Jellyvision Lab says a "cyber-adviser" named Alex helps employees choose appropriate health care plans. -More-
Reported by SmartBrief 11 hours ago.
"Cyber-adviser" answers employee health insurance questions
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Health Insurance Information Session Slated For Friday At Lacey Library
Patch Berkeley, NJ -- Members of the Family Resource Network will be on hand with information about Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.
Reported by Patch 11 hours ago.
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Michael Bennett joins Highmark Health as Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy & Transformation Officer
Mr. Bennett will lead the transformation of Highmark Health, overseeing enterprise-wide strategy, transformation office, corporate development and investments, analytics and innovation initiatives.
Pittsburgh, PA (PRWEB) January 11, 2016
Highmark Health today announced that Michael Bennett will assume the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer to drive the organization’s growth strategy and mission to deliver comprehensive, affordable, high quality health care services to its customers and the communities it serves.
A newly created position, the Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer is an evolution of the Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative and Strategy Officer, held by Nanette DeTurk since 2014. In that capacity, she collaborated with business leaders across the organization to develop and implement strategy and new transformational processes designed to deliver greater value and customer focus. In this new role, Mr. Bennett will lead the transformation of Highmark Health, overseeing enterprise-wide strategy, transformation office, corporate development and investments, analytics and innovation initiatives.
“Our leadership team is focused on implementing and accelerating Highmark Health’s strategy to transform our enterprise and the health care system, which will create greater value for our customers and drive business growth,” commented David Holmberg, President and Chief Executive Officer. “Nan DeTurk has been a trusted leader and partner during her 22 years of service at Highmark and her contributions to laying the foundation for the next chapter in the company’s history have been invaluable. I am confident that Mike will bring a new perspective to our strategic planning process, business plans, enterprise portfolio, and capabilities across Highmark Health.”
“The opportunity to join an organization such as Highmark Health during a time of rapid change and innovation in the health care payor and provider businesses does not present itself often during one’s career,” stated Mr. Bennett. “I look forward to working closely with the leadership team to refine and execute the company’s vision to deliver greater value and an improved experience to their customers and I believe it has the assets and determination necessary to succeed.”
Mr. Bennett joins Highmark Health from the Cleveland Clinic, where he served as Executive Director since 2013, responsible for management of the planning, growth, go-to-market, and Strategic Intelligence functions for the Strategy Office. Prior to that, he served as a Principal in McKinsey & Company’s Payor/Provider practice in Cleveland, specializing in healthcare strategy and organizational transformation, where he introduced, developed, and managed long-term executive relationships with multiple clients, including large hospital chains (for-profit and Catholic), large insurers (for-profit and Blues plans), academic medical centers, and several regional not-for-profit hospital chains. Mr. Bennett earned a Masters of Business Administration degree from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of International Affairs and Public Policy from Princeton University.
Mr. Bennett will be based in Highmark Health’s Pittsburgh office and will report directly to Mr. Holmberg.
About Highmark Health
Highmark Health, a Pittsburgh, PA based enterprise that employs more than 35,000 people nationwide and serves 40 million Americans in all 50 states, is the third largest integrated health care delivery and financing system in the nation. Highmark Health is the parent company of Highmark Inc., Allegheny Health Network, and HM Health Solutions. Highmark Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates provide health insurance to 5.3 million members in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware as well as dental insurance, vision care and related health products through a national network of diversified businesses that include United Concordia Companies, HM Insurance Group, Davis Vision and Visionworks. Allegheny Health Network is the parent company of an integrated delivery network that includes eight hospitals, a community-based network of physician organizations, and a group purchasing organization, ambulatory surgery centers, and health and wellness pavilions in western Pennsylvania. HM Health Solutions focuses on meeting the information technology platform and other business needs of the Highmark Health enterprise as well as unaffiliated health insurance plans by providing proven business processes, expert knowledge and integrated cloud-based platforms. To learn more, please visit http://www.highmarkhealth.org. Reported by PRWeb 11 hours ago.
Pittsburgh, PA (PRWEB) January 11, 2016
Highmark Health today announced that Michael Bennett will assume the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer to drive the organization’s growth strategy and mission to deliver comprehensive, affordable, high quality health care services to its customers and the communities it serves.
A newly created position, the Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer is an evolution of the Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative and Strategy Officer, held by Nanette DeTurk since 2014. In that capacity, she collaborated with business leaders across the organization to develop and implement strategy and new transformational processes designed to deliver greater value and customer focus. In this new role, Mr. Bennett will lead the transformation of Highmark Health, overseeing enterprise-wide strategy, transformation office, corporate development and investments, analytics and innovation initiatives.
“Our leadership team is focused on implementing and accelerating Highmark Health’s strategy to transform our enterprise and the health care system, which will create greater value for our customers and drive business growth,” commented David Holmberg, President and Chief Executive Officer. “Nan DeTurk has been a trusted leader and partner during her 22 years of service at Highmark and her contributions to laying the foundation for the next chapter in the company’s history have been invaluable. I am confident that Mike will bring a new perspective to our strategic planning process, business plans, enterprise portfolio, and capabilities across Highmark Health.”
“The opportunity to join an organization such as Highmark Health during a time of rapid change and innovation in the health care payor and provider businesses does not present itself often during one’s career,” stated Mr. Bennett. “I look forward to working closely with the leadership team to refine and execute the company’s vision to deliver greater value and an improved experience to their customers and I believe it has the assets and determination necessary to succeed.”
Mr. Bennett joins Highmark Health from the Cleveland Clinic, where he served as Executive Director since 2013, responsible for management of the planning, growth, go-to-market, and Strategic Intelligence functions for the Strategy Office. Prior to that, he served as a Principal in McKinsey & Company’s Payor/Provider practice in Cleveland, specializing in healthcare strategy and organizational transformation, where he introduced, developed, and managed long-term executive relationships with multiple clients, including large hospital chains (for-profit and Catholic), large insurers (for-profit and Blues plans), academic medical centers, and several regional not-for-profit hospital chains. Mr. Bennett earned a Masters of Business Administration degree from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of International Affairs and Public Policy from Princeton University.
Mr. Bennett will be based in Highmark Health’s Pittsburgh office and will report directly to Mr. Holmberg.
About Highmark Health
Highmark Health, a Pittsburgh, PA based enterprise that employs more than 35,000 people nationwide and serves 40 million Americans in all 50 states, is the third largest integrated health care delivery and financing system in the nation. Highmark Health is the parent company of Highmark Inc., Allegheny Health Network, and HM Health Solutions. Highmark Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates provide health insurance to 5.3 million members in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware as well as dental insurance, vision care and related health products through a national network of diversified businesses that include United Concordia Companies, HM Insurance Group, Davis Vision and Visionworks. Allegheny Health Network is the parent company of an integrated delivery network that includes eight hospitals, a community-based network of physician organizations, and a group purchasing organization, ambulatory surgery centers, and health and wellness pavilions in western Pennsylvania. HM Health Solutions focuses on meeting the information technology platform and other business needs of the Highmark Health enterprise as well as unaffiliated health insurance plans by providing proven business processes, expert knowledge and integrated cloud-based platforms. To learn more, please visit http://www.highmarkhealth.org. Reported by PRWeb 11 hours ago.
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North Salem Court Clerk Loses Job, Health Insurance While Fighting Cancer
Patch Southeast-Brewster, NY -- The Danbury, CT, resident was told of her job loss via email, just five months before early retirement.
Reported by Patch 9 hours ago.
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Gov. Nikki Haley Joins the Establishment
CHARLESTON, S.C., Jan. 10, 2016 | Removal of the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds is the gift that keeps on giving for South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
Not only will she receive a major leadership award Jan. 12 from Furman's Riley Institute for her role in taking down the flag, she's been tapped to give the national GOP response to President Obama's final State of the Union address.
Cynics easily spin the speech as little more than an attempt to illustrate that Republicans can be brown and female, not just white and male. Others may take it a step further and say the nationally-televised response is political payback. They'll remind you how the Republican National Committee chairman was on stage when Haley, who essentially ignored the flag in her first four years as governor, issued strong words to take it down after the Emanuel AME Church tragedy. Her voice for flag removal helped to thwart the possibility of weeks of uncomfortable questions from pesky reporters every time a GOP presidential candidate campaigned for votes in South Carolina's early primary. With the flag issue off the table, candidates could run their races. Meanwhile, moderate voters who wanted the flag down would not be reminded how Statehouse Republicans had kept up the flag for years.
Conspiracy theories aside, something more elegant may really be going on: Nikki Haley may be growing up politically, less a firebrand, more of a figure of the establishment.
When Haley took office in 2011, she schmoozed and got legislators thinking that coming years would be a walk in the park compared to the testy relationship between the GOP-led General Assembly and former Gov. Mark Sanford.
But after some early successes with cabinet appointments and the welcome of Boeing, Haley and leading South Carolina lawmakers soon were at loggerheads. Legislators complained she was quiet about a tax break for Amazon when leadership was needed. She angered folks when she got rid of philanthropist Darla Moore from the University of South Carolina board. Haley irritated lawmakers with a plan to force them to return to finish her political agenda. And she tried to get rid of state funding for South Carolina's public television network. Within six months of being sworn in as governor, stories outlined how Haley needed to mend lots of fences.
She then focused on ethics reform -- which still hasn't happened -- and getting the state's residents back to work, which has happened with the lowest unemployment rates in almost a generation. She railed against Obamacare, pumping up her tea party base by not wanting to accept free federal money to allow 200,000 of the poorest of South Carolinians to be able to get health insurance. She didn't slice and burn budgets with lots of vetoes.
As time passed, Haley's on-the-job training as governor seems to have moved her toward the middle, although she'll keep throwing red meat to anti-Obama conservatives during Tuesday's national speech.
She didn't, for example, veto an early childhood education program in 2013 pushed by Democratic nemesis Sen. Vincent Sheheen to expand 4-year-old kindergarten. And she didn't stop the program the following year when more money was appropriated to add more kids to the roll books.
Haley, once vociferous that she wouldn't raise gas taxes to pay for crumbling roads, may be mellowing on that a bit, especially after October floods broke dams and ruined roads across the Midlands, Pee Dee and Lowcountry. Just this week, the state Chamber of Commerce, led by former Haley chief of staff Ted Pitts, said South Carolina needed higher gas taxes for infrastructure, perhaps an early crutch for the governor to use to amend earlier toughness on gas taxes.
