The Congressional Budget Office predicts that fairly few employers will stop offering health-care coverage in response to the Affordable Care Act. A new survey from McKinsey predicts that lots of employers will stop offering coverage. So who's right? At some level, we just don't know. But recent experience suggests the CBO has the better of this one. The Massachusetts reform was a good test case, as it also carried the combination of new options for workers and an easy opt-out for employers. So what happened? Employer-based coverage is now more prevalent in Massachusetts than it was before the law was passed. So much as employers might be theoretically interested in getting out of the health-care business, that's not an easy conversation for them to have with their employees. Never underestimate the power of the status quo. Read full article >> Organizers of a petition to repeal Maryland's Dream Act notched an important victory Tuesday, as they received an official go-ahead to continue their signature drive through the end of June. The state Board of Elections confirmed Tuesday morning it has validated more than 21,000 signatures on the petition to block ... According to New Jersey regulators, Texas-based GenOn's coal-fired Portland power plant emits more sulfur dioxide than all the Garden State's power plants combined. That's a lot of pollution, and most of it drifts into New Jersey, say state officials. Now... On to the House. A new redistricting map, drawn to promote and protect Republican interests in the U.S. Congress, sailed out of the GOP-led state Senate Monday. The map, predictably approved 18-12 along strict party lines, would give Republicans a decent chance of retaining every congressional seat they now hold. They also would have a [...] [Jim] has been working with a team from various Universities to develop an intuitive way to guide and train assistance robots. They focused on one particular technique, training a robot to follow on a leash in the same way you would a pet dog (PDF). He was inspired to send in a link to his research [...] In a racially mixed corner of Shreveport, La., a small group of white voters protested loudly this year that they did not want to be part of a majority black district when the legislature redrew the state's political boundaries. The Republican-led statehouse complied, drawing a line around the community to accommodate them. That line is at the heart of a case before the Justice Department that is seen as a critical test of how the Obama administration will interpret the controversial Voting Rights Act as it rules on a new wave of redistricting plans. Read full article >> A rocket that could one day act as a capsule for a single human passenger makes its first test flight This Sunday, June 5, marks the 30th anniversary of the first reported cases of the disease that would become known as AIDS. A former lawmaker wants to influence the 2012 Iowa Republican caucuses by recruiting activists to encourage rank-and-file party members to support same- sex marriage as a principle of individual liberties. * * * advertisment * * * A new avenue for defeating the triple menace of dengue, yellow-sickness and malaria, all diseases borne by blood-sucking mosquitoes, has been opened up by research published in tomorrow's Nature. A team from the University of California, Riverside, describes how blends of odor-stimulating compounds can fool female mosquito's from homing in on our CO2-laden breath. Now that faith groups are to become public service providers, the exemptions they have in British equality law must be narrowed The Guardian has reported on those questioning the wisdom of contracting religious groups to deliver key public services. The government's "big society" initiative – it still seems too unfocused to call it policy – has, as one of its aims, the transfer of the delivery of some public services to voluntary sector providers on a greater scale than is currently the case. It was envisaged by both this and the previous government that faith groups would be some of the new providers. It seems unjustified to argue against religious organisations providing public services, as it is discriminatory to single out those with a religious ethos for a prohibition on service provision. However, some religious organisations present extra challenges when being considered for the delivery of public services and it would be naive, foolish or perverse to ignore these. First, they have a special exemption in equality law to discriminate against their employees narrowly on grounds of gender and sexual orientation (for priesthood and leadership roles) and more widely on the basis of religious belief. These exemptions ... At an Atos medical assessment, a friend of mine was submitted to a homophobic rant from a doctor followed by a foot examination A few months ago a friend of mine received a letter from a company called Atos Healthcare instructing her to attend a medical assessment. "It is important that you attend," said the letter. "If you fail to attend, your benefit may be affected." My friend (I'll call her Janet) was receiving incapacity benefit. The medical she was called to attend was what is known as a personal capability assessment (PCA). That Janet was summoned for a PCA seemed strange. Both incapacity benefit and PCA are being