Just ignore the war promotion based on lies that cost you your lives, the apologies for looting banks as they insult the Occupy movement, the student loan $cheme and $cam that has $tolen your future, the shilling for pre$cription pharmaceuticals shoved down your throats for profit, and just enjoy the corporate liberali$m from a paper that cares:
"Insurance costs to fall for many students" by Marcella Bombardieri | Globe Staff, January 02, 2014
Thousands of low- and moderate-income college students are about to get a break on the cost of health insurance, thanks to new rules going into effect Friday to bring the state into compliance with the national health care law — as well as the advocacy of two passionate college sophomores.
Until now, Massachusetts denied most full-time college students free or subsidized state health insurance through Commonwealth Care or MassHealth, forcing them to buy insurance directly from their colleges if they are not on their parents’ plan.
That meant many students who otherwise might have had free or low-cost health insurance were instead charged thousands of dollars. Premiums vary widely, but the annual premiums at the University of Massachusetts’ Boston and Dartmouth campuses are about $2,100 this year.
While some students received financial aid to cover their health insurance, several advocates said they heard from students forced to take out more loans to cover their insurance, drop to part-time studies, or even take time off from school.
“That really shook people up a little bit, that students were making academic decisions based on health insurance,” said Ferd Wulkan, interim Executive Director of PHENOM, a grass-roots advocacy group for affordable public education in Massachusetts.
The Affordable Care Act has changed the ground rules. The state is no longer allowed to exclude from subsidized programs those who can get insurance elsewhere, and that includes college students, according to Suzanne Curry, senior health policy manager with Health Care For All, a Massachusetts advocacy group....
And we were supposed to be the model, kids.
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"Marketing efforts to uninsured youth ramp up" by Kelli Kennedy | Associated Press, January 02, 2014
Why do they to be "marketed" to?
MIAMI — The so-called young invincibles are so important to the success of the Affordable Care Act that supporters and detractors are spending millions to reach them with racy ads, social media campaigns, and celebrity endorsements. The president is even asking their mothers to help convince them to sign up for insurance....
Because it means bottom line dollars and profits for in$urers.
It is unclear if the messages are getting through.
Blame the education $y$tem.
Eric Fisher, a 28-year-old from Salt Lake City, said he still has not seen any of the social media campaigns, one of which targets Utah residents with images of people snowboarding and rock climbing.
He tried to sign up online when the federal marketplace first launched but could not because of the long wait times and other website glitches. He said he will try again at some point. He added that the historic health care overhaul is not a topic he and his friends spend much time talking about.
‘‘It’s not like a coffee table conversation,’’ Fisher said.
Because it's a real bummer, man.
According to a recent Harvard survey, many of Fischer’s peers are undecided.
A poll by Harvard’s Institute of Politics shows about 40 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 are on the fence about whether to sign up, with the rest split fairly evenly between those likely to enroll and those who probably will not....
Meaning about half will not sign up and premiums will soar.
Consisting of healthy college students and twenty-somethings, the so-called young invincible demographic is the holy grail of the Affordable Care Act. Insurers need their participation to offset the costs of covering older, sicker Americans. If enough young people decide not to buy insurance through state or federal marketplaces, it could throw off the market’s equilibrium and cause insurance rates to rise dramatically the following year.
Oh, no!
Federal officials have not released detailed demographic information on who ha enrolled so far, so it is not clear how many young people have signed up.
Can't not know unless website still f***ed up or covering up information.
Ad campaigns in many states are courting undecided young adults. In Colorado, a nonprofit group created a series of provocative ‘‘got insurance?’’ ads. One features a blonde standing next to a life-size cut-out of celebrity heartthrob Ryan Gosling with the caption: ‘‘Hey girl, you’re excited about easy access to birth control and I’m excited about getting to know you. She got insurance.’’
????? If you get Obummercare you might get laid? WTF is wrong with people in advertising?
Another touting ‘‘Brosurance’’ encourages men doing a keg stand not to tap into their beer money to cover medical bills.
Gonna need it to cover the STD treatments.
When the exchange launched, models wearing nothing but underwear and ‘‘Get Covered’’ signs passed out fliers in downtown Denver.
I'll bet they made their points out in that cold!
So SEX and BOOZE are a GOOD SELLING POINT in Colorado, 'eh?
Bunch of stoners out there from what little I could see through that Globe smoke.
Shmuel Johnson, who works in Los Angeles at a small sound studio, has not seen any ads or perused the state’s health exchange.
‘‘There’s this elitist attitude that politicians think they know what’s better for us than ourselves, and that’s part of why I take issue with this,’’ said Johnson, a 31-year-old who’s never had insurance. “I’m being forced to do something that’s not necessarily in my best interest. I don’t need insurance, man. I’m healthy.’’
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What do the doctors diagnose?
"Physician-candidates running against health care law" by Noah Bierman | Globe Staff, January 02, 2014
WASHINGTON — One candidate’s website shows her wearing blue scrubs as she reviews X-rays. Another shows a candidate with a stethoscope over his white coat. A third displays a photo of the doctor’s bag he uses for house calls.
