Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #35

Sep 20-27 2024

President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced new actions to curb gun violence at the one year anniversary of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. The Office is the first ever White House office to deal with the issue of guns and has been overseen by the Vice-President. President Biden signed a new Executive Order aimed at combatting the emerging threat of machinegun conversion devices. These devices allow the conversion of semi-automatic firearms to a rate of fire that can match military machineguns, up to 20 bullets in one second. The EO also targets the threat of 3-D printed guns. The EO also addresses active schooler drills at schools. While almost every school conducts them there is little uniformity in how they are carried out, and no consensus on the most effective version of a drill. President Biden's EO directions the development of a research based active shooter drills, which maximize both student physical and mental safety.
President Biden celebrated the one year anniversary of the American Climate Corps and announced new Climate Corp programs. The Climate Corps has seen 15,000 young people connected to well paid jobs in clean energy and climate resilience jobs across America. The EPA and AmeriCorps announced a new Environmental Justice Climate Corps program which will connect 250 American Climate Corps members with local communities and over the next 3 help them achieve environmental justice projects. In addition HUD announced it will be the 8th federal agency to partner with the Climate Corp, opening the door to its involvement in Housing. Since its launch the American Climate Corp has inspired 14 states to launch their own state level version of the program, most recently just this week the New Jersey Climate Corps.
The Biden-Harris Administration announced that 4.2 million small business owners and self-employed people get their health insurance through the ACA marketplace. Up from 1.4 million ten years ago when President Obama and then Vice-President Biden rolled out the marketplaces. The self-employed are 3 times as likely as other Americans to use the marketplaces for their insurance, one out of every 5 getting coverage there. The ACA passed by President Obama, defended and expanded by President Biden, has freed millions of Americans to start their own businesses without fear of losing health coverage for them and their families.
The Departments of Transportation and Labor pressed freight railroad companies to close the gap and offer paid sick time to all their employees. Since 2022 under President Biden's leadership the number of Class I freight railroad employees who have access to paid sick days increased from 5% to 90%. Now the Biden-Harris Administration is pushing to finish the job and get coverage to the last 10%.
The EPA announced $965 million to help school districts buy clean energy buses. This comes on top of the 3 billion the EPA has already spent to bring clean energy buses to America's schools. So far the EPA has helped replace 8,700 school buses, across 1,300 school districts in all 50 states, DC, tribal nations, and US Territories. 95% of these buses are zero-emission, battery-electric. The clean bus program is responsible for over 2/3rds of the electric school buses on the road today.
The Biden-Harris Administration took another step forward in its historic efforts to protect the Colorado River System by signing 5 water conservation agreements with local water authorities in California and Arizona. The two short term agreements will conserve over 717,000 acre-feet of water by 2026. Collectively adding 10 feet to Lake Mead’s elevation by 2026. The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million people and fuels hydropower resources in seven U.S. states.
The Department of The Interior announced $254 million to help support local parks, the largest such investment in history. The money will go to 54 projects across 24 states hoping to redevelopment or create new parks.
HHS announced $1.5 billion to help combat opioid addiction and prevent opioid overdose deaths. The money will support state and tribal governments and help pay for mobile clinics, naloxone kits, and treatment centers. This comes as nationwide overdose rates drop for the first time since 2020, thanks to strong investment in harm reduction efforts by the Biden-Harris team.
The Department of Agriculture announced it'll spend $466.5 million in food assistance and development worldwide this year. Through its McGovern-Dole Program, the United States is the largest donor to global school feeding programs. The USDA will help feed 1.2 million children in Angola, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Laos, Malawi and Rwanda. Through its Food for Progress the USDA will help support 200,000 farmers in Benin, Cambodia, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Tunisia shift to climate-smart agriculture boosting food security in those nations and the wider region.
At a meeting at the UN First Lady Jill Biden announced a partnership between USAID and UNICEF to end childhood exposer to lead worldwide. Lead exposure kills 1.5 million people each year, mostly in the developing world.
The Senate approved the appointment of Byron Conway to a federal judgeship in Wisconsin. This makes the 213th federal judge that President Biden has appointed.