Also this week, Haley said she'll seek $19 million -- yes, new spending -- for 144 new prosecutors, 88 public defenders, three judges and staff to help thwart the high rate of domestic violence that grips the state.
Bottom line: The Nikki Haley of 2016 isn't the woman who took office in 2011. But with South Carolina already such a red state, you've got to wonder whether the new attention will have legs for something bigger for the hyper-ambitious governor.
P.S. Know these names? U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst? They gave the GOP responses in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report, South Carolina's leading policy and legislative forecast.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 8 hours ago.
Not only will she receive a major leadership award Jan. 12 from Furman's Riley Institute for her role in taking down the flag, she's been tapped to give the national GOP response to President Obama's final State of the Union address.
Cynics easily spin the speech as little more than an attempt to illustrate that Republicans can be brown and female, not just white and male. Others may take it a step further and say the nationally-televised response is political payback. They'll remind you how the Republican National Committee chairman was on stage when Haley, who essentially ignored the flag in her first four years as governor, issued strong words to take it down after the Emanuel AME Church tragedy. Her voice for flag removal helped to thwart the possibility of weeks of uncomfortable questions from pesky reporters every time a GOP presidential candidate campaigned for votes in South Carolina's early primary. With the flag issue off the table, candidates could run their races. Meanwhile, moderate voters who wanted the flag down would not be reminded how Statehouse Republicans had kept up the flag for years.
Conspiracy theories aside, something more elegant may really be going on: Nikki Haley may be growing up politically, less a firebrand, more of a figure of the establishment.
When Haley took office in 2011, she schmoozed and got legislators thinking that coming years would be a walk in the park compared to the testy relationship between the GOP-led General Assembly and former Gov. Mark Sanford.
But after some early successes with cabinet appointments and the welcome of Boeing, Haley and leading South Carolina lawmakers soon were at loggerheads. Legislators complained she was quiet about a tax break for Amazon when leadership was needed. She angered folks when she got rid of philanthropist Darla Moore from the University of South Carolina board. Haley irritated lawmakers with a plan to force them to return to finish her political agenda. And she tried to get rid of state funding for South Carolina's public television network. Within six months of being sworn in as governor, stories outlined how Haley needed to mend lots of fences.
She then focused on ethics reform -- which still hasn't happened -- and getting the state's residents back to work, which has happened with the lowest unemployment rates in almost a generation. She railed against Obamacare, pumping up her tea party base by not wanting to accept free federal money to allow 200,000 of the poorest of South Carolinians to be able to get health insurance. She didn't slice and burn budgets with lots of vetoes.
As time passed, Haley's on-the-job training as governor seems to have moved her toward the middle, although she'll keep throwing red meat to anti-Obama conservatives during Tuesday's national speech.
She didn't, for example, veto an early childhood education program in 2013 pushed by Democratic nemesis Sen. Vincent Sheheen to expand 4-year-old kindergarten. And she didn't stop the program the following year when more money was appropriated to add more kids to the roll books.
Haley, once vociferous that she wouldn't raise gas taxes to pay for crumbling roads, may be mellowing on that a bit, especially after October floods broke dams and ruined roads across the Midlands, Pee Dee and Lowcountry. Just this week, the state Chamber of Commerce, led by former Haley chief of staff Ted Pitts, said South Carolina needed higher gas taxes for infrastructure, perhaps an early crutch for the governor to use to amend earlier toughness on gas taxes.
Also this week, Haley said she'll seek $19 million -- yes, new spending -- for 144 new prosecutors, 88 public defenders, three judges and staff to help thwart the high rate of domestic violence that grips the state.
Bottom line: The Nikki Haley of 2016 isn't the woman who took office in 2011. But with South Carolina already such a red state, you've got to wonder whether the new attention will have legs for something bigger for the hyper-ambitious governor.
P.S. Know these names? U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst? They gave the GOP responses in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report, South Carolina's leading policy and legislative forecast.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 8 hours ago.
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Yes, He Did: Why Obama Is the Most Consequential Second-Term President Since FDR
Candidate Barack Obama caused a stir when he singled out Ronald Reagan in 2008 as a transformational president who "changed the trajectory of America" in ways that neither Richard Nixon nor Bill Clinton managed. Of course, Obama was not embracing conservative policies, but he was marveling at Reagan's impact. It is Obama, though, that now stands as the most consequential second-term president since the Second World War.
Of course, Ronald Reagan's watch saw the demise of the Soviet Union. But his influence on that historic event was shared. Reagan's declarations of "evil empire" were memorable rhetorical flourishes, but as a driver of change they took a backseat to the Soviet empire's internal decay, economic collapse and corruption. The U.S. defense buildup may have contributed to pushing the Soviets over the edge, but it started under Jimmy Carter.
Obama's policies and actions since his second inauguration have reshaped or initiated new developments of enormous consequence for the U.S. domestic and foreign policy. America now has a climate change policy for the first time. In a sharp departure, the Obama administration launched a broad crackdown on the drivers of global warming by issuing new regulations to cut the emission of methane by the gas and oil industry and carbon dioxide. The international agreement in Paris is not legally binding, but it creates global expectations that will target global scrutiny on countries that fail to comply. Much remains uncertain, but these and other changes in policy are meshing with new expectations among businesses and consumers that are likely to persist and evolve.
Obama's policies and actions since his second inauguration have reshaped or initiated new developments of enormous consequence for the U.S. domestic and foreign policy.
Venomous relations with Iran and Cuba existed for decades until Obama intervened. Cuba had been a regional irritation that remained trapped in the time warp of the Cold War. The president's normalizing of relations swept that away. New U.S.-Cuba relations are gaining broad acceptance and will affect U.S. relations in the Caribbean and Latin America for years to come.
The treaty with Iran will remain contentious and uncertain for some time. The deal may lead to a more aggressive and threatening Iran as showcased by its expanding ballistic missile program. Yet Iran has also taken steps to abide by the treaty, including its shipment to Russia of nearly all of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium. The implementation of the treaty later this year, which appears more likely, may gradually coax Iran back into the circle of nations and lead to significant changes in U.S. diplomacy and national security in the Middle East and more broadly. Obama drew the enmity of labor for winning fast-track trade authority on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but he may use it this year to help reestablish the U.S. as a dominant power in the Pacific at a time of growing Chinese sway.
The Bee Gees hit song, "Stayin' Alive," comes to mind on health reform. The Affordable Care Act was passed during the first term, but the heavy lifting of implementation came in the second term as the administration was stalked by congressional votes to repeal it and yet another Supreme Court case aimed at gutting it.
The launch of this mammoth new program experienced the hiccups that all our major new social policies have -- from Social Security to Medicare. But the impact is now without dispute -- for those guided by independent data. Over 16 million and counting have gained coverage from the new insurance exchanges and the expansion of Medicaid for lower income Americans. The insurance exchanges remain controversial, but the firestorm is directed at one component of health reform that directly affects about 5 percent of Americans who are neither seniors nor covered through employers.U.S. President Barack Obama is applauded after signing the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Win McNamee/Getty Images.
Here is what is rarely acknowledged and speaks volumes about Obama's impact: we now accept the sea change in the lives of most Americans that the Affordable Care Act swept in. No one serious challenges the Affordable Care Act's guarantee of insurance coverage for all without the threat of preexisting conditions, the new coverage for the prescription drug benefits for seniors and much more. One of the most liberal components of health reform -- the expansion of Medicaid -- has now been passed by 30 states and growing, including a growing number controlled by Republicans. The most progressive tax reforms of the Obama presidency is buried in the Affordable Care Act -- Medicare taxes for high-income earners rose and, in a significant departure for social insurance, a new tax on the capital gains of the affluent was introduced.
No social policy has impacted more people in the modern era. A program to extend health insurance to children passed during Clinton's second term but was targeted on a narrow slice of the uninsured after his comprehensive reform collapsed.
Obama's health reform after 2012 compares favorably with the granddads of social policy. The Social Security legislation that FDR passed excluded over half of all working women and about two-thirds of African American workers and was dogged by serious problems and repealers for nearly four decades after its passage in 1935. Lyndon B. Johnson's Medicare largely focused on one age group -- seniors -- and on one medical cost -- hospital care.
Using Executive AuthorityHow did Obama pull off so much facing vociferous congressional opposition? Nifty trick -- he capitalized on the executive authority and resources crafted by Nixon and Reagan. Faced with Democratic congressional obstruction, the two Republicans circumvented Congress by routinely deploying executive orders to direct policy, relying on executive agreements to strike international accords and constructing the White House's administrative capacity to act independently. Yes, the irony of Republicans equipping Obama is striking -- as it will be when a conservative president capitalizes on Obama's precedents.
Obama's impact stands out partly because of the competition among presidents who were elected to two terms since FDR. Four of the 5 suffered crises that forced them from office (Nixon), scandals that drained their political standing and distracted their administrations (Reagan and Clinton), or policy debacles that cratered their approval rating and political standing (Bush's war in Iraq and the financial crisis). Eisenhower's imprint was dulled by his modest ambitions.
Obama has been the target of partisan congressional "investigations" and the conservative press, but genuine scandals over sex, money and outright law-breaking have not touched him. This has left his energy and aspirations comparatively free to focus on changing policy.
Obama's health reform after 2012 compares favorably with the granddads of social policy.
Tabulating Obama's impacts does not mean that he achieved all that he set out to accomplish. Far from it. He failed to "contain" the self-proclaimed Islamic State, close Guantanamo and coax a peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis. He made starts on immigration and helping America transition toward its future as a multi-racial country, but the results are uneven.
Even where Obama's impact is clear, debates will rage for years on the merits -- whether his second term advanced or set back America. The verdict is likely to offer a mix and change with time.
What is clear already is that Obama has transformed the policy landscape.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 8 hours ago.
Of course, Ronald Reagan's watch saw the demise of the Soviet Union. But his influence on that historic event was shared. Reagan's declarations of "evil empire" were memorable rhetorical flourishes, but as a driver of change they took a backseat to the Soviet empire's internal decay, economic collapse and corruption. The U.S. defense buildup may have contributed to pushing the Soviets over the edge, but it started under Jimmy Carter.
Obama's policies and actions since his second inauguration have reshaped or initiated new developments of enormous consequence for the U.S. domestic and foreign policy. America now has a climate change policy for the first time. In a sharp departure, the Obama administration launched a broad crackdown on the drivers of global warming by issuing new regulations to cut the emission of methane by the gas and oil industry and carbon dioxide. The international agreement in Paris is not legally binding, but it creates global expectations that will target global scrutiny on countries that fail to comply. Much remains uncertain, but these and other changes in policy are meshing with new expectations among businesses and consumers that are likely to persist and evolve.
