#kaiser family foundation

[panicinthestudio]

Why manufacturers are hiking COVID vaccine prices, January 14, 2023 

Since COVID vaccines first became available in the U.S., the federal government has been buying them from manufacturers and distributing them for free. But soon, the manufacturers will be distributing them at higher prices. Jen Kates, senior vice president and director of global health at the Kaiser Family Foundation, joins John Yang to discuss what this means for future vaccination costs.

PBS NewsHour

[hislop3]

Rising Health Care Costs - A Serious Issue, Election Implications?

Long time readers/followers know that I from time to time, address health care costs. I follow economics generally and write about the same, especially when there are intersectional issues to address. As we are heading into a presidential election cycle (we are in the early innings) and, issues like health care costs in this country should be front and center. Medicare is structurally, not…

[trendynewsnow]

Reimagining Tulsa: Attracting Remote Workers to Combat Brain Drain

Reimagining Tulsa: A New Approach to Retaining Talent For years, business leaders and local officials in Tulsa, Oklahoma, grappled with a pressing issue: how to address the exodus of young professionals to larger coastal cities. The question lingered: what strategies could effectively anchor these talented individuals in the heart of America? Instead of merely trying to retain native Tulsans,…

[kiramoore626]

Here’s How Americans Really Feel About LGBTQ Issues

Here’s How Americans Really Feel About LGBTQ Issues

[spnscripthunt-inactive]

In Their Own Words: What is the most difficult sacrifice you’ve made to pay down your medical debt?“

“Had to move into rental place from home and not able to buy a house. Cut in some household or good food for kids.” -35 year old woman with $5,000-$10,000 in medical debt, Texas

“Quality of life. We’ve never been able to ‘get ahead’ because we have a 35 year old disabled daughter. We’ve had medical debt for 35 years varying from 30k down to $500.” -60 year old woman with $2,500-$5,000 in medical debt, Tennessee

“Not paying bills on time, creating larger bills due to late fees. Depleted savings.” -38 year old man with $2,500-$5,000 in medical debt, North Carolina

“Cutting out any expenses/services I can. No job, fixed income and chemo. Even with insurance, no one can afford cancer.” -67 year old woman with more than $25,000 in medical debt, Nebraska

“Limiting birthday/Christmas gifts for children and grandchildren.” -83 year old woman with $1,000-$2,500 in medical debt, New Jersey

“Getting a second job. I’m exhausted and I don’t see a way out.” -44 year old woman with $1,000-$2,500 in medical debt, Ohio

“I can’t do anything; I literally stay at home. Never taken my kids on vacation. I’m a single mother and all my money supports the household. So, there are not a lot of extras in my house.” -55 year old woman, with $2,500-$5,000 in medical debt, Missouri

“Strain on relationship with [my] father due to asking for help to pay medical expenses; negative impact on mental health issues (e.g., significant increase in anxiety symptoms).” -35 year old woman with $10,000-$25,000 in medical debt, New York

“This was medical debt for my (now deceased) husband — my credit cards are maxed-out, savings is gone, I will need to relocate to afford rent and pay down bills.” -67 year old woman with $10,000-$25,000 in medical debt, Illinois

Source: Lopes L, Kearney A, Montero A, Hamel L, Brodie M. Health care debt in the U.S.: the broad consequences of medical and dental bills [Internet]. San Francisco (CA): Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation; 2022 Jun 16 [cited 2023 Oct 11]. Available from: https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-care-debt-survey-main-findings/

—

So far we've raised $3,196.20 [2:11 PM Eastern; Sun Oct 15] for RIP Medical Debt toward our $5,000 goal.

With what we've raised so far RIP can wipe out over $300,000 in medical debt (nationwide).

Our goal is to wipe out $500,000 in medical debt (nationwide) and, as an incentive for donating $10+ we're doing an (optional) raffle of the last of our server (group) purchased scripts.

Key raffle scripts:

$1000 - signed Walker & Gotham Knights pilots

$2000 - Wayward Sisters (by Kim, Briana, Kathryn)

$3000 - The Winchesters (signed by so many)

$4000 - Stranger in a Strange Land (Jensen & Danneel)

$5000 - Lebanon (JDM, Sam Smith, J2, Misha)

Our fundraising page:

[mandsleanan]

The Affordable Care Act covers sterilization at no-cost if you're in the US.

Article text under cut.

Sitting in the living room of her Cleveland home, 30-year-old Grace O’Malley reflects on when she ruled out having kids of her own.

