Abbe Gluck , Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School - VOX
Stephan: With this essay we are faced with what I think is the ultimate question facing Americans. Do we as a people think healthcare is a right, that society has wellbeing as a priority. Or, is healthcare only something available to those who can afford it? It is a fundamental philosophical question.
Donald Trump, Mike Pence and, particularly Paul Ryan all take the position that healthcare is NOT a right. It is a privilege available to those who can afford it.
I find the Trump/Pence.Ryan position morally despicable. What do you think?
A protest against Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, in Los Angeles.
Credit: David McNew
What exactly are we fighting over when it comes to health reform? Is there really a fundamental philosophical difference between the parties’ positions? Does either party actually have a philosophy of American health care?
On the one hand, the difference between the parties seems clear: the GOP plan is basically a tax cut for the rich that takes health care away from the poorest Americans and leaves the states holding the bag. But, as a matter of structure — as opposed to generosity — the GOP plan may differ from Obamacare a lot less than it looks (setting aside the cruelty of its effects).
The House plan relies on government tax credits, regulation of the insurance industry, and continued government funding to keep the low-income population insured. In other words, it is a plan that relies on both government intervention and the private sector. And it walks a thin line between the idea that in […]
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Kavya Balaraman, - Scientific American/E&E News
Stephan: Epidemiologists particularly, and physicians generally, are already beginning to see the health effects of climate change. Their insights are one of the reasons the Republican degradation of what is already a profoundly flawed healthcare system in the U.S. is so sad. The very people who voted for Donald Trump and the Republicans are going to bear the brunt of their poor decision, and it is going to be a sad and depressing process to watch. Here's the story.
Black legged tick, carrier of Lyme Disease
Credit: Medicine Net
Growing up in southwestern Pennsylvania, Patrice Tomcik had never heard of Lyme disease — an infectious, flu-like illness transmitted by ticks.
But in the last few years, five of her friends have caught it, she’s had to have her dog vaccinated and she regularly finds herself pulling ticks off her children. It can be disconcerting, she said, having to worry about an illness that she had never been exposed to in the past.
“It’s getting warmer, so the season for ticks is lasting longer,” said Tomcik, a field consultant with Moms Clean Air Force. “There are so many more of them, and they just don’t die off. It’s a big issue here in Pennsylvania, because we have so much wood. Our family has 29 acres of land out in the woods, and I’m picking ticks off my dog and my kids like I’ve never seen before.”
Lyme disease isn’t the only contagious illness that is venturing into new territories under a shifting climate. Across the country, […]
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, - American Society of Civil Engineers
Stephan: In the United States we just don't seem to be able today to deal with any of our real problems. Perhaps this is because we spend so much time in the parallel universe of the Rightwing, with its fears, racism, and greed. Where we once led the world in technological innovation, and in wellness fostering social policies, all of that seems to have been lost in the last 30 years, and today we have Trump.
But the bill for this negligence is coming due. Here's what it looks like to the American Society of Civil Engineers who care about data, not the fantasies of Trump, Ryan, and their Republican colleagues.
OVERVIEW
Much of the U.S. energy system predates the turn of the 20th century. Most electric transmission and
distribution lines were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s with a 50-year life expectancy, and the more
than 640,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines in the lower 48 states’ power grids are at full
capacity. Energy infrastructure is undergoing increased investment to ensure long-term capacity and
sustainability; in 2015, 40% of additional power generation came from natural gas and renewable
systems. Without greater attention to aging equipment, capacity bottlenecks, and increased demand, as
well as increasing st
orm and climate impacts, Americans will likely experience longer and more frequent
power interruptions.
CAPACITY & CONDITION
Near-term, U.S. energy systems are projected to deliver sufficient energy to meet national demands in
the near term, as energy c
onsumption fell slightly, from 98 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2014
to 97.7 quadrillion Btu in 2015, and is estimated to grow at a modest rate, averaging 0.4% per year from
2015 through 2040.
In general, the capacity and condition of energy systems depend on ownership and
geographic region, with privately-owned sources in the best position to invest.
Reduced electric demand, changing delivery costs, and new regulations, including those focused on reducing environmental impact, have prompted transformations across the sector in recent years, with […]
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Adam Frank, Professor of Astronomy - University of Rochester and Co-founder of NPR's Cosmos & Culture - aeon
Stephan: Half a century as a consciousness experimentalist, as well as having done 50 years of cross-cultural studies of spiritual and religious traditions has left me convinced that Materialism is an inadequate way of looking at the world. Over that time I have gone from being part of a small minority, to a large minority to what I think is coming, a change in paradigm that will leave Materialism in science's dustbin. Here's one of the reasons I think this.
Credit: biosignal.med.upatras.gr
Materialism holds the high ground these days in debates over that most ultimate of scientific questions: the nature of consciousness. When tackling the problem of mind and brain, many prominent researchers advocate for a universe fully reducible to matter. ‘Of course you are nothing but the activity of your neurons,’ they proclaim. That position seems reasonable and sober in light of neuroscience’s advances, with brilliant images of brains lighting up like Christmas trees while test subjects eat apples, watch movies or dream. And aren’t all the underlying physical laws already known?
From this seemly hard-nosed vantage, the problem of consciousness seems to be just one of wiring, as the American physicist Michio Kaku argued in The Future of the Mind (2014). In the very public version of the debate over consciousness, those who advocate that understanding the mind might require something other than a ‘nothing but matter’ position are often painted as victims of wishful thinking, imprecise reasoning or, worst of all, an adherence to a mystical ‘woo’.
It’s hard not to feel […]
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Saturday, March 18th, 2017
Gregory Korte , - USA TODAY
Stephan: The thing about budgets is the details, so here are the details. I had three main takeaways: 1) Look at the percent of the budget that goes to the military -- 54% It is greed at a Greek tragedy level. 2) How much little programs that help the young, the elderly, and the poor, and particularly the rural White people who voted for Trump are getting snuffed. 3) The moral depravity of the vision this budget represents.
This is a nasty bit of business, promoted by a President and Vice-President who are defining themselves through their nasty meanness.
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s proposed budget takes a cleaver to domestic programs, with many agencies taking percentage spending cuts in the double digits.
But for dozens of smaller agencies and programs, the cut is 100%.
Community development block grants. The Weatherization Assistance Program. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. The National Endowment for the Arts. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. All would be axed if Congress adopts Trump’s budget.
Also proposed for elimination are lesser-known bureaucracies like the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education Program, the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program and the Inter-American Foundation.
Many of those programs have constituencies in states and cities across the country — and their champions in Congress. “The president’s beholden to nobody but the people who elected him, and yes, I understand that every lawmaker over there has pet projects,” said Trump budget director Mick Mulvaney. “That’s the nature of the beast.”
He said not every program would disappear overnight. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which now receives $485 million a year, might still get some federal funding in 2018, for example. “It might take a while to unwind that relationship. It’s just […]
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