...“A society that spends so much on health care that it cannot or will not spend adequately on other health enhancing activities may actually be reducing the health of its population. No nation is as guilty of this practice as the United States, with its extremely high health expenditures alongside abysmal population-level health outcomes" Read more at Stat News
Public Posts Mount Vernon, WA Mount Vernon, WA (zoom)
Were You Awake
• 06/19/23 at 08:26PM •Were you awake,
when I passed by?
Were you as surprised,
as, was I?
A new beginning
or an old tale,
for those wanting
a return to intellectual jail.
Take away freedom,
books to ban.
Suppress the citizens,
with Anarchy the plan.
A new law lets the state withhold funds from libraries that remove books or don’t follow American Library Association guidelines. More at Bloomberg ➜
"Usually banks, like all companies, fail after a prolonged period of lackluster performance. But SVB, the nation’s 16th-largest bank, had been stable and highly profitable just a few months before, having earned about US$1.5 billion in profits in the last quarter of 2022. However, financial history is filled with examples of seemingly stable and profitable banks that unexpectedly failed".... Read more
"Fran Ruhl’s family received a startling letter from the Iowa Department of Human Services four weeks after she died in January 2022 ~ The letter got right to the point: Iowa’s Medicaid program had spent $226,611.35 for Ruhl’s health care, and the government was entitled to recoup that money from her estate, including nearly any assets she owned or had a share in. If a spouse or disabled child survived Ruhl, the collection could be delayed until after their death, but the money would still be owed ~ The notice said the family had 30 days to respond" Read more.
"The insurance industry and Republicans are using the debt ceiling fight and President Biden’s vows not to cut Medicare to fend off changes to private Medicare Advantage plans, which are popular among the public but have faced criticism about their costs to the government." More at Roll Call ➜
Get the facts - Understand the size and state of the American people with this Census Bureau data. Track population changes by region of the country and by age and how much the US population grows year after year. Dig into the educational level of American adults, how many young adults live at home, even how the average family size has changed since the 1940s.
The 2022 report found climate and health impact of natural Gas stoves which can release methane and other pollutants through leaks and incomplete combustion, exposing people to respiratory disease-triggering pollutants. Stanford researchers estimate that methane leaking from stoves inside U.S. homes has the same climate impact as about 500,000 gasoline-powered cars. Last December, U.S. Senator Cory Booker and U.S. Representative Don Beyer urged Alexander Hoehn-Saric, Chair of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to address this problem.
"...The Washington Legislature is asserting that legislators have a previously unknown personal privilege to withhold from public disclosure the documents they use in their work for the people. No such “legislative privilege” applies to legislative records. Read more
Off in the Distance
• 12/30/22 at 09:55PM •Off in the distance,
hearing sound of a drum.
Is it a signal now
of what is to come?
"Moore v. Harper is a test of whether this Supreme Court can ever be trusted with power." Click to read th full article at Vox