thingsofimportanceanddelight

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"School districts currently work with processing companies to offer cashless payment systems for families. But the companies can charge “processing fees” for each transaction. By law, students who are eligible for reduced price meals cannot be charged more than 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch. With processing fees, however, families can end up paying 10 times that amount. Processing companies charge as much as $3.25 or 4% to 5% per transaction, according to a recent report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."

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It has begun, a federal MAGA Judge has struck down the Biden Admin’s program shielding immigrant spouses from being deported.

If you’re an immigrant who voted for the orange felon, this is what you voted for and you idiots are in danger of this too, so I truly hope you enjoy it.

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Nov. 8, 2024, 9:57 AM MST

By Kevin Collier, Tyler Kingkade and Tom Winter

Bomb threats sent to polling places and ballot-counting locations in at least five battleground states across the U.S. Tuesday targeted mostly Democratic counties, an NBC News analysis has found.

The full extent of who received the bomb threats is not clear. None are believed to have been deemed credible. NBC News compiled a list of 67 locations in 19 counties, based on local news reports and state and local election officials’ statements, all of which appear to have received similar threats. Of the 67 locations, 56 were in 11 counties that voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election, including the eight most populated. Those high-population Democratic counties include voting locations for Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Detroit, Michigan; Phoenix, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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"I actually had a Trump voter say to me today 'he’s not really gonna get rid of the ACA right? My wife and I both have plans through it.'"

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Has anything actually gotten better, for all the work you talk about doing? Or is it just treading water in misery forever?

Anon, ten years ago gay people couldn't get married in large parts of the US. AIDS was an almost certain death sentence when I was in high school. I was looking at job boards the other day and found a part time gas station job that had health insurance as a benefit, which NEVER would have happened 15 years ago. When I was a kid, hitting your child was extremely normalized in the US and my parents were the weird ones for not doing it. There is a vaccine for chicken pox. I didn't meet anyone who had transitioned until my 20s because it was so uncommon to transition in the aughts, and now there are some states that protect your right to have gender affirming care provided by your health insurance. It's not all states, but it's better than the number of states that had it in 2010, which was zero. THERE ARE TENANTS UNIONS NOW. WE HAVE A VACCINE AGAINST CERVICAL CANCER.

And all of that has been the work of a lot of individuals and organizations and research teams and activists.

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I read your post about open enrollment for the ACA and was hoping you might expand on why you believe it would take years to dismantle. I've been terrified that with a Republican house/senate, Trump could just snap his fingers and make it go away within months of taking office. I'd love some reassurance that that's not possible.

Hiya, sure I can share some thoughts on the matter! First, it's very important to understand the ACA is a huuuuuuuuuuuuge system with subject matter experts in dozens of places throughout the process. I'm one of those SMEs, but I am at the end of the process where the revenue is generated, so my insight is limited on the public facing pieces.

What this means is that I am professionally embedded in the ACA in a position that exists purely to show what conditions people are treated for and then generate that data into what's called a "risk score". There's about 6 pages I could write on it, but the takeaway is that the ACA is

1) intricately interwoven with the federal government

2) increasingly profitable, sustainable, and growing (it is STILL a for-profit system if you can believe it)

3) wholeheartedly invested in by the largest insurance companies in the country LARGELY due to the fact that they finally learned the rules of how to make the ACA a thriving center of business

4) since the big issuers are arm+leg invested in the ACA, there is a lot of resistance politically and on an industry level to leave it behind (think of the lobbyists, politicians, corporations that will fight tooth and nail to protect their profit + investment)

The process to calculate a risk score takes roughly 2 years. There is an audit for the concurrent year and then a vigorous retro audit for the prev year - - this is a rolling cycle every year. Medicare has a similar process. These are RVP + RADV audits if you would like the jargon.

Eliminating the ACA abruptly is as internally laughable as us finishing the RADV audit ahead of schedule. If Trump were to blow the ACA into smithereens on day 1, he would be drowning in issuer complaints and an economic health sector that is essentially bleeding out. You cut off the RVP early? We have half of next RADV stuck in the gears now. You cut off the RADV early? No issuer will get their "risk adjusted" payments for services rendered in the prev benefit year (to an extent, again very complex multi-process system).

The ACA is GREAT for the public and should be defended on that basis alone. However, the inner capitalistic nature of the ACA is a powerful armor that has conservatives + liberals defending it on a basis of capital + market growth. It's not sexy, but it makes too much money consistently for the system to be easily dismantled.

Or at least that's what I can tell you from the money center of the ACA. they don't bring us up in political conversation because we are confusing to seasoned professionals, boring to industry outsiders, and consistently we are anathema to the anti-ACA talking points.

I am already preparing for next year's RVP for this window of open enrollment. That RVP process will feed into the RADV in 2026. In 2025, we begin the RADV for 2024. If nothing else, the slow fucking gears of CMS will keep the ACA alive until we finish our work at the end of the process. I highly doubt that will be the only reason the ACA is safeguarded, but it is a powerful type of support to pair with people protecting the ACA for other reasons.

I work every day to show, defend, and educate on how many diagnoses are managed thru my company's ACA plans. My specialty is cancer and I see a lot of it. The revenue drive comes from the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) rule stating only 20% MAX of profit may go to the issuer + the 80% at a minimum must go back to the customer or be invested in expanding benefits. The more people on the plan using it, the higher that 20% becomes for the issuer and the more impactful that 80% becomes for the next year of benefit growth. It is remarkably profitable once issuers stop seeking out "healthy populations". The ACA is a functional method for issuers to tap into a stable customer base (sick/chronic ill customers) that turns a profit, grows, and builds strong consumer bases in each state.

