#u.s. health insurance plans

[pikslasrce]

im going to do it for real this time (drop out and get a job)

[ivygorgon]

AN OPEN LETTER to THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Co-sponsor H.R. 732, the Save Medicare Act.

802 so far! Help us get to 1,000 signers!

As a constituent, I'm emailing to ask you to co-sponsor H.R. 732, the Save Medicare Act.

Medicare Advantage plans use deceptive marketing to oversell and overcharge for their private health care plans, and then under deliver on care. These private insurers are using government funding to increase their own profits, at the expense of their patients. And they take so much from the Medicare trust fund, that it’s threatening the solvency and future of traditional Medicare.

Congress must act to rein in Medicare Advantage, and should start by giving it a more accurate name. It is not Medicare and should not be advertised as such. The Save Medicare Act would force these plans to stop using “Medicare” in their name and would establish penalties for private insurers who don’t comply. Seniors and people with disabilities deserve to have this level of transparency when choosing their health care.

Please protect traditional Medicare by cosponsoring this bill.

▶ Created on April 4 by Jess Craven · 801 signers in the past 7 days 📱 Text SIGN PWAYKR to 50409

🤯 Liked it? Text FOLLOW JESSCRAVEN101 to 50409

[lookingforcactus]

A big cost and concern for many seniors in the U.S. is the price of prescription drugs and other healthcare expenses—and this year, thanks to The Inflation Reduction Act, their costs may go down dramatically, especially for patients fighting cancer or heart disease.

I learned about the new benefits because my ‘Medicare birthday’ is coming up in a couple months when I turn 65. I was shocked that there were so many positive changes being made, which I never heard about on the news.

Thousands of Americans on Medicare have been paying more than $14,000 a year for blood cancer drugs, more than $10,000 a year for ovarian cancer drugs, and more than $9,000 a year for breast cancer drugs, for instance.

That all changed beginning in 2023, after the Biden administration capped out-of-pocket prescriptions at $3,500—no matter what drugs were needed. And this year, in 2024, the cap for all Medicare out-of-pocket prescriptions went down to a maximum of $2,000.

“The American people won, and Big Pharma lost,” said President Biden in September 2022, after the legislation passed. “It’s going to be a godsend to many families.”

Another crucial medical necessity, the shingles vaccine, which many seniors skip because of the cost, is now free. Shingles is a painful rash with blisters, that can be followed by chronic pain, and other complications, for which there is no cure

In 2022, more than 2 million seniors paid between $100 and $200 for that vaccine, but starting last year, Medicare prescription drug plans dropped the cost for shots down to zero.

Another victory for consumers over Big Pharma affects anyone of any age who struggles with diabetes. The cost of life-saving insulin was capped at $35 a month [for people on Medicare].

Medicare is also lowering the costs of the premium for Part B—which covers outpatient visits to your doctors. 15 million Americans will save an average of $800 per year on health insurance costs, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Last year, for the first time in history, Medicare began using the leverage power of its large patient pool to negotiate fair prices for drugs. Medicare is no longer accepting whatever drug prices that pharmaceutical companies demand.

Negotiations began on ten of the most widely used and expensive drugs.

Among the ten drugs selected for Medicare drug price negotiation were Eliquis, used by 3.7 million Americans and Jardiance and Xarelto, each used by over a million people. The ten drugs account for the highest total spending in Medicare Part D prescription plans...

How are all these cost-savings being paid for?

The government is able to pay for these benefits by making sure the biggest corporations in America are paying their fair share of federal taxes.

In 2020, for instance, dozens of American companies on the Fortune 500 list who made $40 billion in profit paid zero in federal taxes.

Starting in 2023, U.S. corporations are required to pay a minimum corporate tax of 15 percent. The Inflation Reduction Act created the CAMT, which imposed the 15% minimum tax on the adjusted financial statement income of any corporation with average income that exceeds $1 billion.

For years, Americans have decried the rising costs of health care—but in the last three years, there are plenty of positive developments.

-via Good News Network, February 25, 2024

[simply-ivanka]

Who’s Afraid of Project 2025?

Democrats run against a think-tank paper that Trump disavows. Why?

Wall Street Journal

July 29, 2024

By The Editorial Board

Americans are learning more about Kamala Harris, as Democrats rush to anoint the Vice President’s candidacy after throwing President Biden overboard. Ms. Harris wasted no time saying she’s going to run hard against a policy paper that Donald Trump has disavowed—the supposedly nefarious agenda known as Project 2025. But who’s afraid of a think-tank white paper?

“I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda,” Ms. Harris tweeted shortly after President Biden dropped out. She’s picking up this ball from Mr. Biden, and her campaign website claims that Project 2025 would “strip away our freedoms” and “abolish checks and balances.”

***

Sounds terrible, but is it? The 922-page document doesn’t lack for modesty, as a wish list of policy reforms that would touch every part of government from the Justice Department to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The project is led by the Heritage Foundation and melds the work of some 400 scholars and analysts from an eclectic mix of center-right groups. The project is also assembling a Rolodex of those who might work in a Trump Administration.

Most of the Democratic panic-mongering has focused on the project’s aim to rein in the administrative state. That includes civil service reform that would make it easier to remove some government workers, and potentially revisiting the independent status of agencies like the Federal Trade Commission.

The latter isn’t going to happen, but getting firmer presidential control over the bureaucracy would improve accountability. The federal government has become so vast that Presidents have difficulty even knowing what is going on in the executive branch. Americans don’t want to be ruled by a permanent governing class that doesn’t answer to voters.