Obama's policies and actions since his second inauguration have reshaped or initiated new developments of enormous consequence for the U.S. domestic and foreign policy.
Venomous relations with Iran and Cuba existed for decades until Obama intervened. Cuba had been a regional irritation that remained trapped in the time warp of the Cold War. The president's normalizing of relations swept that away. New U.S.-Cuba relations are gaining broad acceptance and will affect U.S. relations in the Caribbean and Latin America for years to come.
The treaty with Iran will remain contentious and uncertain for some time. The deal may lead to a more aggressive and threatening Iran as showcased by its expanding ballistic missile program. Yet Iran has also taken steps to abide by the treaty, including its shipment to Russia of nearly all of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium. The implementation of the treaty later this year, which appears more likely, may gradually coax Iran back into the circle of nations and lead to significant changes in U.S. diplomacy and national security in the Middle East and more broadly. Obama drew the enmity of labor for winning fast-track trade authority on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but he may use it this year to help reestablish the U.S. as a dominant power in the Pacific at a time of growing Chinese sway.
The Bee Gees hit song, "Stayin' Alive," comes to mind on health reform. The Affordable Care Act was passed during the first term, but the heavy lifting of implementation came in the second term as the administration was stalked by congressional votes to repeal it and yet another Supreme Court case aimed at gutting it.
The launch of this mammoth new program experienced the hiccups that all our major new social policies have -- from Social Security to Medicare. But the impact is now without dispute -- for those guided by independent data. Over 16 million and counting have gained coverage from the new insurance exchanges and the expansion of Medicaid for lower income Americans. The insurance exchanges remain controversial, but the firestorm is directed at one component of health reform that directly affects about 5 percent of Americans who are neither seniors nor covered through employers.U.S. President Barack Obama is applauded after signing the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Win McNamee/Getty Images.
Here is what is rarely acknowledged and speaks volumes about Obama's impact: we now accept the sea change in the lives of most Americans that the Affordable Care Act swept in. No one serious challenges the Affordable Care Act's guarantee of insurance coverage for all without the threat of preexisting conditions, the new coverage for the prescription drug benefits for seniors and much more. One of the most liberal components of health reform -- the expansion of Medicaid -- has now been passed by 30 states and growing, including a growing number controlled by Republicans. The most progressive tax reforms of the Obama presidency is buried in the Affordable Care Act -- Medicare taxes for high-income earners rose and, in a significant departure for social insurance, a new tax on the capital gains of the affluent was introduced.
No social policy has impacted more people in the modern era. A program to extend health insurance to children passed during Clinton's second term but was targeted on a narrow slice of the uninsured after his comprehensive reform collapsed.
Obama's health reform after 2012 compares favorably with the granddads of social policy. The Social Security legislation that FDR passed excluded over half of all working women and about two-thirds of African American workers and was dogged by serious problems and repealers for nearly four decades after its passage in 1935. Lyndon B. Johnson's Medicare largely focused on one age group -- seniors -- and on one medical cost -- hospital care.
Using Executive AuthorityHow did Obama pull off so much facing vociferous congressional opposition? Nifty trick -- he capitalized on the executive authority and resources crafted by Nixon and Reagan. Faced with Democratic congressional obstruction, the two Republicans circumvented Congress by routinely deploying executive orders to direct policy, relying on executive agreements to strike international accords and constructing the White House's administrative capacity to act independently. Yes, the irony of Republicans equipping Obama is striking -- as it will be when a conservative president capitalizes on Obama's precedents.
Obama's impact stands out partly because of the competition among presidents who were elected to two terms since FDR. Four of the 5 suffered crises that forced them from office (Nixon), scandals that drained their political standing and distracted their administrations (Reagan and Clinton), or policy debacles that cratered their approval rating and political standing (Bush's war in Iraq and the financial crisis). Eisenhower's imprint was dulled by his modest ambitions.
Obama has been the target of partisan congressional "investigations" and the conservative press, but genuine scandals over sex, money and outright law-breaking have not touched him. This has left his energy and aspirations comparatively free to focus on changing policy.
Obama's health reform after 2012 compares favorably with the granddads of social policy.
Tabulating Obama's impacts does not mean that he achieved all that he set out to accomplish. Far from it. He failed to "contain" the self-proclaimed Islamic State, close Guantanamo and coax a peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis. He made starts on immigration and helping America transition toward its future as a multi-racial country, but the results are uneven.
Even where Obama's impact is clear, debates will rage for years on the merits -- whether his second term advanced or set back America. The verdict is likely to offer a mix and change with time.
What is clear already is that Obama has transformed the policy landscape.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 8 hours ago.
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I Took Control Of My Biological Clock At Age 30
Beating the clock with HCG -- one of the hormones used in cryopreservation.My San Francisco apartment is generally stacked with liquor, laptops and leftovers from last weeks' dinner party. But for now, it has been transformed into a nursing station, stacked high with cartons of prescription drugs, syringes, gauze, alcohol wipes, even a sharps container.
I barely take Tylenol for headaches or Midol for period cramps. But for the past 11 days I've been injecting myself daily with with heavy doses of gonadal-stimulating hormones. In a few hours, I'll check myself in for an outpatient surgery where a doctor will extract roughly 5-15 of my eggs by sticking a long needle through my vaginal wall in to each of my ovaries. The whole process will cost about as much as a lightly-used 2014 Honda Civic.
Merry Christmas, me.
Egg freezing (formally, "Cryopreservation") is a physically, mentally and emotionally disruptive process: injections, mood swings, body changes. So why is 30-year-old, healthy, seemingly normal woman with 10 fingers, 10 toes, and a full pipeline on every dating app, freezing her eggs?
I'm an economist so maybe I'm drawn to this way of thinking, but I don't think it takes a quant to understand what it means to be almost 31, female, and single. A simple Google search returns the well-known commentary around female fertility and egg health/genetic degradation starting after age 35. Many doctors quoted online seem to recommend a first pregnancy by about age 34, especially for women intending on having more than one child.
So, using my best life-algebra, I calculate:
Age 34, (-) minus 2 years to be married to someone before kids, (-) minus 1.5 years to meet, date and marry someone = 30.5.
Since I'm almost 31, having not found Mr or Ms. Right by last month means I'm on a path to compromising the potential health of my future children, unless a take a significant short cut in my future partner evaluation timeline. Not exactly what I want in my latest Tinder tagline.Math -- my own.
*Its *not* just about partner selection*
For many women, regardless of whether we definitely want biological children someday, after about age 29, there settles in this pressure of *"fertility fog"* over a wide range of life decisions. Not only does competence as a potential parent begin to weigh more heavily in partner selection, but other critical decisions like job selection, budgeting and financial planning, social ties -- all begin to take potential childbearing and maternity more seriously into consideration. For those ready to take this step -- great. But for many women, feeling like you're "on the clock" can result in the pressure to compromise on the qualities you accept in a partner and reduce risk tolerance at work.
"For many women, feeling like you're 'on the clock' can result in the pressure to compromise on the qualities you accept in a partner and reduce risk tolerance at work."
Altogether, *I was feeling out of control of my own body * -- as if my decisions needed to be increasingly driven by my fertility calculus, not by the many factors I want to and historically have considered in big life decisions (i.e. impact, size and scale of the challenge, intellectual engagement, etc). The daughter of a low-income, single mother from a small town in Canada, I worked hard to have the freedoms I experience today in my work and lifestyle choices. I wanted control of my body and reproductive timeline back. So, I reached out to my primary care doctor and asked for a referral.Day 7 of hormonal stimulation: ultrasound.
*The process is intimidating*
I would be a really bad drug addict, or so I discovered.
To get a female body to cultivate 10-20x the normal eggs in one monthly cycle, a high-dosage, 11-day regimen of (egg) "follicle-stimulating" hormones is required to turbo-charge the normal monthly process. These are the types of hormones generally found in a woman's body, but at much lower natural levels. The hormones can only be received through sub-cutaneous injection, and since they are taken daily for 11 days, the woman is required to self-administer the injections at home.
I'm not a wimp (I played college and high school rugby, ran a marathon, have a tattoo, etc) - but I definitely panicked during the training on self-administered hormone shots. I had figured that since normal people needed to self-inject very specific quantities of medicine to not screw the process up, there would be some method or device that helped us self-inject -- that somehow made it easier -- like a special clamp or 'Smart Needle': one click and a little prick and you're done. Well, no such luck. I needed to use real, basic needles to inject 1-2ml of liquid hormone slowly into my body in two shots -- daily -- for 10-plus days. At work, I'm known for my strong crisis-situation management skills. But in the tiny consultation room that day, I felt overwhelmed.
Thank goodness I caught wind of a start-up business by some nurses who can come to your home and professionally administer the shots. "IVF Concierge" -- look them up if you are considering the process! They are *fantastic.* While the service is expensive, its worth it to have a professional get it right on the first shot (pun intended?).A Daily Dose -- 300 units Gonal-F, 150 units Menopur
*Intimidating or not, women want it anyway*
Almost every woman I've spoken to since I decided to freeze my eggs says she would want to do it too *but can't afford the ~$12,000 for a cryopreservation cycle*, from my hair stylist (who lovingly streaked my hair pink when asked to on day 3 of my hormone therapy), to many of my close female friends who are mostly professionals in finance, technology, law, medicine and academia.
"...it is not only the highly career-focused women, but those from all walks of life who seem to want this option."
It's not only the highly career-focused women, but those from all walks of life who seem to want this option. Even if you presume only a quarter or half of those women would actually go through with the process, that's still a large number when scaled across the whole eligible population. Married and unmarried, the women I spoke to simply wanted the same freedoms as men do: to choose to have children earlier or later in their lives without the guilt of a direct trade-off between having any / healthy children the longer they wait. Having the freedom to kick the proverbial can down the road is a freedom Nature doesn't afford women.
Having the freedom to kick the proverbial can down the road is a freedom Nature doesn't afford women.
*Eggspensive but eggaliatrian*
If I'm the right age to cryopreserve and so many people I know say they want it, why am I the only woman I know with a box full of drugs in her living room?
