Despite optimism, obstacles remain for health care

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Associated Press

Posted on April 21, 2014 at 12:00 PM

Updated today at 12:03 PM

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) The federal health care overhaul is providing coverage for millions of Americans, but it has only chipped away at one of its core goals: to sharply reduce the number of people without insurance.

President Barack Obama announced last week that 8 million people have signed up for coverage through new insurance exchanges, but many barriers remain.

Questions of affordability, eligibility, immigrant access and the response from employers and state legislatures obstacles that existed before the Affordable Care Act took effect mean considerable work remains to make a larger dent in the uninsured population.

Some remain ineligible for Medicaid or government subsidies that lower monthly premiums because their incomes are too high. Others are eligible for the subsidies but say they can't afford their share of plans sold through government exchanges. Millions of immigrants living in the country illegally are without care, prohibited from gaining coverage under the federal law.

Some employers, meanwhile, have reduced staff hours to avoid a provision of the law that requires health coverage for employees who work 30 hours a week.

"I'm a nurse, but my employer doesn't offer health insurance," said Gwen Eliezer, 32, who lives an hour north of Ashville in rural northwestern North Carolina.

During open enrollment, Eliezer's 6-year-old son was able to qualify for Medicaid, but she continues to go without coverage.

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Despite optimism, obstacles remain for health care

Health Care Rights, Health Care Reform A Symposium on the Affordable Care Act

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The University of California, Santa Barbara is sponsoring a symposium on Health Care Rights on April 18th, 1:00 4:00 pm in the Multipurpose Room of the Student Resource Building. It is free and open to thepublic.

Paul Starr, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, will provide a keynote address Americas Peculiar Struggle over Healthcare Reform Then and Now. Susan Klein-Rothschild, Deputy Director of the Public Health Department will be among the panelists who report on the local implementation of the Affordable CareAct.

Paul Starr is a former senior advisor to President Bill Clinton on health care policy. He is co- founder of The American Prospect and author of Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle over Health Care Reform as well as a Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Social Transformation of AmericanMedicine.

The symposium is part of the 2013-2014 Critical Issues in America Series The Great Society at Fifty: Democracy in American 1964/2014. It is co-sponsored by the Department of History and the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, SantaBarbara.

A flyer for this event follows this pressrelease.

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Health Care Rights, Health Care Reform A Symposium on the Affordable Care Act

Tribeca Film Festival: Filmmaker and Futurist Jason Silva On How Humans Are Hardwired for Story and Cinema

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As part of Tribeca Film Festival's "Future of Film" series, tomorrow, April 22, filmmaker and futurist Jason Silva (dubbed the "Timothy Leary of the Viral Video Age" by The Atlantic) will muse about how humans are hardwired for story and cinema.

"Film is the only technology that allows us to share subjectivity with someone else."

Despite technology, isn't it still about storytelling?

Diana Slattery writes thatImmersionis a "necessary precursor for any kind of interpersonal persuasion or transformation to occur".. Janet Murray writes that we "long to be immersed" and that we "actively metabolize belief in story"... because we are effectively narrative beings.

I'm fascinated by the liminal spaces we enter when we are absorbed by cinema: that magical borderland between dreams and reality, the space of archetype, of myth, of madness and ecstasy, the landscape of the imagination, freed from the constraints of time/space/ distance.

Art is the lie that reveals the truth, as they say. During the talk, I will talk about the lust for immersion we have, the moment we forget ourselves and become part of the movie consciousness and we leave our own consciousness behind.

We want to hold up a mirror to ourselves. Film is the only technology that allows us to share subjectivity with someone else. A film allows us to enter the world of somebody else and the mind of another. I'm such a fan of that power that cinema has. I just find it endlessly inspiring.

My short films, which I call "Shots of Awe" are trailers for the mind-- they explore these topics and many more.

Watch a couple of Silva's short films below and find out more about Silva here.