Some items on this menu are also standard conservative fare. The document calls for an 18% corporate tax rate (now 21%), describing that levy as “the most damaging tax” in the U.S. system that falls heavily on workers. A mountain of economic literature backs that up. The blueprint suggests tying more welfare programs with work; de-regulating health insurance markets; expanding Medicare Advantage plans that seniors like; ending sugar subsidies; revving up U.S. energy production. That all sounds good to us.

Democrats are suggesting the project would gut Social Security, though in fact it bows to Mr. Trump’s preference not to touch the retirement program, which is headed for bankruptcy without reform. No project can profess to care about the rising national debt, as Heritage does, without fixing a program that was 22% of the federal budget in 2023.

At times the paper takes no position. For example: The blueprint features competing essays on trade policy. This is a tacit admission that for all the GOP’s ideological confusion on economics, many conservatives still understand that Mr. Trump’s 10% tariff is a terrible idea.

As for the politics, Mr. Trump recently said online that he knew “nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.” That may be true. The chance that Mr. Trump has read any of it is remote to nil, and he doesn’t want to be tied to anyone’s ideas since he prizes maximum ideological flexibility.

The document mentions abortion nearly 200 times, but Mr. Trump wants to neutralize that issue. The project’s chief sponsor, Heritage president Kevin Roberts, also gave opponents a sword when he boasted of “a second American revolution” that would be peaceful “if the left allows it to be.” This won’t help Mr. Trump with the swing voters he needs to win re-election.

By our lights the project’s cultural overtones are also too dark and the agenda gives too little spotlight to the economic freedom and strong national defense that defined the think tank’s influence on Ronald Reagan in 1980.

***

But the left’s campaign against Project 2025 is reaching absurd decibels. You’d think Mr. Trump is a political mastermind hiding the secret plans he’ll implement with an army of shock troops marching in lockstep. If his first term is any guide, and it is the best we have, Mr. Trump will govern as a make-it-up-as-he-goes tactician rather than a strategist with a coherent policy guide. He’ll dodge and weave based on the news cycle and often based on whoever talks to him last.

Not much of the Project 2025 agenda is likely to happen, even if Republicans take the House and Senate. Democrats will block legislation with a filibuster. The bureaucracy will leak with abandon and oppose even the most minor reforms to the civil service. The press will revert to full resistance mode, and Mr. Trump’s staff will trip over their own ambitions.

Democrats know this, which is why they fear Trump II less than they claim. They’re targeting Project 2025 to distract from their own failed and unpopular policies.

[bitchesgetriches]

Hey guys! This isn't a financial question but it is an Adult question and I'm hoping you guys or someone else in bitch nation will know. How do I see a doctor for birth control without my parents knowing? I'm off in college right now and I started seeing somebody but my parents don't know and honestly I'm not ready to tell them about him or that I'm sexually active. However, I know that going to the doctor means health insurance and (since I'm on their plan) they will almost certainly know that I went to the doctor, even if they don't know what exactly for. Is there a way to avoid them even knowing I went or do I just have to lie to them about the reason? (Also the school clinic is not an option because the practitioner is out until the fall semester starts back)

Thank you!!

Y'all know we care a LOT about reproductive rights. So we're always happy to help with a question like this.

I was in a similar position when I was an 18-year-old college freshman. My parents were in the military, and at the time (maybe still?) the U.S. Army's health insurance provider did NOT cover what I needed.

I went to Planned Parenthood. At the time I lived in Boston, and this meant walking past several security guards, through two bomb-proof doors, and through a metal detector. I was terrified at first... but it was worth it. The staff there was knowledgeable, helpful, and understanding of my position. They examined me, prescribed me the birth control I needed, and charged me an affordable rate. They didn't contact my parents, my school, my doctor, or my insurance. And they allowed me to pick up the meds at their clinic instead of mailing them home.

I strongly recommend Planned Parenthood if you need to get birth control or any other reproductive healthcare without notifying your parents or primary healthcare provider. If there's not one in your area, or you can't get to it, call the nearest one and ask them for advice on how to get birth control safely and anonymously.

Here's more information:

How To Get an Abortion 

How (and Why) to Take Back Reproductive Rights: On Pulling Weeds and Fighting Back 

Blood Money: Menstrual Products for Surviving Your Period While Poor

If you found this helpful, consider joining our Patreon.

[misfitwashere]

August 24, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

AUG 25

The raucous roll call of states at the 2024 Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, as everybody danced to DJ Cassidy’s state-themed music, Lil Jon strode down the aisle to cheers for Georgia, and different delegations boasted about their states and good-naturedly teased other delegations, brought home the real-life meaning of E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one.” From then until Thursday, as a sea of American flags waved and attendees joyfully chanted “USA, USA, USA,” the convention welcomed a new vision for the Democratic Party, deeply rooted in the best of traditional America. 

Under the direction of President Joe Biden, over the past three and a half years the Democrats have returned to the economic ideology of the New Deal coalition of the 1930s. This week’s convention showed that it has now gone further, recentering the vision of government that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, called upon to make it serve the interests of communities.     

When the Biden-Harris administration took office in 2021, the United States was facing a deadly pandemic and the economic crash it had caused. The country also had to deal with the aftermath of the attempt of former president Donald Trump to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and seize the presidency. It appeared that many people in the United States, as in many other countries around the world, had given up on democracy. 

