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The First Week Of Early Voting Bodes Well For Democrat Jon Ossoff

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After five days of early voting in the special election for Georgia’s 6th congressional district, Democratic voter turnout has significantly outpaced that of Republicans.

That is a good sign for Democrats hoping that the surge in liberal enthusiasm after the election of President Donald Trump will be enough to elect 30-year-old candidate Jon Ossoff. The seat opened up when Trump named former Rep. Tom Price to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Of the more than 8,100 people who have voted so far in the suburban Atlanta district, 44 percent were Democrats and 23 percent were Republicans, according to an analysis by Michael McDonald, a political science professor and election specialist at the University of Florida.


#GA06 earlyvote (absentee and in-person) update: 8,110 voted as of 3/31 pic.twitter.com/EjsxQo3HoS

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) April 1, 2017



@DKElections I've got:
Dem 3591
Rep 1880
None 2639@Nate_Cohn has different numbers

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) April 1, 2017


McDonald identified Democrats and Republicans based on the last primary each early voter participated in, information that can be found in state voter files. The remaining voters ― roughly one-third of the total so far ― have no record of primary voting in Georgia. 

Although voters’ preferences can change from primary to primary, making that data imperfect, it is the most reliable indicator of partisanship in a state with nonpartisan voter registration.

McDonald’s end-of-week estimates are consistent with the findings of New York Times election expert Nate Cohn for the first day of early voting. Using a slightly different methodology, Cohn found that Democrats constituted 60 percent of voters of those who voted on Monday, compared with 28 percent of Republicans.

It is important to note of course that early voting is not a rock-solid indicator of final election outcomes. Early general-election voting patterns in North Carolina and Florida, for example, appeared to favor Hillary Clinton, but she ended up losing both states in November.

And early voting in Georgia’s 6th district continues until April 14. Election Day itself is April 18.

In Georgia’s jungle primary system*,* Ossoff faces many Democratic and Republican challengers. A candidate can win outright in the first round by capturing 50 percent of the vote. Short of that, the top two contenders proceed to a runoff election on June 20.

Democrats across the country have seized on the race as an early opportunity to inflict damage on Republicans after Trump’s election. Ossoff’s candidacy has attracted millions of dollars in donations, including $1 million alone from the readers of liberal news site Daily Kos.

Television star Alyssa Milano has done her part to pitch in for Ossoff, offering early voters rides to the polls.

Ossoff is campaigning on standard mainstream Democratic priorities. On his campaign website, he declares his commitment to containing health insurance premiums, increasing the minimum wage, and fighting gender and racial discrimination in pay.

Although the 6th district has voted Republican consistently in the past, it is home to a more educated, wealthier type of Republican voter that has typically been more averse to Trump’s populist style. While Tom Price cruised to reelection by a 23-point margin in November, Trump defeated Clinton in the district by a mere percentage point.

-- 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 20 hours ago.

Obamacare Implosion Now? Since Obama Siphoned GSE Dividends To Prop Up, Can Trump Simply Halt 1st Qtr Sweep?

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Earlier this month, Harvard Ph.D. Jerome Corsi of InfoWars (@jerome_corsi) and a CPA "who worked for two years for a major U.S. accounting firm as an outside auditor for Freddie Mac," confirmed a 2012 scheme hatched by the Obama administration to funnel hundreds of billions in dividends from Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prop up the failing Obamacare program - by paying subsidies to insurers to remain in the system.

If you need to catch up on it, read the InfoWars article above or watch this 18 minute video:

  

The conclusion reached by Corsi and others is that this was probably *illegal*.

In fact, House Republicans actually sued the Obama Administration in 2014 over the fact that the subsidies to insurers weren't appropriated by congress *and won*, which the Obama administration appealed. As Zerohedge and the Atlanta Journal Constitution pointed out last week, the Trump administration has until May 22nd to decide whether or not to pursue the appeal:



In 2014, House Republicans sued the Obama administration over the constitutionality of the cost-sharing reduction payments, which had not been appropriated by Congress. The lawmakers won the lawsuit, and the Obama administration appealed it. Late last year, with a new administration on the other end of the suit, the House sought to pause the proceedings — with a deadline for a status update in late May. -AJC



And a ZeroHedge analysis:



Of course, any decision to remove those subsidies would likely result in yet another massive round of premium hikes and further withdrawals from the already crippled exchanges where an astounding number of counties across the country have already been cut to just 1 health insurance provider.  And, as we've pointed out before, higher rates = lower participation = deterioration of risk pool = higher rates....and the cycle just repeats until it eventually collapses. -ZeroHedge



Meanwhile, President Trump has made several Tweets since the Ryancare debacle in congress:



ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2017





The Democrats will make a deal with me on healthcare as soon as ObamaCare folds - not long. Do not worry, we are in very good shape!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017



But wait, could it happen even sooner? Former Blackrock portfolio manager Ed Dowd may be on to something...



By not long...do you literally mean weeks as you order the stop of the illegal Fannie/Freddy dividend sweep into Treasury thus ensuring ????? https://t.co/VEQ4bkgduG

— Ed (@DowdEdward) March 28, 2017





Since MSM won't report #Fanniegate all #Trump has to do is stop the steal and Obamacareliterally implodes ???? Within weeks. Watch Dems run!???? https://t.co/vLzeJQbEhR

— Ed (@DowdEdward) March 26, 2017



Simple question: what if Trump's Treasury simply stopped the illegal dividend sweep NOW? *It is the end of the 1st quarter, after all...*

Not only would it force the MSM to cover Obama's 2012 scheme to siphon funds from Fannie and Freddie, the stage would be set for far more sensible healthcare solutions from lawmakers who aren't simply shilling for the industry.Content originally generated at *iBankCoin.com **** Follow on Twitter *@ZeroPointNow* Reported by Zero Hedge 9 hours ago.

Govt mulls health insurance cover for weavers under ESIC

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The government is considering a proposal to bring handloom and powerloom weavers under the health insurance scheme of Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). Reported by DNA 7 hours ago.

Updates Now Implemented For Customers Using ez1095 ACA Software To Process Correction Forms

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ez1095 Affordable Care Act software from Halfpricesoft.com now offers improved correction, regular and replacement form help links with detailed instructions. Download and test drive for compatibility at http://www.halfpricesoft.com.

Dallas, TX (PRWEB) April 02, 2017

Developer’s at Halfpricesoft.com have put new correction and replacement form help links in place to assist Ez1095 ACA software customers. The guides and customer support are all part of the cost in the software. There are never additional fees to potential or current customers for customer support help.

“The latest ez1095 ACA software has implemented new form help links for customer ease of use and peace of mind.” said Dr. Ge, the founder of Halfpricesoft.com.

How to know if your company needs to file 1095 forms:· if you are an employer with 50 or more full-time employees
· if you have fewer than 50 employees, but are a member of an ownership group with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees, you are subject to the rules for large employers.
· if you are a self-insured employer

Priced from just $195 per installation, ($295 for efile version) ez1095 supports unlimited company accounts on the same machine at no additional cost.

Customers that need to efile form 1095 and 1094 can download and try out this ACA software from Halfpricsoft.com before purchasing with no obligation by visiting http://www.halfpricesoft.com/aca-1095/form-1095-software-free-download.asp

The main features include but are not limited to :· Peace of mind offered with new test scenario for efiling 1094 and 1095 ACA forms
· Correction and replacement form filing available
· Print ACA Form 1095-C, 1094-C, 1095-B and 1094-B on white paper for recipients and IRS with inkjet or laser printer.
· PDF print 1095-C and 1095-B recipient copies
· Efile version available at additional cost.
· Support unlimited companies.
· Support unlimited number of recipients.
· Print unlimited number of 1095 and 1094 forms.
· Fast data import feature
· Print Form 1095 C: Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage Insurance
· Print Form 1094 C: Transmittal of Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage Information Returns
· Print Form 1095-B: Health Coverage
· Print Form 1094-B: Transmittal of Health Coverage Information Return

ez1095 software is compatible Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP and other Windows systems. Designed with simplicity in mind, ez1095 software is easy to use and flexible. ez1095 software’s graphical interface leads customers step-by-step through setting up company, adding employees, add forms and print forms. Customers can also click form level help links to get more details regarding the software.