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Tribeca Film Festival: Filmmaker and Futurist Jason Silva On How Humans Are Hardwired for Story and Cinema

New Nissan Frontier Promised For 2015, May Arrive With An SUV Sibling

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The Nissan Frontier is well-ripe for a redesign and the company says it's finally coming next year. I wouldn't expect Murano levels of futurism, but Nissan planning to prioritize styling while staying close to the current truck's dimensions. Since the Xterra sits on the same F-Platform, it's logical to assume the SUV will be reshaped soon as well.

Nissan's global marketing guy Andy Palmer told Australia's Drive; "one-ton pickups are fairly generic in terms of their overall dimensions. I think it's about what you deliver on fuel consumption, what you deliver on styling these are the key differentiators for that kind of pickup market."

So the next Frontier will stay small, look slick, and get good fuel economy. Sounds like they're on the right track.

With all the diesel teasers and spy shots we've seen at this point I think we're all getting pretty antsy about Nissan's future in trucks. The offerings from Ford, Ram, and GM are all stronger than ever and while Toyota is quietly crapping out the same Tundras, Tacomas, and 4Runners on the assumption that their badge will sell itself Nissan has been jumping up and down waving a Cummins flag for what feels like forever.

They've done a pretty good job delivering on their promises of wild styling with their SUVs, so I'll stay faithful for now. According to the Aussies, Nissan is going to tell us more about their small truck "in a few weeks," so stay tuned.

Whether the new Frontier's SUV accompaniment would be the next Xterra or another vehicle altogether remains to be seen. I suppose there's also the possibility that Nissan might castrate the Xterra into a monocoque as they did with the Pathfinder. But that would destroy the last truly off-road oriented SUV you can buy in America with a manual transmission that's not a Wrangler, and such an idea is just too much for my heart to bear.

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New Nissan Frontier Promised For 2015, May Arrive With An SUV Sibling

Kelis Serves a Soul Buffet From Space on Surreal, Tasty 'Food'

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Release Date: April 22, 2014 Label: Ninja Tune

Kelis has done a lot of (delightfully) strange things with soul music over the course of her career, from aggro-screaming "I hate you so much right now" over sugary Neptunes beats to examining motherhood from the perspective of a dance-pop cyborg. But Food may be her strangest move yet: it's an album of vintage funk and old-school soul cooked up by the queen of unconventional, sometimes otherworldly R&B.

"This is the real thing. This is the real thing," Kelis croons in that inimitable husky purr of hers on "Breakfast," a warm affirmation of earthly blessings and fervent horns that comes off like a sun salutation performed by a Motown girl group. It's a centered, grounded celebration of the small, day-to-day moments that nourish us, hosted by the one-time purveyor of "22nd Century" virtual realities and sugary "Milkshakes," with a guest appearance by Kelis' son, who invites us to come on over for some of his mom's home cooking. How can we resist?

Food is teeming with warm brass and chunky riffs, with heaping hunks of vintage soul and salty slabs of funk. "Hooch," for instance, walks a strutting, syncopated bass line ornamented with sighing backup vocals and punctuated with Afrobeat-esque horn bursts. The swaggering guitars, Spaghetti Western shimmer and call-and-response banter of "Friday Fish Fry" falls somewhere between rockabilly and blues rock. And lead single "Jerk Ribs" rolls through a funk-scape of belching baritone sax, jangling tambourines, swelling synths and a chugging triple meter that falls somewhere between Off the Wall and thiopiques. It's a new sound for Kelis, and it suits her, offering up new textures for her sometimes hard-to-place voice to spice up, like a collision of regional cuisines.

The "soul food" angle extends beyond the musical and the metaphorical for Kelis, however. There are those foodie titles, of course: "Biscuits n' Gravy," "Jerk Ribs," "Friday Fish Fry." They made for a pretty brilliant marketing campaign: Kelis literally sold food out of a truck at SXSW to promote the album (side note: is there anything more SXSW than a Kelis-helmed food truck?). But the literal culinary references are also rooted in the singer's own life and quest for soul-nourishment: Her mom was a chef, and Kelis actually went to culinary school in her downtime between albums. She also launched a line of jerk sauce and is getting her own cooking show: she's serious about this cooking business. Food is Kelis' attempt to address basic human needs, to nourish the gut in every sense with an album that emphasizes the organic and the authentic.