Biden set out to prove that democracy could work for ordinary people by ditching the neoliberalism that had been in place for forty years. That system, begun in the 1980s, called for the government to allow unfettered markets to organize the economy. Neoliberalism’s proponents promised it would create widespread prosperity, but instead, it transferred more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. As the middle class hollowed out, those slipping behind lined up behind an authoritarian figure who promised to restore their former centrality by attacking those he told them were their enemies.

When he took office, Biden vowed to prove that democracy worked. With laws like the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats directed investment toward ordinary Americans. The dramatic success of their economic program proved that it worked. On Wednesday, former president Bill Clinton noted that since 1989, the U.S. has created 51 million new jobs. Fifty million of those jobs were created under Democratic presidents, while only 1 million were added under Republicans—a striking statistic that perhaps will put neoliberalism, or at least the tired trope that Democrats are worse for the economy than Republicans, to bed. 

Vice President Kamala Harris’s nomination convention suggested a more thorough reworking of the federal government, one that also recalls the 1930s but suggests a transformation that goes beyond markets and jobs. 

Before Labor Secretary Perkins’s 1935 Social Security Act, the government served largely to manage the economic relationships between labor, capital, and resources. But Perkins recognized that the purpose of government was not to protect property; it was to protect the community. She recognized that children, women, and elderly and disabled Americans were as valuable to the community as young male workers and the wealthy men who employed them.

With a law that established a federal system of old-age benefits; unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services, Perkins began the process of molding the government to reflect that truth. 

Perkins’s understanding of the United States as a community reflected both her time in a small town in Maine and in her experience as a social worker in inner-city Philadelphia and Chicago before the law provided any protections for the workers, including children, who made the new factories profitable. She understood that while lawmakers focused on male workers, the American economy was, and always has been, utterly dependent on the unrecognized contributions of women and marginalized people in the form of childcare, sharing food and housing, and the many forms of unpaid work that keep communities functioning. 

This reworking of the American government to reflect community rather than economic

relationships changed the entire fabric of the country, and opponents have worked to destroy it ever since FDR began to put it in place. 

Now, in their quest to win the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz—the Democratic nominees for president and vice president—have reclaimed the idea of community, with its understanding that everyone matters and the government must serve everyone, as the center of American life. 

Their vision rejects the division of the country into “us” and “them” that has been a staple of Republican politics since President Richard M. Nixon. It also rejects the politics of identity that has become identified with the argument that the United States has been irredeemably warped by racism and sexism. Instead, at the DNC, Democrats acknowledged the many ways in which the country has come up short of its principles in the past, and demanded that Americans do something to put in place a government that will address those inequities and make the American dream accessible to all.

Walz personifies this community vision. On Wednesday he laid it out from the very beginning of his acceptance speech, noting that he grew up in Butte, Nebraska, a town of 400 people, with 24 kids in his high school class. “[G]rowing up in a small town like that,” he said, “you'll learn how to take care of each other that that family down the road, they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do, they may not love like you do, but they're your neighbors and you look out for them and they look out for you. Everybody belongs and everybody has a responsibility to contribute.” The football players Walz coached to a state championship joined him on stage.

Harris also called out this idea of community when she declined to mention that, if elected, she will be the first female president, and instead remembered growing up in “a beautiful working-class neighborhood of firefighters, nurses, and construction workers, all who tended their lawns with pride.” Her mother, Harris said, “leaned on a trusted circle to help raise us. Mrs. Shelton, who ran the daycare below us and became a second mother. Uncle Sherman. Aunt Mary. Uncle Freddy. And Auntie Chris. None of them, family by blood. And all of them, Family. By love…. Family who…instilled in us the values they personified. Community. Faith. And the importance of treating others as you would want to be treated. With kindness. Respect. And compassion.”

The speakers at the DNC called out the women who make communities function. Speaker after speaker at the DNC thanked their mother. Former first lady Michelle Obama explicitly described her mother, Marian Robinson, as someone who lived out the idea of hope for a better future, working for children and the community. Mrs. Obama described her mother as “glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that for generations has strengthened the fabric of this nation.” 

Mrs. Obama, Harris, and Walz have emphasized that while they come from different backgrounds, they come from what Mrs. Obama called “the same foundational values”: “the promise of this country,” “the obligation to lift others up,” a “responsibility to give more than we take.”  Harris agreed, saying her mother “taught us to never complain about injustice. But…do something about it. She also taught us—Never do anything half-assed. That’s a direct quote.”

The Democrats worked to make it clear that their vision is not just the Democratic Party’s vision but an American one. They welcomed the union workers and veterans who have in the past gravitated toward Republicans, showing a powerful video contrasting Trump’s photo-ops, in which actors play union workers, with the actual plants being built thanks to money from the Biden-Harris administration. The many Democratic lawmakers who have served in the military stood on stage to back Arizona representative Ruben Gallego, a former Marine, who told the crowd that the veteran unemployment rate under Biden and Harris is the lowest in history. 

The many Republicans who spoke at the convention reinforced that the Democratic vision speaks for the whole country. Former representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) identified this vision as “conservative.” “As a conservative and a veteran,” he said “I believe true strength lies in defending the vulnerable. It’s in protecting your family. It’s in standing up for our Constitution and our democracy. That…is the soul of being a conservative. It used to be the soul of being a Republican,” Kinzinger said. “But Donald Trump has suffocated the soul of the Republican Party.” 