To learn more about ez1095 ACA software, customers can visit http://www.halfpricesoft.com/aca-1095/aca-1095-software.asp

About halfpricesoft.com
Founded in 2003, Halfpricesoft.com has established itself as a leader in meeting the software needs of small businesses around the world with its payroll software, employee attendance tracking software, check printing software, W2 software, 1099 software and barcode generating software. It continues to grow with its philosophy that small business owners need affordable, user friendly, super simple, and totally risk-free software. Reported by PRWeb 5 hours ago.

FINEOS Exhibits at Eastern Claims Conference

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FINEOS Exhibits at Eastern Claims Conference DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FINEOS Corporation, a market leading provider of core systems for Life, Accident and Health insurance, is exhibiting at this year’s Eastern Claims Conference in Boston, MA. The event, which runs from April 2-4 is an educational conference devoted to Life, Disability, Accidental Death and Dismemberment and Accident and Health Claims Management. FINEOS Claims is the leading global software solution for this market and has been chosen by 8 of the top 20 Group Life & He Reported by Business Wire 4 hours ago.

BigWave Systems’ On-Demand Technology Connects Customers to Insurance Brokers in Uber-like Speed

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BigWave Systems, an insurance innovation firm based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, reports that more than 70,000 health insurance exchange consumers got quick and easy enrollment assistance through a unique on-demand referral platform the company is pioneering in two state exchanges.

Greenwood Village, Colorado (PRWEB) April 03, 2017

Officials with Connect for Health Colorado® and Covered California said the technology was a driving factor in the increased enrollment and retention success the two public Marketplaces saw in the recently completed Open Enrollment Period.

Prospective customers enter basic contact information on BigWave Systems’ patent-pending platform and are matched with a licensed broker in 7.7 minutes, on average.

Connect for Health Colorado, who is entering its third year as a user of BigWave, has also implemented the system’s call center integration product. That allows consumers who are on hold with the call center to choose to have a broker return their call, get enrolled and bypass the call center.

“This year we doubled the number of customers referred to brokers by increasing the access points into the BigWave platform to include our call center. This made a significant difference in rapidly responding to our customers,” said Judith Jung, Connect for Health Colorado’s Chief Operating Officer.

The nation’s largest public exchange, Covered California, rolled out BigWave Systems in November 2016 and uses the private label “Help on Demand” to describe the service to its customers.

BigWave Systems has distributed over 70,000 referrals to brokers certified by the Exchanges, with 100% consumer contact. Exceeding consumer expectations through speed and matching them to an available broker in an Uber-like system is a win-win.

“The ability of the BigWave Systems platform to match the consumer with a broker at the moment that person is seeking help from an expert is transforming insurance services. From exchanges to Medicare payers, our clients are harnessing speed to meet the high expectations of consumers,” said Marcia Benshoof, Chief Business Officer for BigWave Systems.

About BigWave Systems
BigWave Systems is a privately held technology innovations firm. Our patent-pending, on-demand technology replaces current and archaic professional referral and lead systems with speed, the new commerce of consumerism. Consumers access the referral engine through websites, marketing campaigns, call centers, etc. BigWave’s engine immediately matches the consumer an expert who matches who is available at the moment of truth. Current referral services take 3.5 days, on average, to match a consumer with an expert. Our portfolio clients average 6-10 minutes. BigWave Systems product areas are: Insurance, home health care, assisted living, education, mortgage lenders, legal, and construction. Reported by PRWeb 1 hour ago.

Where Hispanic chamber's Angela Franco is heading next

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In the face of lingering congressional challenges to the Affordable Care Act, local business leader Angela Franco is joining D.C. Health Link, the District's health insurance exchange. Franco, who will step down April 30 as Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce's president and CEO, will be a senior adviser for the D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority, the D.C. agency that oversees the exchange. She will primarily be working to strengthen relationships between D.C. Health Link and the… Reported by bizjournals 21 seconds ago.

Delaware Lawmakers Must Pave The Way For Comprehensive Addiction Treatment

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Being the mother of an addict was tough. Combine that with being a registered nurse and it becomes a nightmare. You watch their struggle to get clean. You see the roadblocks that stop the possibility of recovery in its tracks. You witness the neglect of the insurance industry. You feel the bias against the disease. You live the stigma along with your child.

My son Matt’s battle ended on a cold day in January of 2015. He lost his battle and I lost my purpose and my heart. I thought I could deal with my grief and let addiction become a part of my past. I thought I could bury the pain of the disease along with my son and move on. What I didn’t know was that once you lived with and loved someone who suffered from this mistreated disease, it becomes a part of who you are. It courses through your being like the blood flowing to your heart. Once you’ve lived the stigma and witnessed the hate, addiction becomes inescapable.

I never planned on becoming an advocate. I wanted to disappear and guard my heart against further pain. I wanted to live a quiet life remembering my son. The last thing I wanted was to live addiction again. That feeling stayed with me until I witnessed mother after mother join my club. Every day in our state, another mother got the phone call that demolished her world. The phone call letting her know her child has died from the mistreated disease of addiction.

Now that I had time, I started to research Delaware and addiction. It had been a year since Matt’s death, and I hoped something had changed. What I discovered was both heartbreaking and mind boggling. Our model of care is ruled by the Insurance Industry. The disease of addiction is discriminated against by the Insurance Industry. Nothing had changed. Parents and those addicted continued to endure the same struggle I endured during my journey of trying to save my son.

In 2008, The Mental Health Parity Act was made law. Funny, during Matt’s struggle I never heard of Parity. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA) requires group health plans and health insurance issuers to ensure that financial requirements (such as co-pays, deductibles) and treatment limitations (such as visit limits) applicable to mental health or substance use disorder (MH/SUD) benefits are no more restrictive than the predominant requirements or limitations applied to substantially all medical/surgical benefits.

The more I learned, the more I realized that addiction didn’t kill Matt ― the insurance industry’s lack of allowable treatment did. Once again, the insurance industry put saving money over saving lives. Again and again, I heard the same stories from mothers. Stories of treatment cut short due to the insurance company’s refusal to pay. Stories of treatment refused. Stories of fighting and lost battles. Stories of relapses and death.

This grieving mother was ready to fight. My first call was to our attorney general, Matt Denn. I needed to tell my story and the stories of those mothers fighting a battle they were set up to lose. I needed someone with the power to make a difference. I’ll never know where I got the courage to make that call or walk into his office. Maybe it was my son, Matt. Maybe it was my anger. Whatever it was that first meeting started my journey into the world of advocacy.

That first meeting led to several more. Another friend joined in and added another faucet to our agenda. We talked about the issues facing Delaware addiction treatment. We discussed the discrimination faced by those suffering from addiction and the lack of Parity faced everyday by those seeking treatment. Attorney General Denn not only listened, he acted.

I remember our last meeting like it was yesterday. He talked and I listened. Quite the difference from previous meeting when I did the talking and he truly listened. Bills were drafted by his office. Senate Bill 41 to end the discrimination against the treatment of addiction by the insurance industry. Addressing treatment length and medical necessity. House Bill 100 provides an advocate for families denied treatment. Someone to fight for benefits families are entitled to.

I’ve never been a public speaker. I spent 36 years being a nurse. Give me a critical baby and I’m in my comfort zone. Put in front of a room full of legislatures and I’m a mess. But I’ve learned the more I speak the more familiar it feels.

I now spent time in Legislative Hall. I am recognized and greeted by name. I have stepped into a new comfort zone. This grieving mother wears a new hat. Addiction advocate.

This month I’ve joined our attorney general in the fight to have these critical bills become law. I’ve spoken before both the Senate and the House and luck has been on our side. Delaware lawmakers can no longer dismiss our opioid epidemic. Our bills made it through the first hurdle. Both were voted to move beyond the committee into the House and Senate.

Tuesday we face round two. I will speak again regarding the roadblocks to treatment the Insurance Industry has woven into its model. Placing the value of money over the value of human life. Tuesday, both the House of Representatives and the Senate have the opportunity to change our current model of addiction treatment that continues to kill our loved ones.

Tuesday, this grieving mother will be witness to those who like me have had enough or she will witness the ending of the life-saving bills.

Delaware, we are ranked in the top 10 for addiction overdose deaths in our nation. We can no longer afford to allow the insurance industry’s lack of Parity to kill our loved ones. Together we can make a difference and start saving lives.

Lawmakers don’t allow my son’s death to be just another statistic. Be a part of necessary critical changes. Be far-sighted, leaders, and pass these bills that will save lives.-- 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 19 hours ago.

