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Harris: Over 250K parents have access to Medicaid postpartum coverage for a full year

Vice President Harris on Thursday announced that 253,000 parents have gained access to 12 months of postpartum coverage through Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) extensions during the Biden administration.

Coverage of 12 months will expand to parents in Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., which will include 15,000 people annually, due to approved actions from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

The one-year Medicaid or CHIP coverage will extend to 2,000 parents in Maine, 7,000 parents in Minnesota, 5,000 parents in New Mexico and 1,000 parents in Washington, D.C.

The total of 253,000 parents includes the 15,000 new additions, as well as parents in states that have already gained access to 12 months of postpartum coverage in California, Florida, Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Michigan, Louisiana, Virginia, New Jersey and Illinois.

“Women in our nation are dying from pregnancy related causes at a higher rate than any other developed nation, dying before, during, and after childbirth. Black women are three times more likely to be affected by this and to die from childbirth related causes, native women are twice as likely, rural women, one and a half times likely,” Harris told reporters on Thursday.

“To be clear, this is about prioritizing the rights all women in our nation should have to full reproductive health care,” she said.

The new extension announced on Thursday is due to funding from the American Rescue Plan and extends coverage from 60 days postpartum to a full year.

White House Domestic Policy Council director Susan Rice hailed the announcement, specifically for including 1,000 parents in Washington.

“Just personally speaking as a born and raised D.C. native, I’m excited to see D.C. and women in this great city benefit as well,” she said.

Half of pregnancy related deaths in the U.S. occur in the 12-month postpartum period and 12 percent occur after six weeks postpartum, according to the White House.

“This postpartum time is such a sensitive moment for new mothers and families. Now 250,000 families have time to focus on the health of their baby and themselves instead of having to worry about whether they have health care coverage,” said CMS administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure.

“That alone could be the difference between life and death.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Bill Clinton offers advice on talking to pro-gun rights activists: 'Don’t talk down to them'

Former President Clinton is offering advice to people looking to garner support for gun control laws, saying it’s important that Americans “just talk to each other again.”

In an interview on CBS’s “The Late Late Show” with James Corden on Wednesday, Clinton said that when talking to pro-gun rights activists, it might help to ask for their assistance.

“Don’t talk down to them,” Clinton said. “Instead of telling them they’re dumb if they don’t agree with you, ask for their help. … It’s not necessary for somebody to agree with you to trust you with their vote.”

He added that when talking to gun owners one should “assume that they’ve got good sense and they’re afraid of losing what they’ve got.”

Clinton said that a lot of gun owners are “inherently suspicious of government, easy to spook, and don’t want to take a chance.”

Corden also highlighted the Clinton administration’s assault weapons ban that lasted 10 years and asked him why the country can’t agree on the issue of guns.

He added that “we gotta reach people where they live.”

His comments come as the debate over gun ownership and an assault weapons ban has intensified over recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.

According to Clinton, if every state had red flag laws and “if every state actually enforced them,” including having readily available mental health facilities, then some of the mass shootings would stop.

He added that there’s an overwhelming majority for gun control laws but the gun culture “is sufficiently strong that there are more people who are against doing something than for it, if it’s a voting issue.”

Clinton also shared on the late night show that he once had a lifetime membership to the National Rifle Association, “when they cared about resolving real issues.”

His comments come just weeks after a new poll found that a majority of Americans believe that Congress should pass gun control legislation.

Source: TEST FEED1

Let’s dismantle the obstacles to treating migraine disease

Every year in June during National Migraine and Headache Awareness Month, we take the opportunity to bring attention to migraine disease, which affects more than 39 million Americans, according to the American Migraine Foundation. Yet, the number of people suffering from migraine disease is likely much higher as so many people endure their debilitating headaches in silence — not getting the treatment they need and often not even knowing how to ask for treatment. And most turn out to be women.  

In fact, three times more women than men live with migraine disease. The associated medical costs are significant. A 2018 Washington Post article noted that migraine attacks cost this country about $78 billion every year, with women making up 80 percent of the direct medical and lost labor costs.

Women need to be empowered, especially during National Migraine and Headache Awareness Month, to understand what migraine disease is and to learn about and be able to access available treatments.  