O’Malley has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic condition that weakens the body’s connective tissue, and can get much worse postpartum. About three years earlier, when she was in her mid-twenties, her condition worsened. O’Malley’s doctors told her that if she did get pregnant, her uterus could rupture and her child would be more likely to be born prematurely.

O’Malley was on hormonal birth control up until last May. But after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, she knew an abortion ban was likely coming in Ohio and she might not be able to end a pregnancy if her birth control failed. She booked an appointment with her gynecologist.

“I went in that day and I knew right away I wanted a more permanent solution,” said O’Malley. “I was like, ‘I actually want to talk about getting surgery.’ And the nurse was surprised, and she was like, ‘Oh, okay.’”

Dr. Clodagh Mullen, an obstetrician-gynecologist at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, said since the Dobbs v. Jackson decision — which took away the constitutional right to abortion and returned the issue to state governments — many of her patients have been increasingly worried about access to reproductive healthcare and seeking more permanent solutions.

“Some patients will say, ‘Oh, could you stash some IUDs for me?’” Mullen said. “They get very nervous that [birth control] is just going to go away overall. Nobody can re-implant your tube once it's been taken out, so I think that they have that comfort of there's no way anybody can take this part away from me.”

Legislators in some Midwest states have floated bans on birth control, which, so far, haven’t gone anywhere. Mullen doesn’t anticipate that access to contraception will disappear.

“But I get why people have that fear, as I also probably didn't really think that Roe was going to get overturned, if you had asked me this four or five years ago,” she said.

What Mullen is seeing in Cleveland is mirrored across the country. The Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed more than 500 gynecologists across the U.S. in the spring and about half of doctors in states with abortion restrictions reported the number of patients seeking sterilization has increased since Dobbs.

That includes states like Indiana and Missouri - where abortion is banned with very limited exceptions, and states like Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin where bans are currently being disputed, or where residents feel they may lose the right to an abortion. Ohio voters just approved an amendment to the state constitution, which guarantees access to abortion.

Three Ohio health systems that track contraception — MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, University Hospitals in Cleveland, and Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus — reported a sharp rise in the number of patients seeking tubal sterilization.

Contraception decisions

There aren’t many big health risks to the type of sterilization procedure Mullen performs. Doctors mostly worry about regret. Most studies found that when doctors followed up, a small percentage of women wished they hadn’t gone through with the procedure.

The majority are like O’Malley, who had some complications post surgery, but said she never second guessed her decision.

“I've never really thought about it, honestly,” said O’Malley. “It’s become kind of a fact of my daily life. It’s like, ‘Hi, I'm Grace. I have red hair and I can't have kids.’”

O’Malley is happy her doctor respected her choice. She believes the political climate helped.

She shared the story of her best friend who sought sterilization in her late 20s, about five years ago. She said her friend had to meet with several doctors before one agreed to do the procedure, and even then, made her wait another year in case she changed her mind.

“My friend did not have that kind of grace,” O’Malley said. “Her doctor probably thought, ‘You would have other options. If you got pregnant and decided that it's really not what [you] wanted, then you could get an abortion.’ Whereas for me, that might not be the option.”

Men decide, too

Men’s contraception patterns are also changing, according to physician reports.

Dr. Sarah Sweigert, a urologist at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, said doctors at her office performed double the number vasectomy consults and procedures as they had before the ruling.

She points to a Cleveland Clinic study, which showed that, in the summer following the court decision, the average age of men getting the procedure has dropped from late 30s to mid-30s compared to the same period the year before. The study also showed there was a significant increase in the number of men under 30 and men without children seeking vasectomy consultations post Dobbs. Sweigert has seen that trend first-hand in her practice.

“I think as more women speak out about perhaps not wanting to be on various forms of birth control for decades, I think that men are more aware of vasectomies and perhaps are doing their part,” she said.

Vasectomies are generally safer than female sterilization and have a much quicker recovery.

But Mullen isn’t surprised that so many women want the procedure themselves – they are the ones who would have to carry the pregnancy and handle the ensuing health impacts.

O’Malley feels that acutely. She had been in vulnerable situations in the past. She was sexually assaulted in college and went through a period where she was homeless. O’Malley said her choice was an act of self-protection.

“It’s not like I sit around thinking that the worst case scenario is going to happen,” she said. “But I would want to know that I was going to be safe and I wasn't going to end up in a situation where I was pregnant and I would have no path to go.”

