Politics
Seniors On Medicare Don’t Need To Apply To The Health Law Marketplaces; Spending Changes Will Not Reduce Medicare Benefits
Q: Does the law cut spending on Medicare?
A: Medicare spending will continue to expand as increasing numbers of baby boomers reach 65. The law does cut the expected growth of Medicare spending by about $716 billion over the next decade. Those cuts are made by lowering reimbursements to nursing homes, hospitals, home health agencies and other providers. It also cuts payments to Medicare Advantage plans to bring those payments closer to what Medicare pays for care for beneficiaries enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service plan. more »
Bills Introduced: Adopting Children in Foster Care; Enhancing Pre-& Post Adoptive Services, Adoptive Incentive Payments
A bill to remove barriers to the adoption of children in foster care through reauthorization and improvement of the adoption incentives program, and for other purposes; A bill to enhance pre- and post-adoptive support services; A bill to improve outcomes for youth at risk for sex trafficking, and other purposes. A bill to extend the adoption incentive payments program to incentive payments for foster child exits to reunification, adoption, and guardianship, and for other purposes. more »
Plutonium Mountain: Inside the 17-Year Mission to Secure a Legacy of Soviet Nuclear Testing
Some of these tests — particularly tests involving plutonium — did not vaporize the material in a nuclear blast. It remained in tunnels and containers, in forms that could be recovered and recycled into a bomb. In addition, the Soviet Union discarded equipment that included high-purity plutonium that would have provided materials and information that could lead to a relatively sophisticated nuclear device if it had been found. more »
Woman of Note, Ellie Kinnaird: What's Going On in North Carolina?
Why did I resign? I was one of only seventeen Democrats in the 50 member North Carolina State Senate. After this discouraging and disheartening session, I realized I could contribute more to turning this tide by leaving the North Carolina Senate and starting a voter ID project to make sure that every voter has the proper ID and correct precinct they vote in. To assure that thousands of voters will not have their ballots counted, the types of photo identification required is so narrow that it could prevent 160,000 people from voting. more »