The industry can never walk away from this overnight - - this is the preferred investment for many big players. Changing the direction of those businesses will be a monumental effort that takes years (at least 2 with the audits). In the meantime, you still have benefits, you still have care, and you still have reason to sign up. Let us deal with the bureaucracy bullshit, go get your care and know you have benefits thru 2025 and we will be working to keep it that way for 2026 and forward. This is a wing of the federal government, it is not a jenga tower like Trump wishes.

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My inbox is temporarily closed. I’m getting too many messages from supposed Christians telling me they can’t wait for the new regime to purge disabled people from being a drain on society.

I’m fine, btw. I’m just restricting their access to me. It’s less fun for them if the punching bag refuses to be punched.

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i’m also seeing a lot of young women terrified and posting tiktoks asking which birth control option they could get/which is safest and lowest risk. as someone who has worked a clinical role in women’s healthcare, the answer is unequivocal. the risks of every single contraceptive on the market currently are nothing compared to the risks of the healthiest pregnancy.

the anti-contraceptive fear mongering has been a conservative project for years. i would know, i lived project 2025 in my childhood community before it was put to pen. there are legitimate reasons to advocate and legislate for better birth control options in a political climate where the only alternative is not forced pregnancy. we will lose birth control in the next four years and women need to prepare for that reality now. right now, when women ask you these questions, the answer is not to diminish the risk of birth control nor to dismiss the benefits but to state very clearly what all research on women’s health shows. the risk of every single contraceptive on the market currently do not compare to the gravity of risk in even the healthiest pregnancy.

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November 6 / 7, 2024 - Far-right Israeli hooligans of Maccabi Tel Aviv came to Amsterdam for a match against Ajax, and went around singing their fascist songs about killing arabs and destroying palestine, attacking random people's houses, ripping down and burning palestinian flags and attacking random people for looking like palestine supporters, feeling untouchable. After an evening of this, with Amsterdam police just letting it happen, people had had enough and mostly Moroccan dutch people organised to hunt down Maccabi hooligans throughout the city. One of the Maccabi hooligans jumped in the canal to escape a beating. Passports were confiscated showing that several of the hooligans were IDF soldiers.

The Israeli government has responded by calling this a pogrom and sending two planes to Amsterdam, presumably to bomb a hospital or school in retaliation.

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I know most of tumblr is thinking about the USA right now. but fuck the nz government right now too. tomorrow, the treaty principles bill, the 'worst, most comprehensive breach of Te Tiriti in modern times' is being introduced to parliament early, because there were activations planned country wide and the cowards decided to pull it forwards. fuck this government. a friend of mine had to go home early, crying. I've been in shock all day since it came out.

check on your Māori friends, e hoa mā. see what they need. see how you can help. everyday, we see and experience racism. from people around us, up to our government. community care will save us.

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Banging on the walls chanting "OPEN ENROLLMENT FOR ACA THRU JAN 15" like some deranged town crier. Election results aside, you have options to access healthcare as a RIGHT through the ACA. NO one can dismantle the Affordable Care Act in less than 4 years, so SIGN UP! GET YOUR CARE! USE THE SYSTEM!

You have options RIGHT NOW that will be stable thru the next year, the one after that, and I'd be shocked to see them shrink even the year after that. That means RIGHT NOW you can get signed up for next year to gain 100% covered preventative care (your annual check ups, pap smears, dental cleaning, vision check). You have the option to get checked and screened as you need, do NOT be dissuaded from exploring ACA choices. They are SOLID, LEGISLATED, and WORK BEST WHEN PEOPLE USE THEM.

I can't change most things around me, BUT I CAN tell everyone I know that THEY CAN GET LIFE SAVING CARE. THEY CAN GET PRESCRIPTIONS. THEY CAN GET PREGNANCY CARE. THEY CAN GET CANCER CARE. AND THEY WILL GET THAT CARE!!!!!!

SIGN UP BY DECEMBER 15, 2024 FOR COVERAGE TO BEGIN ON JANUARY 1, 2025. ENROLLMENT AFTER 12/15/24 WILL HAVE COVERAGE BEGINNING FEBRUARY 1, 2025.

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hello again (bill clinton limewire voice) my fellow americans

There are a few states that actually have Shield/Refuge laws designed to help trans people fleeing from trans-unsafe states, which also guarantee trans folks access to healthcare. These states are:

California

Colorado

Illinois

Oregon

Vermont

Washington

Minnesota

New Mexico

Maine

Massachusetts

Rhode Island

Connecticut

Washington D.C.

Additionally, some states have "trans sanctuary" executive orders signifying safety for trans folks seeking healthcare. These states are:

Maryland

New Jersey

New York

Living as a resident in these states means you are protected by state's rights and state government to continue or begin receiving trans healthcare. These laws have been codified in their states so everything has been a-ok'd by their state governments.

Stay alive. You got this. I love you.

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This morning there was a nation-wide text spam campaign targeting Black Americans (largely students) telling them that they��ve been selected to pick cotton and will be picked up to be sent to a plantation after Trump’s inauguration.

People online are making jokes about it, but it’s genuinely a disturbing sign. Someone was emboldened enough to intentionally run a background on thousands of young Black people and send them racist messages the day after a very exhausting and stressful election.

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Some good political news out there, in the UK, but for anyone who needs the slightest hint of positivity today

Source: BBC

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today you, tomorrow me.

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Thinking of others is beyond the 'consumer identity politics' and 'patriotism via capitalism' of structural whiteness.