by David Safier On "Education: The Rest of the Story," the public access show I do with Ann-Eve Pedersen, I discuss the growth in the number of parents who are protesting against high stakes testing. Unfortunately, the protests are strengthening just when a whole new round of testing connected with the Common Core is being … Read more
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Arizona Republic today has a useful article about the numerous health care groups who are hard at work trying to educate the public about the Affordable Care Act aka "ObamaCare" and to get them to enroll beginning October 1. Massive insurance sign-up planned in Arizona:
Leaders of Arizona’s social safety-net organizations may be facing the most daunting challenge of their careers.
They’re experts in their field, many with decades in the health-care
and non-profit sectors. Now, they must facilitate the biggest
health-care expansion in two generations by getting people signed up —
beginning Oct. 1 — for insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Arizona’s 1 million uninsured are a diverse group of people who,
polls show, have at least one thing in common: They know little about
the federal health-care overhaul that requires most of them to have
coverage next year or pay a fine.
Most are unaware that the new law offers free or subsidized health insurance to nearly all of them.
* * *
In Arizona, there is no state or federal agency charged with finding
them, educating them about the complexities of premiums, copays and
deductibles, or helping them enroll in the right plan. Arizonans who
don’t use insurance agents or brokers, or who don’t qualify for
Medicaid, are expected to navigate the federal online marketplace and
choose their own plan.
Gov. Jan Brewer declined to set up a state-run marketplace where
consumers could shop for insurance, limiting the public funding
available to educate the public. She cited cost, lack of state control
and the unknowns associated with running a state-based exchange when she
ceded that duty to the federal government two years ago.
[Brewer was hoping the ACA would be overturned in the Supreme Court, or repealed in Congress. She is ideologically opposed to do anything to make the program a success.]
Posted by Bob Lord
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" is a famous quote most commonly attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr., but it first was articulated by Theodore Parker a century earlier.
It sounds great, but is it really correct? Do we repeat it just to make ourselves feel good?
by David Safier I'm a non-observant Jew so this isn't exactly in my wheelhouse, but I'm doubly cheered by two articles in today's Star: 2 churches here act to dispel idea that Christianity means 'conservative', which is on the front page of the print edition, and Pope's blunt remarks challenge US bishops, on the front … Read more
Posted by AzblueMeanie: Announcement from the Yuma County Democratic Party: