UPDATE 11/29/19: This horrific and batshit insane Ohio bill is making the news again six month later thanks to a new Guardian article about it.
The only silver lining I can find here is that the bill doesn't appear to have made any further progress in that time--according to the official Ohio Legislature website, so far it's only been "introduced" and "referred to committee", and those happened back in April. The Guardian article has the number of co-sponsors the same as it was in May as well (19, plus the primary sponsor of the bill).
UPDATE: It's been pointed out that the Supreme Court has ruled that minors can't receive the death penalty, so I guess that means "only" life in prison for them. If they're 18 or older, however...
On the other hand, several people have noted that an 11-year old pelvis isn't generally developed enough to even deliver a baby safely, along with other health risks, so it could very well be a death sentence regardless, so I'm leaving the headline as is.
In the far simpler days of 2001, when the President of the United States didn't suck up to genocidal dictators and thank Russia for helping him win the Electoral College, an episode of The West Wing aired entitled "The Indians in the Lobby".
The Trump administration may alter the way it determines the national poverty threshold, putting Americans living on the margins at risk of losing access to welfare programs.
Michigan is the most expensive state for car insurance for the sixth consecutive year.
The Wolverine State is in a league of its own when it comes to car insurance with an average annual premium that is $313 higher than that of Louisiana, which ranked second. A Michigan car insurance policy averages $2,611, which is almost 80 percent higher than the national average of $1,457.
Louisiana remained in second place for the third year in a row, while Florida secured third place. Oklahoma and Washington D.C. rounded out the top five.
In most cases, a high number of uninsured drivers combined with less than stellar weather and high population density led these states onto the most expensive states for car insurance list.
One of the great strengths and dangers of the ACA is that it includes tools for individual states to modify the law to some degree by improving how it works at the local level. The main way this can be done is something called a "Section 1332 State Innovation Waiver":
Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) permits a state to apply for a State Innovation Waiver to pursue innovative strategies for providing their residents with access to high quality, affordable health insurance while retaining the basic protections of the ACA.
Last September I noted that North Dakota was considering going one of two ways when it comes to making a major change in their individual insurance market: EIther joining over a half-dozen other states in pushing for a reinsurance program (which I strongly support doing), or going the other way and starting to offer weaker policies without some ACA protections the way states like Idaho, Tennessee, Iowa and Kansas either already do or are in the process of doing.
Florida lawmakers approved a health insurance bill Wednesday that would require insurers keep covering pre-existing conditions if the Affordable Care Act disappears, though the bill would not keep protections in the federal law to control how much those patients can be charged.
...but quickly went off the rails after that:
The bill, Senate Bill 322, which the House approved by a 70-42 vote after the Senate passed it last week, would also expand short-term and association health plans and change requirements for “essential health benefits” covered by insurers, regardless of the status of the Affordable Care Act. It must be approved again by the Senate before it heads to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his signature.
A few minutes ago the Congressional Budget Office released a new report on a national, universal single payer healthcare system (commonly known as "Medicare for All" these days, although that's a bit of a misnomer since the proposed "Medicare for All" bills are quite different from today's definition of Medicare).
It's important to note that while this report came from the CBO, it is not a budget analysis of either the House or Senate MFA bills; it instead lays out the structural components which would be required to be in place in order to put such a system together and, I presume, in order to run such a budget analysis.
I'm swamped today between the rollouts of both the Choose Medicare Act and the revised Medicare for America Act as well as this new CBO report, so for the moment I'll just repost the summary and link to the report itself, along with a few notes as I'm able to add them:
NOTE:Back in January, I wrote up an extensive explainer about the "Medicare for America" (Med4Am) universal healthcare coverage bill introduced in December by Democratic Representatives (and Progressive Caucus members, I might add) Rosa DeLauro and Jan Schakowsky.
Yesterday, DeLauro & Schakowsky have introduced a modified, improved version of Medicare for America, with some important changes. I'm therefore posting an updated version of my January explainer of the bill, with notes about what's changed since the December version.
At the time, I noted that besides both bills including many "wish list" items which I've been hoping would be added to the ACA for several years now, Warren's Senate CHIPA bill was also noteworthy for one other reason: The list of cosponsors:
...Sanders is actually a co-sponsor of the Warren bill, as are Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris (Calif.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.).