Realistically, the biggest difference for me in this calculus versus other women my age *is that my employment-based health insurance covers the >$10K cost of the procedure and medications.*
Currently, only a handful of employers seem to see the value in providing cryopreservation coverage, and the majority of others either don't, or have yet to realistically consider it. In my view, providing cryopreservation coverage not only increases an employers' competitiveness in the marketplace for female employees, but also is a great way for companies to put their 'money where their mouth is' on the topic of gender equality efforts in the workplace.
"Cryopreservation health insurance coverage is a great way for companies to put their 'money where their mouth is' on the topic of gender equality efforts in the work place."
By giving women greater flexility in when they incur the tough demands of pregnancy and post-natal child care, companies can help create a more equal experience between men and women workers.
A bit more choice for women around pregnancy and family timing could go a long way on several lingering workplace gender equality issues, like the number of women in executive positions and on boards, and the gender pay gap. A 2015 White House Council of Economic Advisors brief on the Gender Pay Gap noted that:
...motherhood is associated with a wage penalty and lower wage gains later in a woman's career," and that "Research has shown that delaying child birth for one year can increase a woman's total career earnings and experience by 9 percent.
These statistics really resonate with my experience -- I've lost track of how many times I've heard my female friends express the pressure that right now "every year counts," for their financial trajectory and promotions.
Overall, I'm deeply thankful that my employer has provided this option for me, and am hopeful that over time the benefit will become a standard. And I hope that by sharing my experience with the bad and honestly not-so-bad parts of the egg freezing journey, I can de-mystify the experience for women who are considering the option. Please feel free to reach out to me if you want to hear from someone who's been through the process, or even if you just want someone to listen to your fears and concerns. It's daunting, and it isn't comfortable, but it is an option for regaining some basic control over reproductive timing. Good luck!
Special thanks to Saul Carlin, Alexander Campbell, Jake Wachman and Joyce Zhang for your feedback.
This piece originally appeared on Medium.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 7 hours ago.
I barely take Tylenol for headaches or Midol for period cramps. But for the past 11 days I've been injecting myself daily with with heavy doses of gonadal-stimulating hormones. In a few hours, I'll check myself in for an outpatient surgery where a doctor will extract roughly 5-15 of my eggs by sticking a long needle through my vaginal wall in to each of my ovaries. The whole process will cost about as much as a lightly-used 2014 Honda Civic.
Merry Christmas, me.
Egg freezing (formally, "Cryopreservation") is a physically, mentally and emotionally disruptive process: injections, mood swings, body changes. So why is 30-year-old, healthy, seemingly normal woman with 10 fingers, 10 toes, and a full pipeline on every dating app, freezing her eggs?
I'm an economist so maybe I'm drawn to this way of thinking, but I don't think it takes a quant to understand what it means to be almost 31, female, and single. A simple Google search returns the well-known commentary around female fertility and egg health/genetic degradation starting after age 35. Many doctors quoted online seem to recommend a first pregnancy by about age 34, especially for women intending on having more than one child.
So, using my best life-algebra, I calculate:
Age 34, (-) minus 2 years to be married to someone before kids, (-) minus 1.5 years to meet, date and marry someone = 30.5.
Since I'm almost 31, having not found Mr or Ms. Right by last month means I'm on a path to compromising the potential health of my future children, unless a take a significant short cut in my future partner evaluation timeline. Not exactly what I want in my latest Tinder tagline.Math -- my own.
*Its *not* just about partner selection*
For many women, regardless of whether we definitely want biological children someday, after about age 29, there settles in this pressure of *"fertility fog"* over a wide range of life decisions. Not only does competence as a potential parent begin to weigh more heavily in partner selection, but other critical decisions like job selection, budgeting and financial planning, social ties -- all begin to take potential childbearing and maternity more seriously into consideration. For those ready to take this step -- great. But for many women, feeling like you're "on the clock" can result in the pressure to compromise on the qualities you accept in a partner and reduce risk tolerance at work.
"For many women, feeling like you're 'on the clock' can result in the pressure to compromise on the qualities you accept in a partner and reduce risk tolerance at work."
Altogether, *I was feeling out of control of my own body * -- as if my decisions needed to be increasingly driven by my fertility calculus, not by the many factors I want to and historically have considered in big life decisions (i.e. impact, size and scale of the challenge, intellectual engagement, etc). The daughter of a low-income, single mother from a small town in Canada, I worked hard to have the freedoms I experience today in my work and lifestyle choices. I wanted control of my body and reproductive timeline back. So, I reached out to my primary care doctor and asked for a referral.Day 7 of hormonal stimulation: ultrasound.
*The process is intimidating*
I would be a really bad drug addict, or so I discovered.
To get a female body to cultivate 10-20x the normal eggs in one monthly cycle, a high-dosage, 11-day regimen of (egg) "follicle-stimulating" hormones is required to turbo-charge the normal monthly process. These are the types of hormones generally found in a woman's body, but at much lower natural levels. The hormones can only be received through sub-cutaneous injection, and since they are taken daily for 11 days, the woman is required to self-administer the injections at home.
I'm not a wimp (I played college and high school rugby, ran a marathon, have a tattoo, etc) - but I definitely panicked during the training on self-administered hormone shots. I had figured that since normal people needed to self-inject very specific quantities of medicine to not screw the process up, there would be some method or device that helped us self-inject -- that somehow made it easier -- like a special clamp or 'Smart Needle': one click and a little prick and you're done. Well, no such luck. I needed to use real, basic needles to inject 1-2ml of liquid hormone slowly into my body in two shots -- daily -- for 10-plus days. At work, I'm known for my strong crisis-situation management skills. But in the tiny consultation room that day, I felt overwhelmed.
Thank goodness I caught wind of a start-up business by some nurses who can come to your home and professionally administer the shots. "IVF Concierge" -- look them up if you are considering the process! They are *fantastic.* While the service is expensive, its worth it to have a professional get it right on the first shot (pun intended?).A Daily Dose -- 300 units Gonal-F, 150 units Menopur
*Intimidating or not, women want it anyway*
Almost every woman I've spoken to since I decided to freeze my eggs says she would want to do it too *but can't afford the ~$12,000 for a cryopreservation cycle*, from my hair stylist (who lovingly streaked my hair pink when asked to on day 3 of my hormone therapy), to many of my close female friends who are mostly professionals in finance, technology, law, medicine and academia.
"...it is not only the highly career-focused women, but those from all walks of life who seem to want this option."
It's not only the highly career-focused women, but those from all walks of life who seem to want this option. Even if you presume only a quarter or half of those women would actually go through with the process, that's still a large number when scaled across the whole eligible population. Married and unmarried, the women I spoke to simply wanted the same freedoms as men do: to choose to have children earlier or later in their lives without the guilt of a direct trade-off between having any / healthy children the longer they wait. Having the freedom to kick the proverbial can down the road is a freedom Nature doesn't afford women.
Having the freedom to kick the proverbial can down the road is a freedom Nature doesn't afford women.
*Eggspensive but eggaliatrian*
If I'm the right age to cryopreserve and so many people I know say they want it, why am I the only woman I know with a box full of drugs in her living room?
Realistically, the biggest difference for me in this calculus versus other women my age *is that my employment-based health insurance covers the >$10K cost of the procedure and medications.*
Currently, only a handful of employers seem to see the value in providing cryopreservation coverage, and the majority of others either don't, or have yet to realistically consider it. In my view, providing cryopreservation coverage not only increases an employers' competitiveness in the marketplace for female employees, but also is a great way for companies to put their 'money where their mouth is' on the topic of gender equality efforts in the workplace.
"Cryopreservation health insurance coverage is a great way for companies to put their 'money where their mouth is' on the topic of gender equality efforts in the work place."
By giving women greater flexility in when they incur the tough demands of pregnancy and post-natal child care, companies can help create a more equal experience between men and women workers.
A bit more choice for women around pregnancy and family timing could go a long way on several lingering workplace gender equality issues, like the number of women in executive positions and on boards, and the gender pay gap. A 2015 White House Council of Economic Advisors brief on the Gender Pay Gap noted that:
...motherhood is associated with a wage penalty and lower wage gains later in a woman's career," and that "Research has shown that delaying child birth for one year can increase a woman's total career earnings and experience by 9 percent.
These statistics really resonate with my experience -- I've lost track of how many times I've heard my female friends express the pressure that right now "every year counts," for their financial trajectory and promotions.
Overall, I'm deeply thankful that my employer has provided this option for me, and am hopeful that over time the benefit will become a standard. And I hope that by sharing my experience with the bad and honestly not-so-bad parts of the egg freezing journey, I can de-mystify the experience for women who are considering the option. Please feel free to reach out to me if you want to hear from someone who's been through the process, or even if you just want someone to listen to your fears and concerns. It's daunting, and it isn't comfortable, but it is an option for regaining some basic control over reproductive timing. Good luck!
Special thanks to Saul Carlin, Alexander Campbell, Jake Wachman and Joyce Zhang for your feedback.
This piece originally appeared on Medium.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 7 hours ago.
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Kentucky Moves Ahead With Plans to Dismantle Health Exchange
New Republican Kentucky governor moves ahead with plans to dismantle health insurance exchange
Reported by ABCNews.com 4 hours ago.
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Kentucky moves ahead with plans to dismantle health exchange
Kentucky's new Republican administration is moving forward with plans to shut down the state's health insurance exchange, becoming the first state to cut ties with one of the key pieces of President Barack Obama's signature health care law because of a political promise.
Reported by MyNorthwest.com 4 hours ago.
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Kentucky governor to dismantle state's health insurance exchange: newspaper
(Reuters) - Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin has notified U.S. authorities that he plans to dismantle the state's health insurance exchange created under the Obama Administration's Affordable Care Act, the Courier-Journal reported on Monday.
Reported by Reuters 57 minutes ago.
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Kentucky Gov. Bevin set to dismantle popular state health care exchange
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin has notified U.S. authorities that he plans to dismantle the state’s health insurance exchange created under the Obama Administration’s Affordable Care Act, the Courier-Journal reported on Monday. Bevin’s office was not immediately available for comment...
Reported by Raw Story 29 minutes ago.
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This Small Company Offers On-Site Therapy To Workers
This story is part of our monthlong “Work Well” initiative, which focuses on thriving in the workplace. You can find more stories from this project here.
Most employers don’t want stressed-out workers, but few do much about it -- maybe, best case, they offer some yoga classes or meditation sessions or offer discounts on your health insurance if you track your steps with a Fitbit or something.
One small Ohio company, called Certified Angus Beef, is taking things much further, offering in-house therapy to employees twice a month at no cost -- and on company time.