#thanks biden #joe biden #kamala harris #climate change #gun violence #gun control #health insurance #food aid #opiod crisis #electric vehicles

natalunasans reblogged

batboyblog

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #33

Sep 6-13 2024

President Biden marked the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act and highlighted efforts to stop gender based violence. the VAWA was written by then Senator Biden and he often talks about it as his proudest legislative victory. The act transformed how the federal government dealt with domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. In part because of the connection to Joe Biden, President Trump and the Republicans allowed the VAWA to expire in 2019. President Biden passed a new reauthorization, with new protections for women against cyber crime, in 2022. On the VAWA's 30th anniversary President Biden announced $690 million in grants to support survivors of gender-based violence.
President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced a new rule to force insurance companies to treat mental health care the same as medical care. The new rule takes on the use by insurance of restrictive practices like prior authorization, and out of network charges, it also closes a loophole in the law that allowed state and local government health insurance not to cover mental health.
The Biden-Harris administration announced that 50 million Americans, 1 in every 7, have gotten health insurance through Obamacare's marketplaces. Under Biden a record breaking 20.8 million enrolled this year. Since the ACA was passed by President Obama and then Vice-President Biden it has transformed American health care bring affordable coverage to millions and getting rid of "preexisting conditions". During the Presidential debate Vice-President Harris defended the ACA and the need to keep building on it. Trump after 9 years of calling for its repeal said he only had "concepts of a plan" on what to do about health care in America.
The IRS announced that it has recovered $1.3 billion in back taxes from wealthy tax dodgers. For years Republicans have tried to underfund the IRS hindering its ability to police high income tax payers. President Biden in his Inflation Reduction Act ensured that the IRS would have the money it needs to chase high income tax cheats. In February 2024 the IRS launched a program to go after over 100,000 people, making $400,000 or even over $1 million a year who have not filed taxes since 2017. The IRS also launched a program to collect from tax payers who make over $1 million a year who have uncontested debt of over $250,000. Between these two efforts the IRS has collected over a Billion Dollars in back taxes from the richest Americans, so far this year.
The Department of The Interior and White House Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi highlighted green energy efforts on public land. Highlighting two projects planned in Nevada officials talked about the 41 renewable energy projects approved on public land under the Biden-Harris Administration. These projects over 25 gigawatts of clean energy, a goal the Administration's climate plan set for the end of 2025 but met early this year. With the new projects in Nevada this is enough energy to power 12.5 million homes, and the Bureau of Land Management is another 55 utility-scale project proposals across the West.
The Department of The Interior announced $236 million to help fight forest fires and restore landscapes damaged by recent wildfires. Under President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Administration has spent nearly $1.1 billion dollars to combat deadly wildfires which have over the last 10 years grown in size and intensity thanks to climate change.
The Department of The Interior announced $157 million in wetland conservation. The money is focused on protecting bird habitats. It will protect and preserve thousands of acres of wetlands across 7 states.
The US Senate approved President Biden's nominations of Adam Abelson, Jeannette Vargas, Mary Kay Lanthier, and Laura Provinzino to federal judgeships in Maryland, New York, Vermont, and Minnesota respectively. This brings the total number of federal judges appointed by President Biden to 209. When Biden entered office 318 district judges were Republican appointees and 317 Democratic, today 368 are Democratic appointments and just 267 are Republican. President Biden is the first President in history to have the majority of his appointments not be white men and he has appointed more black women to the bench than any President ever.

#Joe Biden #Thanks Biden #kamala harris #US politics #American politics #climate change #mental health #health care #health insurance #tax the rich #judges #domestic violence

natalunasans reblogged

vaspider

allthecanadianpolitics

Canadians with cystic fibrosis outlive Americans by a decade

The median age of survival for Canadians with cystic fibrosis was 50, and only 40 for Americans, researchers found after six years of analysis.

www.statnews.com

In 2011, cystic fibrosis researchers noticed something weird. Patients with this deadly genetic disorder were living longer and longer — but those in Canada seemed to be living significantly longer than those in the United States.

The researchers wondered if the Canadian patients were actually more likely to survive longer, or if something else was going on. Were there differences in the way each country gathered its data? “Perhaps Canada collected data on mild cystic fibrosis patients more than the US,” said Dr. Anne Stephenson, a physician-researcher specializing in cystic fibrosis at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

But that didn’t turn out to be true. Six years and plenty of statistical analyses later, Stephenson and her colleagues found that the median age of survival for Canadians was 50, and only 40 for Americans. The gap persisted even when they looked only at data from the most severe cases.

“In a way people should be alarmed,” said Stephenson. “It will make people motivated to reduce that gap.”

To Kevin Gorey, a University of Windsor epidemiologist who studies how health outcomes differ on each side of the border, that is the probably biggest difference in survival he’s ever seen: It’s “stunning,” he said.

“A ten-year difference … that’s lots of years spent with your child or not, having fun with your friends, living your life,” said Gorey, who was not involved in the study. “That’s a huge, huge human tragedy.”

But those results, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, also ask some hard questions about the American health care system, and why it may not be as good at keeping patients alive.