There is no mistaking what these candidates for Congress are trying to convey: Trust me. I’m a doctor.
This year, as Republicans make President Obama’s health care law their top campaign issue, physician-candidates have taken on new prominence, especially among Tea Party conservatives. More than 30 medical doctors are running for Congress, at least 24 of whom are Republicans.
I was told Tea Party won't help, more of a burden now. It's not $urpri$ing to $ee they are Republican, either.
They argue that they are particularly credible critics of the law, front-line physicians who see the effects in their exam rooms. If enough of them prevail, they could push the number of physicians in Congress to the highest figure in at least 40 years.
It is unclear how closely they represent the broad views of their profession. Many doctors support the law, as does the American Medical Association. Still, many other physicians have individually expressed fear and skepticism about certain aspects of the law.
“It’s like if you have a bridge collapse, who do you want to put it back together?” said Dr. Monica Wehby, a pediatric neurosurgeon in Portland, Ore., who resigned from the AMA board to seek the Republican nomination to run against Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat. “You’ve got to have people who know what they’re doing.”
Physician-candidates talk endlessly about the health law on the trail. Some also report being asked about back problems, the shapes of babies’ heads, and liver transplant options for a voter’s uncle.
Wehby is so accustomed to examining babies that she forgets to kiss them.
“I’ll always touch their head,” she said. “It’s just a habit I can’t get out of.”
As recently as 1995, just one physician served in Congress, according to records kept by the AMA, a nonprofit and the profession’s largest trade group. Following the 2010 election, the first after Obama’s health law was signed into law, that number rose to 20, more than in any year since at least the early 1970s. The current Congress, elected in 2012, also includes 20 doctors, just four of whom are Democrats.
Surpassing 20 doctors in the 2014 election might require upset victories, in some cases from conservative candidates who are running against establishment Republicans. But some candidates without mainstream backing say they feel emboldened by the success of Senator Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist from Kentucky, and other Tea Party favorites.
His father was a doctor, too.
Though Republicans dominate the field of doctor-politicians, there are notable exceptions, including Dr. Donald Berwick, a pediatric specialist who served in the Obama administration and is now running for governor of Massachusetts, in large part because of his role in crafting federal health policy.
Related: Grossman Will Be Next Governor
Forgot all about Berwick.
“There certainly are many physicians who are squarely in favor of the Affordable Care Act,” Berwick said, adding he did not know why Republican doctors have dominated.
Berwick said physicians’ training in listening to patients before making decisions makes them better equipped to serve in elected office.
But do they listen? Tell it to the Pelletiers.
*********************
The Georgia Senate race alone has three doctors — two Republicans and a Democrat. The two in the crowded eight-person GOP primary field, Representatives Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey, have been trying to outdo each other as to who despises the health law more.
Related: Georgia's GOP Primary
Sunday Globe Special: Democratic Iced Tea
Tastes like $hit-fooley.
Broun, whose entire practice focuses on house calls, has been especially aggressive in the effort to repeal the law, and strongly supported the strategy that led to last year’s government shutdown. His website shouts: “President Obama is guilty of malpractice.”
Is it in all CAPS?
Gingrey tried to distinguish his own pledge to repeal the law with a promise to serve only one term if he fails.
“As a doctor, I took an oath to do no harm . . .” Gingrey said in his first television ad. “I’ll help repeal Obamacare in the first term or go home.”
Even conservative Republicans are being attacked. Dr. Milton Wolf is challenging Kansas Republican Senator Pat Roberts, who has served in Congress since 1981. Wolf, who says he is a distant relative of Obama, began promoting himself on conservative news outlets with a 2011 book, “Do No Harm: The President’s Cousin Explains Why His Hippocratic Oath Requires Him to Oppose ObamaCare.”
Wolf asserts that Roberts is not conservative enough and has been in Washington too long. Doctors, he asserts, fulfill the founding fathers’ vision of citizen lawmakers.
“The politicians, the lawyers, they have run our health care system right into the ground,” Wolf said. “It’s going to take some doctors who can fix our system.”
But being a doctor offers no guarantee of success in politics. Former Senate majority leader Bill Frist drew a torrent of professional criticism when, in 2005, he took to the Senate floor “more as a physician than as a United States senator” to challenge the diagnosis of doctors treating Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who had been declared in a persistent vegetative state. A family struggle over whether to remove her feeding tube had become a national flashpoint and Frist, a heart surgeon, had drawn his medical conclusions based on reviewing video of the patient.
What is less known is that Frist is gay -- which makes his AIDS comment even more outrageous.
More recently, Gingrey was forced to clarify remarks he made about the biological causes of pregnancy. Gingrey, an ob-gyn, said in a radio interview last year that Republican Todd Akin of Missouri was “partly right” in claiming that “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Gingrey later clarified that he did not stand by Akin.
Once again we are seeing divisive wedge issues being introduced to the campaign when the only issues are the economic $y$tem and the ever expanding empire.
Representative Bill Cassidy, a physician in Louisiana, has backing from a cross-section of party leaders in his bid to unseat Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat who supported Obama’s health law. The race is one of the most closely watched in the country.