It feels initially like a far cry from the robo-worldof Flesh Tone, the kaleidoscopic futurism of her early work, even the candy-colored pop dream worlds of Kelis Was Here and Tasty. And in a sense, this album does seem like an effort to distance herself from her past work: an emphasis on grown and sexy music as a demonstration of how much she's matured and gotten back in touch with real life. But lest we think one of R&B's strangest sirens has gone completely terrestrial, Kelis took a fairly unorthodox route to her new organic sound: Food is released on her new label Ninja Tune, a British outfit known for putting out adventurous indie and experimental electronic music by the likes of Amon Tobin and Bonobo. And the album was helmed by Dave Sitek, go-to producer of envelope-dismantling sounds for artists like Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Santigold, and member of TV on the Radio, a group that knows from weird, disruptive soul. These are neither typical methods of cultivating a classic soul sound nor conventional choices for someone whose previous work includes beats by the Neptunes and a big hit like "Bossy."

On much of the Food, then, the vintage soul is couched in a kind surrealist haze. Tracks like the gauzy, lost-in-thought "Runnin'" and the paisley-hued "Cobbler" float away above the solid, dusty funk that anchors the rest of the album. Then there's "Change," a stylistically complex (Hare Krishna chant meets Moroccan Berber folk song meets Afro-futurism?) and structurally ear-boggling track anchored by the repeating line, "You can't escape the grips of desire" that's delivered like a curse. Kelis' strange, inimitable voice -- at once earthbound and alien -- winds its way into every wrinkle and crevice of these new sonic textures. Food is indeed "the real thing," a satisfying album grounded by familiar funk, rooted in classic soul sounds and focused on the everyday rituals of life: eating, playing with the kids, fighting -- and making up -- with the significant other. But it's still Kelis' vision of real life: a hearty take on soul foodthat still manages to shock your tastebuds.

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Kelis Serves a Soul Buffet From Space on Surreal, Tasty 'Food'

Happy Tax Freedom Day … Unless You Live in Illinois

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WTVO/WQRF-TV -- Today, Monday, April 21st is 'Tax Freedom Day' ... unless you live in Illinois. Taxpayers here will have to wait another full week longer than the rest of the nation until they have collectively earned enough income to pay off their total federal, state, and local tax bill. That puts Illinois among the latest in the nation to reach 'tax freedom' and last in the midwest. New Jersey (May 9), Connecticut (May 9), and New York (May 4) will be the last to arrive at their 'Tax Freedom Day.'

According to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, Americans will pay $3 trillion in federal taxes and $1.5 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total bill of more than $4.5 trillion, or 30.2 percent of the nations income. They will spend 42 days working to pay off income taxes, 15 days for excise taxes, and 11 days for property taxes. If you include annual federal borrowing, which represents future taxes owed, Tax Freedom Day would occur on May 6, 15 days later.

Arguments can be made for why the collective tax bill is too high or too low, but in order to have an honest discussion, its important to understand where we stand, said Tax Foundation Economist Kyle Pomerleau. Tax Freedom Day gives us a vivid representation of how much we pay for the goods and services provided by governments at all levels.

Historically, the date for Tax Freedom Day has fluctuated significantly. The earliest national Tax Freedom Day was in 1900 when Americans paid only 5.9% of their income in taxes, meaning the date came on January 22. A century later, the latest Tax Freedom Day was May 1, 2000-which means Americans paid 33.0% of their total income in taxes. Perhaps not coincidentally, that was also the last year the federal government ran a budget surplus.

Click on http://taxfoundation.org for a full breakdown.

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Happy Tax Freedom Day ... Unless You Live in Illinois