Preventing The Next Trump

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Democrats are feeling a bit better these days. Obamacare is looking safe, the Republican caucus continues to be incapable of agreeing on the right way to zip their fly and shoes are dropping on a near daily basis in a Russia treason probe, like stilettos from Imelda Marcos’ closet. As we’ve watched Trump’s approval plummet to historic lows and Make America Great Again signs quietly vanishing from the American heartland, Democrats have decided that perhaps it will be enough for us to resist and wait around for the inevitable impeachment. Don’t kid yourself. We may do well in the midterms, we may even dispatch with this Trump and still find our nation imperiled. Look around the world. Trump is far from an isolated phenomenon. In my new book Reversing the Apocalypse: Hijacking the Democratic Party to Save the World, I detail why until we address the underlying forces that gave rise to this malevolent character we will be left vulnerable to the rise of another Trump. Except next time, we may not be so lucky as to have our demagogue’s democracy destroying fascistic tendencies mitigated by sheer incompetence.

The central issue riling the developed world is the fact that our global economy has polarized into a relatively small, highly rewarded, knowledge economy and a low-skilled low wage service sector which caters to the whims of the fortunate.  We can pretend all we want that if everyone got a college degree, then everyone could have access to a middle class life, but this is pure fantasy. There are simply not enough good jobs to go around and this situation is only going to become worse. Globalization has led to an international wage race to the bottom. Automation has undercut the number of workers required to do any particular task. The most common jobs in our new economy are in the low wage professions of fast-food worker, sales clerk, and cashier. To add insult to injury, all three of these most common professions, as well as many more, are likely to be taken over by robots in the not so distant future. Some researchers estimate that nearly half of our jobs are threatened by automation. Towns across middle America are already emptying out as the brightest young people flee what is increasingly an economic apocalypse. We tend to think of these crumbling towns as relics of the past when in fact, on our current path, they are harbingers of the future. In case you are reading this and thinking “I’m a professional ― phew, that won’t happen to me,” well, I have news for you too. Lawyers, accountants and doctors are not safe, these jobs are all also subject to the same automation trends, albeit more slowly. Because these groups have economic and political power, through membership in the donor class, they may be able to keep the robots at bay a little longer, but the result will be the same. The machines don’t just drive trucks better than we do, they read MRIs better than we do, they read litigation documents faster than we do and they find tax loopholes better than we do. H&R Block is already using IBM Watson to do people’s taxes-how long do you think it will be before they are doing higher level tax accounting?

So the economic apocalypse is coming, and the wage stagnation and economic decline of blue collar America paints a grim picture of what’s to come. Perhaps even more telling than the economic statistics, however, are the numbers on wellbeing. In nearly every county in the country, deaths from drug overdoses have jumped. Suicide has also spiked, reaching a thirty-year high. The number of lives lost to this collapse of well-being is about the same as the number of people who died during the AIDS epidemic. The root cause of this national crisis of deaths of despair is a lack of the kind of employment that can give one pride, purpose, and a sense of hope for the future. This despair also creates fertile ground for the nativist us-versus-them politics which is Trump’s stock-in-trade, as the struggling look for someone to blame. We are dealing with an economic transformation the size of the Industrial Revolution that is happening at the speed of the Internet age and it is leaving millions in our country behind. This central reality is what Democrats must address to prevent the next, more terrifyingly effective, Trump. In Reversing the Apocalypse, I provide a roadmap for just what must be done to avoid this terrible future. Here are the outlines of that plan.


A party committed to Freedom from Want does not end welfare as Clinton did in the '90s or come to the table in search of a Social Security slashing 'Grand Bargain.'

First, we must reconnect with our party’s historic belief that in the wealthiest country the world has ever known, every American citizen deserves a decent living. This is what FDR championed as Freedom from Want in his famous “Four Freedoms” speech. The freedoms cited in this speech were repeatedly mentioned by our World War II soldiers as the principles that they fought for.  It was a commitment to Freedom from Want that drove our greatest national social programs, from the New Deal Era through the War on Poverty, and made unions, those bastions of worker solidarity, our great allies. Over the years, however, and particularly in the post-Bill Clinton Democratic party, we have abandoned a universal commitment to Freedom from Want. Instead, we have become infatuated with the Silicon Valley and Wall Street winners in our meritocracy. In our new philosophy, all will be well if only every child, irrespective of race, gender, or other identities, can compete on a level playing field for their spot in this modern hierarchy. If you’ve got the particular linguistic and symbolic manipulation skills prized by our modern economy, then you can claim one of the cushy well-compensated slots that come with flexibility, respect, and good health insurance. If you didn’t win this particular genetic lottery, then you’re left to scramble for a low-paying, precarious job serving the winning overclass.

To be sure, removing the discriminatory barriers that hold black or Latino or trans children back is a worthy and noble project, but it’s not an answer to the central challenge of a polarized and unequal economy. Given the fact that there are not enough slots at the happy end of the meritocracy for everyone, this philosophy implicitly consigns a large portion of the population to an unstable, low-wage misery. What’s more, while a commitment to improving the meritocracy at least has some message for the marginalized groups who suffer from discrimination, it offers nothing to white workers for whom the meritocracy is already thought to be working. White workers have white privilege, which means essentially that the system already works for them. Following this logic, if you are a white man and can’t make it, then the problem must be you. Of course, we do realize as a party that people, even white workers, are suffering.  So when we open our charitable hearts to offer a minimum wage hike or an unemployment check to black, white and brown people, we expect working class whites to support us. Often these working class whites don’t support the Democratic Party, because their self-concept is such that they view themselves as productive middle class workers and think this type of assistance is not really for them, despite the fact that this self-concept is not often in line with their current situation. They also rightfully find such an approach condescending. People don’t vote for condescending leaders, even if in the short term the condescension comes with some minor economic benefits and even if the policies themselves-like minimum wage and unemployment insurance-are sound. Ultimately, a minimum wage and unemployment based approach is not a real answer to the disappearance of good jobs and it is not a national level inspirational message that can form the unifying banner of a national party ― which is what the Democratic Party once was, and could be again.

In contrast, the policies that follow from a universal commitment to Freedom from Want are quite different from those looking to perfect the meritocracy. A party committed to Freedom from Want does not end welfare as Clinton did in the ‘90s or come to the table in search of a Social Security slashing “Grand Bargain.” For starters, such a commitment would embrace direct Federal government job creation, if that’s what’s required to reenergize workers, families, and communities. Given the scale of the economic transformation we are currently living through however, we must think even bigger than that. As we move towards a future where jobs are not only low wage but increasingly scarce, we must lay the philosophical groundwork for an entirely new compact between citizens. In this new compact, we would essentially say to the tech innovators displacing workers the following: “We encourage you to break new ground and we want America to lead the way in the automation advances of the future. But in exchange, you will pay some of the incredible fortunes you acquire into a Social Security for All fund so that every citizen will have a share of the remarkable prosperity which is possible in this future.” In this way, we can all cheer on the success of the innovators and capital owners. The better they do, the better we all do!Obviously, this is good for your average citizen, but it is also good for those who find themselves at the top end of the new economy, because it promises sustainability. It promises an economy that works and provides the opportunity for satisfaction for all, that is built to last and that puts money in consumers’ pockets. All of these things contribute to the kind of society we want to live in and raise our children in. In this society, we do not have to live in gated communities and put bars on our windows. We do not have to close our eyes and our hearts to destroyed lives, towns, and entire regions of our great nation. And, we do not have to fear the rise of a populist destroyer of our democracy like Donald Trump.

Second, this new message of broad economic security and prosperity requires effective messengers who can win outside our coastal enclaves. Democrats have made it a point to value diversity—as well they should! A diversity of backgrounds brings different experiences and approaches to the table and helps make sure the entire tableau of the American experience is represented. But we really only champion a certain type of UN multicultural diversity. If you consider the Democratic House caucus, we have racial and gender and some religious diversity, but like the rest of congress, we are utterly lacking in current socioeconomic diversity or professional diversity.  You may find some “up by the bootstraps” stories, but the moral of these stories speaks to the promise of the meritocracy for all, and the bottom line is these are all individuals who have in one way or another permanently punched their ticket to the American good life—the life of choice rather than necessity.