“[A] harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us,” Harris said. And she reminded people of her career as a prosecutor, in which “[e]very day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and said five words: ‘Kamala Harris, for the People.’ My entire career, I have only had one client. The People.”

“And so, on behalf of The People. On behalf of every American. Regardless of party. Race. Gender. Or the language your grandmother speaks. On behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey. On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with. People who work hard. Chase their dreams. And look out for one another. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth. I accept your nomination for President of the United States of America.”

The 100,000 biodegradable balloons that fell from the rafters when Vice President Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president were blown up and tied by a team of 55 balloon artists from 18 states and Canada who volunteered to prepare the drop in honor of their colleague, Tommy DeLorenzo, who, along with his husband Scott, runs a balloon business. DeLorenzo is battling cancer. “We’re more colleagues than competitors,” Patty Sorell told Sydney Page of the Washington Post. “We all wanted to do something to help Tommy, to show him how much we love him.” 

“Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for this community,” DeLorenzo said.  

[sheisraging]

If you're considering not voting or casting a pointless 3rd party vote in the upcoming US elections*, I'd urge you to read about Project 2025, which is the Republican transition plan for if they win the 2024 election (link is for the wiki page, not the actual website).

A short summary:

Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Established in 2022, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants—whom Republicans characterize as part of the "deep state"—and to further the objectives of the next Republican president. It adopts a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory, a widely disputed interpretation of Article II of the Constitution of the United States, which asserts that the president has absolute power over the executive branch upon inauguration.

Among the many horrifying and notable points:

Abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be either transferred to other government agencies, or terminated. Basic research would only be funded if it suits conservative principles.

Promotes the ideal that the government should "maintain a biblically based, social-science-reinforced definition of marriage and family."

Proposed recognition of only heterosexual men and women, the removal of protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual or gender identity, and the elimination of provisions pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from federal legislation.

Individuals who have participated in DEI programs or any initiatives involving critical race theory might be fired.

Explicitly reject abortion as health care

Revive provisions of the Comstock Act of the 1870s that banned mail delivery of any "instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing" that could be used for an abortion.

Restrict access to contraception.

Infuse the government with elements of Christianity, and its contributors believe that "freedom is defined by God, not man."

Criminalizing pornography

Combat "affirmative discrimination" or "anti-white racism," citing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and to direct the DOJ to pursue Donald Trump's adversaries by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807.

Recommend the arrest, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants across the country.

Promotes capital punishment and the speedy "finality" of such sentences.

Reform the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) so that the nuclear household structure is emphasized.

Give state governments the authority impose stricter work requirements for beneficiaries of Medicaid

Mandate that federal healthcare providers should deny gender-affirming care to transgender people

Eliminate insurance coverage of the morning-after-pill Ella (required by the Affordable Care Act of 2010).

Remove Medicare's ability to negotiate drug prices.

These are just a few things and I'm sure lots of people will be like lol this will never happen but lots of people said this about overturning Roe, as well.

*FWIW - I think it is absolutely valid to be angry, discouraged, and disappointed in our current administration.

Be mad at Biden! (though I would encourage looking into some of the actually positive things his administration has achieved).

But also consider what's at stake for a huge population of this country if we wind up with a GOP win.

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - April 3, 2023

Kentucky Legalizes Medical Marijuana in Bipartisan Vote After Decade of Failed Attempts

The state of Kentucky has legalized the use of medical marijuana. The bill received final passage on Thursday. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear signed it into law Friday morning after a decade of failed attempts in the state legislature.

The news makes Kentucky at least the 38th state in the U.S. to legalize medical marijuana.

Now Indiana is surrounded by weed states. The encirclement is complete 😂

2. The Maryland House of Delegates voted Saturday to approve the Trans Health Equity Act

The Maryland House of Delegates voted Saturday to approve the Trans Health Equity Act — a bill that just a year ago disappeared from the chamber’s agenda ahead of a floor vote.

The bill would require Maryland Medicaid, beginning on Jan. 1, 2024, to provide coverage for additional gender-affirming treatments, which are currently disallowed in the state’s plan but commonly covered by private insurance. The expanded treatments include hormone therapy, hair alteration, voice therapy, physical alterations to the body, and fertility preservation.

3. FDA approves over-the-counter Narcan. Here's what it means

The approved nasal spray is the best-known form of naloxone. It can reverse overdoses of opioids, including street drugs such as heroin and fentanyl and prescription versions including oxycodone.

Making naloxone available more widely is seen as a key strategy to control the nationwide overdose crisis. Effects begin within two minutes when given intravenously, and within five minutes when injected into a muscle. The medicine can also be administered by spraying it into a person's nose.

4. Boston expands tuition-free community college program to all residents

Boston has expanded its tuition-free community college program to include all city residents regardless of age, income or immigration status.

Starting this fall, any city resident will be eligible to pursue an associate’s degree or certificate at one of six partnering local institutions without paying to attend. The program also includes a $250 stipend for incidental expenses each semester for up to three years, and up to $2,500 of debt relief for students whose account balances are keeping them from re-enrolling.

5. First cheetah cubs born in India since extinction 70 years ago

India has welcomed the birth of four cheetah cubs - more than 70 years after the animals were declared officially extinct there.India's environment minister announced the good news, calling it a "momentous event".

The country has been trying to reintroduce the big cats for decades, and last year brought eight cheetahs over from Namibia as part of the plan. Another 12 cheetahs were brought to India from South Africa last month.