Migraine attacks are more than just a bad headache but rather are part of migraine disease, which is “a disabling neurological disease,” that can last for hours and even for several debilitating days once triggered. Migraine attacks are genetic though they can show up differently for each individual affected. Some of the most common symptoms include problems with vision, nausea, sensitivity to light, noises and smells, head pain that increases with physical activity, throbbing or pulsating pain sensations and pain so severe you must miss work, school or other activities.

 
It is important to know that migraine attacks come in two types, classic and common. Classic migraine attacks, also known as migraine with aura, are those where in addition to the headache attacks people also experience symptoms such as vision changes, blind spots or light flashes as well as tingling in the hands or face. Common migraine attacks usually don’t come with these sensory disturbances but are just as agonizing.

Although scientists don’t have all the answers yet as to why women are more affected, hormones play a significant role in the disorder, which might explain the difference that starts to appear at puberty, when the rates for females increase significantly to the male peers.  

For some women, the fluctuation of their estrogen levels around menstruation and menopause can trigger a migraine attack. For others, it can dampen the intensity. Not much is known about why this happens and why it’s so different for most people. Researchers are working hard to try to figure the fluctuation connection out. Because estrogen is responsible for controlling pain sensation, it has been shown that taking certain types of birth control and also menopause can help ameliorate the severity of a migraine attack. Yet for some women, the exact opposite happens. Thankfully, for most women, migraine symptoms improve post-menopause. 

It has been shown that getting regular exercise, even just moving your body for 30 minutes several times a week, and improving what you eat can help. Some experts say that eating regular meals — at consistent intervals and times — as well as eating foods that help to fight inflammation, can help prevent migraine attacks. And, not surprisingly, in small amounts, caffeine can relieve migraine pain in the early stages or enhance the pain-reducing effects of acetaminophen (Tylenol) and aspirin.

The good news is that there are treatments available for people with migraine disease, including several different kinds of oral medications, such as ibuprofen. Some target the pain of migraine and inflammation in the brain; others are nasal sprays, injections or infusions to stop pain from migraine attacks. To prevent the onset of a migraine attack in the first place, there are also oral medications, injections, infusions, and even a neuromodulation device that changes the way nerves pass information onto the brain.  

The challenges to accessing medication are the barriers imposed by insurance carriers and pharmacy benefits managers that require you to try other, not prescribed therapies first, and fail, or switch the therapies non-medically, and don’t allow you to accumulate copays to get over exorbitant out-of-pocket maximums. All of these utilization management practices could be addressed by Congress through various pieces of legislation that are before them. Migraine patients, along with all patients, would benefit enormously.

Bottom line, if migraine disease is affecting you and your quality of life, don’t endure it alone. Take the time to get more information about the condition and talk to your healthcare provider about the treatment options available to you. While migraine disease can certainly be debilitating, effective treatment is available. Find what’s right for you and work with your provider to make sure you get what you need.

Martha Nolan is senior policy advisor at HealthyWomen, a nonprofit that educates women to make decisions about their health care.

Source: TEST FEED1

Americans know more about the Kardashians than basics of buying a home: survey

Most Americans know more about the lives of the Kardashians than they do about the basics of buying a home, according to a new Zillow survey.  

Zillow’s nationwide survey found that more than two-thirds of respondents did not understand the benefits of getting a pre-approved mortgage. Yet nearly 85 percent know Kim Kardashian has four children with Kanye West.  

Americans are also more well versed in professional sports than home buying essentials with 71 percent saying they were aware 7-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady left the New England Patriots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  

The average American answered 3 out of 5 questions correctly regarding celebrities, their love lives, and the NFL. 

However, the average adult answered only 2 out of 5 questions correctly on Zillow’s homebuying basics section of the quiz. But most understood the impact of payment histories on a credit score and that a home appraisal evaluates the accuracy of a listing price.  

Zillow left five tips to navigate the homebuying process: Understand what you can afford; see if you qualify for down payment assistance; find an agent you trust; get pre-approved for a mortgage — not just prequalified; and shop around for a lender.  

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. 