“I am there to help them with stress,” Marianne Bowden, the psychologist who counsels Certified Angus Beef’s employees, told The Huffington Post.
Bowden has a private practice just across the street from the company, but on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month, she sets up office inside the nonprofit, which is run by a collective of ranchers and is responsible for marketing the brand. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about the kinds of issues Certified Angus Beef’s workers face. These aren’t traumatized police officers or fire fighters. The company is responsible for promoting the beef label; so these are mostly marketing and public relations professionals with run-of-the-mill desk jobs.
Like many of us, they’re facing the dull, unrelenting grind of everyday adulthood and the stress that brings. Many are coping with how to care for aging parents -- some in the early stages of dementia. Others want to keep their weight or blood pressure in check. Some are simply figuring out how to juggle work and family responsibilities. “You’re successful at your job, but your kid is failing geometry,” would be a typical scenario a worker is facing, Bowden said.
What’s unusual is the company’s strong, holistic commitment to the health and mental well-being of its 125 employees. Certified Angus Beef makes clear that the counseling sessions are there to help with worker health, taking pains to de-stigmatize the idea of therapy -- something that can still be an issue in the workplace.
For those wary of getting free therapy at the office, Bowden said she keeps her conversations confidential -- a point she made sure to emphasize strongly when the program got going about three years ago. “We constantly reinforce the point,” she said.She will, however, give aggregate information to the company. A few years ago Bowden noticed a lot of workers were dealing with taking care of aging parents. So the company put together a “lunch and learn” to go over coping strategies.
The on-site counseling is just one part of Certified Angus Beef’s unusually robust health and wellness benefits: There’s an onsite wellness coach, a lawyer who comes in and offers employees help once a month for free, a certified financial planner, lunchtime fitness and meditation classes. And starting next year the company will bring in a physician on-site to treat workers.
“We want our employees to be healthy and happy and engaged and challenged and motivated,” Pam Cottrell, the company’s HR director, told HuffPost.
It’s paid off in at least one way: Workers don’t leave the company. Turnover is extremely low, at about 3 percent, according to internal numbers.
The American Psychological Association awarded the company last year for its commitment to mental health. “It’s become part of their culture, it’s a support. Not a sign of something bad,*”* David Ballard, who oversees the psychological association’s healthy workplace program, told HuffPost.
Companies often take some steps to help their employees lose weight or quit smoking or de-stress, but those who don’t truly tackle these issues on an organizational level will never really help workers, Ballard said. “We don’t want to throw people back into the same bad situation over and over. We need to address the environment itself.”
Certified Angus is pretty committed to keeping the environment healthy. When Bowden’s in the office, she walks the floors chatting with people and just reminding them she’s there. As does the company’s wellness coach, who workers hit up with everyday issues -- a strained back, a sick kid -- and ask for help. The company surveys workers to see what kinds of stresses they're facing.
“People feel taken care of,” Bowden said.
The Huffington Post’s “Work Well” series is also part of our "What's Working" solutions-oriented journalism initiative.
*More stories like this:*
· The American Workplace Is Broken. Here’s How We Can Start Fixing It.· Here’s The Scary Truth About Workplace Stress· 15 Practical Ways To Find Your Zen At Work· The Surprising Health Tip That Doctors And Bosses Should Recommend· Emotions Impact Your Work -- So Why Don't Companies Take Mental Health Seriously?· 12 Work Hacks To Keep You Sharp And Focused Throughout The Day· 12 Time Management Tips Successful People Live By
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
Most employers don’t want stressed-out workers, but few do much about it -- maybe, best case, they offer some yoga classes or meditation sessions or offer discounts on your health insurance if you track your steps with a Fitbit or something.
One small Ohio company, called Certified Angus Beef, is taking things much further, offering in-house therapy to employees twice a month at no cost -- and on company time.
“I am there to help them with stress,” Marianne Bowden, the psychologist who counsels Certified Angus Beef’s employees, told The Huffington Post.
Bowden has a private practice just across the street from the company, but on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month, she sets up office inside the nonprofit, which is run by a collective of ranchers and is responsible for marketing the brand. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about the kinds of issues Certified Angus Beef’s workers face. These aren’t traumatized police officers or fire fighters. The company is responsible for promoting the beef label; so these are mostly marketing and public relations professionals with run-of-the-mill desk jobs.
Like many of us, they’re facing the dull, unrelenting grind of everyday adulthood and the stress that brings. Many are coping with how to care for aging parents -- some in the early stages of dementia. Others want to keep their weight or blood pressure in check. Some are simply figuring out how to juggle work and family responsibilities. “You’re successful at your job, but your kid is failing geometry,” would be a typical scenario a worker is facing, Bowden said.
What’s unusual is the company’s strong, holistic commitment to the health and mental well-being of its 125 employees. Certified Angus Beef makes clear that the counseling sessions are there to help with worker health, taking pains to de-stigmatize the idea of therapy -- something that can still be an issue in the workplace.
For those wary of getting free therapy at the office, Bowden said she keeps her conversations confidential -- a point she made sure to emphasize strongly when the program got going about three years ago. “We constantly reinforce the point,” she said.She will, however, give aggregate information to the company. A few years ago Bowden noticed a lot of workers were dealing with taking care of aging parents. So the company put together a “lunch and learn” to go over coping strategies.
The on-site counseling is just one part of Certified Angus Beef’s unusually robust health and wellness benefits: There’s an onsite wellness coach, a lawyer who comes in and offers employees help once a month for free, a certified financial planner, lunchtime fitness and meditation classes. And starting next year the company will bring in a physician on-site to treat workers.
“We want our employees to be healthy and happy and engaged and challenged and motivated,” Pam Cottrell, the company’s HR director, told HuffPost.
It’s paid off in at least one way: Workers don’t leave the company. Turnover is extremely low, at about 3 percent, according to internal numbers.
The American Psychological Association awarded the company last year for its commitment to mental health. “It’s become part of their culture, it’s a support. Not a sign of something bad,*”* David Ballard, who oversees the psychological association’s healthy workplace program, told HuffPost.
Companies often take some steps to help their employees lose weight or quit smoking or de-stress, but those who don’t truly tackle these issues on an organizational level will never really help workers, Ballard said. “We don’t want to throw people back into the same bad situation over and over. We need to address the environment itself.”
Certified Angus is pretty committed to keeping the environment healthy. When Bowden’s in the office, she walks the floors chatting with people and just reminding them she’s there. As does the company’s wellness coach, who workers hit up with everyday issues -- a strained back, a sick kid -- and ask for help. The company surveys workers to see what kinds of stresses they're facing.
“People feel taken care of,” Bowden said.
The Huffington Post’s “Work Well” series is also part of our "What's Working" solutions-oriented journalism initiative.
*More stories like this:*
· The American Workplace Is Broken. Here’s How We Can Start Fixing It.· Here’s The Scary Truth About Workplace Stress· 15 Practical Ways To Find Your Zen At Work· The Surprising Health Tip That Doctors And Bosses Should Recommend· Emotions Impact Your Work -- So Why Don't Companies Take Mental Health Seriously?· 12 Work Hacks To Keep You Sharp And Focused Throughout The Day· 12 Time Management Tips Successful People Live By
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
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Make Better Health Care Non-partisan
The late author and poet Maya Angelou once said, "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."
When President Obama delivers his final State of the Union address tonight, he will do so against the backdrop of two realities in health care. The first is that more Americans have health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. While much has succeeded in this regard, our work in ensuring access to high-quality services is far from over.
The second reality is that we're living in a society of rising disease prevalence, unsustainable health care costs and the near-certainty that health care, as a public policy issue, will continue to be contentious in Washington and on the campaign trail.
In 2016, it's time to change our collective attitude.
Every day, 10,000 Americans turn 65. While many of us older types are staying active longer, the reality is that chronic disease will bring about systematic cost pressures unlike anything we've seen. Today, we're spending $3.1 trillion on health care, up more than five percent since 2013. The amount we spend will only increase as more Americans require more hospitalizations and in-depth care for longer periods of time.
Unfortunately, we've come to accept disease as an unavoidable part of life. An estimated 5.3 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease. In 2015, more than 1.6 million people were diagnosed with cancer. An overwhelming 29 million people in the U.S. live with diabetes, 9.3 percent of our population.
We are making progress in key areas. In 2015 alone, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 45 new therapeutic products. The public and private sectors have significantly pursued new research initiatives, with the NIH investing more than $30 billion and the biopharmaceutical industry investing more than $51 billion in 2014.
For much of the pain and suffering, the success stories exist. President Carter recently showed us the human potential of immunotherapy treatment in cancer care, which could fundamentally change how we treat various forms of cancer. In fact, at the beginning of 2014, there were nearly 15 million cancer survivors from over 14 forms of the disease. According to the American Cancer Society, the number of cancer survivors will increase to 19 million by 2024. Without medical discovery and advancements in cancer research, this number would be significantly lower. But even with billions of dollars invested in innovative research, we're leaving many patients behind.
Consider the example of cystic fibrosis. While we've seen significant progress in recent years, the 30,000 patients who have CF are counting on new discoveries to help extend and improve their lives.
Alzheimer's disease warrants equal attention. A report by the Alzheimer's Association found that costs are projected to increase to more than $1.1 trillion by 2050 without a breakthrough.
We need unprecedented collaboration among industry, government, patient advocacy and academic research communities to focus on moving the needle. This means recognizing that the public and private sectors have complementary roles to play and our end goals should be addressing prevention and disease prevalence first.
We are developing many of the tools we need to prevent and to fight disease, but must constantly discover new ones. As in so many other areas in addition to health care, we have work to do to shift our collective attitude from one that's partisan in nature to one that keeps the focus on the individual patient.
If we make this the focus of the health care debate in the next few years, everybody wins.
Howard Dean is the former governor of Vermont and a former Democratic candidate for President of the United States. Dean currently serves as a senior advisor at Dentons, however the views here do not represent the firm or its clients.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 14 hours ago.
When President Obama delivers his final State of the Union address tonight, he will do so against the backdrop of two realities in health care. The first is that more Americans have health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. While much has succeeded in this regard, our work in ensuring access to high-quality services is far from over.
The second reality is that we're living in a society of rising disease prevalence, unsustainable health care costs and the near-certainty that health care, as a public policy issue, will continue to be contentious in Washington and on the campaign trail.
In 2016, it's time to change our collective attitude.