6. BBC education show in Afghanistan helps children banned from school

The BBC has launched a new education programme for children in Afghanistan who are banned from school.It is aimed at children aged 11 to 16, including girls whose secondary education has been stopped by the ruling Taliban.

The weekly programme is called Dars, which means lesson in Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan's official languages. It is hosted by BBC Afghan female journalists who were evacuated from Kabul during the 2021 Taliban takeover.

Each new weekly half-hour episode of Dars will air four times a day, Saturday to Friday, on the newly launched BBC News Afghanistan channel.

7. A Trans Creator Has Raised Over 1.5 Million for Trans Healthcare on TikTok Live

Transgender TikTokers are celebrating Trans Day of Visibility by raising over $1.5 million for gender-affirming care around the world.

Mercury Stardust — a DIY TikToker and trans advocate who calls herself the “Trans Handy Ma’am” — raised $120,000 last year in a livestream for the mutual aid nonprofit Point of Pride, which maintains funds for surgeries, hormone therapy, and free binders and gaffs. This year, Stardust and cohost Jory, a.k.a. AlluringSkull, set themselves a goal of raising $1 million in a planned 30-hour live stream…and then smashed that milestone less than six hours after starting the stream Thursday evening.

----

I have started a Youtube channel with wholesome videos I can find on the internet. Check it out :)

That's it for this week :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to reblog

[reasonsforhope]

"Sanofi on Thursday said it’s planning to cut the U.S. price of its most popular insulin drug by 78% and cap monthly out-of-pocket costs at $35 for people who have private insurance starting next year. 

In addition to its widely prescribed Lantus, the French drugmaker will reduce the list price of its short-acting insulin Apidra by 70%. Sanofi already offers a $35 monthly cap on insulin for uninsured diabetes patients.

The company is the last major insulin manufacturer to try to head off government efforts to cap monthly costs by announcing its own steep price cuts for the lifesaving hormone. 

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk made similar sweeping cuts earlier this month after years of political pressure and public outrage over the high costs of diabetes care. The three companies control over 90% of the global insulin market. 

... The change takes effect Jan. 1.

President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act capped monthly insulin costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $35, but it did not provide protection to diabetes patients who are covered by private insurance.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent and the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, introduced a bill earlier this month that would cap the list price of insulin at $20 per vial.

Both the president and Sanders on Tuesday directly called on Sanofi to slash its prices after Novo Nordisk announced its own cuts that day.

Roughly 37 million people in the U.S., or 11.3% of the country’s population, have diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately 8.4 million [U.S.] diabetes patients rely on insulin, the American Diabetes Association said."

-via CNBC, 3/16/23

[kp777]

By Jessica Corbett

Common Dreams

March 20, 2024

"Trump has tried to walk back his support for Social Security and Medicare cuts," said the head of Social Security Works. "This budget is one of many reasons why no one should believe him."

Defenders of Social Security and Medicare on Wednesday swiftly criticized the biggest caucus of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives for putting out a budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 that takes aim at the crucial programs.

The 180-page "Fiscal Sanity to Save America" plan from the Republican Study Committee (RSC) follows the release of proposals from Democratic President Joe Biden and U.S. House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas)—who is leading the fight to create a fiscal commission for the programs that critics call a "death panel" designed to force through cuts.

The RSC document features full sections on "Saving Medicare" and "Preventing Biden's Cuts to Social Security," which both push back on the president's recent comments calling out Republican attacks on the programs that serve seniors.

The caucus plan promotes premium support for Medicare Advantage plans administered by private health insurance providers as well as changes to payments made to teaching hospitals. For Social Security, the proposal calls for tying retirement age to rising life expectancy and cutting benefits for younger workers over certain income levels, including phasing out auxiliary benefits.

The document also claims that the caucus budget "would promote trust fund solvency by increasing payroll tax revenues through pro-growth tax reform, pro-growth energy policy that lifts wages, work requirements that move Americans from welfare to work, and regulatory reforms that increase economic growth."

In a lengthy Wednesday statement blasting the RSC budget, Social Security Works president Nancy Altman pointed out that last week, former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee to face Biden in the November election, "toldCNBC that 'there's a lot you can do' to cut Social Security."

"Everyone who cares about the future of these vital earned benefits should vote accordingly in November."

"Now, congressional Republicans are confirming the party's support for cuts—to the tune of $1.5 trillion. They are also laying out some of those cuts," Altman said. "This budget would raise the retirement age, in line with prominent Republican influencer Ben Shapiro's recent comments that 'retirement itself is a stupid idea.' It would make annual cost-of-living increases stingier, so that benefits erode over time. It would slash middle-class benefits."

"Perhaps most insultingly, given the Republicans' claim to be the party of 'family values,' this budget would eliminate Social Security spousal benefits, as well as children's benefits, for middle-class families. That would punish women who take time out of the workforce to care for children and other loved ones," she continued. "This coming from a party that wants to take away women's reproductive rights!"

The caucus, chaired by Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), included 285 bills and initiatives from 192 members in its budget plan—among them are various proposals threatening abortion care, birth control, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) nationwide.

"The RSC budget would also take away Medicare's new power to negotiate lower prices on prescription drugs, putting more money into the pockets of the GOP's Big Pharma donors," Altman warned. "And it accelerates the privatization of Medicare, handing it over to private insurance companies who have a long history of ripping off the government and delaying and denying care to those who need it."