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 13

354 AD – Early Christian writer St. Augustine was born on this date (d.430) Following the example of St. Paul, Augustine set the standard for confessional literature that was to flourish in the centuries that followed. The pattern, of course, is a detailed listing of one's sins, followed by a narration of some event or events that made one long for salvation, and then an enunciation of the pains and joys of penance with the hope of future redemption.

Augustine confessed not only to having fathered a son, but to friendship that was classically homoerotic. When he was a young man, his closest friend died and Augustine contemplated joining him in death. "I felt that his soul and mine were `one soul in two bodies'; and therefore life was to me horrible because I hated to live as half of a life; and therefore perhaps I feared to die, lest he should wholly die whom I loved so greatly. My longing eyes sought him everywhere." Augustine, of course, cast off all sins of the flesh and becoming one of the great founders of Christian doctrine, admonished us all to do the same.

1759 – In the Netherlands, minister Andreas Klink is banished for life for having committed sodomy. He defends his attractions as natural.

1879 – Marcus Behmer (d.1958) was a German writer and book illustrator, graphic designer and painter.

Marcus Behmer was a son of the painter Hermann Behmer. His uncle Rudolf Behmer, known as a breeder of Merino sheep - was the twin brother of his father. His brother Joachim Behmer was also active as an artist.

His artistic beginnings came with his first major success with the illustrations for Wilde's Salome in 1903. The early works show the influence of the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley.

On 1 October 1903 Behmer entered military service, was appointed a corporal in 1904 and promoted in 1907 to sergeant. From 1914 he participated in the First World War (in Flanders and in Poland). In the summer of 1917 he fell ill "after an operation in the field" and was six weeks in the military hospital of Jarny . During his time in the army, many so-called "comrades' portraits" emerged, usually reduced, although finely crafted profile views of young soldiers

From 1902 Behmer produced illustrations for books, designed initials and writings, and was responsible for carefully planned publishing facilities. He worked for the Cranach Press of Count Harry Kessler and illustrated numerous articles for the monthly magazine "The Island."

Behmer had been since 1903 a member of the first homosexual organization in the world in Berlin. Because of his homosexuality, Behmer was sentenced in April 1937 by a court in Konstanz to imprisonment of two years. At times he was given the opportunity to work as an artist in prison. The works produced in this period are mostly calligraphic tablets with Greek text (prayers and Bible quotes), and drawings full of bitterness and irony.

1950 – Charles Kaiser is an American author, journalist and academic administrator. In 2018 he was named Acting Director of the LGBTQ Public Policy Center at Hunter College. He is also a nonfiction book critic for The Guardian (US).

His book about one family in the French Resistance, The Cost of Courage (2015) received enthusiastic reviews from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor, among many other publications. It also won the grand prize at the Paris Book Festival (2015). In 2016 it was published in France by Seuil as Le Prix du Courage.

His blog about the media, Full Court Press, originated on the website of Radar Magazine in the fall of 2007. He continued it at the Columbia Journalism Review and the Sidney Hillman Foundation until the spring of 2011.

The son of a diplomat, Philip Mayer Kaiser, he grew up in Washington, D.C., Albany, New York, Dakar, Senegal, London, England and Windsor, Connecticut. He has lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for many years.

He is the author of The Cost of Courage, 1968 In America, and The Gay Metropolis. The Gay Metropolis was a Lambda Literary Award winner, as well as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He was a guest on the Colbert Report, where he discussed a new edition of The Gay Metropolis. He wrote the afterword for a 2012 edition of Merle Miller's landmark work, On Being Different: What it Means to Be a Homosexual. That afterword was excerpted on the website of the New York Review of Books. In 2015 he was inducted into the LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame.

1955 – Caryn Elaine Johnson, best known as Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host. She is a strong supporter of the LGBT community.

On April 1, 2010, Goldberg joined Cyndi Lauper in the launch of her Give a Damn campaign to bring a wider awareness of discrimination of the LGBT community. The campaign is to bring straight people to ally with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community. Other names included in the campaign include Jason Mraz, Elton John, Judith Light, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Kardashian, Clay Aiken, Sharon Osbourne and Kelly Osbourne.

Goldberg's high-profile support for LGBT rights and AIDS activism dates back to the 1987 March on Washington, where she was one of few celebrities participating.

1969 – Today is the birthday of bi-sexual Scottish actor Gerard Butler. He is best known for his portrayal of King Leonidas in the intensely homoerotic film about the Spartans, 300. He also portrayed the Phantom in the 2004 film version of The Phantom of the Opera. He is slated to portray the iconic Scottish poet Robert Burns in an upcoming biopic.

