New state laws tightening voting restrictions come in two basic varieties: those that make it harder to cast a vote, and those making it more difficult to get registered to vote in the first place.
Pro Tip: If you are downloading US Census summary files for use in PANDAS, it is a good idea to keep each summary file in a separate compressed ZIP file. PANDAS will automatically uncompress zip files on the fly if they have only one file inside, and it will cut your hard drive needs by roughly 90% over uncompressed — plus on modern computers ZIP decompression of a few megabyte zip file isn’t particularly slow, and chances are you only going to be processing a few segments at a time.
This year, the federal government ordered hospitals to begin publishing a prized secret: a complete list of the prices they negotiate with private insurers.
The insurers’ trade association had called the rule unconstitutional and said it would “undermine competitive negotiations.” Four hospital associations jointly sued the government to block it, and appealed when they lost.
They lost again, and seven months later, many hospitals are simply ignoring the requirement and posting nothing.
But data from the hospitals that have complied hints at why the powerful industries wanted this information to remain hidden.
It shows hospitals are charging patients wildly different amounts for the same basic services: procedures as simple as an X-ray or a pregnancy test.
And it provides numerous examples of major health insurers — some of the world’s largest companies, with billions in annual profits — negotiating surprisingly unfavorable rates for their customers. In many cases, insured patients are getting prices that are higher than they would if they pretended to have no coverage at all.
After a brief cool down next week, looking a warm start for September. 