President Obama announced a Patient’s Bill of Rights that will be made possible under new health reform. Essentially, the bill would create a basic set of consumer protections that end some of the health insurance companies’ abuses and establish a sense of fairness for the consumer.
Some highlights:
Prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.
Stops insurance companies from canceling your policy if you get sick.
removes barriers to receiving emergency care
Allows the consumer to select any available participating primary care doctor
Closes the book on annual dollar limits on coverage over the next three years.
Prevents insurance companies from taking away coverage at the very moment when patients need it most
The Patient’s Bill of Rights will take place this Fall.
It is hard to imagine really how much oil is leaking into the Gulf from the BP oil spill. This video is a visualization of that amount of oil using mass physics — simulating 25,000 barrels. The video was created by Elude (youtube.com/user/Elude87) and was rendered using the UDK Unreal Engine 3.
Facebook has launched a new page devoted to US politics (Facebook.com/USpolitics). The page will monitor how US politicians, political campaigns and elected officials use Facebook to connect with citizens.
Facebook and other forms of social media have become vital places for politics, political support and interest, and building connection between users, campaigns and political figures.
Facebook already has a similar page for sports and celebrities.
Pakistan issued a ban on the social networking website, Facebook, due to the posting of a contest that solicited images of the Prophet Muhammad. According to most Muslims, images of the Prophet Muhammad are blasphemous.
Since, Facebook has blocked access to that particular content for Pakistan only and issued an apology. A Pakistani court in Islamabad has stated that access to the site should be restored.
A centralized censorship system has been an object of consideration within the Pakistani Government recently. The system would resemble that of which is already in use by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
The US Department of Defense will now allow social networking and Web 2.0 social tools access within it’s Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET). A statement “Responsible and Effective Use of Internet-based Capabilities” (DTM 09-026) was released on February 25th to formally allow social networking use within the non-classified network–unifying the policy across military branches for social network usage. This memorandum will also provide unified authority for public affairs communication for the military within social networking websites and tools.
This graph represents US job loss from December 2007 through January 2010. This graph shows job loss from the Bush Presidency through January 2010 of the Obama Presidency. The source of the data is the Bureau of Labor Statistics, US, 02/12/2010.
Blue Cross has decided to raise premiums by as much as 39% even though they recently set record profit levels up to $4.7 billion dollars last year. In addition, the insurer has refused to provide reason for the huge increase in premiums.
As a result, Congress and state insurance regulators are planning to investigate the increase in premiums.
As a result, many Americans will be forced to cut back on coverage or forgo health care altogether.
Following the Google investigation of recent hacking attacks, which resulted in the discovery of potential Chinese government involvement or acceptance, the US State Department will formally protest to the Chinese Government demanding an explanation. “We will be issuing a formal demarche to the Chinese government in Beijing on this issue in the coming days,” said state department spokesperson PJ Crowley. “It will express our concern for this incident and request information from China as to an explanation of how it happened and what they plan to do about it.”
Yahoo and other US companies have also come forward with cases that potentially point back to China.
Google has already threatened to pull out of China following the hacking attempts and security violations which intruded on intellectual property rights. The hacking attempts included illegal access of human rights workers using Gmail.
Google announced that the company is no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine – google.cn. In response to the hacking attempts, Google demanded that China allow it to operate within censorship restrictions. A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, asseted the internet in China was “open.” Some of the current censorship restrictions that the Chinese Government require of web operators include removing content covering: 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Tibetan independence or Falun Gong, among others.
Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman has taken sides. He will oppose health care reform and the Democratic Party in a dramatic and historical way. Some have criticized Lieberman for being a strong asset to the Republican Party. One thing is clear, Lieberman is standing up for health insurance companies. It appears that his goal is to find a way to water down significant health care reform and the public option.
One of Lieberman’s top campaign contributors is the lobbyist group for Triwest Healthcare Alliance, which contributed $50,000 in 2008 (Source: Senate Office of Public Records LD-203 disclosure database; data from 2008).
Lieberman announced today that “if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage.”
“I told Senator Reid that I’m strongly inclined–i haven’t totally decided, but I’m strongly inclined–to vote to proceed to the health care debate, even though I don’t support the bill that he’s bringing together because it’s important that we start the debate on health care reform because I want to vote for health care reform this year. But I also told him that if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage. Therefore I will try to stop the passage of the bill.”
