Credit:Linda Linko
Last week the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the new Republican health plan would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 24 million people within a decade, mostly because changes in regulations, subsidies and Medicaid coverage would make insurance too expensive for them.
Republican leaders seem unfazed by this, perhaps because, in their minds, deciding not to have health care because it’s too expensive is an exercise of individual free will. As Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, put it: “Americans have choices. And they’ve got to make a choice. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love, and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”
There is an appealing logic to such thinking. The idea is that buying health care is like buying anything else. The United States is […]
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Tuesday, March 21st, 2017
J. Walker Glascock, - The Christian Science Monitor
Stephan: I have written about the comparison between the Nordic countries and the United States over and over (see SR archives) because the social outcome data is so clear and unequivocal. The question I ask is: why can't the United States do this? What is stopping us, and grinding us down into poverty, fear, and fascism?
Move over, Disneyland: Norway has taken the crown for the happiest place on Earth, according to the United Nations.
On Monday, World Happiness Day, the UN released its 2017 World Happiness Report, which ranks 155 countries based on the overall happiness of each nation’s citizens.
The latest report, the fifth overall since the UN launched the program in 2012, lists Norway as the world’s happiest country. The Nordic nation rose to the top from fourth place in 2016, and replaces Denmark, which took the top spot last year.
Utilizing information pulled from 2014-16, the index centers around one basic principle, a concept formerly referred to as “life satisfaction,” and now simply called happiness.
The report’s independent researchers poll about 1,000 people each year in each of the 155 countries and ask them questions designed to reveal their individual overall happiness.
“Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top,” begins the examination. “The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of […]
1 Comment
Tuesday, March 21st, 2017
Stephan: French kids get full course meals, just as they would receive at home, and the cost is a fraction of what it costs in the U.S.. Why are they so much better and cheaper? Because French school lunches are planned for wellness, American public school lunches are planned on the basis of profit. And France is not alone in this. Nordic countries also feed their kids well.
This is also true of Japan, as this report describes, once again for a fraction of what American school lunches cost. And these good meals affect them in a positive way throughout their lives.
As a country we can't even muster the will to see that our kids are fed properly in school. Why is that? Because as a culture we have brainwashed ourselves into believing that only profit matters. It is the only way to organize something. Do we have the moral courage to change? Do you?
Students serve each other lunch at a Tokyo elementary school.
Credit: Toru Takahashi/AP
A typical American public school lunch
Do efforts to feed students help improve their performance in school? Mick Mulvaney, director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, grabbed headlines Thursday when he argued in favor of cutting federal funds to programs that provide food to poor students. His justification: There’s “no demonstrable evidence” that the programs help them do better in school.
Tell that to Japan, where more than 10 million kids receive delicious, fresh food every school day, in large part because the country considers lunch part of a child’s education, not a break from school. What students there receive is a far cry from the processed, reheated meals you’d find in American schools. Picture a tray filled with fish with pear sauce, mashed potatoes, and vegetable soup. The ingredients come […]
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Tuesday, March 21st, 2017
Stephan: There are so many bad things going on that its is hard to keep it all straight. But I am trying to stay in touch with important but little covered trends. Here's what I mean. Even deep Red value states have blue enclaves; San Antonio and Austin in Texas being examples. The Republican state legislators don't like it. Virtually without public debate they have been slowly trying to turn those Blue urban areas, basically into tenants. Here's the story.
Right-wing corporate interests are pushing state legislatures to curtail the progressive power of city governments.
Credit: Photo: Pixabay
Right now, there are two bills filed in the Florida legislature that propose sweeping new restrictions on local governments. One (House Bill 17) would bar them from regulating “businesses, professions, and occupations,” the other (SB 1158), would expressly preempt “the regulation of matters relating to commerce, trade, and labor.” The broad language of the bills has local advocates up in arms and newspapers like the Naples Daily News asking whether “local regulations [are] a thing of the past.” The legislative session to discuss and advance the bills began March 7.
Though egregious, what may be most noteworthy about the bills is how ordinary they actually are. Bills like them have become commonplace in the United States.
Local governments have become a battleground, and corporate interests seeking to dampen their influence have been proposing and passing bills like these for years. Countless local minimum wage hikes, worker protection bills, rent laws, police oversight initiatives, fossil fuel […]
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