Not Backing Down on Medicare for All

Robert Borosage reports on Elizabeth Warren's focus on Medicare for All:

When Elizabeth Warren was criticized for not detailing how she would pay for Medicare for All, most pundits assumed she would duck and cover. M4A is Bernie Sanders’s signature legislation, but the establishment dismisses him as a movement candidate. Warren, on the other hand, is seen as a “serious, in the weeds” policy wonk who wants to win. Warren has since issued a detailed plan on what Medicare for All would cover, and how she would pay for it without raising taxes on working people. She summarized the compelling human benefits of making health care a right, not a privilege rationed by cost. She outlined the massive savings that would result from eliminating the insurance company profits and exorbitant administrative fees of the current system.  Workers could pocket the savings on co-pays and premiums, in what would effectively amount, she noted, to the largest middle-class tax cut in history. The political establishment was aghast. The Washington Post unleashed a blizzard of articles decrying Warren’s audacity, picking apart her assumptions, her math, and her political judgement. Despite the carping, one thing is clear: Warren has joined Sanders in forceful support of Medicare for All. As with the Green New Deal, two of the three leading candidates in the Democratic presidential primaries will argue the case. The others will have to put up, or shut up — Warren’s gauntlet will force discussion of the spiraling costs, and human toll of the current system. The debate over Medicare for All illustrates the fundamental choice that Democrats will make in the coming primaries. Are they satisfied with a candidate who promises restoration, or do they want a champion of fundamental change?

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Using Twitter to Promote Your Blog

Twitter is a great tool for promoting writing -- but, how do you use it effectively? This post offers some great suggestions:

Twitter can be especially challenging. News is always breaking on Twitter, and people love to discover new ideas there. But it can feel fast-paced, clipped, highly technical, a little like shouting into the vacuum — unless you know a few tips to make your tweets interesting.

Twitter is actually perfect for promoting blog posts because blog posts are samples of your writing that are short, digestible, and available with the click of a link. Here are a few suggestions on how to use Twitter to promote writing on your blog in a compelling way.

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The War on Science

This article originally appeared at OtherWords.org

The Trump EPA wants to introduce a new rule: Its scientists can only use studies that make all of their data public.

The new proposal is crafted to sound like a win for transparency, which is supposed to be a good thing. In reality, the rule will significantly harm public health — and loosen the reins on polluters. 

And that, of course, is the idea.

Let me explain. I am a graduate student in sociology, a social science. I study people, which means I collect some kind of data about them. For any scientist who studies people, transparency is important — but so is confidentiality.

Any basic research ethics class includes famous cases of unethical research on people that occurred in the not too distant past. So now, our institutions carefully review each study on people to ensure they are ethical.

Ethical research requires providing participants with enough information that they can give informed consent to participate. It means not taking advantage of vulnerable populations (like prison inmates or mental health patients), minimizing any risk of harm that might come to the people you are studying as much as possible, and disclosing any risk before they agree to participate.

In my case, that means that in any study I’ve done, I’ve promised my participants confidentiality. 

With their permission, I might quote them in a publication using a fake name, but only if I can do so in a way that won’t allow anyone to identify them. I don’t want anything they tell me to be used to harm them back in their communities.

In the case of the new EPA rules, the information collected in public health studies can be even more intimate. When scientists study the effects of pollution on people’s health, they may confidentially review people’s private medical records. Obviously, these records should not be made public.

When a researcher cannot promise confidentiality, the quality of their research suffers. Fewer people may be willing to participate, which might harm the reliability of the results. Those who do will be less open. 

How can we trust studies in which all of the data is not made public? Often, some of the data is made public, or at least made available to others in certain circumstances (such as by request). 

Additionally, science is not an individual endeavor. Communities of scientists in each field work together to advance the knowledge within that field. Any new study will be picked apart by everyone who reads it, because that’s what we do to each other. Others will try to replicate your findings — and if they can’t, your conclusions will be called into question.

It’s rough on the ego, but it’s good for science. 

Dismissing any study that does not make its data public, on the other hand — particularly when that data has a good reason to remain confidential, like medical data — serves to harm science, not help it. 

And when you can’t do good science, you can’t base your public health regulations — your pesticide bans, your pollution controls, your clean water rules, and whatever else — on good science.

Given the track record of the Trump administration on the environment so far, it’s far more plausible that this proposal is intended to eliminate necessary public health regulations, not to promote transparency.

OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Distributed by OtherWords.org.

