Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.
Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars Sometimes, somebody else’s past comes back to haunt you.
Oregon, for the past two years, has massively increased access to Medicaid. (Correction: It wasn’t a massive increase, it was a drastic reduction and then more money was found to support 10,000 more participants when 90,000 were still eligible.) Participants in the expansion were chosen by lottery. This has led to a unique opportunity to study the effects of wider access to healthcare on the poor. The results of that study were recently released.
The study is seen as a presage of what things will look like for poor people under Obamacare. And, besides the ridiculous lottery aspect of it, it is.
The study shows that those added to Medicaid have no better medical outcomes than those that weren’t added to Medicaid. This has led to a large amount of gloating from people who oppose Obamacare. Oh noes! Obamacare is a failure! We told you it was a giant boondoggle!
Not quite. First and foremost, Obamacare, like Medicaid, is insurance. Plain and simple. Insurance protects you financially. Period. And the study shows much better financial outcomes for those on Medicaid. Expecting better health outcomes because you suddenly have health insurance is like expecting not to get into a car accident because you have car insurance. It’s ridiculous.
There were also many other benefits associated with being on Medicaid. These include drastically lowered rates of depression, better diagnosis and management of diabetes, and increased use of health services.
The mental health aspect of the study is enormous. This cannot be understated. Those in the Medicaid group had a 30% reduction in the rates of depression. Depression leads to all sorts of other issues that don’t show up on a health screen. Economic and social outcomes can be greatly affected by depression. Being poor is bad enough. Being poor and depressed can be disastrous. If the only thing that Obamacare succeeds at is reducing depression by 30%, it will be well worth the money spent.
All in all, the Oregon Experiment is a good study for Obamacare. Opponents, of course, will continue to pick any little nit they can find and there are certainly plenty of nits worth picking. But, like I’m fond of saying, Obamacare is a bag of doggie poo left on the doorstep of America, but what was there before was a flaming bag of doggie poo. Baby steps.
Most of you are probably familiar with driving while black; being pulled over not because you did something wrong but because of the color of your skin. Here may be the first case of doing science while black.
A 16 year old black girl, Kiera Wilmot, performed a simple science experiment (mixing toilet bowl cleaner with strips of aluminum foil) that caused a small noise and a bit of smoke and was expelled from school. School administrators issued a statement saying that Kiera needed to learn that actions have consequences. Not only that, she has been charged by the district attorney with a felony as an adult for performing this incredibly common experiment. Talk about a gross overreaction!
The same district attorney recently declined to press charges against a white boy who deliberately pointed a BB gun at his brother and pulled the trigger killing his brother. The boy thought the BB gun wasn’t loaded. This, in the mind of the DA was just a tragic accident. Which it certainly was. That boy is going to have to live with the fact that he killed his brother for the rest of his life. Not filing charges was absolutely the correct call.
But why the disparity? Why charge a 16 year old black girl with a felony when no one was injured when a 13 year old white boy actually killed someone and was not charged? Is a three years difference in age grounds for handling these two cases differently? If he did the same thing when he was 16 would he have been charged with murder?
Was Kiera’s experiment dangerous? Very mildly. Should she have performed this experiment without supervision? Definitely not. But now she’s going to be scarred for life for the simple act of having a bit of inquisitiveness.
Lesson learned? Experimenting bad! Doing exactly as you’re told at all times and draconian results if you don’t, good!
Kids do stupid things. This is a feature, not a bug. Overreacting to their stupidness dulls their curiosity. Show me a kid that isn’t allowed to do stupid things and I’ll show you a boring adult.
The American Humanist Association has declared the first Thursday of May to be a National Day of Reason. That’s today! It’s the Humanist answer to the National Day of Prayer. They are trying to get it recognized by the Federal Government and you can sign their petition if you so choose. The idea behind the National Day of Reason is to get people to recognize that good works are not tied to faith and is meant to include all Americans in a way that the National Day of Prayer does not.
This year, the National Day of Reason has some Congresscritter support. My favorite non-voting member of Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), and Michael Honda (D-CA) have issued statements praising the National Day of Reason. So yeah, not so much support. Yet.
To celebrate National Day of Reason, I think it’s important to list a few “controversial” but true statements.
Spread the Reason!
There has been little to no communication about it from the CTA, but this weekend starts phase two of the Wells St. bridge replacement project. It’s the same plan as the last time. Brown Line trains won’t be going into the Loop. Purple Lines won’t be leaving Evanston. The Red Line or bus is the only choice for the North Side to get into the Loop.
Even though phase one was a breeze, I predict disaster this time around. At least on Monday. While the CTA didn’t do a great communication job last time, they at least had people out the week before telling riders about the upcoming construction. Nothing this time. Beware!
Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.
Jean-Paul’s rating: 5/5 stars
Oh, the indignities we inflict on our fellow man. Oh, the indignities we can endure.
I really need to learn more about Dwight D. Eisenhower. By all accounts, he was a remarkable man. Army General. Supreme Allied Commander. President of the United States.
Somehow, though, his words and warnings are lost on the present batch of politicians at a time when they should be most listened to. For example:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. … We pay for a single fighter plane with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
Beautiful in its simplicity. That’s from Eisenhower’s “Chance for Peace” speech. The numbers in the title of this post are the adjusted for 2013 numbers. It is amazing what this country could do for the advancement of freedom if we just sacrificed a modicum of our security.
Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.
Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars
Hello, I’m Ira Glass. Today on This American Life, we look into the relationships that fathers have, or don’t have, with their sons in three acts. Act one: “The Place Beyond the Pines”. Stay Tuned.
Nothing gets to the heart of the huge double standard in U.S. society between labor and business like the events of the past few weeks. First we had the Boston Marathon bombings where three people were killed and over one hundred were injured. This is obviously an act of terrorism. Then we had the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion that killed at least 15 and also injured over one hundred and also leveled a town. Was this an act of terrorism? Turns out yes it was.
As Eric Loomis points out, anyone that is stockpiling more than 400 lbs of ammonium nitrate must report the stockpile to the federal government. To not do so violates federal anti-terrorism laws. How much was West Fertilizer stockpiling at their plant? 604,000 lbs! West Fertilizer either willfully or ignorantly violated anti-terrorism laws. Shouldn’t the owners of the company be charged with acts of terrorism? They willfully stockpiled an incredibly dangerous component often used in bomb making in the middle of a small town. They did so without notifying the federal government as required by law. The ammonium nitrate blew up. More people were killed and injured than the Boston Marathon bombing. And nothing.
I guarantee you that if a farmer had 401 lbs of ammonium nitrate stockpiled in a barn for fertilizer and it accidentally blew up causing his cows to be killed, the farmer would be treated like a terrorist. And if that farmer happened to look non-white, there would be calls by Republican lawmakers to ship him to Guantanamo. Our society allows businesses to commit grave harm to society and simply pay a fine for the harm caused. That fine is often less than the profits gained from causing said harm. This has to stop.
Another lesson we should learn from this disaster is that the federal regulatory process is in complete disarray and needs to be fixed. The West Fertilizer plant was last inspected in 1985. In that inspection, many serious violations were found at the plant. The fine for these violations? $30 and no followup inspections. Remember West, Texas the next time you complain about the federal government’s “strict” regulations against business. Yes, there are regulations that seem ridiculous, but most are there to protect the people of West, Texas from companies like the West Fertilizer Company.