The blessed sense of stability members of Congress enjoy, coupled with the reality of having something to lose by upsetting the apple cart of the current system, takes the edge off any desire to push for larger systemic changes. If you’ve gotten yours so to speak, it’s hard to propose something as radical as an entirely new economic compact, even if you have some understanding of what’s going on for your fellow citizens, even if you care. So, as we think about new messengers, we must include people who break up the economic, professional, and geographic homogeneity of the current Democratic Caucus. We need to reach outside of the ranks of the professionals toting master’s degrees from prestigious universities, outside of the creative class havens, outside of the folks who feel like they’ve got a lifetime ticket to the happy side of the job polarization divide. This will come as somewhat of a shocking proposal for a party that has centered itself around lionizing a particular kind of Harvard intelligence, but we need to run some McDonald’s workers, nurses, teachers, and truck drivers. We need to expand our idea of what a leader looks like to include folks who don’t have a college degree, who weren’t president of the debate club, who haven’t found a ticket into the upper echelon of our stratified society.


We have to give candidates the flexibility to channel their communities on cultural preferences.

Finally, we must adjust the issues on which we demand purity from our candidates. There are two things that should be required and enforced of every Democratic candidate running anywhere in the country. First, they must side with working Americans over Wall Street and big corporations EVERY SINGLE TIME. Second, they must be completely committed to an open, tolerant, and pluralistic society where the voice of one is given exactly the same weight as the voice of another regardless of identity and where immigrants are welcomed and celebrated as a great source of dynamism in our society. These should be the bedrock principles on which there is no compromise. Instead of these principles, in recent years we have instead placed culture at the center of our party. This approach has led to near irrelevance in most of the country and has failed even to inspire the demographic groups to which our message was directly tailored! Consider that in 2016, we were the Black Lives Matter party, yet African-American turnout dropped. We were the Planned Parenthood Party, yet low income women who are statistically more likely to have an abortion, fled in droves. We were the undocumented immigrant party, yet our margins with Latinos actually declined. Economics are central to every American family and yet we’ve treated them as the sideshow. The result has been uninspiring for all.

Let’s be honest here, if we are serious about winning again in places like West Virginia, Kentucky, or frankly any part of rural America, we have to give candidates the flexibility to channel their communities on cultural preferences. Issues like guns and abortion are not just about policy, they are also a powerful symbol for voters of whether or not you are one of them. There are still Democrats who win in places like coal country, but they frequently do so by pairing a central, die-hard commitment to working people with a cultural conservatism that’s reflective of their communities. While these Democrats do not fit the profile of the national Democratic Party, they should not be considered any less of a “real Democrat” than those who check all the cultural boxes but sell out working Americans to Wall Street. If we want to win, if we want to govern, if we want to do the morally right thing by fighting for a life of dignity for every citizen of this country, voters must know that when it comes to fighting for the great American working and middle class, we will never waver.

These changes in philosophy, leaders, and approach are radical. As I lay out in Reversing the Apocalypse, we must offer a new economic compact and embrace new leaders in order to win again. I know none of this is easy, however the alternative of leaving our nation vulnerable to another treasonous enemy of the state is unacceptable. It is becoming increasingly clear that our own President colluded with the Kremlin in an act of war against our country. How will we respond? In October of 2016, Hillary Clinton told New York Times writer Mark Leibovich that she was “the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse.” The apocalypse has arrived.  Now we must not only do the essential work of resistance, we must also lay the groundwork to ensure that if we manage to reverse this particular apocalypse, another does not arrive in its wake. If we succeed, we will provide a model for the world to defeat their own Trumps and create an inclusive prosperity. As unlikely as it seems, the Democratic party just may be our last best hope to save the world.

-- 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 1 day ago.

Who's really to blame for problems with the health insurance exchanges?

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The pullback of insurers from state health insurance exchanges might not be entirely Obamacare's fault, and insurers aren't entirely blameless for the losses they incurred on the exchanges, according to industry observers. Louisville-based health insurer Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) announced in February that it would exit the individual health insurance market in 2018. Most recently, a Reuters report cited analysts as saying Indianapolis-based Anthem Inc. (NYSE: ANTM) is likely to pull back from the… Reported by bizjournals 20 hours ago.

More Proof Trump Doesn't Know Or Doesn't Care What Obamacare Repeal Would Mean

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Deprive 24 million people of health insurance. Or don’t.

If you’re President Donald Trump, it would seem, either outcome is just fine.

During an interview with Financial Times that appeared over the weekend, Trump said he hadn’t given up on repealing the Affordable Care Act, even though House health care legislation fell apart last month when it didn’t have the votes to pass.

Both Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have since put most of the blame for that failure on the House Freedom Caucus, a group of extremely conservative Republicans who rejected the bill because it left too much of Obamacare in place.

In the FT interview, Trump said he hoped Freedom Caucus members would come around. But if they don’t, Trump said, he’ll simply cut a deal with Democrats instead.

“If we don’t get what we want, we will make a deal with the Democrats and we will have in my opinion not as good a form of health care, but we are going to have a very good form of health care and it will be a bipartisan form of health care,” Trump said.

Taking Trump quotes seriously or literally is always a gamble, given how frequently he contradicts himself or makes outlandish statements. But he made the same point on Twitter Saturday, when he wrote this:


...use subsidies to buy health plans." In other words, Ocare is dead. Good things will happen, however, either with Republicans or Dems.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2017


The idea that Trump could so easily toggle between appeasing the Freedom Caucus or working with Democrats is difficult to fathom, given what each side wants.

The Freedom Caucus had rejected the American Health Care Act, the GOP leadership’s bill, because it wanted even fewer guarantees of coverage ― even though that proposal would have steered insurance subsidies away from the poor and the sick, dramatically reduced funding for Medicaid, weakened regulations on what insurers cover, and ultimately increased the number of Americans without insurance by 24 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats, for their part, want no part of repeal. They would gladly modify the Affordable Care Act in order to shore up shaky insurance markets in states like Arizona and Tennessee, where insurers have struggled to make money and are contemplating leaving altogether. But such amendments would necessarily involve strengthening the program ― or, at the very least, trading more liberal reforms (like increasing the value of subsidies for people buying coverage) for some more conservative ones (like giving insurers more freedom to vary premiums by age).

In other words, the agendas of the Freedom Caucus and Democrats aren’t simply different. They are mutually exclusive and lie at opposite ends of the political spectrum. It’s not possible for Trump to be comfortable with both options ― unless he has no clue what any of these proposals would do, or has no interest in substance altogether.

During the March negotiations, Politico reported, Trump told Freedom Caucus members to drop their objections and “forget about the little shit,” even though they were raising serious, fundamental objections to the GOP proposal. On several occasions, according to The Washington Post, Trump had to ask own advisers, “Is this really a good bill?” 

“Either doesn’t know, doesn’t care or both,” is how one Capitol Hill aide described Trump to CNN.

Of course, there’s always one other possibility. Trump could have zero interest in working with Democrats. He might simply be trying to threaten the Freedom Caucus into dropping objections ― in which case the question would be whether those Freedom Caucus members are willing to call his bluff.

-- 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 17 hours ago.

Washington Won't Fix Obamacare Costs, So These States Are Doing It Themselves

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Washington had its turn to remake the health care system when President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act seven years ago, and again this year when the effort by President Donald Trump and the GOP Congress to repeal and replace the law collapsed. Now, it may be up to the states to finish the job.

Large premium increases and diminishing choice among insurers are a real problem in some states’ Obamacare markets. Alaska and Minnesota, which suffered among the biggest premium increases this year, are at the forefront in trying to find solutions.

And the Affordable Care Act itself can help them obtain federal funding for those new ideas.

“Our market got skewered last summer,” Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) said in an interview Friday. “I don’t know how political leaders in other states handle that, but in Minnesota, I think we pretty much ― Republicans and Democrats ― agreed we needed to respond.”

On Monday, Minnesota became the second state, after Alaska, to establish a special fund that reimburses health insurers hit with extraordinarily high costs because of a small number of very sick policyholders. Alaska set up its two-year, $55 million “reinsurance” program using state funding in 2016. The happy result: What was expected to be an average 42 percent rate hike for Alaska’s individual insurance market this year turned into a 7 percent increase.

Minnesota is hoping to replicate that success with a $542 million program to backstop insurance company expenses. Because of looming rate hikes, the North Star State had already provided relief to people who buy their health insurance plans directly from insurers or use the state’s exchange, MNSure, in the form of rebates financed with $326 million in state money.Other states could look to these models as ways to shore up their health insurance markets in the face of high prices for unsubsidized policies sold on HealthCare.gov, state-run marketplaces like MNSure and directly from insurers or through brokers.

