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a message from Dr. Kim Schrier

01/11/2018 Nativegrl77

CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Plan, has broad bipartisan support but is still being held in limbo as a political bargaining chip.

This leaves families all over the 8th District and all over this country uncertain about when their healthcare coverage may run out.

Patients and their families are anxious, especially those families with children who have chronic diseases.

The millions of families that rely on CHIP can’t wait any longer. Add your name to mine right now to call on Congress to reinstate CHIP immediately.

One of those victims is my patient Megan, who gives herself insulin shots and checks her blood sugar six times per day just like I did as a teen with type 1 diabetes. Without CHIP, her parents will need to pay $380 per month on supplies and insulin. They work hard for a living, but that type of extra expense is not affordable.

Medical expenses are the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country. The failure to fund CHIP puts more working families at risk. This is unacceptable.

CHIP passed with strong bipartisan support and should not be subject to political gamesmanship. The problem is that the Republicans want to fund CHIP, a $15 billion program, by pulling funds away from existing public health and medical care programs. That just doesn’t make sense at a time when they’ve just passed a tax bill with a gigantic $1.5 trillion “welfare check” to the wealthy and corporations.

Working families need help, not the 1%. It is time to fund CHIP.

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No offshore drilling …

01/11/2018 Nativegrl77

Friends, Whitehouse for Senate

New year, new horrifying anti-environment policy: Donald Trump just announced that his administration will allow offshore drilling in huge swaths of previously protected areas – including more than 1 billion acres in the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific oceans that have been off limits for decades.

This decision is a gift-wrapped handout to the fossil fuel industry, but it comes at the expense of basically everyone and everything else: coastal residents, the fishing industry and anyone else whose livelihood relies on healthy oceans and strong coastal communities, particularly in states like Rhode Island.

Working families all over the country will pay the price, but Donald Trump doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if fish stocks are decimated. He doesn’t care if pollution from oil rigs renders the beaches that so many communities rely on unusable. That’s why we have to speak out. That’s why I’m saying, “Not on my watch.”

Add your name now to tell Donald Trump: No new offshore drilling!

Thanks,

Sheldon

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Mega-Dams May Be History in the Brazilian Amazon!

01/10/2018 Nativegrl77

Last week, executives of Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy unexpectedly announced to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that the country would cease building large dams on the Amazon’s rivers!

Like many of our allies, we celebrated this news and were especially heartened by the fact that the executives cited the need to “respect the social desire to restrict these projects.”

Acknowledging the complexity in both licensing and financing mega-dams in the era of controversial projects like Belo Monte, these officials indicated that Brazil would pursue new directions to meet its energy needs that emphasize clean renewable power and decentralization.

READ THE NEWS

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New world order ? this is NOT our America

01/10/2018 Nativegrl77

“Our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.”

-Stephen Miller,trump Policy Advisor

American needs to pay attention to what they do …talk is cheap but actions like stacking the court system with extreme righties will last forever

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2018 Medicare Spared From Budget Cuts in 2018 … but

01/09/2018 Nativegrl77

THOMAS BARWICK/GETTY IMAGES

AARP supports responsible solutions to reduce health care spending without shifting costs onto Medicare beneficiaries or reducing their access to care.

Congress has acted to prevent mandatory funding cuts to Medicare and other programs vital to millions of older Americans that were set to occur as a result of the new tax overhaul legislation.

The Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which the president signed today, is projected to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. Under the 2010 “pay-as-you-go” law known as PAYGO, that increase to the deficit would have triggered automatic spending cuts to programs, including a $25 billion cut to Medicare in 2018 alone. But in an AARP-supported move, the House and Senate on Thursday waived the required cuts as part of a temporary spending bill to prevent a government shutdown. Thousands of AARP members contacted their legislators, urging them to act before the end of the year and prevent the Medicare cuts.

Preventing the cuts will help preserve seniors’ access to their doctors and hospital services. Medicare covered 56.8 million people last year, including 47.8 million age 65 and older.

Still, even with Congress’ action, Medicare and other programs will continue to face budgetary pressure.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this week that the Senate is unlikely to tackle Medicare and Social Security in 2018. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has also ruled out 2018 Medicare cuts. However, Ryan has made reducing the nation’s debt and reining in government spending a priority, and has openly discussed Medicare changes such as premium support.

Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid are among the government’s biggest programs. The government will spend about $700 billion on Medicare this year, a number the Congressional Budget Office projects will increase to nearly $1.4 trillion in 2027. AARP supports responsible solutions to reduce health care spending that do not shift costs onto Medicare beneficiaries or reduce their access to care.

resource: AARP