Relationships and Going Places

From Medicare: Be sure to bring your red, white, and blue Medicare card so your health care provider or pharmacy can bill Medicare. You’ll need your Medicare card even if you’re enrolled in a Medicare Advantage Plan. If you fill out a form to get the vaccine, you may be asked for your insurer’s group number. If you have Part B, leave this field blank or write “N/A.” If you have trouble with the form, talk with your vaccine provider. Medicare also covers COVID-19 tests, COVID-19 antibody tests, and COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatments. Here’s what to know: You can’t pay to put your name on a list to get the vaccine. You can’t pay to get early access to a vaccine. Don’t share your personal or financial information if someone calls, texts, or emails you promising access to the vaccine for a fee. more »

Jill Norgren writes: "This is an intriguing book about change and turning points. It will prod readers to argue with the authors who contend that the United States has done better in past decades and could/will do so again. Putnam and Garrett are particularly interested in climate change, which they describe as an ultimate “we” issue. They observe environmental activists pleading for a moral awakening to the costs of inaction and imagine that this might be the non-partisan movement on which the upswing might be built. We can only hope that the authors are correct and that a new generation of activists, in community, will re-imagine America and that they will not be the ones who charged the Capitol on January 6." more »

Only 58% of Republican voters surveyed say they are very or somewhat likely to seek the vaccine, compared to 88% among Democrats and 72% among those with no party affiliation. More than one-third of Republicans — 37% in all — say they are somewhat or very unlikely to seek the vaccine, compared to 8% of Democrats and 22% of those with no party. The poll described the Californians’ attitudes on the pandemic as “highly politicized,” and found that Republicans are more likely to see vaccinations as a matter of personal choice, rather than as a shared responsibility to protect the health of all Californians. “COVID has brought to the forefront a tension between values about the individual and the community,” said IGS co-Director Cristina Mora. But underlying that longstanding partisan disagreement, she said, are racial tensions and even a disagreement about whether the threat of the pandemic is real. more »

Jo Freeman writes: This is a political biography. Published only a week before Kamala Harris was inaugurated as this country’s first female Vice President, this book is an overview of Harris’ life in California politics. The author was able to write it so quickly because he has reported on California politics, policy and justice for two newspapers in that state for four decades; Harris has been politically active for about three. more »