In the gossip mags, there have been numerous stories of his romantic involvements - including several of romantic and/or sexual involvements with other male stars.

In a 2004 Movieline interview he said:

"I talk about my sexuality, but it's always glossed over. People seem to shy away from the issue. Whenever it is discussed, it's distended and exaggerated. Gerard Butler is Gay. No I'm not. I don't know myself what I am so it can be bewildering to see that being plugged. I have been in relationships with women. And men. That doesn't make me Gay. That doesn't make me straight. It's hard enough to go through these things in my mind without being scrutinised about it so there are times when you want to close the door and say my sexuality is my own personal business."

1999 – Josh Cavallo is an Australian professional association footballer who plays as a left back and central midfielder for Adelaide United. Cavallo has represented the Australian under-20 national team.

Cavallo was born in Bentleigh East, Victoria.

Cavallo represented both Melbourne Victory FC Youth and Melbourne City FC Youth. Western United. On 15 April 2019, Melbourne City announced that Cavallo would leave the club at the expiration of his contract at the end of the 2018–19 season.

On 24 June 2019, new A-League side Western United announced that Cavallo would join the club ahead of its inaugural season. He made his debut on 3 January 2020 in a 3–2 loss at his previous club. On as a 71st-minute substitute for Apostolos Stamatelopoulos, he earned a penalty when fouled by goalkeeper Dean Bouzanis, which was converted by Besart Berisha. Western United announced that Cavallo was leaving the club on 10 February 2021.

On 18 February 2021, Cavallo signed a short-term contract to play for Adelaide United. After a successful stint in the 2020–21 A-League, he signed a two-year contract extension on 11 May. He was rewarded with Adelaide United's A-League Rising Star award after a successful 2020–21 campaign, in which he started 15 games and made 18 appearances.

Cavallo came out as gay in October 2021. At the time, there were no other openly-gay male footballers playing professional top-flight football, in the world. In becoming the first to do so, he said in a statement, "I hope that in sharing who I am, I can show others who identify as LGBTQ+ that they are welcome in the football community."

[shannendoherty-fans]

Shannen Doherty’s Untimely Death Sparks Important Conversations About Healthcare Access And Equity

By Janice Gassam Asare

Shannen Doherty, the actress best known for her roles in Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed has died after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 53. In a 2015 statement to People magazine, the actress revealed her breast cancer diagnosis, stating that she was “undergoing treatment” and that she was suing a firm and its former business manager for causing her to lose her health insurance due to a failure to pay the insurance premiums. According to reports, in a lawsuit Doherty shared that she hired a firm for tax, accounting, and investment services, among other things, and that part of their role was to make her health insurance premium payments to the Screen Actors Guild; Doherty claimed that their failure to make the premium payments in 2014 caused her health insurance to lapse until the re-enrollment period in 2015. When Doherty went in for a checkup in March of 2015, the cancer was discovered, at which time it had spread. In the lawsuit, Doherty indicated that if she had insurance, she would have been able to get the checkup sooner—the cancer would have been discovered, and she could have avoided chemotherapy and a mastectomy.

Under the IRS, actors are often classified as independent contractors, which comes with its own set of challenges. Although it is unclear what Doherty’s situation was, for many independent contractors, obtaining health insurance can be difficult. Trying to get health insurance as an independent contractor can be a costly and convoluted process. A 2020 Actors’ Equity Association survey indicated that “more than 80% of nonunion actors and stage managers in California have been misclassified as independent contractors.” A 2021 research study revealed that self-employment (which is what independent contractors are considered to be) was associated with a higher likelihood of being uninsured.

Doherty’s tragic situation invites a larger conversation about healthcare access and equity in the United States. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” was signed into law in 2010 and revolutionized healthcare access in two distinct ways: “creating health insurance marketplaces with federal financial assistance that reduces premiums and deductibles and by allowing states to expand Medicaid to adults with household incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.” The ACA helped reduce the number of uninsured Americans and expanded healthcare access to those most in need. It also helped close gaps in coverage for different populations, including those with pre-existing health conditions, lower-income individuals, part-time workers, and those from historically excluded and marginalized populations.

Despite strides made through the ACA, healthcare access and equity are still persistent issues, especially within marginalized communities. Research from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) examining 2010-2022 data indicated that in 2022, non-elderly American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) and Hispanic people had the greatest uninsured rates (19.1% and 18% respectively). When compared with their white counterparts, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders (NHOPI) and Black people also had higher uninsured rates at 12.7% and 10%, respectively. The Commonwealth Fund reported that between 2013 and 2021, “states that expanded Medicaid eligibility had higher rates of insurance coverage and health care access, with smaller disparities between racial/ethnic groups and larger improvements, than states that didn’t expand Medicaid.” It’s important to note that if a Republican president is elected, Project 2025, the far-right policy proposal document, seeks to upend Medicaid as we know it by introducing limits on the amount of time that a person can receive Medicaid.