Continue Reading.

notlikeyoupeople

“But some of the paper’s most striking results don’t have to do with specific treatments. Instead, they have to do with health insurance.”

allthecanadianpolitics

More on that point from the article:

The Canadians, all of whom get government-provided health coverage, had the same risk of dying as those Americans who had private insurance. When compared with Americans on continuous Medicare and Medicaid, though, Canadians’ risk of death was 44 percent lower. And the disparity was even greater when it came to Americans with no insurance at all.

WwhhAAttt a surPRIIIIiiiIIIsE!

Source: statnews.com

#health insurance #canada vs usa #life expectancy #risk of dying #access to medical care

natalunasans reblogged

andersonsallpurpose

missmentelle

Health insurance is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client who can’t afford to see me. Housing is a mental health issue. I can’t use therapy to help a client whose depression and anxiety come directly from sleeping in the streets. Food insecurity is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client who isn’t taking their medication because their pills say “take with food” and they have nothing to eat. Healthcare is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client whose “depression” is actually a thyroid condition they can’t afford to get treated. Wages are a mental health issue. I can’t help a client whose anxiety comes from the fact that they are one missed shift away from not being able to make rent.

Child care is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client who works 80 hours per week to afford daycare, and doesn’t have the time or energy left to come see me.

Drug policing is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client who ended up in prison because they got caught self-medicating with illegal substances.

Police brutality is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client whose ‘anxiety’ is a very real and justified fear of ending up as a hashtag.

If you’re going to make a stand for improving mental health, you have to understand that addressing mental health goes way beyond hiring more therapists and talking about mental health on social media. If we’re really serious about tackling this mental health problem as a country, it means rolling up our sleeves and taking down the barriers that prevent people from getting the help they need - even if those people are different than us, lead different lives, and make choices we don’t agree with. We aren’t “fixing” mental health unless we’re fixing it for everybody.

#politics #us politics #mental health #poverty #workers rights #health insurance

natalunasans reblogged

robotsandfrippary

micdotcom

We found nine companies that offer health insurance to part-time workers, starting from a list from Glassdoor of companies hiring part-time workers — a few even include health coverage for domestic partnerships. Here are the employers, which all pay at least $9 an hour, ranked from lowest to highest pay. Read more (8/7/17)

pretentiousyid

Publix is also dedicated to giving jobs to people with autism, down syndrome, and physical disabilities that other employers won’t accomadate. At the Publix I go to a lot, a few of the employees don’t speak English and work the checkout line with a bagger who is also a translator. They hired a kid I knew for while who was afraid he would never be able to hold a job because he is autistic and had a physical deformity and now he’s the deli manager.

askawelfarecaseworker

Note - you have to be hired by Amazon directly, not by a staffing agency affiliate, which they love to use to cut costs

thepageofhopes

At Starbucks, you only need to work 20 hours a week to qualify for health insurance, and the options are amazing. Also as an autistic partner, I’ve been treated amazingly. My managers allow me to listen to music when i get stressed and understand if I need to be taken off of drive thru because the noise is bothering me.

Source: bit.ly

#health insurance #part time job #accommodations #disability rights

natalunasans reblogged

dollsahoy

titleknown

Blogging this tweet because this explains SO MUCH about the mindset of pretty much all the folks I’ve known who’re against single-payer, it’s not even funny…

This….

This never occurred to me. Not once. That Americans are against Health Care because they think it actually costs tens of thousands of dollars for a broken arm, hundreds of thousands for a complicated birth, millions for cancer treatment.

Because they’ve never known anything different. The idea that a broken arm is only a couple hundred bucks; a complicated birth a couple thousand; cancer treatment only tens of thousands; all easily covered by existing tax structures.

withasmoothroundstone

This explains a lot. And it’s a good example of what I was talking about in my post on scarcity being used to prop up ableism – always question the idea that a resource is genuinely scarce. Even if it seems obvious that it is, quite often that’s the result of careful manipulation and misconceptions that you’re not even aware of.

And never think you’re too smart to be fooled by that kind of thing, it doesn’t work like that. Similarly, don’t think people who are fooled by something are stupid. Nobody can have all the information about everything, and nobody has the time and energy to investigate and put together conscious conclusions about every piece of information they’re given. It doesn’t take being stupid, or even just gullible, to believe something like this.

America also spends the most on administrative costs, which spikes up the bill

https://www.singlecare.com/blog/30-medical-bills-go-administrative-costs/

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/11/news/economy/healthcare-administrative-costs-us-obamacare/index.html

lady-feral

People also don’t seem to realize that insurance companies artificially inflate the cost of healthcare and then offer “discounts” to get health care providers to accept or suggest their insurance brand.

