For some years now, unbeknownst to some of us, we have been witness to a 100 year (and more) flood of historical events. For some months now, we’ve been watching a slow-motion implosion of one of these events from these front row seats. Slow, in our time — a flash, in history’s eons. Watching with […]
“Five Questions with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows,” Civil Discourse Shenna Bellows is Maine’s 50th Secretary of State and the first woman to serve in that role. She’s led implementation of reforms like automatic voter registration and online voter registration in her state and has taken strong stands against Donald Trump—she ruled that he wasn’t […]
In support of Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice, I have been writing in support of his efforts to seek loan forgiveness which commercial business enjoys as well as US citizens. Student loan debt is the second-highest consumer debt category after mortgages. Student loan debt in the United States totals $1606.7 trillion; annual growth resumed in 2024 following […]
Or you can talk about something else. We used to do this in the past and sometimes it was very successful. As a subscriber. I am posting part of a Paul Krugman commentary. It may interest you. You can always use your own topic. as a start of a discussion too. ~~~~~~~ Part of a […]
You will read more on the profitability of healthcare plans as detailed by KFF. A brief introduction to this issue in an article by KFF. In 2023, per enrollee gross margins were highest in the Medicare Advantage market, and medical loss ratios were lowest in the individual insurance market. While both gross margins and medical […]
Charles Gaba at ACA Signups is reviewing Affordable(?) Care rate changes for 2026. We have been reading quite a bit about the new rate forthcoming for 2026. From the looks of it, I suspect many people will be going without healthcare insurance in North Carolina, etc. I will grab certain states I know some people […]
In the past six months, the Trump Administration, acting through Elon Musk’s DOGE, cut more than 10% of the staff at the National Weather Service. But it looks like TACO doesn’t just apply to tariffs: “The National Weather Service has received permission to hire 450 meteorologists, hydrologists and radar technicians just months after being hit […]
– by New Deal democrat We’ve settled back in to our typical post-employment week lack of new data, so today is a good day to update the leading indicators from the employment report, especially in view of their important contribution to why I went on “recession watch” yesterday. As you probably already know, because I harp […]
Pinning down the numbers making up the 16 million people without healthcare insurance by 2034. From where did the number come? Government Medicaid Healthcare Insurance covered nearly 85 million people as of June 2024. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the changes to Medicaid and health insurance outlined in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could lead […]
mRNA vaccines proved transformational in the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, they’ve allowed a rapid pivot to attack new variants. They saved tens of millions of lives worldwide, and prevented long COVID in survivors. “Infectious disease experts say the mRNA technology used in vaccines is safe, and they credit its development during the first Trump administration […]