When peeling back the layers to examine these racial and ethnic differences in more detail, the Brookings Institute noted in 2020 that the refusal of several states to expand Medicaid could be one contributing factor. One 2017 research study found that some underrepresented racial groups were more likely to experience insurance loss than their white counterparts. The study indicated that for Black and Hispanic populations, specific trigger events were more likely, as well as “socioeconomic characteristics” that were linked to more insurance loss and slower insurance gain. The study also noted that in the U.S., health insurance access was associated with employment and and marriage and that Black and Hispanic populations were “disadvantaged in both areas.”

Equity in and access to healthcare is fundamental, but bias is omnipresent. Age bias, for example, is a pervasive issue in breast cancer treatment. Research also indicates that racial bias is a prevalent issue—because the current guidelines in breast cancer screenings are based on white populations, this can lead to a delayed diagnosis for women from non-white communities. Our health is one of our greatest assets and healthcare should be a basic human right, no matter what state or country you live in. As a society, we must ensure that healthcare is available, affordable and accessible to all citizens. After all, how can a country call itself great if so many of its citizens, especially those most marginalized and vulnerable, don’t have access to healthcare?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Abby Vesoulis at Mother Jones:

Dr. Leilah Zahedi-Spung spent four years in medical school, four years in an OB-GYN residency, and three years in a maternal-fetal medicine fellowship learning how to care for high-risk pregnant patients. In her decade-plus of medical training, she learned that in some cases, the only rational and responsible option for medical intervention is an emergency abortion. In July 2021 she moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and discovered she was the sole provider in her area trained to perform second-trimester dilatation and evacuation abortions for patients who needed them to survive.

But in 2022, the Supreme Court delivered its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, and Tennessee’s trigger ban—written in preparation for the possibility that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe��went into effect a month later. Suddenly, providing an abortion in Tennessee became an immediate Class C felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. There were no exceptions, even when an abortion was necessary to save a life or prevent serious bodily harm. Only after being arrested could a physician provide something called an “affirmative defense” to fight the charges. (Eight months after the trigger law took effect, the GOP governor signed a bill allowing abortions in limited medical emergencies.)

Given her unique work, which also includes genetic testing and live deliveries, Zahedi-Spung felt as if she wore a bull’s-eye on her back. She hired a criminal defense attorney—just in case—and immediately began looking for a maternal-fetal medicine position out of state. She didn’t want to leave Tennessee at all, she says, but her goal was “to not go to jail.”  Relocating for work isn’t a novel concept, but in the age of unfettered abortion restrictions, there has been an exodus of OB-GYNs from abortion-banned states, and dwindling interest among future OB-GYNs to settle in those states. The result is worsening health outcomes for the vulnerable patients and moms who remain. 

“As more clinicians leave those states, as more maternity care deserts happen, we will see poorer outcomes,” says Dr. Stella Dantas, an OB-GYN in Oregon and the president-elect of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “And I do think we will see more maternal mortality just by the sheer fact that we won’t have providers even trained to take care of some of these obstetric emergencies.” Indeed, 64 percent of practicing OB-GYNs who responded to a KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation) survey said the Dobbs ruling has worsened maternal mortality.  In the before times, a high-risk obstetrics patient might consider having an abortion to nearly eliminate their potential maternal health risks, or even just seek more frequent monitoring to decrease them. But what happens when there are fewer clinicians left to treat sicker pregnant patients—and higher numbers of them—as birth rates rise in abortion-banned states? Data from states tell the story.

Even before outright abortion bans, the states that eventually restricted the medical procedure had higher rates of pregnancy-related deaths, sicker patient populations, and less access to maternal and preventative health care, according to data from KFF and Surgo Ventures, a nonprofit that researches health and social issues.

[...]

The care deserts will disproportionately affect low-income people and people of color. In her new maternal-fetal health role in Colorado, Zahedi-Spung says many of her dilatation and evacuation patients travel to her from Texas, Oklahoma, and Idaho because of unworkable abortion laws there. Given the current reproductive health care landscape, they are the lucky ones. She fears others in abortion-restricted states lack the resources to travel.