The health of Affordable Care Act markets varies greatly from state to state. Those with large rural areas, like Alaska and Minnesota, tend to have bigger problems, largely because the cost of providing health care in remote regions is higher and the potential scale of insurance markets there is smaller and less attractive to insurance companies.

“Alaskans want every medical service that you would expect to get in a large city, and to provide that to a small population, it’s expensive,” said Lori Wing-Heier, director of the Alaska Division of Insurance.

The Affordable Care Act has an option that allows states to try new ideas while receiving federal money to make them happen. If a state can devise another way to provide comparable health coverage to the same number of people as the Affordable Care Act does, it can apply for federal permission to do so. So-called state innovation waivers, also dubbed Section 1332 waivers after the part of the statute that authorizes them, run five years.

States across the nation are weighing whether to use these waivers, which first became available this year, to customize Obamacare for their residents. Alaska submitted its application in late 2016 to transition its state-funded reinsurance program into one that receives federal money, and Minnesota plans to do the same. 

What’s more, despite Trump’s continued commitment to eliminating the Affordable Care Act itself and his veiled threats to undermine the law, his administration is encouraging states to apply for innovation waivers.

“We are seeking to empower states with new opportunities that will strengthen their health insurance markets,” Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price wrote to governors on March 13. “We welcome the opportunity to work with states on Section 1332 State Innovation Waivers,” he wrote, specifically highlighting Alaska’s efforts as a blueprint for others.

“It will spread,” Wing-Heier said. “When Secretary Price issued his letter encouraging people to apply, I think people had to at least give it serious thought.”The Alaska and Minnesota model works like this: States authorize funding to set up reinsurance programs, which reimburse certain costs to insurers. Those costs are thereby moved off the insurers’ books, meaning they aren’t factored into the following year’s rate increases, which in turn reduces rate hikes and makes coverage more affordable for all customers.

Lower premiums also mean less federal spending goes to health insurance subsidies. So the Section 1332 waivers would allow states to finance their reinsurance pools by tapping into that money that would’ve otherwise been spent on subsidies.

Price specifically urged states to consider their own reinsurance programs or to set up high-risk pools for the costliest enrollees. The Affordable Care Act had offered a national reinsurance program, but it expired last year.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, a Republican-turned-independent, and the state’s GOP-led legislature acted swiftly last year when Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska requested a large rate increase and Moda Health announced it was leaving the state’s individual insurance market. The state instituted its two-year reinsurance plan and now hopes the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will approve its waiver request, which would extend the program through 2021.

“We expect that it will be approved by Secretary Price,” Wing-Heier said. In January, then-HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell wrote the governor that the preliminary assessment indicated Alaska’s request would be granted.

Dayton, Minnesota’s governor, said his administration has been in talks with federal officials about a waiver and could submit the documentation as soon as this week. “The timing is very crucial,” he said. Insurers have to submit their rate increase requests for next year in less than three months.

Still, Dayton had several serious misgivings about the legislation, approved by Minnesota’s majority-Republican legislature last week, to establish the reinsurance program. On Monday, he notified lawmakers that he wouldn’t veto the bill but would allow it to become law without his signature.

The Minnesota program doesn’t require insurance companies to pass along their savings from reinsurance payments by lowering premium increases for customers or to remain in the state’s individual insurance market, Dayton said.

“Given the amount of money it was going to cost the state treasury, I thought ― not just myself ― I thought all Minnesotans were entitled to answers and assurances,” he said.

The governor wrote letters to the four relevant insurers last month seeking such promises. “I did not receive a single reply from a single one of the insurance companies to whom I sent that, which I find shocking that they would not even have the decency to respond,” he said.

Dayton also wanted to turn the MinnesotaCare program, which is currently available to lower-income people who earn too much for Medicaid coverage, into a state-based public option that anyone could choose to buy into. The legislature rejected the idea.


[Innovation waivers] will spread. When Secretary Price issued his letter encouraging people to apply, I think people had to at least give it serious thought.
Lori Wing-Heier, director of the Alaska Division of Insurance
Looking beyond the Alaska and Minnesota programs, states can use innovation waivers to transform their health care markets in other ways, nudging them in more conservative or liberal directions.

The most ambitious potential waiver request might have come from Vermont, which planned to use the tool to implement a single-payer system. But the state abandoned the effort in 2014 when policymakers couldn’t agree on how to finance such a system. The federal government has already approved Hawaii’s waiver to make smaller tweaks to its insurance market to align with previous state laws, and California has applied for permission to enroll undocumented immigrants on its state exchange, Covered California.

In Oklahoma, the state government is weighing a sweeping array of reforms to its troubled health insurance market that would utilize the innovation waivers, according to a 65-page outline published last month. Among other things, Oklahoma may abandon the federal HealthCare.gov platform for a state-based enrollment system, simplify health insurance benefit design, and provide subsidies to lower-income households while cutting them off for some middle-income people.

The Trump administration has a strong incentive to work with states that want to find their own solutions to insurance costs and competition. Unless the White House really expects to score political points by allowing the Obamacare markets to suffer through inaction or sabotage, these waivers provide an opportunity to help ordinary Americans without congressional action or additional funding.

-- 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 16 hours ago.

Filling In The Magic Asterisk: The Republican Reform Proposal

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For years Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan wowed the Washington pundit class by pushing his balanced budget proposals. Not only did he outline a plan for taxes and spending that balanced the budget and paid down the debt, he actually got the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to score the proposal, verifying his claims.

As a practical matter, there was considerably less in these proposals than claimed. On the spending side, Ryan told CBO to assume a spending path for the domestically discretionary side of the budget that essentially eliminated the federal government by 2050.

While his plans still would have enough money for the defense department, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, in the Ryan budget everything else was effectively zeroed out. He puts the Justice Department, State Department, Education Department and all other departments and agencies of the federal government out of business. That is one way to balance the budget.

If Ryan had a specific, albeit extreme, plan on the spending side of the budget, he was much less specific on the tax side. He told CBO that there would be large cuts in income tax rates. These reductions in tax rates primarily benefit the wealthy, since they would get the vast majority of savings.

To keep the plan revenue neutral, Ryan told CBO to assume that he would eliminate enough tax deductions to offset the reduction in interest rates. But Ryan never indicated which tax deductions he wanted to eliminate.

This is where the magic asterisk comes in. Ryan told CBO to just assume that enough deductions would be eliminated so that total revenue would not be affected. This was not a CBO score of an actual tax proposal, it was a Paul Ryan assertion. Now that he is actually in a position to get a tax plan signed into law, we will finally get to see which deductions he would actually eliminate.

The basic problem is a simple one: The deductions that involve the sort of money needed to offset a big tax are hugely popular. The list includes the deduction for employer-provided health care insurance, the deduction for mortgage interest, the deduction for state and local income taxes, the deduction for charitable contributions, and deductions for retirement savings. These are all deductions that benefit huge numbers of middle class people who will be very upset if Ryan tries to take them away.

In looking at this list, we can probably remove the last two right off the bat. In addition to angering middle class people, eliminating or substantially cutting back the deduction for charitable contributions will have every charity in the country up in arms. Similarly, politicians who have touted the virtues of people saving for their own retirement cannot now take away the deduction that is supposed to provide the incentive to save. It is also important to note that most of this is a tax deferral – people do pay taxes when they withdraw the money, so over the long-term the amount at stake is less than it may first appear.

Turning to the remaining three items, it is unlikely that there will be huge savings on the mortgage interest deduction. Both parties endlessly tout the virtues of homeownership. The deduction can certainly be restructured to be more progressive and to provide more benefits to people who actually need it to buy a home, but this would not be a major source of savings.

The Republicans could eliminate the tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance. This will win them the votes of almost every economist in the country, while costing them the votes of almost everyone else. At most we will see some cap on the benefits that escape taxation, sort of like the “Cadillac Tax” in the Affordable Care Act that the Republicans endlessly railed against.

This leaves the deduction for state and local taxes. The Republicans may actually be willing to attack this one for the simple reason that it will make it more difficult for more liberal states like New York and California to raise money through a progressive income tax.

As it stands, the deduction effectively means that the federal government is picking up a substantial portion of the state and local income tax paid by upper-middle income people. If they are in the 40 percent tax bracket and they pay $10,000 in state income taxes, the federal government gives them back $4,000 of this money. It might be much harder to raise $10,000 in state taxes from these people if they had no offset from the federal government.