Every day, 10,000 Americans turn 65. While many of us older types are staying active longer, the reality is that chronic disease will bring about systematic cost pressures unlike anything we've seen. Today, we're spending $3.1 trillion on health care, up more than five percent since 2013. The amount we spend will only increase as more Americans require more hospitalizations and in-depth care for longer periods of time.
Unfortunately, we've come to accept disease as an unavoidable part of life. An estimated 5.3 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease. In 2015, more than 1.6 million people were diagnosed with cancer. An overwhelming 29 million people in the U.S. live with diabetes, 9.3 percent of our population.
We are making progress in key areas. In 2015 alone, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 45 new therapeutic products. The public and private sectors have significantly pursued new research initiatives, with the NIH investing more than $30 billion and the biopharmaceutical industry investing more than $51 billion in 2014.
For much of the pain and suffering, the success stories exist. President Carter recently showed us the human potential of immunotherapy treatment in cancer care, which could fundamentally change how we treat various forms of cancer. In fact, at the beginning of 2014, there were nearly 15 million cancer survivors from over 14 forms of the disease. According to the American Cancer Society, the number of cancer survivors will increase to 19 million by 2024. Without medical discovery and advancements in cancer research, this number would be significantly lower. But even with billions of dollars invested in innovative research, we're leaving many patients behind.
Consider the example of cystic fibrosis. While we've seen significant progress in recent years, the 30,000 patients who have CF are counting on new discoveries to help extend and improve their lives.
Alzheimer's disease warrants equal attention. A report by the Alzheimer's Association found that costs are projected to increase to more than $1.1 trillion by 2050 without a breakthrough.
We need unprecedented collaboration among industry, government, patient advocacy and academic research communities to focus on moving the needle. This means recognizing that the public and private sectors have complementary roles to play and our end goals should be addressing prevention and disease prevalence first.
We are developing many of the tools we need to prevent and to fight disease, but must constantly discover new ones. As in so many other areas in addition to health care, we have work to do to shift our collective attitude from one that's partisan in nature to one that keeps the focus on the individual patient.
If we make this the focus of the health care debate in the next few years, everybody wins.
Howard Dean is the former governor of Vermont and a former Democratic candidate for President of the United States. Dean currently serves as a senior advisor at Dentons, however the views here do not represent the firm or its clients.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 14 hours ago.
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Amityville Village Board rescinds resolutions that provide health insurance for some former officials
The Amityville Village Board voted 3-2 Monday night to rescind two decades-old resolutions that provide health insurance for some former officials, but stopped short of actually cutting the benefits.
Reported by Newsday 14 hours ago.
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Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin Planning to Shut Down State’s Health Exchange
FRANKFORT, Ky.—Kentucky’s new Republican administration is moving forward with plans to shut down the state’s health insurance exchange, becoming the first state to cut ties with one of the key pieces of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law because …
Reported by Epoch Times 12 hours ago.
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4 Ways The State Of The Union Got Stronger Under Obama
President Barack Obama delivers his final State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, and this speech won’t be like the ones he has given previously.
In the past, Obama has used the address primarily to sketch out a specific, point-by-point agenda for the coming year. This time, aides have said, the president will be taking a broader view.
That will mean, in part, taking stock of where he has taken the country in the last seven years. Obama is poised to make the case that the country is a better place than it was on his first Inauguration Day -- not perfect, for sure, but moving in the right direction.
Republicans, who routinely call the Obama presidency a "disaster," won’t believe it. And neither may most Americans, given that majorities consistently tell pollsters they think the U.S. is on the “wrong track.”
But when it comes to four key areas of domestic policy -- the economy, health care, the federal budget and the environment -- Obama will have the better argument.
*THE ECONOMY*
The economy was in free fall when Obama became president, shedding more than 800,000 jobs a month. One year later, the job market was growing again, and it has been ever since. The private sector has now been adding jobs for 70 consecutive months. That's a record. And last month the government's payroll report suggested a net gain of 292,000 jobs, which is a lot. ("Yabba dabba doo" was how University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers responded to the news on Twitter.)
One of the best ways to measure the job market is to use the employment-to-population ratio, and to focus exclusively on “prime age” workers -- that is, people between the ages of 18 and 54 -- in order to account for demographic effects, at least in part. That ratio fell through early 2010, leveled off for about a year, and then began a steady rise.It’s now at 77.2 percent. That is higher than it was when Obama took office, and higher still than it was a few months later, as the effects of the Great Recession were still rippling through the economy and before Obama’s economic policies could have any impact. It hasn’t reached its pre-recession peak but, then, it was a really, really bad recession.
As Paul Krugman noted on Monday, presidents are rarely as responsible for economic performance as everybody thinks. Booms follow busts; that’s the nature of business cycle. But Obama’s policies certainly didn’t hurt the economy, as his critics predicted they would, and the Recovery Act helped -- by financing relief payments, filling empty state and local government coffers, financing infrastructure and giving tax breaks to the poor and middle class.The American economy still has major weaknesses. As organizations like the Economic Policy Institute have pointed out repeatedly, wages aren't rising that quickly. The poor and middle class have fallen way behind the rich. But average Americans have had stagnant incomes for basically three decades, except for a brief interlude during the 1990s boom. Obama's policies, which included higher taxes on the wealthy and more money for programs that help the working poor, at least mitigated the problem.*HEALTH CARE*
Conservatives say the Affordable Care Act has been a “train wreck.” That’s not consistent with the available evidence.
As of last year, the percentage of nonelderly Americans without health insurance was 10.5 percent, according to the latest available statistics from the federal government’s National Health Insurance Survey. That’s not just lower than it was before the health care law took effect, and lower than it was at the beginning of Obama’s term -- that’s the lowest this survey has ever recorded.Insurance isn’t the same as access to care and plenty of people with coverage say they still struggle with medical bills, whether because insurance premiums are too high or because they can’t keep up with out-of-pocket expenses. But evidence from the NHIS and a large body of academic research, some recent and some older, suggest that overall access has improved because of the health care law.
Meanwhile, overall health care costs were rising at historically low rates until last year, when, as predicted, the sudden expansion of insurance coverage bumped up consumption. Even with that bump, inflation looks nothing like the double-digit increases of previous years. Oh, and deadly hospital errors are on the decline. Experts disagree about what role the Affordable Care Act and other policy changes played in this improvement but, again, they certainly didn’t hurt and they probably helped.
*THE FEDERAL BUDGET*
The deficit was soaring when Obama came into office, partly because the recession caused tax revenues to plunge and partly because the government deliberately passed new spending and tax cuts -- without offsetting revenue -- in order to stop the job losses and start a recovery. But the deficit peaked in 2009 and has been coming down ever since. As a percentage of gross domestic product, the deficit is now lower than it was in 2008.One way to appreciate the impact is to see how the projections of future deficits have changed since that time. One calculation by the Democratic staff of the Senate Budget Committee suggested that, between 2010 and 2014, deficit projections came down enough to save the government an extra $4.7 trillion over the course of the next decade.
That figure alone doesn’t tell the whole story. One reason for the lower deficits is reduced spending on important investments in research and infrastructure. Over time, that could hurt the country more than the extra deficit spending would have. The 2014 figures also don’t reflect last month’s agreement to make some temporary tax cuts permanent.
Even with the improvement, the country faces a serious long-term financing problem. Projections suggest the deficit will climb in future years, putting an ever greater strain on federal finances -- and, eventually, the economy. But things looked worse when Obama was first coming into office.
*THE ENVIRONMENT*
The planet is still warming, but carbon emissions in the U.S. are declining. As with the economy and health care and the deficit, that reflects a whole bunch of factors, many of which have nothing to do with Obama. The recession, for example, played a role: When the economy slows down, both businesses and individuals end up consuming less energy, reducing the output of greenhouse gases.But government policies have likely helped. One place to see it is in the changes in fuel economy for vehicles, which the graph above shows. That reflects greater demand for efficient cars, obviously, but it also reflects tighter government requirements on mileage. Another is energy production from renewable energy sources -- which crept up slowly until around 2008, at which point it started climbing more quickly.
Some of the improvement is a product of changes that predate Obama. But some are the result of policies he enacted, frequently over the strong objection of his critics.
* * *
By themselves, these things don’t mean that Obama’s presidency has been a success -- or that honest people on either end of the ideological spectrum can’t find legitimate grounds for criticisms.
Plenty of liberals say Obama’s reforms haven’t done enough -- that unemployment could be even lower or wages could be higher, or that the changes to the health care system haven’t done enough to improve access and affordability. They look at the Recovery Act and the Affordable Care Act, along with the fiscal agreements that Obama made with the Republican Congress in later years, and see all kinds of concessions they think Obama didn't need to make.
More conservative critics say the trade-offs of Obama’s policies -- bigger government, higher taxes -- have left the country worse off. They point out, for example, that many young and healthy people now pay higher premiums because insurers can't sell skimpy policies or base pricing on medical risk. As for the economy, they say it would be performing much better if not for Obama's new regulations on everything from emissions to the financial sector.
And that’s to say nothing of foreign policy, where Obama's actions elicit equally passionate criticisms. But using some of the most basic, straightforward criteria about domestic policy, Obama can say honestly that the state of the union is strong -- or, at least, stronger than it was when he took office seven years ago.
*Also on HuffPost:*-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 11 hours ago.
In the past, Obama has used the address primarily to sketch out a specific, point-by-point agenda for the coming year. This time, aides have said, the president will be taking a broader view.
That will mean, in part, taking stock of where he has taken the country in the last seven years. Obama is poised to make the case that the country is a better place than it was on his first Inauguration Day -- not perfect, for sure, but moving in the right direction.
Republicans, who routinely call the Obama presidency a "disaster," won’t believe it. And neither may most Americans, given that majorities consistently tell pollsters they think the U.S. is on the “wrong track.”
But when it comes to four key areas of domestic policy -- the economy, health care, the federal budget and the environment -- Obama will have the better argument.
*THE ECONOMY*
The economy was in free fall when Obama became president, shedding more than 800,000 jobs a month. One year later, the job market was growing again, and it has been ever since. The private sector has now been adding jobs for 70 consecutive months. That's a record. And last month the government's payroll report suggested a net gain of 292,000 jobs, which is a lot. ("Yabba dabba doo" was how University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers responded to the news on Twitter.)