“We know that privileged people will always have access to abortion. We know that they will always have access to health care,” says Monica Simpson, the executive director of Sister Song, one of the oldest reproductive justice organizations in the country. For everyone else, Simpson says, “thousands of people are falling through the cracks.” Further, the states restricting abortion are also less likely to have social support benefits to help moms and children. For example, 10 of the 13 states that rejected federal funds for low-income kids to get summer food assistance have banned abortion, either beyond six weeks or at conception. “Those same people who are anti-choice are the ones who want to cut welfare,” says Zahedi-Spung. “They’re the same ones who don’t want to provide food stamps. They’re the same ones who don’t want to expand birth control options.” 

The Dobbs ruling in 2022 has led to an increased rate in maternal mortality, particularly in states that have strict abortion bans.

[leaves-lilies-and-esther]

The pay gap/female choices debate

I was watching this Youtube video the other day, and it pissed me off, but the main point of it was that there were these two men discussing how the pay gap isn't real because it all comes down to women's choices, citing really crappy examples as evidence. They clearly thought they were "owning the libs" too. They did this with 0 contextual analysis on why women make the decisions they do.

The first example they used was the Uber driver 7% pay gap, and how it's completely explained by three factors: (a) that women tend to be less experienced, (b) that men tend to drive faster, and (c) men drive in more lucrative locations. (This paper is Cook et al 20 by the way if you want to fact check me).

And yes, when you put it that way and remove all context for women's decisions, it certainly looks like that sort of moment. But think critically for like two seconds here:

Those more lucrative locations? The paper directly states that it's due to men's willingness to "drive in areas with higher crime and more drinking establishments". Of course men are more willing to do this! Your average woman is significantly more scared of being sexually assaulted, murdered, etc than your average man. She's going to avoid high crime areas because she's already in a vulnerable position (letting strangers into her car).

The fact that women have less experience? The attrition rate for female Uber drivers is substantially higher- 76.5% of women leave after six months, as opposed to 65% of male Uber drivers. I did found an article explaining why women self-select out of being in Uber or Lyft in the first place from Forbes. Quote, "...the job still involves driving alone and picking up strangers, often at night- situations that many women feel are dangerous. In interviews with eight female on-demand drivers, FORBES found that they usually feel safe but sometimes have doubts after troubling experiences and holes in safety policies." The article goes on to describe the experience of a female Uber driver in Atlanta, whose male customer tried to assault her. The company didn't handle the incident appropriately, and she never drove for Uber again. I'm willing to bet that this is the case for other female drivers too. The other women they interviewed (even those who are presumably still driving) described multiple similar experiences.

So, if you were a female Uber driver, you would probably leave around the six-month mark too. And as a result of this high attrition rate, the average female Uber driver will have less experience as compared to men.

And you know what? These other "gotcha" responses about the pay gap can probably be explained by outside factors too. Even in totally automated systems like Uber, where it does come down to female choices, those choices aren't being made in a freaking vacuum. It isn't just "haha pink lady brain can't drive as well", it's women don't feel safe and therefore make less money.

There's other scenarios where this is true as well. Women aren't climbing the corporate ladder as quickly as men? What else is going on? The Harvard Business Review found that more than half of men expect their careers to take precedence in a marriage- so if his is being prioritized always, what's happening to hers? When children get sick, women are ten times more likely to stay home from work to care for them (Kaiser Family Foundation). What does she miss in that lost time? When female scientists write papers, they are less likely than men to describe their accomplishments as *outstanding* or *unprecedented*, with the end result that their papers are cited less often. But it's because when women are socialized to be caretakers and to perform without complaint, this is the end result (Professional Development at Harvard). Worse, women who don't do this, and ask for raises/bonuses/etc, are more likely to be penalized than men (same source).

Yes, women sometimes make "decisions" which negatively impact their careers, but take it altogether. What makes men expect precedence of their wives? Misogyny. What makes men expect that their wives, regardless of their careers, will always nurse their sick kid? Misogyny. What makes women and their employers view female accomplishments as less valuable? You know the answer.

PS: two last things. The first is that I'm not trying to reduce the value of traditional "women's work". It isn't bad that women are taking care of their sick children, it's bad that men aren't doing it in equal numbers.

