrollees. The aggregated prevalence of twenty-three low-value services was 1,920 per 100,000 eligible enrollees. This amounts to $3.7 billion in wasteful expenditures during the study period.
A Road Map For Action On Health Care Spending And Value: Part I – Administrative Waste And Inefficiencies, forbes.com, Bill Frist. Estimates attribute 15 – 30 percent of total national health spending to administration, with at least half of that spending demonstrated to be ineffective or wasteful. That means as much as $300 – $600 billion is wasted each year.
Medicare Advantage Ads in Your Patient Portal? CMS Says They Shouldn’t Be There, MedPage Today, Cheryl Clark. at the top of his inbox was a message opens in a new tab or window suggesting he should enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan. “Review your 2023 Medicare Advantage coverage options,” it said. The annual enrollment period began Oct. 15.
Health Care Reform and Equity for Undocumented Immigrants — When Crisis Meets Opportunity, NEJM, Authors. Expansion of the current public health insurance system could narrow gaps.
Workers in 4-Day Work Week Test Report Fewer Sleep Issues, businessinsider.com, Britney Nguyen and Morgan McFall-Johnsen. The results are in from a large four-day work week trial in the UK, and the responses from employees who participated highlight several reasons why it could be a preferable alternative to the status quo — including better sleep.
Fact Sheet: State Fiscal Incentives for Medicaid Expansion Continue After End of Public Health Emergency, Center For Children and Families, georgetown.edu, Adam Searing, Edwin Park. The end of the continuous coverage requirement will exacerbate and highlight the coverage gap in the 11 states still refusing the federal Medicaid expansion. Importantly, generous federal fiscal incentives are available to states that newly expand Medicaid.
Law and Politics
Fraud, Abuse, and Financial Conflicts of Interest, NEJM, Zack Buck. The next day, she receives a “double payment” in error from Medicare for a procedure she recently performed. In this hypothetical scenario, which of these actions should cause the physician the most concern, from a legal standpoint?
Simone Gold Accused by California Medical Board, MedPage Today, Cheryl Clark. The MBC’s accusation lists two causes for discipline: “conviction of a crime substantially related to the qualifications, functions, or duties of a physician and surgeon, and general unprofessional conduct.”
Companies Can’t Ask You to Shut up to Receive Severance, NLRB Rules, vice.com, Maxwell Strachan. The board reverses two previous decisions that held that such severance agreements were lawful. Limits on free speech have become increasingly common aspect of many severance agreements.
Which labor laws has Packers Sanitation Services Inc broken? qz.com, Ananya Bhattacharya. The US Department of Labor (DOL) on Feb. 17 fined Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI) $1.5 million for unlawfully employing child labor to use caustic chemicals to clean razor-sharp saws as well as handle other high-risk equipment, often during graveyard shifts.
Third Doctor Arrested for U.S. Capitol Riot; Pediatrician Sues for ‘Anti-Male’ Bias, MedPage Today, Kristina Fiore. California anesthesiologist Austin Brendlen Harris, MD, was caught on surveillance cameras inside the Capitol comparing its police officers to Nazis.
Bank Lobbyists Hired by Congress to Oversee Banking Regulations, theintercept.com, Lee Fang. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. hires to run the committee are mostly former lobbyists who served the very banks, lenders, and brokerages seeking to combat regulations.
Roberto Clemente book removed from Florida public schools, nbcnews.com, Jonan Winter. “books removed from Duval County, include 30 by Latino authors and illustrators or centered Latino characters and narratives. Removed were “Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa” by Veronica Chambers and Julie Maren, “Sonia Sotomayor (Women Who Broke the Rules Series)” by Kathleen Krull and Angela Dominguez, and Winter’s Clemente book.”
Black History
A family tree with roots in the start of slavery and Black History Month, Code Switch, NPR, Authors. 1 side owned slaves. The other side started Black History Month. How a family heals.
The history and future of African-American wealth, altruist.com, Najja Parker. While some pioneers helped Black Americans fight for the right to vote in elections, obtain a proper education, and use public spaces, some of them also pushed for economic equality and cooperative economics.
African American Workers Built America, CLASP, Asha Banerjee and Cameron Johnson. Black labor has been foundational to the growth of America and our economy. Enslaved people built the country’s early infrastructure and produced lucrative commodities such as cotton and tobacco.