Veterans and Consumers Fair Credit Act

A press release from the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) details the importance of the Veterans and Consumers Fair Credit Act:

Advocates at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) applauded today’s introduction in Congress of a bill to cap interest rates nationwide at 36%, including fees, which NCLC is supporting on behalf of its low-income clients.

“It is fitting that as we celebrate Veterans’ Day that we honor our veterans by extending to them and all Americans the same protection that our servicemembers receive: protection against usurious loans that exceed 36% APR,” said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center. “Most Americans would be shocked to learn that today predatory lenders can legally charge 100%, 200%, or even higher interest rates in many states. While a 36% rate cap sounds high to most people, and it will not hurt legitimate businesses, it will stop the most egregious forms of loan sharking. The 36% interest rate cap goes back more than a century and is widely supported by the American public on a bipartisan basis. Reasonable interest rate caps are the simplest most effective protection against predatory lending.”

The Veterans and Consumers Fair Credit Act.(Act) would stop high-cost predatory loans, and also prevent banks from getting back into the payday loan business, by setting a maximum national rate of 36% APR including fees on consumer loans.  A few years ago, banks were making “deposit advance” loans, aka bank payday loans, at rates over 200%, and with a change of leadership at the bank regulators, some banks are thinking of returning to those loans. Currently there is no generally-applicable national interest rate cap, though many states limit interest rates. In 2018, Colorado joined a growing number of states, including South Dakota (2016) and Montana (2010), whose voters have resoundingly passed initiatives on a bipartisan basis to cap interest rates at 36% or less.

The Act is sponsored in the Senate by Senators Merkley (D-OR), Brown (D-OH), Reed (D-RI), and Van Hollen (D-MD); and in the U.S. House of Representatives by Reps. Grothman (R- WI) and Chuy Garcia (D-IL).

The legislation is modeled after the federal Military Lending Act, which caps loans to servicemembers and their dependents at 36%. But the MLA does not cover veterans or other consumers.

“Importantly, the Veterans and Consumers Fair Credit Act would allow states to set a lower rate, which is especially important for larger loans. While 36% is a reasonable rate for small loans, many states limit a $10,000 loan to 25% APR or lower,” Saunders added.

For more information:

·         Issue Brief: After Payday Loans: How do Consumers Fare When States Restrict High-Cost Loans? Oct. 2018

·         Report: Why 36%? The History, Use, and Purpose of the 36% Interest Rate Cap, April 2013

·         Fact Sheet: State Annual Percentage Rate (APR) Caps for $500, $2,000, and $10,000 Installment Loans, March 2019

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Since 1969, the nonprofit National Consumer Law Center® (NCLC®) has worked for consumer justice and economic security for low-income and other disadvantaged people in the U.S. through its expertise in policy analysis and advocacy, publications, litigation, expert witness services, and training. www.nclc.org

Are bloggers writers?

Is this even a question?

If so, here's an attempt at an answer:

It’s a stance wholly familiar to me. Being a blogger somehow inevitably cancels out my being a writer, a professional.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course, and I imagine people who vehemently contend bloggers aren’t writers are trying to disguise and deflect their own insecurities. However, the whole debate just sincerely gives me pause, and makes me wonder why anyone would consider it worth their time to police who does (and doesn’t) get to call themselves a writer.

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DACA and SCOTUS

From NBC:

“The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday on a Trump administration challenge to lower court rulings that blocked the administration from ending the program, which President Donald Trump announced he would do in 2017. Administration officials argue the program interferes with its immigration enforcement efforts and sanctions the violation of federal law, but they have been challenged in court by civil rights, legal and immigration groups. A number of national groups will rally outside the Supreme Court as Democratic lawmakers, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will be holding a press conference and a prayer breakfast with national leaders in support of the program as the oral arguments begin inside the Supreme Court.”

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Evaluating DACA

Vox on the Supreme Court taking up DACA:

“The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on a trio of cases asking whether the Trump administration acted properly when it decided to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — an Obama-era program that allows unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the the US as children to live and work in the United States. A question looms over tomorrow’s hearing, however: Why did the Supreme Court agree to hear these cases in the first place? Certainly the human stakes in these cases — Trump v. NAACP, McAleenan v. Vidal, and Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California — are enormous. Almost 670,000 immigrants are protected by DACA. Ending the program opens them up to deportation. Families could be ripped apart; communities will be devastated. There really is a significant human toll here. But the Supreme Court typically only hears cases that involve a significant legal question. Indeed, the Court’s own rules state that it will only agree to hear a case ‘for compelling reasons,’ and they emphasize that the Court typically only hears ‘important’ questions of federal law. In this instance, the legal issue at the heart of the case is tiny.”

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