Secondly, if you're curious, there's this amazing professor named Claudia Goldin who I stumbled across while googling for this. She basically believes that the issue isn't direct discrimination from employers, but that the labor market encourages women to work differently. (And she's like 1000% more nuanced and career-specific than anything I just wrote). I put a link to an article about her below:

[memecucker]

The mammoth spending bill passed by Congress would allow states to kick some people off Medicaid starting in April. Millions would become uninsured, according to estimates from the administration and several health care nonprofits.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 15 million to 18 million people will lose Medicaid coverage — or about 1 in 5 people currently in the program. A December study by the centrist Urban Institute also estimated that 18 million people are set to lose Medicaid coverage next year and in 2024, leaving 3.8 million people without health insurance.

"The reality is that millions of people are going to lose Medicaid coverage," said Jennifer Tolbert, the foundation's associate director of the program on Medicaid and the uninsured.

[progressivepower]

Meanwhile 59% of the public have a favorable view of the ACA via the Kaiser Family Foundation: https://ow.ly/QKuX50QcgPq http://dlvr.it/SzTvCw

[blueiight]

if one can feel happy in childhood, that’s because one went without knowing the truth about one’s self. — oskar von reuenthal, lotgh ova ep93. in the name of pride.

and isnt that the crux of ep93’s flashback scene? the foundational belief reuenthal has of his own irredeemable nature lies underneath it all. we were introduced to reuenthal’s backstory in ep28 as a means to excuse away his sexist philandering personage, but this 5-7 min flashback sequence of ep93 truly completes the puzzle on who reuenthal is and how his past forges this present choice he will make. falsely accused of treason once more, yet this time an admiral in the inner network was killed for it [and an attempt was made on reinhard's life]. so someone has to be the fall guy for this crime, and reuenthal will take the charge...

while reckoning with this, reuenthal reflects on his life. he contrasts himself to the recently departed yang wenli, who was his exact age & a man who desired peace. reuenthal finds yang's brutal death to be so cruelly ironic. reuenthal believes ardently that he is incompatible with peace & under that, he believes he is cursed. if a just creator exists, reuenthal argues, then he is only fair in his malice.

when reuenthal thinks of his father carrying his mother’s corpse, of the common abusive refrains he heard in his childhod, the first thing his childlike apparition runs to is mittermeyer. his safety, his closest companion, the only reference of ‘healthy family’ he had. he thinks of his friend, shrouded in gold, happy with his wife, while his now-adult self is cast into the darkness. could he have a family and be happy too? he thinks. elfriede runs over his mindscape and in it, holds their child as if to say no. the product of his abuse of the woman who tried to murder him mocks his past desire of ‘wanting this seed of nuisance, the reuenthal lineage to end’. bc now, he has a child on the way. reuenthal explicitly compares being falsely accused of treason to this child, as theyre both situations he didnt want. but where reuenthal has no desire to be an active father (+ all the complicity in the kid's conception). he had no complicity in the uruvasi incident yet all the desire to play the role of traitor.

reuenthal thinks of his kaiser, his kaiser’s dearly departed kircheis, the recently departed lutz… all these people: random admirals, aristocratic women, all these symbols of polite society. before thinking of mittermeyer and eva again. and once more, his father interjects with the refrain ‘you should have never been born’. and reuenthal the man turns once more again into reuenthal the child.

we see leonora taking all the chips in the poker game, how leonora in reuenthal's mind resembles reuenthal himself, symbolizing how reuenthal saw her as a reflection/the root of his own vices with her lover who resembles mittermeyer... and the same old murder suicide attempt with leonora and infant reuenthal. reuenthal’s father repeats ‘you should have never been born’, with a now adult reuenthal saying the titular quote. he truly has internalized & believed that his father was right about him, that he was born to make his parents suffer + should have never been born. reuenthal excuses his childhood abuse, with the implication of why he was ‘unhappy’ in childhood being that his father was onto some innate stain his child self was born with.

we see when reuenthal said the titular quote, its to mittermeyer when they were meeting with military academy students, and ever so savvy mittermeyer asks ‘is it like being drunk, or being sobered up?’ and reuenthal says he doesnt know, but ‘its better to die drunk than sober,’ thinking this as he says such. [also something to think about later on for when mittermeyer confronts him in an ep or two later, how his last words to reuenthal was 'you're drunk on blood-colored dreams' ... reuenthal getting drunk as he dies slowly in agony waiting for mittermeyer to arrive. i digress.]

and reuenthal’s curious on intoxication, love and devotion, we are taken back to the night that reuenthal went to reinhard to save mittermeyer’s life.