One of the best ways to measure the job market is to use the employment-to-population ratio, and to focus exclusively on “prime age” workers -- that is, people between the ages of 18 and 54 -- in order to account for demographic effects, at least in part. That ratio fell through early 2010, leveled off for about a year, and then began a steady rise.It’s now at 77.2 percent. That is higher than it was when Obama took office, and higher still than it was a few months later, as the effects of the Great Recession were still rippling through the economy and before Obama’s economic policies could have any impact. It hasn’t reached its pre-recession peak but, then, it was a really, really bad recession.
As Paul Krugman noted on Monday, presidents are rarely as responsible for economic performance as everybody thinks. Booms follow busts; that’s the nature of business cycle. But Obama’s policies certainly didn’t hurt the economy, as his critics predicted they would, and the Recovery Act helped -- by financing relief payments, filling empty state and local government coffers, financing infrastructure and giving tax breaks to the poor and middle class.The American economy still has major weaknesses. As organizations like the Economic Policy Institute have pointed out repeatedly, wages aren't rising that quickly. The poor and middle class have fallen way behind the rich. But average Americans have had stagnant incomes for basically three decades, except for a brief interlude during the 1990s boom. Obama's policies, which included higher taxes on the wealthy and more money for programs that help the working poor, at least mitigated the problem.*HEALTH CARE*
Conservatives say the Affordable Care Act has been a “train wreck.” That’s not consistent with the available evidence.
As of last year, the percentage of nonelderly Americans without health insurance was 10.5 percent, according to the latest available statistics from the federal government’s National Health Insurance Survey. That’s not just lower than it was before the health care law took effect, and lower than it was at the beginning of Obama’s term -- that’s the lowest this survey has ever recorded.Insurance isn’t the same as access to care and plenty of people with coverage say they still struggle with medical bills, whether because insurance premiums are too high or because they can’t keep up with out-of-pocket expenses. But evidence from the NHIS and a large body of academic research, some recent and some older, suggest that overall access has improved because of the health care law.
Meanwhile, overall health care costs were rising at historically low rates until last year, when, as predicted, the sudden expansion of insurance coverage bumped up consumption. Even with that bump, inflation looks nothing like the double-digit increases of previous years. Oh, and deadly hospital errors are on the decline. Experts disagree about what role the Affordable Care Act and other policy changes played in this improvement but, again, they certainly didn’t hurt and they probably helped.
*THE FEDERAL BUDGET*
The deficit was soaring when Obama came into office, partly because the recession caused tax revenues to plunge and partly because the government deliberately passed new spending and tax cuts -- without offsetting revenue -- in order to stop the job losses and start a recovery. But the deficit peaked in 2009 and has been coming down ever since. As a percentage of gross domestic product, the deficit is now lower than it was in 2008.One way to appreciate the impact is to see how the projections of future deficits have changed since that time. One calculation by the Democratic staff of the Senate Budget Committee suggested that, between 2010 and 2014, deficit projections came down enough to save the government an extra $4.7 trillion over the course of the next decade.
That figure alone doesn’t tell the whole story. One reason for the lower deficits is reduced spending on important investments in research and infrastructure. Over time, that could hurt the country more than the extra deficit spending would have. The 2014 figures also don’t reflect last month’s agreement to make some temporary tax cuts permanent.
Even with the improvement, the country faces a serious long-term financing problem. Projections suggest the deficit will climb in future years, putting an ever greater strain on federal finances -- and, eventually, the economy. But things looked worse when Obama was first coming into office.
*THE ENVIRONMENT*
The planet is still warming, but carbon emissions in the U.S. are declining. As with the economy and health care and the deficit, that reflects a whole bunch of factors, many of which have nothing to do with Obama. The recession, for example, played a role: When the economy slows down, both businesses and individuals end up consuming less energy, reducing the output of greenhouse gases.But government policies have likely helped. One place to see it is in the changes in fuel economy for vehicles, which the graph above shows. That reflects greater demand for efficient cars, obviously, but it also reflects tighter government requirements on mileage. Another is energy production from renewable energy sources -- which crept up slowly until around 2008, at which point it started climbing more quickly.
Some of the improvement is a product of changes that predate Obama. But some are the result of policies he enacted, frequently over the strong objection of his critics.
* * *
By themselves, these things don’t mean that Obama’s presidency has been a success -- or that honest people on either end of the ideological spectrum can’t find legitimate grounds for criticisms.
Plenty of liberals say Obama’s reforms haven’t done enough -- that unemployment could be even lower or wages could be higher, or that the changes to the health care system haven’t done enough to improve access and affordability. They look at the Recovery Act and the Affordable Care Act, along with the fiscal agreements that Obama made with the Republican Congress in later years, and see all kinds of concessions they think Obama didn't need to make.
More conservative critics say the trade-offs of Obama’s policies -- bigger government, higher taxes -- have left the country worse off. They point out, for example, that many young and healthy people now pay higher premiums because insurers can't sell skimpy policies or base pricing on medical risk. As for the economy, they say it would be performing much better if not for Obama's new regulations on everything from emissions to the financial sector.
And that’s to say nothing of foreign policy, where Obama's actions elicit equally passionate criticisms. But using some of the most basic, straightforward criteria about domestic policy, Obama can say honestly that the state of the union is strong -- or, at least, stronger than it was when he took office seven years ago.
*Also on HuffPost:*-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 11 hours ago.
↧
The 2015 State Of The Union Drinking Game
Well, everyone, it's January of 2016 and it's time for the State of the Union address. This year it's President Barack Obama's last such speech before a joint session of Congress, a fact that will greatly please the president's critics, though probably not as much as it will please the POTUS himself.
But for one last time, the pundits that chronicled the Obama era will polish up their State of the Union hot takes, all of which were prewritten over the past weekend.
We know how this goes. The president will make an entrance, stroll down the aisle shaking hands, ascend to the dais, and with a friendly acknowledgment of the vice president and the speaker of the House, launch into a lengthy oration that -- if history is our guide -- will contain one really bad joke, the kind your dad makes where everyone groans amiably. There will be ovations and snubs, sleepy elderly lawmakers and feisty young firebrands, call-outs and camera cut-aways. And for one member of the Cabinet, there's a potentially exciting new opportunity if the contrivance that I like to refer to as "The Cylons Nuke Caprica Scenario" unfolds.
In times past, I've noted that the State of the Union address, as an oration, is ritually oversold as something that really matters deeply to the course of our politics. Political science teaches us that presidential speeches tend to not move or shape public opinion, that when presidents make big speeches they focus on policies that are broadly popular in the first place, and that anything else should be seen as a signal to the opposition party about the policies over which the president would like to negotiate.
But this time, you can throw that out the window because it's Obama's last year, and the big battles in Congress have all been put to bed. So this year, the president has said that this address might break with the traditions of the past.
That could mean many things. Maybe he'll invite the cast of "Hamilton" to sing. Maybe he will, as has been reported, simply "focus on issues 'beyond the next election' and skip the traditional list of the year's legislative goals." Maybe Donald Trump will join him to reveal that the two of them have been engaged in an eight-year-long situationist prank about democracy in the age of late-stage capitalism.
Whatever it is, our drinking game will have you prepared for every conceivable possibility.
***
*What Is The State Of The Union?*
Take a sip
Obama says, “The state of the union is strong.”
Take a swig
Obama says, “The state of the union is continuing to improve.”
Pound a shot
Obama says, “The state of the union ... it's aiight, right? It's aiight.”
Finish the bottle
Obama says, “Oh, man, who am I kidding, y'all are about to elect a president who openly declares his fondness for Vladimir Putin, aren't you? Aren't you? See, I knew it.”
*Hot State Of The Union Topics*
Take a sip
Obama discusses climate change, immigration or gun control.
Take a swig
Obama discusses the next phase in the battle against ISIS, income inequality, or early childhood education
Pound a shot
Obama announces he’ll re-up on trying to close Gitmo, or a new focus on North Korea.
Finish the bottle
Obama admits that he's "just way, way into SoulCycle right now."
*State Of The Union Themes*
Take a sip
“I'm here to talk about what we need to do together, so that we can deepen the progress we've made in the years ahead.”
Take a swig
“The next big challenge before us is to ensure that every individual has an opportunity to influence this country's future, not just billionaires.”
Pound a shot
“We've provided millions of Americans with health insurance. Maybe focus on that instead of your lost congressional seats? Best I've got, guys, best I've got.”
Finish the bottle
“I didn't become president to see the middle class lose ground, and I surely didn't become president to see every new restaurant trot out another tired 'small plates' menu.”
*Reminder Of Accomplishments*
Take a sip
Fourteen million jobs over 70 consecutive months.
Take a swig
Iran nuclear treaty.
Pound a shot
No fence-jumpers have made it inside the White House this year.
Finish the bottle
Oregon's wildlife refuges have gotten a lot more edgy and exciting.
*A 2016 Endorsement*
Take a sip
Obama largely sticks to an even, neutral tone, generically optimistic about the quality of the Democratic race and its candidates.
Take a swig
Obama tips a hat to Hillary, depicts the challenges ahead as ones that require a capable manager of institutions, good at working with opposition.
Pound a shot
Obama feels the Bern a little bit, talks up the need for a wholesale revitalization of the party's institutions and leaders.
Finish the bottle
Obama: "Actually ... how about O'Malley?"
*Obama Gets Misty*
Take a sip
Obama sheds tears again for the victims of gun violence in America.
Take a swig
Obama's eyes moisten as he looks at his pal Joe Biden and reflects on everything he and his family have been through this year.
Pound a shot
Obama gets verklempt because he misses John Boehner, so, so much.
Finish the bottle
Wow, who knew Obama was such a big David Bowie fan?
*Audience Reactions*
Take a sip
Republicans find some way of applauding sarcastically.
Take a swig
Democrats fail to spot the obvious moment where Obama thought they'd totally clap.
Pound a shot
There's a rare moment where both sides join in the ovation.
Finish the bottle
There's an even rarer moment where the speech moves debate-weary opponents to start making out with each other vigorously.
*Joe Biden And Paul Ryan*
Take a sip
Biden and Ryan are all smiles and glad handshakes, a brief moment of conspiratorial whispering and there's laughs at someone's ribald joke.
Take a swig
Biden wants to be real good friends, like a devoted puppy, but Ryan has got his "I gotta take this serious, sorry" face on.
Pound a shot
Biden and Ryan discuss how they only got as far as vice president but they totally could have been contenders, man.
Finish the bottle
Ryan suddenly jumps up, pulls off his mask and WOW! It was Ben Carson, all this time!