“The real estate process can be complicated and confusing, but it doesn’t have to be,” Amanda Pendleton, Zillow home trends expert, said in a news release. “By educating themselves on basic real estate fundamentals and hiring experts to help guide them through the process, buyers can avoid costly pitfalls and put themselves in a stronger competitive position.  

“When it comes to picking the right home, real estate technology like interactive floor plans puts information closer to the average buyer’s fingertips than ever before, helping them move quickly and with confidence,” Pendelton said.  

READ MORE STORIES FROM CHANGING AMERICA 

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WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEW NOVAVAX VACCINE FOR COVID-19 

ABORTIONS IN THE US INCREASED IN 2020, REVERSING A MORE THAN 30-YEAR DECLINE 

LIZZO REMOVES ‘HARMFUL WORD’ FROM SONG: ‘I NEVER WANT TO PROMOTE DEROGATORY LANGUAGE’ 

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump knew of Capitol breach when he knocked Pence in tweet on Jan. 6, Democrat says

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said in an interview Thursday that former President Trump knew the Capitol had been breached on Jan. 6, 2021 when he sent a tweet disparaging his then-Vice President Mike Pence.

In an interview with NBC News, Aguilar said that the Capitol was breached at 2:13 p.m. and that Trump posted a tweet saying that, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary” at 2:24 p.m.

The congressman added that the vice president was “one window pane away from the from the mob” and that the tweet going out was “when they knew it was time to evacuate.”

“[Trump] knew that there was violence and he still tweeted the vice president didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary,” Aguilar said.

At the time of the Capitol riot, Pence was presiding over the certification of the election results in the Senate. Following the news that the building was under attack, Pence was evacuated from the building.

Before the insurrection, the former president had publicly asserted that Pence had the ability to overturn the election results while presiding over the Senate. The role of the vice president in the certification process is largely ceremonial. At the time, Pence refused Trump’s ask.

The California Democrat told the outlet that the former president’s tweet “pointed” the mob in Pence’s direction and said “it’s the vice president’s fault.”

His comments come as the Jan. 6 Committee also released a short 20 second video to NBC News of Pence’s former Chief of Staff Marc Short testifying that Pence had conveyed his position on the 2020 election to Trump “many times” and had been “very consistent.”

This comes as the the Jan. 6 committee’s third hearing puts the focus on the relationship between Trump and Pence sharing evidence in order to prove a “pressure campaign on Vice President Pence driven by the former president.”

Thursday’s hearing will be the third public broadcast by the Jan. 6 panel that began last week. Viewers will also hear from Greg Jacob, then senior counsel to Pence, as well as Michael Luttig, a former judge on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and conservative legal figure who was an informal adviser to Pence. 

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, also released a video of Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) on Wednesday, showing him giving a tour the day before the Capitol attack to a man who took photos of the Capitol complex’s hallways before attending the rally the next day.

Source: TEST FEED1

Bill Clinton: 'Fair chance' US could 'completely lose' its democratic system

Bill Clinton says he’s never before been so concerned about the country’s foundational future, lamenting there’s a “fair chance” that the United States could “completely lose our constitutional democracy.”

The former president appeared Wednesday on CBS’s “The Late Late Show” and responded to a question from host James Corden that alluded to Donald Trump’s presidency without mentioning the ex-commander in chief by name. Corden asked Clinton how he stays “so positive in what has been a very, very dark few years.”

While saying that witnessing his grandchildren grow up makes it “impossible to be pessimistic about the future,” Clinton added, “Now you shouldn’t be Pollyanna.”

“I actually think there’s a fair chance that we could completely lose our constitutional democracy for a couple of decades if we keep making — if we make bad decisions,” Clinton, 75, said.

“I’m not naïve about this. I’ve been in a lot of fights. I’ve lost some, won a bunch. I’ve been elated and heartbroken,” he continued.

“But I’ve never before been as worried about the structure of our democratic form of government,” the 42nd president told Corden.

Clinton’s remarks come a day after a poll found that nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. might “cease to be a democracy in the future.” Fifty-five percent of Democrats and 53 percent of Republicans surveyed in the Yahoo News-YouGov poll released Wednesday said they believe the country will “likely” not be a democracy one day.