‘that anointed one, that dear one nine years my junior, had thought of usurping the goldenbaum dynasty…i was in shock. truly, theres a wide difference between the ambitions of great v. ordinary. i was then carried away by it, and gambled on Him.'

reuenthal always loathed the aristocracy, but was complacent in it up until mittermeyer infuriated the nobles, and even then, could not free his friend directly. his devotion to reinhard is spurned by reinhard’s utter boldness in spiting the old guard.

and where reinhard is his loyalty, mittermeyer is reuenthal’s love. however way u cut it, reuenthal and mittermeyer canonically care deeply for eachother, and the flashbacks set up reuenthal's 'intoxciation perhps including love or loyalty' line too well with mittermeyer and reinhard representing one/both to reuenthal as they're the costars in reuenthal's mindscape from here on out.

regretting that he could not have any more days with him, believing he 'chose to gave it all away'... he thinks of all the fights they got into, all the fun they had together, and how mittermeyer so vociferously advocated for reuenthal’s life the first time his loyalties were put in suspicion. he knows, he begs even, mittermeyer, the wulf der sturm, his dear friend, to not do that again. because theres multiple political figures who would benefit from reuenthal AND mittermeyer’s downfall. reuenthal is fully willing to go down alone & not let his dear friend suffer the rammifications.

and this is when, the earlier question of why reuenthal’s so eager to be the traitor is fully answered.

its in the name of pride. 'for my pride, i have no choice but to fight.' he says. which is another reason why he begs in his head for mittermeyer not to intervene, because pride where a man raised in an aristocratic relic of a space empire retreats to, when the self is hollowed out. pride, mixed with almost intrinsic capacity for self loathing and blame. reuenthal knows he did nothing wrong here, but the image he's created for himself and the political quagmire he is in requires that he gears up to fight. and reinhard. oh, that dear one.

reuenthal recognizes that he and reinhard have this shared warrior's pride, and that reinhard has been empty without conquest, without yang, without someone to battle. this is also, in a way, showing his devotion to reinhard. which is why, right after reuenthal says this to himself, it is for pride...we are shown once more the reinhard from the s1 finale, coldly testing reuenthal and not anyone else.

reinhard in his moment of cruel grief, in losing kircheis + annerose going no-contact with him, resonates reuenthal's intrinsic self-hatred, and recognizes that in him as well as their overall shared warrior's pride. the reuenthal at the time could not meet that challenge, as their world was far too tumultuous and reuenthal devoted to the overthrow of the goldenbaums to risk reinhard's then rather unpredictable, terrifying ire. where now, reuenthal is far more acclimated to a reinhard unsheathed, and has served his duty in the creation of reinhard's legacy... he will commit to this final act of playing the turncoat, to satisfy reinhard's last warcry. reuenthal is also prideful in that he refuses to die in obscurity or be incarcerated by lang. he craves being under the glory of the golden lion, as he said earlier, and he will find infamy in history as the traitor if nothing else.

what this flashback sequence asks us to look at is how reuenthal’s fatalist pessimistic nature & why exactly he decides to play into the rebellion allegations even when he knows he had no involvement in the uruvasi incident. no one will believe him, except for mittermeyer. what this is rooted in complex traumatic patterns, foolish pride, and a political quagmire involving multiple parties, and what makes reuenthal's rebellion such a classic tragedy is that in reuenthal's eyes, his life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. the boy that should have never been born, made only to make his family suffer, becomes a man who left a trail of broken hearts + betrayed his king. yet reuenthal didn't ask to be born, nor did he actually betray reinhard. and he didnt even get to fight reinhard, mittermeyer is the one who puts down the reuenthal 'rebellion'. its incredibly cruel, that the person who loved and probably knew reuenthal the best was the one who was made to be his costar in closing out this elaborate suicide attempt. and he couldnt even make it in time to have their last drink.

[thoughtlessarse]

With the UAE on course to permit abortions in cases of rape and incest, the relaxation apparently makes the Arab country's law more liberal than provisions in nine American states. These US states don't allow medical termination of pregnancy, even in cases of rape and incest. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is on course to permit abortions in cases of rape and incest, and could result in the Islamic country's abortion laws being more liberal than those in as many as nine US states. Since the US Supreme Court eliminated the federal constitutional protections for abortion in 2022, 14 states have banned medical termination of pregnancy in almost all circumstances. In contrast, the UAE Cabinet has approved a resolution allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, provided the incident is reported immediately, and the procedure is carried out within 120 days of pregnancy. Among the 14 American states, nine states — Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas — do not even permit abortions in cases of rape or incest, according to a report by the healthcare research nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). In comparison to the recent changes in the Arabian nation in this regard, several US states maintain stringent restrictions on abortion. Let us have a look at the states and their provisions.

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