replaced by employment and support allowance and the work capability assessment, meaning that even if Janet's assessment concluded that she was entitled to continue to receive incapacity benefit, the benefit itself will soon cease to exist anyway. Then Janet will need to be reassessed for employment and support allowance. But if that seems a strange use of resources, it's as nothing compared with Janet's description of the medical itself. First, a bit of background. Janet has been diagnosed with a major psychotic illness as well as a personality ... The Wall Street Journal interviewed NYSE Euronext CEO Duncan Niederauer a month ago about listings, IPOs and the exchange's planned merger with Deutsche Boerse. There is nothing to stop the PCC regaining a prominent role in issues of privacy - but that is best done by the collective will of editors There was a significant, if little reported, intervention in the current storm over privacy injunctions this week with the appearance on BBC2's Newsnight of Baroness Buscombe, the chair of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). She said directly that if Ryan Giggs had chosen the route of self-regulation rather than the courts, the PCC would have stopped the press from publishing the story of his alleged extramarital relationship. Lady Buscombe queried the public interest in the story and said that the PCC had "an almost 100% success rate" in stopping such stories when people approached it. Her remarks are important, because they indicate that the love life of an errant footballer does not, in her view, meet the PCC's public interest test (of exposing crime or serious impropriety) – and suggest that the press's own regulator is in broad agreement with the Giggs case judgment by Mr Justice Eady. This is a very different narrative from the one being advanced in some quarters – that it is all the ... The presidential candidate on warrantless wiretaps, executive killings, the war on drugs, military tribunals, airport security, and more Strauss-Kahn's DNA 'found on maid's clothes' US media are reporting DNA evidence now links Dominique Strauss-Kahn to the maid who accused him of sexual assault. The Wall Street Journal says a sample submitted by the former head of th... Related Breaking News Stories: 1. IMF's Strauss-Khan under suicide watch 2. Emigrants from Libya leave "with only their clothes" 3. Emigrants from Libya leave "with only their clothes" Well, well. A supposedly anonymous UK professional footballer has now sued Twitter, along with some Twitter users for supposedly breaking the "superinjunction" he bought in the UK. As you're probably aware by now, there's been a lot of attention paid to these superinjunctions in the UK, which the rich and famous are able to pay large sums of money to courts to get those courts to issue a superinjunction that bars anyone from reporting on certain issues -- quite frequently (but not always) concerning marital infidelity. Of course, on our modern internet, where everyone is potentially "the press" this seems pretty silly. While there have been attempts to expand these superinjunctions to Twitter and Facebook, that seems like an impossible task. Rather than recognize this simple fact, the footballer in question is suing Twitter. This seems like a total non-starter for a variety of reasons. Thankfully, last year, Congress passed the SPEECH Act, which protects US businesses against anti-free speech rulings in other countries, including in situations of third party liability where the efforts would be protected under Section 230 (the legislative history on this was quite clear). What this means is that Twitter may be the ... West Nile virus season is here -- again -- with the first crow reported dead from the disease and mosquito-killing programs in full operation. The virus, transmitted by mosquitoes, can have fatal effects on birds, with crows among the most susceptible. The Orange County Vector Control District, which tracks animal diseases that can spread to [...] Dead crow is 1st for West Nile season is a post from: OC Science Quest Diagnostics completed the acquisition of Celera Corporation By CHARLIE EVANS Since the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), I have had the opportunity to engage a wide variety of colleagues, policymakers, and noted health care thinkers about the effects of health care reform on hospitals. With the hindsight of over 30 years managing hospital operations, I have developed the [...]
Key Words: act test
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Saturday, June 11, 2011
What if employers abandon the Affordable Care Act Dream opponents pass first test Lawmakers rush to defense of polluting power plant Senate approves Congressional map Programming robots like you would train a pet Louisiana redistricting case seen as crucial Voting Rights 'Shoestring' Danish rocket blasts off 30th Anniversary AIDS Republican speaks out for samesex marriage New portable lures could help defeat mosquitoes and their diseases Religious groups have too much freedom discriminate | Evan Harris Renewed concern about Atos medical assessments NYSE’s Niederauer on Decline in U.S. Listings A matter will Privacy injunctions Editorial Herman Cain Spying Americans Is Okay But Not Assassinating Them StraussKahn’s DNA ‘found maid’s clothes’ Forget T