Healthcare should not be a for-profit industry, but instead a universal right, and insurance companies are predatory con artists making billions of dollars off of human suffering and death.

This is not hyperbole.

#health insurance #healthcare access #healthcare costs

natalunasans reblogged

clatterbane

luchia13

hey guys psa regarding hospital bills

don’t just pay it. do not automatically pay the hospital bill when you receive it. call your health insurance provider and POLITELY say, “excuse me, i just received a bill for $1200 for my hospital visit/ER visit/etc., is that the correct amount i’m supposed to pay?” because hospitals bill you before your health insurance and they will take your money no matter how the amount due may change based on your health insurance looking at it. 90% of the time, if your health insurance is in any way involved in the payment of that bill, you do not have to pay as much as the hospital is billing you for. call your health insurance provider first, and POLITELY request clarification, always remember that the person you are talking to is human and this is just their job, and then you will very likely find out you actually only owe $500.

don’t shout at anyone about it, don’t get mad, just understand that this is The Way Things Are right now and call your health insurance provider before paying the bill your hospital just sent you. there’s a chance the hospital bill might be correct, true, but call your health insurance provider.

smallercomfort

THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT. after my car accident last year the hospital billed me ~$8000. They sent me letters asking me to pay, and I called them back saying my insurance was processing the claim. This is also what I told the collection agency when they kept calling me about the $1000 emergency room fee (billed separately from the hospital fee, mind you). Once everything got straightened out, all I was actually liable for was my $200 emergency copay.

thevelvetdevil

!!!!!!! things my ass didn’t know !!!!!!!!

anamatics

Yes this is a life lesson my adulting ass didn’t know I needed and I’m out 80 bucks for an anti-nausea pill. 😒😒😒😒😒

elodieunderglass

Reblogging for American friends.

Also, it is important [for people receiving medical care in the USA] to carefully read all of the items on the medical bill and look for errors and overcharges. I know that the normal feelings of avoidance and dread can make it hard to look at scary hospital bills, and that’s okay! But as the OP mentions, private orgs like hospitals don’t monitor overpayment of bills - they are motivated to charge you extra - and it is basically impossible to get your money back. Read the bill carefully and make sure that the charges are correct, using the links below for help if you need. If they haven’t sent you an itemized list, you can ask for one. Sometimes you will be charged extra for items or treatment you didn’t receive. Most people don’t know that you can dispute medical bills! But in 2009, Consumer Reports stated that 8 out of 10 medical bills scrutinized by a watchdog had errors, and generally you are not obligated to pay for someone else’s error.

You may be charged for using medication that you actually brought into the hospital with you - that’s easy to dispute! You may be charged for the consumables used during your stay such as sheets, gloves, gowns, etc - the hospital should actually cover that under its running budget. You may be charged for a brand name drug if the generic was available for cheaper - the links below explain how and when you can dispute this. You may be charged a surprisingly expensive “oral administration fee” (where a nurse puts pills for you to take in a little clean paper cup and then hands it to you) but that’s worth disputing if you were actually able to take the pill out of a bottle and put it in your own mouth. And so on.

8 Things You Should Know About Challenging a Medical Bill (FORBES) (includes links to sites that help you calculate how much a procedure/treatment usually costs in your area, if the costs seem super high)

7 Tips for Fighting and Paying A Huge Medical Bill (FORBES) This explains briefly how to negotiate costs, and payment plans.

10 Common Medical Billing Overcharges You Can Prevent (Bill Advocates) A breakdown of errors and overcharges to double check.

Check medical bills for errors: Overcharges are fairly common, and correcting them can save you thousands of dollars (Consumer Reports) More of the same with links to some groups.

#medical bills #billing errors #health insurance #us specific #resources #to read later with more brain

natalunasans reblogged

clatterbane

craxy

ACA Enrollment

SIGNAL BOOST PLEASE!

In light of what happened last night, I wanted to make sure everyone knows:

If you get your health coverage via the Affordable Care Act, and you enroll in a Qualifying Health Plan for 2017 by the end of the current Open Enrollment period (January 31, 2017), you will have coverage through the end of calendar year 2017. The GOP will probably prioritize repealing the Act, so who knows what happens for 2018, but there are laws in place which ensure that you’ll keep your 2017 coverage.

If your situation dictates, PLEASE make sure you’re enrolled in a QHP before the end of Open Enrollment.

craxy

Update: In order to ensure you’e covered throughout 2017, make sure you’re enrolled by DECEMBER 15, 2016

get started with the process now bc if there are any complications you’ll want the time to take care of it

#obamacare #aca #health insurance #healthcare access #resist the Donald