It is also important to note that the highest income people don’t have much at stake in this one, since their deductions are already limited. So eliminating this tax deduction is primarily about getting more money for the federal government from middle-income people with the likelihood that this means less money for the more progressive state and local governments. That probably won’t sound very good to most people.

In short, we might want to tell Speaker Ryan to keep his magic asterisks and leave the tax rates for the rich alone. They have enough money already.

-- 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 12 hours ago.

Health Insurer Wellmark to Stop Selling Individual Policies

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A decision by Iowa's dominant health insurance company to stop selling individual policies could leave thousands of residents scrambling to get new policies. Reported by Newsmax 10 hours ago.

Eisai to Launch Smell Identification Test UPSIT Series in Japan

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TOKYO, Apr 4, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - Eisai Co., Ltd. has announced that the smell identification test "UPSIT Series" will be launched today for sale to health insurance pharmacies and local governments in Japan. The UPSIT Series was developed by Sensonics International. Eisai has obtained exclusive rights to market the test in Japan, and has modified it for the Japanese market.

The UPSIT Series' 4-Item Pocket Smell Test is a multiple-choice test comprised of four microencapsulated odorant strips attached to a thick sheet of paper. The scents are released by lightly scratching the strips with a cotton swab or other tool, after which the person taking the test must attempt to select the correct name of the scent from four options that are provided. In this way, smell identification ability can be determined in approximately 3 minutes.

The sense of smell is one of the important senses for detecting hazards in daily life, such as rotten food, poor hygiene, gas leakage, and fires. Olfactory function, which includes the ability to identify smells (identification) and to detect a faint smell (detection), is influenced by age, physical condition, memory, and psychological state. Persons are often unaware the changes in the ability to identify smells, subjectively. The UPSIT Series, which objectively measures smell identification ability, makes it possible to detect and track changes in physical condition and psychological state.

This test will most likely be used in counseling sessions, such as during health consultations or health promotion events held by health insurance pharmacies or local governments. Should the person taking the test make any mistakes, it may be recommended that they undertake a review of their lifestyle, including sleep, exercise, dietary and smoking habits, under the guidance of a pharmacist or other relevant person. Alternatively, a visit to an otolaryngologist or a primary care physician may be recommended. It is important to note that the UPSIT Series is not an alternative for proper medical examinations and diagnosis by qualified medical professionals.

Scents are made up of multiple chemical substances. The roof of the nasal cavity contains 5 million olfactory receptor cells, each of which reacts to certain chemical substances. These cells work in concert to transmit smell information to the brain. The transmitted information is then integrated with information stored in the brain, including learned information, making it possible to identify "a certain smell".

As one part of the hhc solutions business, Eisai has been engaged for many years in activities for "creating communities where senior citizens can live in peace of mind". In carrying out these activities, Eisai has identified real world needs and issues, also called "clinical questions". By providing solutions to these clinical questions, in cooperation with stakeholders including local governments, medical institutions and pharmacies, Eisai seeks to make further contributions to support health promotion and health management of senior citizens.

About smell identification test UPSIT Series

The UPSIT Series' 4-Item Pocket Smell Test is a multiple-choice test comprised of a four microencapsulated odorant strips attached to a thick sheet of perforated paper. The scents are released by lightly scratching the strips with a cotton swab or other tool, after which the person taking the test must attempt to select the correct scent name from four options. In this way, smell identification ability can be confirmed in approximately 3 minutes. Please note that UPSIT is not medicine or a medical device, and is not an alternative for proper medical examinations and diagnosis by qualified medical professionals. The UPSIT was developed by Richard L. Doty, professor and director the Smell and Taste Center within the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University of Pennsylvania. Professor Doty also founded Sensonics. Inc. in 1982, and has markeded the UPSIT under the trade name Smell Identification Test worldwide since that time. Multiple products are being developed with different numbers and types of scents.

The Pocket Smell Test contains a set of four scents for the person being tested to identify, including cool scents (minty etc.), sweet scents (strawberry etc.) and unpleasant scents (gas etc.). There are two versions of the 4-Item Pocket Smell Test available, both of which make use of four different scents.

About Sensonics International

Sensonics International, whose headquarters are located in Haddon Heights, NJ, USA, was founded in 1982 and is the largest manufacturer and distributor of smell and taste tests in the world. In addition to marketing a range of smell and taste testing products, it provides industrial and medical consulting services, including the training of organoleptic panels for the food, flavor and fragrance industries, product evaluation, screening of smell function of workpalce employees, and a host of other chemosensation-related activities. Its tests have been administered to over a million people world wide and its flagship test, the UPSIT, has been translated into 30 different langauges.

About smells

Olfactory function, which includes the ability to identify smells (identification) and to detect a faint smell (detection), and detect is influenced by age, physical condition, memory, and psychological state. Since changes in olfactory ability are seldom reported as a subjective symptom, objective confirmation is neccessary. The roof of the nasal cavity is said to have 5 million olfactory cells. Each olfactory cell has one type of receptor, which binds with chemical substances of a matching affinity. A scent is made up of multiple chemical substances, and the bound receptors assemble this information, and transmit it to the brain. There, it is integrated with information stored in the brain, and identifed as "a certain smell". Olfactory disorders are divided into: Respiratory Dysosmia, where scents do not reach the olfactory cells, Olfactory Mucosa Dysosmia, where the olfactory cells and olfactory nerves are damaged, Combined Dysosmia, a combination of the aforementioned, and Central Dysosmia, where the olfactory center or surrounding pathways are damaged.

About Eisai

Eisai Co., Ltd. (TSE:4523; ADR:ESALY) is a research-based human health care (hhc) company that discovers, develops and markets products throughout the world. Eisai focuses its efforts in three therapeutic areas: integrative neuroscience, including neurology and psychiatric medicines; integrative oncology, which encompasses oncotherapy and supportive-care treatments; and vascular/immunological reaction. Through a global network of research facilities, manufacturing sites and marketing subsidiaries, Eisai actively participates in all aspects of the worldwide healthcare system. For more information about Eisai Co., Ltd., please visit www.eisai.com.
Contact:
Public Relations Department,
Eisai Co., Ltd.
+81-3-3817-5120
Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire. All rights reserved. www.jcnnewswire.com Reported by ACN Newswire 12 hours ago.

UnitedHealthcare Global Receives 2016 Doyle Award for its Efforts to Improve Quality of Care Delivery and Health Outcomes for People Traveling and Living Abroad

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Implementation of an evidence-based global care management and evacuation model resulted in patients spending 27% fewer days in hospital.

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) April 04, 2017

MCG Health, a leading provider of informed care strategies and part of the Hearst Health network, has named UnitedHealthcare Global a recipient of the 2016 Doyle Award.

UnitedHealthcare Global was recognized for its innovative collaboration with physicians around the world to drive evidence-based care delivery, improve patient health outcomes, and generate medical assistance and evacuation cost savings for plan participants traveling or living abroad.

Working with its international network of physicians, UnitedHealthcare Global leveraged MCG’s care guideline solutions – augmented by its own data and global clinical expertise – to enhance its inpatient care management support, leading to patients spending 27 percent fewer days in hospital and a 5 percent decrease in international medical evacuations. This resulted in a 35 percent savings in global medical spend and a 24 percent savings in international medical evacuation costs.

The evidence-based approach to care management helped UnitedHealthcare Global facilitate appropriate levels of care, and determine alternatives to hospital admission and best possible avenues to patient recovery. If a UnitedHealthcare Global plan participant was in a facility or country that lacked appropriate clinical capabilities to provide optimal recovery, the individual was medically evacuated to the closest country or facility that had the appropriate capabilities – helping ensure optimal patient health outcomes, while mitigating unnecessary expenses for both employer customers and plan participants.

“The results achieved by UnitedHealthcare Global are a testament to the power of MCG solutions when applied by a visionary health care organization with the goal of improving patient health worldwide,” said MCG President Jon Shreve. “It is a privilege to work with a partner organization practicing innovation and compassion on a global scale.”

“A more mobile global workforce requires access to quality, cost-effective care no matter where they work,” said Dr. Margaret Wilson, UnitedHealthcare Global chief medical officer. “UnitedHealthcare Global’s initiative – anchored by MCG’s care guidelines – drove a shift in focus from solely an access-based global health care model to a quality-focused model. Sharing information and best practices with our international network of physicians has resulted in success stories for our health plan customers, and we are honored to receive this recognition for our efforts.”

