"Attorney General Jeff Sessions is rescinding the Obama-era policy that had paved the way for legalized marijuana to flourish in states across the country, two people with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press. Sessions will instead let federal prosecutors where pot is legal decide how aggressively to enforce federal marijuana law, the people said. The people familiar with the plan spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it before an announcement expected Thursday."
"The move by President Donald Trump’s attorney general likely will add to confusion about whether it’s OK to grow, buy or use marijuana in states where pot is legal, since long-standing federal law prohibits it. It comes days after pot shops opened in California, launching what is expected to become the world’s largest market for legal recreational marijuana and as polls show a solid majority of Americans believe the drug should be legal."
"While Sessions has been carrying out a Justice Department agenda that follows Trump’s top priorities on such issues as immigration and opioids, the changes to pot policy reflect his own concerns. Trump’s personal views on marijuana remain largely unknown. Sessions, who has assailed marijuana as comparable to heroin and has blamed it for spikes in violence, had been expected to ramp up enforcement. Pot advocates argue that legalizing the drug eliminates the need for a black market and would likely reduce violence, since criminals would no longer control the marijuana trade."
"You might not suspect that the success of the emerging field of precision medicine depends heavily on the couriers who push carts down hospital halls."
"But samples taken during surgery may end up in poor shape by the time they get to the pathology lab — and that has serious implications for patients as well as for scientists who want to use that material to develop personalized tests and treatments that are safer and more effective."
For almost seniors like the one in this article, I like the idea of expanding Medicare to a younger age like age 55. Then also increasing the subsidies for Affordable Care plans up to $200,000 per couple. I like Obamacare but it doesn't do enough to make health care affordable especially for middle and upper middle class people.
Maybe because it was passed by a single political party without the input or consideration of millions of Americans? Sort of like a certain GOP tax plan, which is certain to be just as popular?
"Discrimination in the form of sexual harassment has been in the headlines for weeks now, but new poll results being released by NPR show that other forms of discrimination against women are also pervasive in American society. The poll is a collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health."
"For example, a majority (56 percent) of women believe that where they live, women are paid less than men for equal work. And roughly a third (31 percent) say they've been discriminated against when applying for jobs because they are women."
"Schumer said, "The Republicans are proposing to pay for their giant tax cut to the rich by gutting Medicare and Medicaid."
"He has a point that the tax proposal includes significant tax cuts and that the Senate Republicans’ budget proposal reduces projected spending levels for Medicare and Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars over 10 years.
"However, Schumer has overstated the linkage between the proposed tax and spending cuts. In addition, his decision to highlight Medicare and Medicaid cuts with the vivid word "gutting" leaves the impression that such reductions are a drastic reshaping and are likelier to occur than they actually are."
I was reading about how the federal tax bill would cut Medicare. That is disconcerting, as this is a vital health program for many seniors in our country. I hate being told things by political pundits but having no data or evidence to back up there views.
So I was curious what a cut to Medicare really mean for both today’s seniors and generations to come, including myself in another 30 years? First off, a cut to Medicare does not mean a reduction in benefits or higher co-pays for consumers. It’s a cut payments to physicians and hospitals. Your doctor gets the hair cut, and depending on how you view these cuts, it might reduce access to care. Or it might not. Certainly doctor and hospital lobbyists would protest any cut to their fat. As the AARP explains:
The Senate tax proposal would add $1.5 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years. Under PAYGO, if this bill were to become law, the government would have to lop off $150 billion in spending every year for 10 years.
Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps and other social safety net programs are exempt from the PAYGO law, which went into effect in 2010. But Medicare and other programs — such as federal student loans, agricultural subsidies and the operations of the Customs and Border Patrol — are not exempt.
The law caps how much the government can trim from Medicare at 4 percent. That’s $25 billion the first year, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The annual amount could increase in subsequent years depending on the size of the deficit and Medicare’s budget.
The $25 billion reduction would affect the payments that doctors, hospitals and other health care providers receive for treating Medicare patients. Individual benefits would not change and neither would premiums, deductibles or copays. But with so much less money going to providers, the cuts could have major impacts on patient access to health care — such as fewer physicians accepting Medicare patients.
So cuts to Medicare could affect seniors, by denying them access to new doctors who might decide not to take new Medicare patients. It’s not clear though if doctors are actively dropping Medicare patients. This 2015 article from Kaiser foundation looks at how many doctors currently accept Medicare patients.
The vast majority of non-pediatric primary care physicians (93 percent) say they accept Medicare—comparable to the share accepting private insurance (94 percent) (Figure 1). A majority of primary care physicians also say they are also taking new Medicare patients (72 percent), but this share is somewhat lower than the share of primary care physicians accepting new privately insured patients (80 percent).
While doctors often have high malpractice insurance costs, not to mention all the costs of education debt, mostdoctors in America live fairly well off. Other medical professionals not as well, but their employers usually aren’t struggling for cash. Many medical facilities and doctors probably could survive on lower Medicare payments, but they would have to trim fat from their businesses. But would they? Or would they focus more on private insurance business or those who paid with cash? Maybe. But seniors need the most medical care, so it seems unlikely they would leave the government money on the table, even if it was reduced levels from years past.