"In recent days, Trump has tried to walk back his support for Social Security and Medicare cuts," she noted. "This budget is one of many reasons why no one should believe him. The Republican Party is the party of cutting Social Security and Medicare, while giving tax handouts to billionaires."

"The Democratic Party is the party of expanding Social Security and Medicare, paid for by requiring the ultrawealthy to contribute their fair share," Altman added. "Everyone who cares about the future of these vital earned benefits should vote accordingly in November."

Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler also targeted the Republican presidential candidate while slamming the RSC plan, saying that "Donald Trump's MAGA allies in Congress made it clear today: A vote for Trump is a vote to make the MAGA 2025 agenda of cutting Social Security, ripping away access to IVF, and banning abortion nationwide a hellish reality."

"While Trump and his allies push forward their extreme agenda, the American people are watching," Tyler added, suggesting that the RSC proposal will help motivate voters to give Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris four more years in the White House.

[darkmaga-retard]

By Patricia McCarthy

Given everything we know about Kamala Harris by now, it is astonishing that a single American would consider voting for her.  She is clearly way out of her depth, and until she suddenly became the designated candidate of the Democrat party, most people on both sides of the aisle considered her to be unqualified.  She did virtually nothing as Biden’s vice president these past three-and-a-half years beyond casting tie-breaking votes on numerous bills that have led to destructive inflation and trillions more in our national debt.  Most everyone agrees that she was the most radical of leftist senators while she held that office; she is to the left of Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist.  Harris is, and would govern as, a communist. The record of her political beliefs, going back to her terms first as San Francisco DA and then state AG, proves just how radical she is.  Now she claims she has “changed her mind” on all those annoying issues like defunding the police, ending all fracking, decriminalizing all drug offenses, no border wall, the decriminalization of all illegal entries into the U.S., mandated gun confiscation, etc., and she claims as well that “her values have not changed.”  She wants to have it both ways.

Now we have heard the one and only debate during which the two ABC moderators clearly sought to cover for Harris’s many, many lies. To those of us who follow the campaign closely, just about every word out of her mouth was a lie.  So, one has to assume that those people who support Kamala Harris are wholly ignorant of her plans to complete Obama’s transformation of America into a Marxist nation without any constitutional protections.  If they continue to support her after the debate, then they are so deeply indoctrinated they are unable to think critically.  David Muir and Lindsey Davis both ran interference for Harris. They did not challenge even one of her many prevarications.  For example, the left absolutely does support abortion up to and including birth.  Obama twice voted against Illinois’s infant born alive act.  It is the law in several states that infants who survive an abortion are denied medical care.  Davis was wrong to say late-term abortion is against the law in every state. There was a Born-Alive Infants Protection Act that passed in Congress and was signed by George W. Bush in 2002, but apparently another was needed.  H.R. 26 was passed in the House in January 2023; 210 Democrats voted against it. It has not been passed in the Senate.

Harris was never asked to explain her many flip-flops on important issues — her long-term opposition to fossil fuels, fracking, even LNG and gas stoves.  She was not asked if she still advocates for transgender surgeries for illegal migrants.  She was not asked if she still supports the defunding of police, giving felons the right to vote, and a fully open border.  She is on record over and over again opposing a border wall, but uses Trump’s border wall in her ads!  She does oppose private health care for all, despite her lies during the debate.  She supports censorship of discourse antithetical to the government agenda. Despite what she said, she does support the mandatory confiscation of all guns in the hands of citizens which would insure that only criminals have guns. 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jonathan Cohn at HuffPost:

The first-ever negotiations between the federal government and pharmaceutical companies have led to agreements that will lower the prices of 10 treatments, reducing costs for the Medicare program and for some individual seniors, the Biden administration announced early Thursday morning. This round of negotiations began in 2023 and took place because of the Inflation Reduction Act, the law that Democrats in Congress passed on a party-line vote and that President Joe Biden signed two years ago. The new prices are for drugs covering a variety of conditions, including diabetes and inflammatory illnesses, and are set to take effect in January 2026. The negotiation process is going to happen each year, with a new set of drugs each time. If all goes to plan, that means the scope of drugs subject to negotiated prices will grow each year, while the savings will accumulate.

“When these lower prices go into effect, people on Medicare will save $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs for their prescription drugs and Medicare will save $6 billion in the first year alone,” Biden said in a prepared statement, citing figures that analysts at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services calculated and published on Thursday. “It’s a relief for the millions of seniors that take these drugs to treat everything from heart failure, blood clots, diabetes, arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and more ― and it’s a relief for American taxpayers.” Of course, those numbers refer to aggregate savings on drug spending. Figuring out what they will mean for individual Medicare beneficiaries is difficult, because so much depends on people’s individual circumstances ― like which drugs they take, or which options for prescription coverage they use. It also depends on knowing the actual, real prices for these drugs today, after taking into account the discounts that private insurers managing Medicare drug plans extract from manufacturers. Those discounts are proprietary information that the federal government cannot release.

Great news: The Biden Administration, pharmaceutical companies, and Medicare have negotiated hefty price reductions for 10 high-cost drugs, including Januvia, FIASP, and Entresto.

[profeminist]

"The Food and Drug Administration got one step closer to making birth control pills available over the counter when a panel of experts voted unanimously to recommend the move last week. At a time of increasingly fraught access to reproductive health care, being able to get birth control without a prescription would make it easier for people to plan and prevent pregnancies nationwide.

But Democratic lawmakers want to make it even more accessible, ensuring that health insurers provide no-cost coverage of oral contraceptives by passing the Affordability Is Access Act.

The FDA is set to announce its decision on whether to reclassify the drug this summer."

Read the full piece here: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-unveil-plan-for-no-cost-over-the-counter-birth-control_n_646407a1e4b0ab2b97e3ecd0

U.S. readers, register to vote here

[eddiegettingshot]

can you talk more about your thoughts on shannon? i don't how to feel about the way they're kind of rewriting history a bit and mythologizing her and eddie's relationship in s6 and s7. i also really don't like acting like eddie "abandoning" them (i.e. offering financial support, health insurance, and remaining in contact while at war) and shannon abandoning them (basically no contact for years from what we know, no financial or any other kind of support, only re-entered the picture after eddie reached out) are equivalent; ik a lot of that comes from eddie who i can understand feeling that way (esp bc of how he felt about his father) but the show doesn't really challenge that view in any way. also the divorce conversation seemed a bit ambiguous on whether she actually planned on staying in chris' life but maybe i'm misremembering.

i have pretty much zero sympathy for shannon because i don't think there's any excuse for abandoning your child without a word, especially not because his disability made you feel Guilty and everything was just too hard to deal with and it was just too hard to come back. her actions made sense given the situation, but i don't think any of it was justifiable. the divorce discussion was weird - i took it to mean that she was planning on taking things slow with her reentry into chris's life, instead of the three of them jumping into being a family? working out some kind of custody agreement after divorcing, etc? i know there are less generous readings that suggest she was just going to run again, but i'm not sure the conversation itself necessarily supports that.

and yeah, it actually is really strange to me to act like eddie's service and shannon's leaving were remotely the same thing, and it's also really strange to act like eddie was obligated to leave texas three months after returning from war, where he had been GRIEVOUSLY injured. there was obviously a solution here but she ran before they could even attempt to figure it out. and then when she came back, she was judgmental and honestly pretty manipulative. whatever their marriage was before, i don't think she was treating eddie right when she came back.

i'm not sitting here trying to be like, eddie did nothing wrong - he was a bad husband. he made assumptions about what shannon wanted from him, didn't make any effort to communicate, made broad decisions about what was best for them, etc. they were absolutely not on the same page and i don't think he was making any effort to get on the same page. even when they were "together" again you see that he's not really talking to her about important stuff, like their finances (in oceans 9-1-1 when she asks about the surfing lessons he just tells her not to worry about it).

their marriage was bad because of the circumstances surrounding it: they were too young to have a kid or be married, eddie went to war presumably because (he felt) that was his only option to provide for his family, going to war just fucking sucks for everyone because war sucks and the military fucking sucks, it fucking sucks to navigate medical care in the u.s., etc. etc. i don't think shannon was at fault for finding any of this difficult. but the solution was... not whatever she actually did, and i do think that she turned a lot of the blame and frustration she was feeling onto eddie in a way that was unfair, if a somewhat understandable impulse.

but. literally nothing makes up for the fact that she left her, what, five year old son? because shit was just too hard. that's not how that works! and eddie has internalized everything that happened here to the extent that i don't think he even recognizes it as a trauma. it's just a part of him. he sees himself as shannon saw him. he's spent the last five years trying to make amends to a ghost. and i think that acting like they were both equally culpable is just taking eddie at his word, when his word is famously Not Reality.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 24, 2024 (Saturday)

The raucous roll call of states at the 2024 Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, as everybody danced to DJ Cassidy’s state-themed music, Lil Jon strode down the aisle to cheers for Georgia, and different delegations boasted about their states and good-naturedly teased other delegations, brought home the real-life meaning of E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one.” From then until Thursday, as a sea of American flags waved and attendees joyfully chanted “USA, USA, USA,” the convention welcomed a new vision for the Democratic Party, deeply rooted in the best of traditional America.

Under the direction of President Joe Biden, over the past three and a half years the Democrats have returned to the economic ideology of the New Deal coalition of the 1930s. This week’s convention showed that it has now gone further, recentering the vision of government that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, called upon to make it serve the interests of communities.

When the Biden-Harris administration took office in 2021, the United States was facing a deadly pandemic and the economic crash it had caused. The country also had to deal with the aftermath of the attempt of former president Donald Trump to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and seize the presidency. It appeared that many people in the United States, as in many other countries around the world, had given up on democracy.

Biden set out to prove that democracy could work for ordinary people by ditching the neoliberalism that had been in place for forty years. That system, begun in the 1980s, called for the government to allow unfettered markets to organize the economy. Neoliberalism’s proponents promised it would create widespread prosperity, but instead, it transferred more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. As the middle class hollowed out, those slipping behind lined up behind an authoritarian figure who promised to restore their former centrality by attacking those he told them were their enemies.

When he took office, Biden vowed to prove that democracy worked. With laws like the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats directed investment toward ordinary Americans. The dramatic success of their economic program proved that it worked. On Wednesday, former president Bill Clinton noted that since 1989, the U.S. has created 51 million new jobs. Fifty million of those jobs were created under Democratic presidents, while only 1 million were added under Republicans—a striking statistic that perhaps will put neoliberalism, or at least the tired trope that Democrats are worse for the economy than Republicans, to bed.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s nomination convention suggested a more thorough reworking of the federal government, one that also recalls the 1930s but suggests a transformation that goes beyond markets and jobs.