The Doyle Award will be presented to UnitedHealthcare Global at MCG’s annual Client Forum in Miami, Fla., April 30-May 3, 2017. Conference attendees who attend the award ceremony will be able to earn continuing education credits for selected presentations and network with health care professionals from across the country. Full details and registration for this event can be found here.

About UnitedHealthcare Global
UnitedHealthcare Global is dedicated to helping people living or traveling abroad live healthier lives by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. The company offers a full range of global health insurance, wellness, assistance and security solutions for individuals, families and employers, and access to a global network of more than 90,000 hospitals and clinics, and more than 800,000 physicians and other providers around the world.

UnitedHealthcare Global is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare Global at http://www.uhcglobal.com.

About MCG
MCG, part of the Hearst Health network, helps healthcare organizations implement informed care strategies that proactively and efficiently move patients toward health. MCG’s transparent assessment of the latest research and scholarly articles, along with our own data analysis, gives patients, providers and payers the vetted information they need to feel confident in every care decision, in every moment. For more information visit http://www.mcg.com or follow our Twitter handle, @MCG_Health.

About Hearst Health
MCG is part of the Hearst Health network, which also includes FDB (First Databank), Zynx Health, Homecare Homebase, MedHOK, Hearst Health International, Hearst Health Ventures and the Hearst Health Innovation Lab (http://www.hearsthealth.com). The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a person's health journey. Each year in the U.S., care guidance from the Hearst Health network reaches 84 percent of discharged patients, 177 million insured individuals, 60 million home health visits, and 3.1 billion dispensed prescriptions.

About The Richard L. Doyle Award for Innovation and Leadership in Healthcare
The Doyle Award was developed to recognize organizations that make innovative use of the care guidelines to help deliver effective healthcare.

Dr. Doyle, the care guidelines founding editor, was a hospital chief-of-staff when he began creating clinical guidelines in the 1980s to help improve healthcare efficiency and quality at Mercy Hospital in San Diego. He later joined Milliman & Robertson and in 1990 published the first set of what was to become the care guidelines.

Judges for this award are independent healthcare quality experts, not currently associated with MCG. Applicants were judged on how well their projects supported the MCG mission to help drive effective care. Judges looked for evidence of improvements in healthcare quality and patient safety; patient/member satisfaction; staff efficiency, productivity and satisfaction; internal/external communication; and effective use of resources. Reported by PRWeb 8 hours ago.

Trump’s Expected Pick To Lead The Army Sponsored Anti-LGBTQ Bill In Tennessee

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President Donald Trump is expected to choose as his Army secretary Tennessee state Sen. Mark Green (R), a legislator who is popular among many tea party Republicans and is the sponsor of a bill that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer advocates say takes direct aim at their community.

Green’s confirmation would be a significant break with Eric Fanning, the previous Army secretary. Fanning, who held the job under President Barack Obama, was the first openly gay person to serve in the role.

Green is the sponsor of SB 127, a bill that would bar government entities from taking “discriminatory action against a business entity on the basis of the internal policies of the business entity.” 

Tennessee does not currently have nondiscrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, although some municipalities do have stronger rules protecting LGBTQ government employees. Green’s bill, however, would bar local governments and public universities from looking at companies’ internal policies when doing business or giving out contracts ― because it would be considered discrimination against the business.

“You [wouldn’t be able to] have a provision in your contracting rule saying, ‘We’ll only contract with organizations that treat married same-sex couples equally. You couldn’t do that,” explained Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project. “Or you couldn’t say, ‘We’ll only subcontract with companies that have contraception as part of their health insurance.’ It’s not just LGBT [issues].”Green’s bill passed the state Senate in early March, and it’s now being considered by the House. Two members of his own party voted against it, and it was widely opposed by city managers around the state as well as LGBTQ groups. Green said the point of the legislation was to make the law “consistent across the state.” 

“What we’re now saying is all personnel and employee benefit issues, we at the state are going to set what those are, and local communities cannot go beyond state law,” Green said in February, in response to criticisms.

The legislation is reminiscent of HB 2 in North Carolina, which also shackled municipalities from writing more-inclusive nondiscrimination policies than existed at the state level. North Carolina’s measure, however, was more encompassing than the one in Tennessee. 

Green did not return a request for comment for this piece. 

“During the confirmation process, one of the many areas that senators ought to ask him about would certainly include whether he’s going to be secretary of the Army for LGBT troops as well. I think there are reasonable doubts given that he’s writing anti-LGBT legislation and he’s writing in stealth,” Sanders said.

“If you read the bill, a lot of people would say, ‘What’s anti-LGBT about that?’ On its face, it never uses the names for our community, it never uses the words sexual orientation or gender identity,” he added. “But this is how the far right is writing anti-LGBT legislation now.”

*Want more updates from Amanda Terkel? Sign up for her newsletter, Piping Hot Truth, **here**.*

-- 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 5 hours ago.

United States Employer-Sponsored Private Health Insurance Exchange Report 2017 - Forecast to 2020 - Research and Markets

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United States Employer-Sponsored Private Health Insurance Exchange Report 2017 - Forecast to 2020 - Research and Markets DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "US Employer-Sponsored Private Health Insurance Exchange - Forecast to 2020" report to their offering. Private health insurance exchanges can be broadly defined as online gateways to health insurance, designed to provide single or multiple carrier options to consumers, setup by a private entity. The study describes and defines the market for private health insurance exchange solutions targeted towards beneficiaries Reported by Business Wire 15 minutes ago.

Health Care Is 'Complicated' - Here's One Way To Fix It

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We’ve had a dysfunctional health care system and an equally dysfunctional legislature for so long that I have decided to revisit something I wrote five years ago. For something so basic as an ability to obtain and sustain the provision of health care to all, “we the people” remain either tragically hopeless, or utterly clueless to what is best for all of us. Our $9,450 spending on health care per capita is twice as much as the next developed country, but we still leave over 25 million under or uncovered. While health insurance may be a privilege, health care for all who require it is a right; while it seems nobler to hand its reign to the people in the truest sense of capitalism, or a debatable interpretation of the founding fathers’ collective wisdom, deep into our hearts, when we are alone and able to shed our conservative and liberal shells, we all know that without an expanded public option, it is a notion which is not only inconceivable but frankly, downright lunatic.

While, it was heartening to see it return as a major issue for discussion during the presidential debates, the major fiasco surrounding the failed attempt to “repeal and replace” has told us a few things:

a.) ACA may be deeply flawed, but it is a pioneering effort and the best option we have got right now.

b.) ACA needs improvements, and desperately

c.) No one in congress has any clue about how to fix it

d.) Despite years of opposition and many attempts to repeal, there is no viable alternative plan

e.) Our representatives have failed to recognize the importance of health care reform that caters to the people and not to the party line and lobbies.

f.) Health care is very complicated!

Imagine a perfect society where the government works solely for the benefit of the people; political gains, dashboard forecasts and corporate lobbies are just an afterthought. In that system, bills are presented and subsequently passed, not on the basis of party lines but for people. In that perfect system, health care gets the due attention that it truly deserves and a bipartisan commission will be created:

1. Three members of the house and two senators from each side of the floor, selected for their knowledge and expertise in health care and economy, rather than influence.

2. Two leading economists and health care policy experts, one of each nominated by the DNC and GOP.

3. Secretary of Health and Human Services or a senior authorized representative.

4. Two members of National Governors Association. One Republican and one Democrat.

5. Any member of the commission with direct links to any beneficiary group or lobbies (AMA, Trial Lawyers, Hospital conglomerates, Insurance and Pharmaceutical lobbies, etc.) will be automatically disqualified.


The failed attempt to “repeal and replace” was ... rooted in political malice rather than in the spirit of fixing what is truly broken.

Once established, the sole responsibility of this commission will be to come up with a solution to our health care problems. There will be a solid deadline for the presentation of a draft, which will be final. The commission will be sequestered during the deliberations with no access to any outside pressures, media or otherwise. Any leaks will result in immediate removal.

This is the only possible way that partisan attitudes of the congress can be overcome. If this works, it can be expanded to tackle other issues of national importance such as cost of higher education, so that the juvenile infighting of grown men and women has the least impact on decisions that we cannot afford to delay.

