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Mandatory study guide for anyone who wants to hold a strong opinion on the Affordable Care Act (ACA): Kaiser Family Foundation Health Reform Gateway.

For example…

And on All Things Considered, an expert answers the following ACA questions from listeners:

• Will the penalty for not having health insurance affect people at all income levels, or will low-income people be spared?
• If someone is only insured for six or seven months a year, will there still be a fine?
• I understand that businesses above a certain size have to provide a health care insurance option, but do they have to pay for it? Does the law require a certain contribution from the employer, or can the employer make the employees just pay, say, 99 percent of the premiums?
• How does the law affect Medicare recipients? I heard it cuts billions of dollars from the program. Does it have other effects?
• My son lives overseas, where he is covered by the national health insurance plan. As an American citizen, would he be required to pay the fee for not being covered under an American plan?
• I am a veteran getting my medical care from Veterans Affairs. Am I correct that this counts as having insurance, when it comes to the requirement that everyone be covered or pay a penalty?
• If my current insurance policy does not meet the minimum requirements in the Affordable Care Act, and my insurer must raise the standards of my policy, can my insurer raise the premiums I pay?

 

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Awe-inspiring and strangely humbling.

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I hope I run into the man with the Nacho boots again today.

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via Grist, this doozie from the North Carolina House of Representatives:

The vote took her by surprise. Republicans limited debate on the fracking legislation – Senate bill 820 – and called the vote. Green button to override. Red button to sustain.

Carney hit the button and looked to the board above the chamber that shows the results: 72 to 46. The color next to Carney’s name matched the Republicans.

Rep. Becky Carney

She panicked. She hit a different button to turn on her microphone and called to the House speaker on the dais. He didn’t recognize her. So she rushed to the front, 20 steps from her seat in the eighth row down the red-carpeted middle aisle.

Carney asked the clerk to check her vote. Green. Override.

She then asked Tillis if she could change her vote. Tillis said House rules prevented it.

Lawmakers mistakenly vote all the time but they are not permitted to change a vote if it affects the outcome.

Carney rushed back to her desk and called to the speaker. She wanted to request the House waive the rules – not an uncommon procedure – to allow her to change her vote.

Tillis didn’t respond. He went quickly to his Republican leader, Paul “Skip” Stam of Apex, who moved a “clincher vote” to essentially seal the verdict and prevent reconsideration of the vote. It passed.

This wasn’t a vote on parking. It was on FRACKING. Meaning it will affect many people in potentially life-threatening ways.

This, from the body that outlawed the use of climate science. That rumbling is the mass exodus of property insurers from the state.

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On education, April 27:

Get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents…

On education, July 02:

I want to make sure that we keep America a place of opportunity, where everyone has a fair shot. They get as much education as they can afford…

I don’t know how he reconciles the two sentences in the latter quote.

Anyways…

Tepid consensus is that he really truly honestly doesn’t know that a college education is now a gigantic investment for families. It puts great stress on household finances and is, writ large, very damaging to national competitiveness (and, thus, employment). Maybe he’ll have something more coherent to say by debate time, because we need to bat around some specific proposals.

Speaking of specifics, this was a great Fresh Air interview with Kevin Carey, the director of the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation.

And the kicker–couple serious cost-of-living increases with this:

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Climate change. Stop listening to greedy idjits. Start listening to scientists and risk analysts.

He gives a good, quick explanation of how the increased rate of record-breaking is baaaad. And indicative of anthropogenic warming. And it’s only 2012.

Props to PBS.

 

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Science is patriotic!

Everything you ever wanted to read about it–if you’re not a particle physicist or an extremely bright hobbyist–can be found at this trap!t trap set up by Ethan Siegel.  For now, I’m content with the dummy’s summary from the UK’s Science Museum:

The Higgs boson was predicted in the early 60s as the particle that gives matter mass. Without mass, the universe as we know it would never have formed! It’s taken years of research by hundreds of scientists to find the new particle. More research is needed to ‘confirm’ the discovery but scientists predict the particle is the Higgs boson.

And, of course, the chosen emphasis of many a blogging scientist.

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Power is back.  And with it, a poorly-kept blog.

Thanks to Dominion for sending out so many crews.  That was quite an unexpected…DERECHO!

Unexpected because it was so damn fast.  And because it was super extreme–just like the June 2012 heat wave and temperatures in May, April…

Climate aside (and reiterating my thanks to Dominion and all the folks working overtime for the sweaty masses), I think we should all take a squint at public infrastructure in the U.S.  According to the WEF’s 2011-2012 Global Competitiveness Report, we rank 24th.  Work begs to be done.  If only we had people ready to work–ready to earn paychecks and pump income back into the economy…

Even if one rejects Keynesian economics, you’d think there would be some appeal to the idea of not living in a shit hole.

Thanks Ed.

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