*The Unexpected*
Take a sip
Obama makes explicit endorsement of Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Take a swig
Obama makes explicit endorsement of Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Pound a shot
Obama announces that he's issuing an executive order allowing him to run for a third term.
Finish the bottle
Obama announces that he's issuing an even stranger and impossible-to-believe executive order allowing him to run for a third term as a Republican. "They could use the help," he says.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 11 hours ago.
But for one last time, the pundits that chronicled the Obama era will polish up their State of the Union hot takes, all of which were prewritten over the past weekend.
We know how this goes. The president will make an entrance, stroll down the aisle shaking hands, ascend to the dais, and with a friendly acknowledgment of the vice president and the speaker of the House, launch into a lengthy oration that -- if history is our guide -- will contain one really bad joke, the kind your dad makes where everyone groans amiably. There will be ovations and snubs, sleepy elderly lawmakers and feisty young firebrands, call-outs and camera cut-aways. And for one member of the Cabinet, there's a potentially exciting new opportunity if the contrivance that I like to refer to as "The Cylons Nuke Caprica Scenario" unfolds.
In times past, I've noted that the State of the Union address, as an oration, is ritually oversold as something that really matters deeply to the course of our politics. Political science teaches us that presidential speeches tend to not move or shape public opinion, that when presidents make big speeches they focus on policies that are broadly popular in the first place, and that anything else should be seen as a signal to the opposition party about the policies over which the president would like to negotiate.
But this time, you can throw that out the window because it's Obama's last year, and the big battles in Congress have all been put to bed. So this year, the president has said that this address might break with the traditions of the past.
That could mean many things. Maybe he'll invite the cast of "Hamilton" to sing. Maybe he will, as has been reported, simply "focus on issues 'beyond the next election' and skip the traditional list of the year's legislative goals." Maybe Donald Trump will join him to reveal that the two of them have been engaged in an eight-year-long situationist prank about democracy in the age of late-stage capitalism.
Whatever it is, our drinking game will have you prepared for every conceivable possibility.
***
*What Is The State Of The Union?*
Take a sip
Obama says, “The state of the union is strong.”
Take a swig
Obama says, “The state of the union is continuing to improve.”
Pound a shot
Obama says, “The state of the union ... it's aiight, right? It's aiight.”
Finish the bottle
Obama says, “Oh, man, who am I kidding, y'all are about to elect a president who openly declares his fondness for Vladimir Putin, aren't you? Aren't you? See, I knew it.”
*Hot State Of The Union Topics*
Take a sip
Obama discusses climate change, immigration or gun control.
Take a swig
Obama discusses the next phase in the battle against ISIS, income inequality, or early childhood education
Pound a shot
Obama announces he’ll re-up on trying to close Gitmo, or a new focus on North Korea.
Finish the bottle
Obama admits that he's "just way, way into SoulCycle right now."
*State Of The Union Themes*
Take a sip
“I'm here to talk about what we need to do together, so that we can deepen the progress we've made in the years ahead.”
Take a swig
“The next big challenge before us is to ensure that every individual has an opportunity to influence this country's future, not just billionaires.”
Pound a shot
“We've provided millions of Americans with health insurance. Maybe focus on that instead of your lost congressional seats? Best I've got, guys, best I've got.”
Finish the bottle
“I didn't become president to see the middle class lose ground, and I surely didn't become president to see every new restaurant trot out another tired 'small plates' menu.”
*Reminder Of Accomplishments*
Take a sip
Fourteen million jobs over 70 consecutive months.
Take a swig
Iran nuclear treaty.
Pound a shot
No fence-jumpers have made it inside the White House this year.
Finish the bottle
Oregon's wildlife refuges have gotten a lot more edgy and exciting.
*A 2016 Endorsement*
Take a sip
Obama largely sticks to an even, neutral tone, generically optimistic about the quality of the Democratic race and its candidates.
Take a swig
Obama tips a hat to Hillary, depicts the challenges ahead as ones that require a capable manager of institutions, good at working with opposition.
Pound a shot
Obama feels the Bern a little bit, talks up the need for a wholesale revitalization of the party's institutions and leaders.
Finish the bottle
Obama: "Actually ... how about O'Malley?"
*Obama Gets Misty*
Take a sip
Obama sheds tears again for the victims of gun violence in America.
Take a swig
Obama's eyes moisten as he looks at his pal Joe Biden and reflects on everything he and his family have been through this year.
Pound a shot
Obama gets verklempt because he misses John Boehner, so, so much.
Finish the bottle
Wow, who knew Obama was such a big David Bowie fan?
*Audience Reactions*
Take a sip
Republicans find some way of applauding sarcastically.
Take a swig
Democrats fail to spot the obvious moment where Obama thought they'd totally clap.
Pound a shot
There's a rare moment where both sides join in the ovation.
Finish the bottle
There's an even rarer moment where the speech moves debate-weary opponents to start making out with each other vigorously.
*Joe Biden And Paul Ryan*
Take a sip
Biden and Ryan are all smiles and glad handshakes, a brief moment of conspiratorial whispering and there's laughs at someone's ribald joke.
Take a swig
Biden wants to be real good friends, like a devoted puppy, but Ryan has got his "I gotta take this serious, sorry" face on.
Pound a shot
Biden and Ryan discuss how they only got as far as vice president but they totally could have been contenders, man.
Finish the bottle
Ryan suddenly jumps up, pulls off his mask and WOW! It was Ben Carson, all this time!
*The Unexpected*
Take a sip
Obama makes explicit endorsement of Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Take a swig
Obama makes explicit endorsement of Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Pound a shot
Obama announces that he's issuing an executive order allowing him to run for a third term.
Finish the bottle
Obama announces that he's issuing an even stranger and impossible-to-believe executive order allowing him to run for a third term as a Republican. "They could use the help," he says.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 11 hours ago.
↧
↧
Freeway Insurance Urges Uninsured Consumers to Avoid Last-Minute Shopping for Health Insurance
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With the 2016 open enrollment period coming to a close on Jan. 31, Freeway Insurance brokers are encouraging uninsured consumers to get informed about health coverage options and avoid penalties.
Reported by Business Wire 10 hours ago.
↧
Bridgewater-Raritan teachers, school board plan mediation session
The so-called "Cadillac tax" on premium health insurance is no longer an issue, says union president Steve Beatty.
Reported by NJ.com 7 hours ago.
↧
The Internet of Things Era Is Here. Is Washington Ready?
When I first walked onto the showroom floor of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) I was simply overwhelmed. From cages filled with flying drones (including one that could fly a human) to long lines of people waiting to try the new Oculus Rift, it was clear that CES represented a glimpse into the future. There were thousands of displays and demonstrations of products, but Samsung's exhibit caught and retained my attention because it featured real world examples of the Internet of Things (IoT).
In the last 42 years the Internet has primarily been used to connect computers, share information, and its resources were accessed via a mouse and a keyboard. It was evident walking through the Samsung exhibit that this was no longer the case. The Internet has become connected to more and more things in our everyday life and we are only beginning to realize the opportunities and challenges that it presents.
The IoT has the ability to better monitor, track, and improve people's health. Wearable technology can send real time information to doctors or it can simply be a tool to beat your friend's step count. For many people, voice commands are fun and useful, but to people with physical disabilities they offer new ways to complete tasks that were previously impossible.
At the same time the IoT presents new policy challenges. What would you do if your car told the insurance company that your driving had become more erratic? Or worse, your refrigerator told your health insurance company that you have more chocolate in it than usual! Our new technologies have the capability to gather mass amounts of data on us and how we live our daily lives. For this very reason the issue of privacy has become central in the debate over the Internet of Things.
To date, Congress has held 3 hearings that specifically focused on the IoT with the first one held just this past February by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation at the requested of a bipartisan group of Senators. The hearing was hosted by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and they heard witness statements from Justin Brookman (Center for Democracy & Technology), Michael Abbott (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), Douglas Davis (Intel), Lance Donny (OnFarm), and Adam Thierer (Mercatus Center at George Mason University). Two main issues that were discussed included the Internet of Thing's transformative impact on the manufacturing industry and the protection of personal information.
Up to now a total of 54 members of Congress have spoken about the IoT with mentions in 74 press releases, 65 tweets, 33 Facebook posts, and 4 bills on the issue. Also, there is a Congressional Caucus on the Internet of Things chaired by Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA1) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA49) with 20 members which is encouraging.
With 3,600 companies launching 20,000 products that relate to the Internet of Things last week at CES our world is becoming interconnected at an astonishing pace. We need to make sure Washington is ready to address the associated policy challenges.
Dan Coviello contributed to this blog post.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 6 hours ago.
In the last 42 years the Internet has primarily been used to connect computers, share information, and its resources were accessed via a mouse and a keyboard. It was evident walking through the Samsung exhibit that this was no longer the case. The Internet has become connected to more and more things in our everyday life and we are only beginning to realize the opportunities and challenges that it presents.
The IoT has the ability to better monitor, track, and improve people's health. Wearable technology can send real time information to doctors or it can simply be a tool to beat your friend's step count. For many people, voice commands are fun and useful, but to people with physical disabilities they offer new ways to complete tasks that were previously impossible.
At the same time the IoT presents new policy challenges. What would you do if your car told the insurance company that your driving had become more erratic? Or worse, your refrigerator told your health insurance company that you have more chocolate in it than usual! Our new technologies have the capability to gather mass amounts of data on us and how we live our daily lives. For this very reason the issue of privacy has become central in the debate over the Internet of Things.
To date, Congress has held 3 hearings that specifically focused on the IoT with the first one held just this past February by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation at the requested of a bipartisan group of Senators. The hearing was hosted by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and they heard witness statements from Justin Brookman (Center for Democracy & Technology), Michael Abbott (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), Douglas Davis (Intel), Lance Donny (OnFarm), and Adam Thierer (Mercatus Center at George Mason University). Two main issues that were discussed included the Internet of Thing's transformative impact on the manufacturing industry and the protection of personal information.
Up to now a total of 54 members of Congress have spoken about the IoT with mentions in 74 press releases, 65 tweets, 33 Facebook posts, and 4 bills on the issue. Also, there is a Congressional Caucus on the Internet of Things chaired by Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA1) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA49) with 20 members which is encouraging.
With 3,600 companies launching 20,000 products that relate to the Internet of Things last week at CES our world is becoming interconnected at an astonishing pace. We need to make sure Washington is ready to address the associated policy challenges.
Dan Coviello contributed to this blog post.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 6 hours ago.
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More Pages to Explore .....