Economics and Business
Congress Passes Bill to Allow Americans to Save More for Retirement, businessinsider.com, Ayelet Sheffey and Juliana Kaplan. it still tilts the scale towards wealthier retirees — and allows them to accumulate more money untouched by taxes. For people who are already financially stable, the higher age might mean they can stow away more untaxed funds in their 401ks, or even “transfer more of those tax-subsidized funds to their heirs,”
How neighborhoods fare when institutional investors buy homes, Journalistsresource.org, Clark Merrefield. In a comprehensive analysis published last year, Tim Henderson of Pew Charitable Trusts’ Stateline news service crunched property numbers from data firm CoreLogic and found nearly a quarter of all single-family homes sold in the U.S. in 2021 were bought by investors. This was up from about 15% annually since 2012.
Waiting for home prices to fall so you can buy? You may have a long wait, consumeraffairs.com, Mark Huffman. In spite of a doubling of mortgage rates over the last 12 months, pricing millions of people out of the housing market, home prices have yet to crater. In fact, an industry report shows they’re still going up.
Industrial Production Monitor: February 2023, employamerica.org, Alex Williams. Three things to note: Automotive will remain an inflation risk, Production increasing in Machinery, despite rising prices and shortages in upstream Metals and materials, suggest demand for capital goods remains strong in response to pandemic-era shortages, and the real Capex boom is related to agriculture, construction, and manufacturing; oilfield capex is only starting to tick up from depressed levels. Chart depicts the various. Click on to enlarge.
Fish sticks: What you need to know, qz.com, Liz Webber. Thanks to coronavirus, a simple trip to the grocery store was suddenly a harrowing experience. Many homebound diners turned to their freezers to find comforting, easy-to-make meals. Those (we) hapless souls pulled out the unlikeliest of frozen heroes: the fish stick.
Jan PCE & Core-Cast Recap: Upside Driven By Seasonality, Airfares, and Revisions To Opaque Components, employamerica.org, Skanda Amarnath. January PCE thus proved to be hot (for reasons we warned) and Q1 inflation upside risks remain.
Environment
Operation Pangolin: New Initiative Launched to Save World’s Most Trafficked Wild Mammal, treehugger.com, Melissa Breyer. “Enough pangolin scales have been seized in the past decade to account for at least 1 million pangolins … at least 250,000 are estimated to be taken from African and Asian forests every year for consumers in China, Vietnam, and even western Europe and the United States,”
Architect Renovates Small 1950s Apartment Into Modern Residence, treehugger.com, Kimberly Mok. Many are opting to renovate older homes that cost less to buy upfront, rather than purchasing more expensive, newly built homes.
What’s the Difference Between Cage-Free and Free-Range Eggs? treehugger.com, Hayley Bruning. The “cage-free” egg label indicates that the hens producing eggs are, indeed, not confined to battery cages. However, this label alone does not guarantee the hens have access to the outdoors or, more broadly, experience positive states needed to uphold animal welfare standards.
Inside the New Right’s Next Frontier: The American West, Vanity Fair, James Pogue. Preppers, techies, hippies, and yuppies are converging on the American West, the safest place to “exit” a society gone haywire.
Inside California’s Tiny-Home Takeover: How ADUs Transformed the State, businessinsider.com, Kelsey Neubauer. Over the past two years, tiny homes, known as accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, have filled backyards from San Jose to San Diego after state lawmakers began breaking down barriers for homeowners to build on their limited acreage.
Blogs
Infidel753: Authoritarianism: a formula for failure, Infidel753 Blog. Anthony Blinken: “One of the Achilles heels of autocracies is that you don’t have people in those systems that speak truth to power or have the ability to speak truth to power, and I think that’s what we’re seeing in Russia.”
Saturday Swath …,, Homeless on the High Desert, g’da said. U.S. cities most vulnerable to climate change.
Substacks:
Hannity and Carlson Admit Lying to Audience (Then Try to Fire Fact-Checker), DeSantis Hires Sexist Educator, NYT Writers Protest, Roald Dahl Gets Sanitized, Roberto Clemente Bio Banned, and More, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
DeWine’s Toxic Railroad Ties, levernews.com, Matthew Cunningham-Cook. Norfolk Southern PAC donated >than $20,000 to DeWine’s gubernatorial campaigns and his 2019 inauguration. DeWine has refused to issue a disaster declaration that would send much-needed federal resources to East Palestine and draw attention to the Norfolk Southern accident.
Letters from an American, February 22, 2023, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson. Last week’s court filing in the Dominion Voting Systems case proved Fox News Channel personalities knew Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. They pushed Trump’s Big Lie of voter fraud anyway, afraid they would lose viewers to right-wing networks that were willing to parrot that lie.
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