Clinton said that he’s holding out hope his concerns don’t become a reality.

“So far, every time we were faced with our own undoing, our conscious kicked in and we stepped away from the brink,” he said.

“And I kind of think that’s what will happen here, but I don’t know when or how.”

Clinton advised Americans to “be vigilant,” telling the audience the country has to “stand up for what we believe in.”

“And don’t return hatred with hatred,” he said.

Source: TEST FEED1

A predictable outcome of Jan. 6 hearings: Opinions about Trump won’t change

Whenever a divisive issue comes along, there’s one thing we can be sure of: The opposing sides will go to their respective corners and erect barricades so that no inconvenient facts or opinions can get through. It’s the case with guns or abortion, or now, with the House hearings on what happened and who’s responsible for the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

To hard-core Donald Trump supporters, the hearings are nothing more than a show trial, a TV miniseries, whose goal is to divert attention from almost 9 percent inflation and over $5 a gallon gasoline. It’s all about politics, as far as they’re concerned. It’s about not allowing cross-examination from Republicans who support Trump, and about smearing not only the former president but all Republicans — hoping the TV show, produced by a former ABC News president, will change enough minds to help Democrats in the November midterms. 

To liberals and progressives, the hearings are about how then-President Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election with lies about stolen votes and supposedly rigged voting machines. Before the hearings are over, the left hopes the committee will show that Trump is guilty of nothing less than “seditious conspiracy” and will be put on trial, convicted and go to prison.

The question now is, will the hearings make any discernible difference in the way Americans think or the way they vote?

It’s a safe bet that hard-core Democrats will come out of the hearings with the same opinions they had when they went in — that Donald Trump tried to stage a coup and overthrow a legitimate presidential election. As for hard-core Republicans, no matter how damning the evidence and testimony against Trump, they won’t be swayed. As I say, both sides predictably rush to their corners and put up walls to keep the other side out.

But not everyone is hard core when it comes to politics. There still are swing voters out there, moderates who vote Republican sometimes and Democrat at other times. What they see on TV may influence how they vote. They’re up for grabs.  

One of the conservative arguments is that the hearings aren’t producing anything new. Except not everybody is a news junkie. Not everybody knows every detail of what happened on Jan. 6.   Some who tune in to the hearings will learn things they didn’t know.  

But here’s what we do know, even if Trump loyalists don’t want to believe it: Donald Trump lied to his supporters for months, telling them that the election was “stolen,” even though, as the hearings have shown, his own attorney general, Bill Barr — and many other top Trump aides and advisers — said there was no evidence for such an assertion.  

We also know that he invited his supporters to Washington for the rally on Jan. 6 and then egged them on with more lies about a stolen election. We know that after they stormed the Capitol, Trump watched on television but didn’t send help to put an end to the riot.

We know that he bears some responsibility for what happened that day — moral, ethical and political responsibility. But we don’t know if he bears legal responsibility. Before this is over, we’ll find out. 

How Donald Trump commands such loyalty — from people he has constantly misled, no less — is, well, let’s call it … fascinating. For quite a while now they’ve been looking for their political messiah. Trump came along and said, “Here I am.” 

So, should it really surprise us that a poll completed last week, one day before the primetime TV hearing began, found that 55 percent of Republicans still believe the fairy tale that it actually was left-wing protesters who led the Jan. 6 riot — just to make Trump look bad. Never mind that virtually (if not literally) all of the more than 800 people arrested after they stormed the Capitol weren’t left-wingers at all, but, according to federal prosecutors, were Trump supporters. True believers are rarely deterred by mere facts.

Imagine how much they must loathe Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the rest of the liberal and progressive gang to believe such nonsense and embrace a man with Donald Trump’s personality.

Last week, he went on his new social media platform, Truth Social, and told his loyal followers that “January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again.”

Trump deceived his loyal followers when he lost the presidential election. He continued the deception at the rally on Jan. 6, 2021. If his post on Truth Social is any indication, he still is cynically playing on their blind allegiance to him.    

Maybe that’s because Donald Trump knows what Abe Lincoln knew: That you really can fool some people all of the time.