Despite being landmark legislation, the current shape of Affordable Healthcare Act has many flaws. Unfortunately, these flaws are a direct result of partisan pressures from both sides of the aisle, influenced by strong lobbies. The result is a lukewarm effort to tackle one of the most critical domestic challenges that we face outside of economy. There is still no clear evidence that the private sector will oblige and lower the rates so small businesses and patients are able to afford the premiums. In anticipation of this, the insurances have already tightened the noose around their coverage as medications, investigations and treatment plan have become increasingly more difficult to get approved, adding to the woes of a shrinking force of primary care providers, already burdened by the increasing cost-reimbursement ratio.

Health care providers however, are not the innocent victims either. The paranoia that surrounds them, stemming from the fear of a lawsuit drives them to frenzy when prescribing medications and tests, which on most occasions are more to protect themselves and pacify patient demands as opposed to leaning on clinical indications. Despite my own recognition of this habit, and its impact on health care spending, I am at times as guilty of unnecessary caution as the next guy. A tort reform that safeguards the rights of the patients as well as health care providers, giving them a sense of security and confidence in exercising their reasonable clinical judgment is a must, and its conspicuous absence in Obamacare is a cause of concern. In addition, with the help of insurance companies and especially Big Pharma (using a part of their direct-to-patient advertising budget), better education of health care beneficiaries, so they fully understand that expensive testing is not necessarily the best way to improved health, and is vital in order to achieve a more responsible and health-care-conscious society.

While we will arguably never see the fairy tale scenario detailed above, we can, for once, engage in a civil conversation about what’s best for the people. The failed attempt to “repeal and replace” was a mistake as it was rooted in political malice rather than in the spirit of fixing what is truly broken. However, it has open eyes on both sides of the aisle; the iron is hot for someone to take the helm of this meandering ship. Even President Trump promised it, “[people] can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much-simplified form. Much less expensive and much better… lower numbers, much lower deductibles.” The only way to do this is to expand funding for primary care physician training and safety-net clinics, introduce a low-cost publicly funded option to compete with the private sector to drive the prices down. A strictly nonprofit version of health plans that people can buy into without fearing sky-rocketing premiums. It is time to strike the iron while it is still hot, and before it is too late.

 

Have you or your family benefitted from the Affordable Care Act? If you’d like to share your story on HuffPost, email us at ACAstories@huffingtonpost.com.type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related... + articlesList=58d5a4aee4b03692bea62b40,58d53dafe4b0c0980ac0e54a,58cbf682e4b0537abd956fed

-- 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 22 hours ago.

Emerging GOP Obamacare Repeal Would Mean Sick People Pay (Much) More

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Republicans have spent most of the past seven years vowing to protect people with pre-existing conditions, even as they have pledged to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.

President Donald Trump made the promise back in February 2016, during a CNN debate:

I just want to say, I agree with that 100 percent, except pre-existing conditions, I would absolutely get rid of Obamacare. We’re going to have something much better, but pre-existing conditions. … I want to keep pre-existing conditions.

I think we need it. I think it’s a modern age. And I think we have to have it.


Right after the presidential election, in a “60 Minutes” interview with Lesley Stahl, Trump reaffirmed his commitment.

LESLEY STAHL: When you replace it, are you going to make sure that people with pre-conditions are still covered?

DONALD TRUMP: Yes. Because it happens to be one of the strongest assets.


Vice President Mike Pence was just as explicit. A week before the election, during a speech outside Philadelphia, he said, “We will protect Americans with pre-existing conditions so that they are not charged more or denied coverage, just because they have been sick, so long as they have paid their premiums consistently.”

And House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)? He made the same promises. Here’s an excerpt from “A Better Way,” the policy framework he released last summer: “Protect patients with pre-existing conditions: Our plan ensures every American, regardless of their health status, has the comfort of knowing you can never be denied coverage.”

Presidential candidates, senators and representatives, veterans and newcomers ― pretty much every Republican made vows like these.

And they didn’t just do it once. They did it over and over again.

Now Republicans are trying to bring back Obamacare repeal. And the emerging deal would make a mockery of those promises ― by forcing people with medical problems to pay more for their health care, and in many cases leaving them unable to get insurance at all.

It would be a breach of faith, but also a revealing window into what Republicans who support this measure think the world should look like.

The whole point of health insurance is to protect people from financial ruin just because they happen to be injured or sick. Living with diabetes, battling cancer, recovering from serious injury ― these things are hard enough without having to worry that paying the medical bills will drive you into bankruptcy.

The Affordable Care Act was an effort, however imperfect and incomplete, to protect people from those problems. This Republican proposal would expose them all over again.

How the deal would gut protections for pre-existing conditions

Politically speaking, it’s difficult to know how serious this effort is. The last attempt at repeal, the American Health Care Act, fell apart because it lacked the votes to pass in the House of Representatives. And a big reason was the objection of conservative Republicans, particularly those in the House Freedom Caucus, who felt it would have left too many pieces of Obamacare in place.

Now those House conservatives are telling HuffPost’s Matt Fuller, and others, that they are close to a new deal. According to the conservatives, it’s because the Trump administration has agreed to tear down a few more of the law’s provisions ― specifically, it would allow states to opt out of two of the law’s most important rules.

One of those rules requires insurers to cover a set of 10 “essential” benefits. These include everything from prescription drugs and hospitalization to mental health and maternity care.

Another rule prohibits insurers from charging higher premiums to people at high risk of getting sick. The wonky term for this is “community rating,” because it means everybody in the community is paying the same price, regardless of health status.

Getting rid of community rating in particular would eviscerate Obamacare’s guarantee of coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. If insurers can charge somebody with medical problems exorbitant premiums, then a guarantee of coverage is basically meaningless.


If there is guaranteed access to insurance without community rating, protections for people with pre-existing conditions are illusory.

— Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) April 4, 2017


It’s difficult to know exactly how high premiums for people with pre-existing conditions could go if this emerging plan were somehow to become law, particularly since right now the “plan” is really just some concepts Republicans are discussing. But the insurance market that existed before the Affordable Care Act offers some clues.

Back then, insurers would routinely use higher premiums to discourage enrollment from people with health problems. Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation who studied those markets closely, said insurers would routinely charge three to five times what they charged healthy people. In one instance, she said, a Colorado insurer actually sought premiums that were 2,000 times the standard rate.

“The sky is the limit,” Pollitz told HuffPost.

Conservative House Republicans are saying that, under the new plan, states would have discretion over whether to keep or ditch the rules on pre-existing conditions ― and that might sound less threatening. In reality, they would be under enormous pressure from insurance companies to ditch the regulations.

The emerging Republican plan would also offer extra money for “high-risk pools” ― separate insurance programs for people who have pre-existing medical conditions. These are supposed to be a substitute for the ironclad guarantee of coverage that Obamacare provides.

But states ran these programs in the old days and they were famously poor substitutes for what most Americans would consider standard coverage. Typically they had restrictions, including annual or lifetime benefits, along with far higher premiums or out-of-pocket costs than standard plans did.

The difference between lowering costs and shifting them

The supposed virtue of these changes is that they would “lower costs.” Ryan, in a news conference Tuesday morning, said “it’s all about getting premiums down.”

It’s important to be clear about precisely what Republicans mean when they say these things.

The theory here is that freeing insurers from regulations on whom and what they cover, and under what conditions, will allow them to offer insurance with lower premiums. The theory is more or less correct. One reason insurance got more expensive after the Affordable Care Act became law is that insurers had to start paying medical bills for people with serious pre-existing conditions they could mostly avoid before.

Take away the regulations, and insurers can go back to offering coverage like they did before ― at something approaching the old prices.

But the theory has a second part, one Republicans almost never mention.

Even as people in good health would get to spend less, people in poor health would have to pay more ― much, much more. That’s because people with pre-existing conditions wouldn’t be able to find comprehensive coverage with the benefits they need, or because their out-of-pocket costs would be much higher, or because they couldn’t find coverage at all ― except, perhaps, for premiums that would make even expensive Obamacare policies look dirt cheap by comparison.

This isn’t lowering costs, in the sense that it will lead to dramatically lower prices for medical care or sudden gains in the efficiency of care. It’s shifting costs, by putting the onus on the people with serious medical conditions.

It’s health care’s version of social Darwinism, where the people unlucky enough to have health problems must also face much higher medical bills, and in many cases the threat of financial ruin. That works out well enough for people who are young and healthy. But of course young people always get older, and sooner or later, even the healthiest will get sick.

-- 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 23 hours ago.
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