“The president’s health care law is the dominant subject wherever I go,” Cassidy said. “Ninety percent of the questions seem to be related to this, directly or indirectly.”
And Obama hung that thing around the necks of Democrats like an albatross.
Cassidy contends that the health law shifts power from patients to bureaucrats. He speaks extensively about his experience working in a public hospital for the uninsured to assert that the expansion of Medicaid in the health law will force more doctors to reject or discharge patients because of poor reimbursement rates....
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So Romney was right, huh?
And now the "debate" has returned because it is one of the few issues that divides Americans in the "broken" city.
Let's move on to your education:
"Teachers Union says it didn’t know of PAC ad" by Wesley Lowery | Globe Staff, January 02, 2014
The Boston Teachers Union denied Wednesday any involvement in a massive television advertisement buy in the final days of the Boston mayoral race by its national affiliate that is believed to have helped propel Martin J. Walsh to victory over Councilor John R. Connolly, a longtime adversary of the union.
In a strongly worded statement sent to its members, the Boston Teachers Union thanked the American Federation of Teachers — the country’s second-largest educators union — for its $480,000 ad buy on behalf of Walsh but said it had no prior knowledge of the group’s involvement in the race.
See: Slow Saturday Special: Teacher Trickery Put Walsh Over Top
“The funds came directly from the AFT treasury as the AFT recognized the importance of the election,” read the statement, which was provided to the Globe by Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union. “The BTU had no prior knowledge of, and gave no prior approval to, this donation.”
While the Boston Teachers Union did not formally endorse either candidate, Stutman sent an e-mail to members on Election Day offering his personal endorsement of Walsh. He declined to comment further.
Last week’s disclosure that the American Federation of Teachers was behind the late ad campaign from the mysterious “One Boston” political action committee illuminated the extent to which Boston’s mayoral contest served as a major battleground for the national clash between charter school advocates and teachers unions....
Related: Monday Globe Not a Good Match
Polls show that teachers unions remain unpopular with large swaths of the electorate. Had voters known the national teachers union was spending so heavily for Walsh, political observers agree, it could have buoyed Connolly’s campaign.
“It’s remarkable that both the AFT and BTU calculated that a public endorsement would hurt Walsh,” said Liam Kerr, the state director Democrats for Education Reform, which spent more than $1.3 million on behalf of Connolly.
The lion’s share of the national education money spent in the race supported Connolly, a self-branded reformer with a history of clashes with the Boston Teachers Union who spent much of the campaign vowing to rid the public schools of “dysfunctional bureaucracy.”
In addition to Democrats for Education Reform, which is funded in large part by a New York nonprofit that does not disclose its donors, Connolly was backed by Stand For Children, an at-times controversial group whose donor list includes such corporate interests as the Walton family and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
But it's the teachers and labor that rai$es a $tink in my corporate pre$$.
During the preliminary vote, Stand For Children pledged $500,000 on behalf of Connolly. But with some progressives denouncing the group’s corporate backing and government watchdogs decrying outside spending, Connolly asked that such groups not spend money in the race.
Despite its six-figure promise, Stand for Children listened to Connolly, ultimately spending just $8,800 on his behalf.
Walsh’s campaign war chest was boosted by tens of thousands of dollars in individual labor contributions; he also benefited from hundreds of thousands of dollars spent independently on his behalf by labor....
Everything is always framed in terms of war in my war-promoting paper!
The emergence of One Boston shocked political observers, who could not track down any information about where the group or its money was from....
ISSUE, not so much corporations and wealth.
The American Federation of Teachers “supports candidates who support working families, and that is exactly what we did in Boston,” its president, Randi Weingarten, tweeted after the disclosure went public. Asked by another Twitter user why the union did not make the disclosure sooner, Weingarten tweeted in response: “No req’t to disclose.”
What kind of me$$age is that le$$on to the kids?
************
A spokesman for Weingarten did not respond to an inquiry about the disclosure’s timing.
Under Massachusetts law, One Boston is not required to disclose its donors until January, while One New Jersey is not ever required to disclose its donors under that state’s laws.
The after-the-vote disclosure angered Connolly supporters, who said the teachers union’s attempts to propel Walsh to victory should have been revealed to voters.
Walsh has previously noted that campaign finance laws prohibited him from any coordination with the American Federation of Teachers or other outside groups that spent on his behalf but has asked for transparency with regard to where the money came from....
I'm sorry I fell asleep in class.
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Also see:
Walsh team releases more details on inauguration
I wasn't invited.
For urban design, Menino era scores highs and lows
Related: Menino Moving On
So am I. Don't text on your way home, kids:
"A sophisticated, real-world study confirms that dialing, texting, or reaching for a cellphone while driving raises the risk of a crash or near-miss, especially for younger drivers. But the research also produced a surprise: Simply talking on the phone did not prove dangerous, as it has in other studies. Even though talking doesn’t require drivers to take their eyes off the road, it’s hard to talk on a phone without first reaching for it or dialing — things that raise the risk of a crash, researchers note."
I wouldn't worry about that here.
Related: Mass. Teens Wimps When It Comes to Getting Behind the Wheel
In brief page B2 terms you are all a bunch of babies, quite possibly Afghan.