Bernard Goldberg is an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning writer and journalist. He was a correspondent with HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” for 22 years and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News and as an analyst for Fox News. He is the author of five books and publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Substack page. Follow him on Twitter @BernardGoldberg.

Source: TEST FEED1

Seattle to consider ‘approval’ voting option

The city of Seattle will decide whether to adopt a new style of voting that would allow them to choose as many candidates as they like in future election contests.

The proposal, called “approval voting,” allows a voter to select every candidate of whom they approve in primary elections. The two candidates with the highest number of votes would advance to a general election, when voters would be allowed to choose between the two.

The group behind the initiative, Seattle Approves, submitted just over the 26,520 signatures necessary to qualify the measure for November’s ballot, according to King County Elections, which announced the results of the petition process on Wednesday.

“Seattle’s leaders must represent everyone,” said Sarah Ward, the group’s co-chair. “Initiative 134 will make Seattle’s elections as representative as possible, so that its leaders represent the entire electorate. This initiative puts voters first.”

Supporters of the process say it allows voters a wider variety of candidates, eliminating the prospect of a “spoiler” candidate who siphons votes away from another similar candidate. If two candidates who share much of the same platform compete, a voter could select both of them.

The system “is fairer to both major and minor parties,” wrote supporters of the process at the Center for Election Science, an electoral reform group founded in 2011. “Under the current system, popular major party candidates sometimes lose when a strong minor party or independent candidate draws some of the support that would have otherwise been theirs. Approval voting addresses this by allowing supporters of alternative candidates to also support a more electable frontrunner as a compromise.”

The Center for Election Science helped bankroll the Seattle initiative. That group was founded with the support of Open Philanthropy, a group that is in turn funded largely by Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook. The initiative’s second-largest funder is a foundation bankrolled by Sam Bankman-Fried, a crypto billionaire behind a super PAC that has drawn attention this year as one of the largest spenders in Democratic primary campaigns.

Approval voting is similar to, but distinct from, ranked-choice voting, in which voters select the candidates in the order in which they favor them. In ranked-choice voting, candidates who finish at the bottom of the pack are eliminated in successive rounds, and their votes redistributed based on the voter’s second choice. In approval voting, only the total number of votes any candidate gets are counted, without elimination rounds.

Voters in Fargo, N.D., and St. Louis, Mo., have passed approval voting options in recent years. Several local Democratic Party organizations in Seattle use the method for endorsing candidates. The College of Cardinals used a similar method to select new popes for about 400 years in the Middle Ages, according to a 1998 paper by political scientists at Georgetown and Oxford universities.

Now that the initiative has won approval, it will go first to the City Council, which can approve it on its own or forward it to voters to decide in November.

Source: TEST FEED1

56 percent in new poll believe US is in recession

More than half of Americans believe that the U.S. is currently in a recession, according to a new poll from The Economist/You Gov. 

The survey, published on Monday, found that 56 percent of Americans believed that the country is currently going through an economic recession. 

Twenty-two percent of respondents disagreed with the idea that the U.S is in a recession, while 22 percent of those surveyed said they are not sure if a recession is currently happening. 

Whether or not a respondent thought the economy had dipped into a recession largely was dependent on political party.

Seventy percent of respondents who identified as Republicans said they think that the U.S. is currently in a recession, while 8 percent of Republican respondents disagree, according to the poll. 

Just 45 percent of Democrat respondents said they think that the U.S. is in a recession, while 56 percent of independent respondents agreed. 

Fifty-eight percent of respondents who are 65 years or older believe that the country is going through an economic recession, while 54 percent of respondents who are 44 years old or younger also agree as well, the poll said. 

The poll comes as fears of a possible recession have grown in the recent weeks due to the struggles of inflation caused by high costs at gas stations and products at grocery stores and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. 

The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will hike interest rates to the highest point rate percentage its seen in nearly 30 years. 

Fifty-three percent of Black respondents believe that the county is in a recession, while 47 percent of Hispanic respondents also agree with the sentiment, the poll noted. 

The Economist/You Gov poll was conducted from June 11 to 14, with a total of 1,500 respondents participating in the survey. The margin of error for the poll was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1