Tag Archives: Food

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It’s Time to #GetCovered

10/02/2013 Nativegrl77

Obamacare is Open for Business

Today marks a huge milestone in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Health insurance marketplaces opened this morning and millions of Americans, many of whom are currently uninsured and may never before have had access to coverage, began shopping for a quality, affordable health plan.

CREDIT: Healthcare.gov

In fact, President Obama said today that interest in the insurance marketplaces had exceeded all expectations. While this enormous amount of interest has led to some glitches (which the president said officials were working to address as quickly as possible), things are moving along in states across the country:

National website: A senior Obama administration official reported that just three hours after Obamacare’s open enrollment period launched, the national Healthcare.gov site had one million visitors. That’s five times more users on the site than the number of users who have ever visitedMedicare.gov at the same time.

California: The Golden State celebrated its first Obamacare enrollee at8:45 am Pacific Standard Time. Since then, state residents have tweetedthat they’re “impressed” with how easy it is to use the exchange’s app, and the site is “working like a charm for Californians.”

Colorado: In Colorado, the exchange site opened for business at 8:00 am Mountain Standard Time. Three hours later, state officials hadcompleted the first enrollments and the site had logged over 34,500 unique visitors.

Connecticut: Despite a few initial glitches with its website, Connecticut signed up its first Obamacare enrollee by 9:30 am. And at that point, 764 other people had active applications for the state’s exchange. “For a site that’s been up for 25 minutes, it’s not bad,” the CEO of Connecticut’s new insurance marketplace, Kevin Counihan, noted. By about 11:30 am, the state had logged 10,000 visitors to its website. By about 2:00 pm, state officials reported that they had fielded 17,000 phone calls from residents and enrolled 44 people for coverage.

District of Columbia: DC’s exchange opened for business at 8:00 am. By noon, about 1,500 DC residents had created accounts, according to a spokesperson for the exchange. Creating an account is the first step for people who want to shop for coverage and eventually buy a new plan under Obamacare. The District hasn’t yet experienced any issues with its website.

Florida: MSNBC reports that community health care clinics in Orlando are experiencing long lines as low-income people are visiting to learn more about their options under Obamacare. The CEO of a community clinic in Miami that primarily services uninsured Floridians told MSNBC that Tuesday represents a “new day” for low-income patients who can now gain affordable coverage.

Illinois: By noon on Tuesday, more than 42,000 people had visited the website for Illinois’ exchange.

Kentucky: Kentucky is the only Southern state that’s chosen to participate fully in health care reform by both expanding Medicaid and operating a state-level exchange. So far, it’s paying off. Between midnight and 10:30 am on Tuesday, Kentucky’s website had more than 24,000 visitors. The employees working to manage the exchange processedmore than 1,000 applications for health insurance by 9:30 am.

New York: In the first two hours that New York’s exchange website was open to the public, 2 million people visited the site. That’s a huge chunk of the population that stands to benefit from Obamacare. Approximately 2.6 million New York residents are currently uninsured, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Rhode Island: After Kaiser Health News solicited feedback from people trying to sign up for Obamacare, a Rhode Island resident responded with a positive experience. “Rhode Island site working fine. So many choices at so many price points! Something 4 everyone. I’m ecstatic,” Annabelle Leigh tweeted.

Virginia: Paula Thornhill, a 31-year-old mother of seven, was the first person to apply for a new plan in Prince George’s County. Her husband has health insurance through his job, but they couldn’t afford to pay the extra premium costs to cover her as well. “I’m relieved that they did come out with this affordable health care,” she told the Washington Post. “I’m relieved.”

All of this comes in spite of the GOP’s multi-year effort to derail, delay and destroy Obamacare, which has now culminated in Republicans shutting down the federal government in a spiteful and desperate bid to stop millions of Americans from gaining the security of quality, affordable health care.

Want to get in on the Obamacare party? Here’s four things you can do right now:

Visit HealthCare.gov: This is the central hub for all things health care and will help you locate more information and sign up for coverage through one of the new marketplaces. As President Obama said today, check it out and “then show it to your family and your friends and help them get covered, just like mayors and churches and community groups and companies are already fanning out to do across the country.”

Call the Obamacare hotline: Trained counselors are standing by at1-800-318-2596 and can help callers in more than 150 different languages.

Help educate yourself and your friends, family and coworkers:ThinkProgress put together 20 questions you have about Obamacare and are afraid to ask. Find answers to your own questions and then share this post on Facebook and Twitter.

Show your support on social media: Visit GetCoveredAmerica.organd change your avatar on Twitter or your profile picture on Facebook to help spread the word that Obamacare is open for business and it’s time to #GetCovered.

