News Analysis - With or Without Health Reform, We Pay for Others’

News Analysis - With or Without Health Reform, We Pay for Others’ Bad Habits - NYTimes.com:

"Unhealthy habits are one factor in disease, but so are social status, income, family dynamics, education and genetics. Patient noncompliance with medical recommendations undoubtedly contributes to poor health, but it is as much a function of poor communication, medication costs and side effects, cultural barriers and inadequate resources as it is of willful disregard of a doctor’s advice."

Punitive measures to force healthy behavior do not usually work. In 2006, West Virginia started rewarding Medicaid patients who signed a pledge to enroll in a wellness plan and to follow their doctors’ orders with special benefits, including unlimited prescription-drug coverage, programs to help them quit smoking and nutrition counseling. Those who did not sign up were enrolled in a more restrictive plan that, among other things, limited drug coverage to only four prescriptions a month.

The program, by many accounts, is failing. As of August 2009, only 15 percent of 160,000 eligible patients had signed up. Patients with limited transportation options were having a hard time committing to regular office visits. And experts say there is no evidence that restricting benefits for noncompliant patients has promoted healthy behaviors.

Healthy living should be encouraged, but punishing patients who make poor health choices clearly oversimplifies a very complex issue. We should be focusing on public health campaigns: encouraging exercise, smoking cessation and so on. Of course, this will require a change in how we live, how we plan our communities.

“It’s the context of people’s lives that determines their health,” said a World Health Organization report on health disparities. “So blaming individuals for poor health or crediting them for good health is inappropriate.”

NYT News: At Key West Beach, Wondering Who’s a Vagrant - NYTimes.com

At Key West Beach, Wondering Who’s a Vagrant 

By DAMIEN CAVE
Federal stimulus money is paying for quality-of-life policing, but not everyone agrees on who is an offender.

KEY WEST, Fla. — Quality of life for Steve Sanderson means securing a good sleeping spot that a new arrival will never find. For Denise Skinner, it means l-i-v-i-n with a view of the ocean from the mattress in her cherry red Jeep. “It’s heaven out there,” she said last week, squinting out her back window. “It’s heaven.”

NYT News: Obama Signs Overhaul of Student Loan Program

Obama Signs Overhaul of Student Loan Program
By PETER BAKER and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

The new law will expand Pell grants, make it easier for students to repay outstanding loans after graduating and invest $2 billion in community colleges over the next four years.

This new law was included in the recent health care bill.

Thank you, President Obama and all the Congress people who supported this legislation!!!!

CESAR E. CHAVEZ : An American Hero

On the anniversary of his birth, we celebrate Cesar Chavez Day, and pay homage to the community organizer, civil rights leader, labor champion and hero of many progressive causes.

CESAR E. CHAVEZ




César Chávez Estrada (March 31, 1927– April 23, 1993) was a Mexican American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded United Farm Workers (UFW).

NYT Op-Ed Columnist - The Rage Is Not About Health Care - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - The Rage Is Not About Health Care - NYTimes.com: "The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss."

News from NASW: Diversity Education

Congressional Hearing about Educating Diverse Students

The House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education held a hearing on March 18, 2010 titled “Elementary and Secondary Education Act Reauthorization: Addressing the Needs of Diverse Students” to examine how schools can appropriately educate low-income, minority, English Language Learners, disabled, Native American, and homeless students within the context of reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act.

This goal was expressed by Subcommittee Chairman Representative Dale Kildee (D-MI) in his opening statement: “While the No Child Left Behind Act shed light on the inequalities in our education system, it unfortunately did not do enough to close the achievement gap for diverse students…This must be a top priority for future steps in education reform.”

To this end, the Subcommittee considered recommendations from a panel of educators, advocates, and a researcher working to close the achievement gap for diverse students. They included Dr. Daniel Curry, Superintendent for the Lake Forest School District in Felton, Delaware, Dr. Jack Dale, Superintendent for Fairfax County Public Schools in Falls Church, Virginia, Arelis Diaz, Assistant Superintendent for Godwin Heights Public Schools in Wyoming, Michigan, Dr. David Gipp, President of United Tribes Technical College (UTTC), Jacqui Farmer Kearns, Principal Investigator for the National Alternate Assessment Center, and Michael Wotorson, Executive Director of Campaign for High School Equity.

To read the transcript go tohttp://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/ecese/Go here for more information on NASW’s advocacy efforts. Join the Advocacy Listserv to receive regular updatesNASW Standards for Social Work in Schools NASW Specialty Practice Section for School Social Work NASW School Social Specialist CredentialShareThisPosted in Legislative Update, act, children, education, house, schools, social work | No Comments »

Regressive tax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regressive tax: "A regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases.[1][2][3][4][5] In simpler terms, a regressive tax imposes a greater burden (relative to resources) on the poor than on the rich — there is an inverse relationship between the tax rate and the taxpayer's ability to pay as measured by assets, consumption, or income. 'Regressive' describes a distribution effect on income or expenditure, referring to the way the rate progresses from high to low, where the average tax rate exceeds the marginal tax rate.[6][7] It can be applied to individual taxes or to a tax system as a whole; a year, multi-year, or lifetime. Regressive taxes attempt to reduce the tax incidence of people with higher ability-to-pay, as they shift the incidence disproportionately to those with lower ability-to-pay. The opposite of a regressive tax is a progressive tax, where the tax rate increases as the amount subject to taxation increases.[8][9][10][11] In between is a flat or proportional tax, where the tax rate is fixed as the amount subject to taxation increases."