|
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has implemented changes in the Affordable Care Act which undermine the Affordable Care Act. - fivethirtyeight
Even before actual repeal of Obamacare, under the Republican administration the HHS has been busy undermining how Obamacare is carried out, giving the private sector more leeway or allowing states to place work requirements on some recipients or making states assume some of the financial responsibility for expensive recipients. Now there’s a move to undermine the contraceptive mandate, a provision that has saved women out-of-pocket expenses of around $250/yr.
Trump’s budget is anti-poor people, not anti-poverty. - Michigan League for Public Policy
Who receives the most subsidies from the government?
Not the poor. Tax deductions for mortgage interest, retirement savings, and health insurance are the biggest drivers of economic inequality. They favor high earners, predominantly white Americans. More text and video interview here. [BillMoyers.com]
Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg says God will “take care of' climate change.” - Detroit Free Press
Police officers are significantly less respectful and consistently ruder toward black motorists than toward white drivers, a recently released paper found. - New York Times
Donald Trump has opened the floodgates to discrimination in the name of religion with his so-called “religious freedom” executive order. - ACLU
Roger Severino, Trump's Health and Human Services Civil-Rights head, on LGBT Issues. - The Atlantic
With patience and bureaucratic will, Severino’s office could roll back many of these Obama-era changes, and early evidence suggests this is a priority.
Kansas Republicans raise taxes, ending their GOP governor’s “real live experiment” in conservative policy. - The Washington Post
The Demolition of American Education. - The New York Review of Books
What the special election results really mean for midterms. Cook Political Report
The implications of Comey’s firing from a conservative leaning perspective. -Washington Post
Jennifer Rubin, a conservative-leaning blogger, writes that Comey’s firing (he had not yet testified) and Clapper’s interview with Andrea Mitchell that he never exonerated Trump of collusion make it imperative that leaders from both parties speak up in unison. She argues that the president has either confessed to a pattern of unacceptable conduct or made up facts from which it could be inferred. She also points out that VP Pence needs to remember that he serves the country, not the President.
Steady Jobs, but With Pay and Hours That Are Anything But. - New York Times
Richard V. Reeves on The Dream Hoarders: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality - The Boston Review
Maria Garcia Juarez wandered around the international arrivals area at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Friday, frantically looking for a government official who held a sheet of paper with her fate written on it. - Bridge Magazine
D.C., Md. attorneys general file suit against Trump, charging that foreign payments to his businesses violate Constitution’s anti corruption clause - Washington Post
The lawsuit by the two Democratic attorneys general, the first of its kind brought by a government entity, could open a new front for Trump as he navigates dueling investigations by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and congressional committees into possible collusion between his associates and the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election.
Is business losing clout in Lansing?- Bridge Magazine
For generations, Republican lawmakers worked in lockstep with Michigan’s business establishment. But Lansing’s new GOP leadership is ignoring the priorities of business to pursue its own, anti-tax agenda.
The U.S. Has One of World's Worst Health Disparities - The Atlantic
The U.S. has one of the largest income-based health disparities in the world, according to a new paper out in the journal Health Affairs. Among the poorest third of Americans studied, 38.2 percent report being in “fair or poor” health, compared with 12.3 percent of the richest third. Only Chile and Portugal have a larger income-based gap in the health status of their citizens.
Religious Liberals Sat Out of Politics for 40 Years. Now They Want in the Game. - New York Times
Faith leaders who fall left of center begin to fight the administration’s policies.
After 40 years in which the Christian right has dominated the influence of organized religion on American politics – souring some people on religion altogether – left-leaning faith leaders are hungry to break the right’s grip on setting the nation’s moral agenda.
Dear Paul Ryan: Listen to Your Constituents - New York Times
Nicholas Kristof describes his interviews with Planned Parenthood patients in Paul Ryan’s home district.
|
