If your loved one is seriously ill or injured and can’t pay for health care, should America provide what she/he needs? If health care costs are beyond the reach of many Americans, should government take action? If you answer “yes”, the next steps are about how to achieve the goals; and it’s time for fact based solutions to the problems of American health care. Continue reading How To Fix Obamacare
Category Archives: health
WHY WOULD RENEE ELLMERS ELIMINATE EPA?
Congresswoman Renee Ellmers (R – NC) wants to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the federal agency that sets and enforces standards for safe water and air. She should justify her goal. We need congressional representatives who think carefully and speak wisely about such important matters. Her statement seems reckless, and if she can’t justify it then she does not belong in our Congress. Continue reading WHY WOULD RENEE ELLMERS ELIMINATE EPA?
Does Underage Drinking Fuel Campus Assaults?
I got you in trouble in high school; but college, now that was a ball. You had some of the best times you’ll never remember with me – Alcohol.” (Brad Paisley)
The song masks pain and humiliation behind humor. Many college students arrive with established alcohol habits and binge drinking is popular recreation. Some parents allow pre-college teenagers to have alcohol at parties. Are they protecting their children by letting them learn to drink responsibly under supervision or are they increasing the chances that the children will become alcoholics? In some states that is legal and in others parents could face both criminal and civil penalties. Excessive drinking among teens is associated with academic failure, violence, and financial problems. Continue reading Does Underage Drinking Fuel Campus Assaults?
FRACKING DANGERS ARE WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT
North Carolina’s Republican Governor and a nearly unanimous majority of Republican lawmakers have recklessly dashed ahead to allow hydraulic fracking for production of natural gas. They have ignored the growing body of evidence that fracking imperils our health and the safety of our air and water. They missed the “look before you leap” lesson and took all of us along when they jumped into fracking. Continue reading FRACKING DANGERS ARE WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT
JUST SAY YES TO MEDICAID
The decision by North Carolina’s governing Republicans (every single one of them) to reject Medicaid expansion will cost the state’s residents $37 billion by 2022. That is roughly enough money to run the entire state government for 21 months. They looked at the money and just said “no”. They looked at uninsured people living in poverty and just said “no”. They looked at hospitals and doctors who care for uninsured people, and they just said “no”. And they just said “no” to unemployed workers who would have found jobs in the Medicaid expansion. Continue reading JUST SAY YES TO MEDICAID
SUPREME COURT LOGIC
In decisions about Obamacare the Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government can levy a tax on individuals who do not purchase health insurance and that it can require employers who do not provide health benefits to pay a penalty (tax). Only a few months later the court ruled that business owners who profess religious objections to some forms of birth control can opt out of that particular portion of coverage without paying a penalty.
Reductio ad absurdum is a Latin phrase that the Court’s Justices surely encountered in their introductory logic classes. It is a method of showing that a decision or argument is absurd because it gives rise to ridiculous or unworkable conclusions. Their decisions imply that five of the justices may have been napping during logic classes. Continue reading SUPREME COURT LOGIC