BOTTOM LINE: Obamacare is the law of the land, isn’t going anywhere, and is working. Republicans may have closed down the government but the Obamacare insurance marketplaces are open for business and it’s time to get covered.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Sea Change … Pacific Ocean takes perilous turn

10/02/2013 Nativegrl77

Story by Craig Welch

Photo’s by Steve Ringman/ The Seattle Times

Click on Photo below for the full Story & Video

Walleye pollock show some behavioral problems when exposed to high levels of carbon dioxide.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Great News for Alaska’s Bristol Bay —

09/24/2013 Nativegrl77

September 2013

Anglo American Quits the Proposed Pebble Mine

In a surprise decision that brought new hope to Alaska’s Bristol Bay, British mining giant Anglo American — the lead company behind the Pebble Mine — announced that it is abandoning the project. The announcement dealt a heavy blow to the proposed gold and copper operation, which would produce some 10 billion tons of contaminated waste and threaten the greatest wild salmon runs on the planet. NRDC Members helped make this victory possible by deluging Anglo American with nearly one million messages of protest. The fight is not over yet — we’ll need new funding to ratchet up the pressure on the remaining companies behind the mine and win EPA action to protect Bristol Bay from large-scale mining.

Navy Refuses to Protect Marine Mammals from Deadly Sonar

The U.S. Navy says it will ignore a unanimous recommendation by the California Coastal Commission to reduce the harmful effects of naval sonar on the state’s marine mammals, which would violate California law. The Navy is planning to dramatically increase its use of dangerous sonar and high-powered explosives off the coast of Southern California during training and testing. It predicts that such operations will kill hundreds of marine mammals — and injure thousands of others — over the next five years. New research shows that the Navy’s California training is already putting entire whale populations at risk, including endangered blue whales, the largest animal on Earth.

Nobel Laureates Denounce Keystone XL

NRDC and our partners ran a full-page ad in The Washington Post that featured a letter from ten Nobel Peace Prize winners, calling on President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and lead the way beyond dirty oil.

U.S. Blocks Import
of Wild-Caught Belugas

The National Marine Fisheries Service has denied a permit — opposed by NRDC — that would have allowed the Georgia Aquarium to import 18 wild-caught belugas from Russia for public display purposes at aquaria around the country. We applaud the decision since Russia’s wild beluga population is still recovering after being hunted nearly to extinction in the 1960s. Read more.

CA County Cracks Down
on Fracking

In July, NRDC’s Community Fracking Defense Campaign scored a big victory when California’s San Benito County approved an ordinance imposing new safeguards on this dangerous form of oil and gas extraction, including a greater setback from homes and disclosure of the chemicals used during drilling or fracking. Read more.

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Oops! Whole Foods sells REAL chicken labeled vegan

09/22/2013 Nativegrl77

From Jolinda Hackett, your Guide to Vegetarian Food

All of the vegetarian internet is talking about this issue, as well as dozens of major media, so I thought I’d weigh in on it too.

Whole Foods sells real chicken labeled as vegan

If you haven’t already heard, a swath of whole foods stores in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maine sold real chicken labeled as vegan chicken in their prepared food bar for two days this week before anyone noticed an error.I don’t think it needs to be reiterated how obviously not ok this is, but I think there might be a few things the dozens of news articles are missing. Not to be too Pollyanna-ish, but consider the underlying implications… Read more

First posted on 5/13/13

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

UCS

09/11/2013 Nativegrl77

It’s no secret—the American diet of unhealthy, processed foods is killing us. More than 725,000 Americans die from heart disease and stroke each year. We can shrink this number through healthy eating, but we need our government working for—not against—us. Our new report, The $11 Trillion Reward, shows just how damaging current U.S. food policy is—favoring cheap, processed foods over fresh fruits and veggies—and what we can do to improve it. Check out the report, share it on Facebook and Twitter, and read on for more important updates! —Karla

This Just In

WATCH: The real cost of junk food If Americans ate just one more serving of fruits or vegetables a day, we could prevent 30,000 deaths each year. The benefits of healthy eating are clear, yet our government spends billions subsidizing processed foods like chips and soda that undermine our health, while fruits and vegetables get very little support. Watch our new video to see just how damaging current U.S. policy is—and what you can do to change it. MORE

Ask a Scientist

Jeffrey O’Hara Agricultural Economist

“What is UCS doing to encourage American farmers to grow more vegetables and fruit that would be healthier for our diets given that so many of them are dependent on government subsidies to grow commodity crops like corn and soybeans?”—Lanni Isenberg, Newton, MA It is not an accident that the U.S. agricultural landscape looks the way it does. Farm policy plays a critical role in influencing which crops are grown. Today, excessive subsidies are directed to “commodity” crops such as corn and soybeans that are used as animal feed and ingredients in processed junk foods. At the same time, as I describe below, federal farm policy restricts fruit and vegetable production. To make matters worse, significant obstacles exist in some communities for those wishing to use nutrition assistance benefits to buy healthy food at local markets. MORE

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Science in Action

DEADLINE: Act now for a healthier Farm Bill There are just days left to win support for healthy food and sustainable agriculture in the Farm Bill, which sets U.S. food policy for the next five years. Despite the importance of this legislation, Congress is locked in ideological battles that threaten to derail chances to pass this legislation before the current law expires at the end of the month. If this happens, programs that support healthy food and sustainable agriculture will suffer the most. If you’ve already contacted your elected officials, now is the time to contact them again. Tell Congress: The time is NOW to pass a Farm Bill that puts healthy food and farms first!