Before Labor Secretary Perkins’s 1935 Social Security Act, the government served largely to manage the economic relationships between labor, capital, and resources. But Perkins recognized that the purpose of government was not to protect property; it was to protect the community. She recognized that children, women, and elderly and disabled Americans were as valuable to the community as young male workers and the wealthy men who employed them.

With a law that established a federal system of old-age benefits; unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services, Perkins began the process of molding the government to reflect that truth.

Perkins’s understanding of the United States as a community reflected both her time in a small town in Maine and in her experience as a social worker in inner-city Philadelphia and Chicago before the law provided any protections for the workers, including children, who made the new factories profitable. She understood that while lawmakers focused on male workers, the American economy was, and always has been, utterly dependent on the unrecognized contributions of women and marginalized people in the form of childcare, sharing food and housing, and the many forms of unpaid work that keep communities functioning.

This reworking of the American government to reflect community rather than economic relationships changed the entire fabric of the country, and opponents have worked to destroy it ever since FDR began to put it in place.

Now, in their quest to win the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz—the Democratic nominees for president and vice president—have reclaimed the idea of community, with its understanding that everyone matters and the government must serve everyone, as the center of American life.

Their vision rejects the division of the country into “us” and “them” that has been a staple of Republican politics since President Richard M. Nixon. It also rejects the politics of identity that has become identified with the argument that the United States has been irredeemably warped by racism and sexism. Instead, at the DNC, Democrats acknowledged the many ways in which the country has come up short of its principles in the past, and demanded that Americans do something to put in place a government that will address those inequities and make the American dream accessible to all.

Walz personifies this community vision. On Wednesday he laid it out from the very beginning of his acceptance speech, noting that he grew up in Butte, Nebraska, a town of 400 people, with 24 kids in his high school class. “[G]rowing up in a small town like that,” he said, “you'll learn how to take care of each other that that family down the road, they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do, they may not love like you do, but they're your neighbors and you look out for them and they look out for you. Everybody belongs and everybody has a responsibility to contribute.” The football players Walz coached to a state championship joined him on stage.

Harris also called out this idea of community when she declined to mention that, if elected, she will be the first female president, and instead remembered growing up in “a beautiful working-class neighborhood of firefighters, nurses, and construction workers, all who tended their lawns with pride.” Her mother, Harris said, “leaned on a trusted circle to help raise us. Mrs. Shelton, who ran the daycare below us and became a second mother. Uncle Sherman. Aunt Mary. Uncle Freddy. And Auntie Chris. None of them, family by blood. And all of them, Family. By love…. Family who…instilled in us the values they personified. Community. Faith. And the importance of treating others as you would want to be treated. With kindness. Respect. And compassion.”

The speakers at the DNC called out the women who make communities function. Speaker after speaker at the DNC thanked their mother. Former first lady Michelle Obama explicitly described her mother, Marian Robinson, as someone who lived out the idea of hope for a better future, working for children and the community. Mrs. Obama described her mother as “glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that for generations has strengthened the fabric of this nation.”

Mrs. Obama, Harris, and Walz have emphasized that while they come from different backgrounds, they come from what Mrs. Obama called “the same foundational values”: “the promise of this country,” “the obligation to lift others up,” a “responsibility to give more than we take.” Harris agreed, saying her mother “taught us to never complain about injustice. But…do something about it. She also taught us—Never do anything half-assed. That’s a direct quote.”

The Democrats worked to make it clear that their vision is not just the Democratic Party’s vision but an American one. They welcomed the union workers and veterans who have in the past gravitated toward Republicans, showing a powerful video contrasting Trump’s photo-ops, in which actors play union workers, with the actual plants being built thanks to money from the Biden-Harris administration. The many Democratic lawmakers who have served in the military stood on stage to back Arizona representative Ruben Gallego, a former Marine, who told the crowd that the veteran unemployment rate under Biden and Harris is the lowest in history.

The many Republicans who spoke at the convention reinforced that the Democratic vision speaks for the whole country. Former representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) identified this vision as “conservative.” “As a conservative and a veteran,” he said “I believe true strength lies in defending the vulnerable. It’s in protecting your family. It’s in standing up for our Constitution and our democracy. That…is the soul of being a conservative. It used to be the soul of being a Republican,” Kinzinger said. “But Donald Trump has suffocated the soul of the Republican Party.”

“[A] harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us,” Harris said. And she reminded people of her career as a prosecutor, in which “[e]very day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and said five words: ‘Kamala Harris, for the People.’ My entire career, I have only had one client. The People.”

“And so, on behalf of The People. On behalf of every American. Regardless of party. Race. Gender. Or the language your grandmother speaks. On behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey. On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with. People who work hard. Chase their dreams. And look out for one another. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth. I accept your nomination for President of the United States of America.”

The 100,000 biodegradable balloons that fell from the rafters when Vice President Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president were blown up and tied by a team of 55 balloon artists from 18 states and Canada who volunteered to prepare the drop in honor of their colleague, Tommy DeLorenzo, who along with his husband Scott, runs a balloon business. DeLorenzo is battling cancer. “We’re more colleagues than competitors,” Patty Sorell told Sydney Page of the Washington Post. “We all wanted to do something to help Tommy, to show him how much we love him.”

“Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for this community,” DeLorenzo said.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

Maternity Benefits

If you're in the U.S., make sure to read through your health insurance coverage documents entirely. Some plans are legally able to deny dependent children maternity benefits. This means that if your teenager gets pregnant, or if your 24-year-old who is still on your coverage wants to start a family, they may not have coverage for anything related to the pregnancy.