Free Republic

Denver -- The state's health exchange is looking at more than doubling the fee that insurers pass onto customers who buy policies. The Denver Post reports Connect for Health Colorado staff recommended the increase Monday as $177 million in federal startup grants come to a close and as insurance carriers prepare to submit their rate plans by May 29. If the health exchange board approves the 3.5 percent charge for premiums, the fee for a $4,000 yearly plan would go up by $84. Staff also recommended upping a monthly assessment charge for 1.2 million private insurance policies to bring in...

An incoming Boston University professor says she regrets racially charged tweets she made disparaging white men. Black professor Saida Grundy called "white college males" a "problem population" in a Twitter account that's now private. She also declared "white masculinity is THE problem for America's colleges." She says in a statement issued Tuesday she regrets that her passion led her to speak "indelicately."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz offered proposals to address income inequality, an issue that’s already a major one for the upcoming election. Warren called for an end to the so- called trickle down economic theories that seek fewer taxes and restrictions on wealthy individuals and institutions. “These advocates push for deregulation that hobbles the cops on Wall Street,” she said. “We have to work so that the balance is not tilted against workers and toward multinational corporations,” Warren said. Warren has declined entreaties from supporters who want her to...

The U.S. has become significantly less Christian in the last eight years as the share of American adults who espouse no systematic religious belief increased sharply, a major new study found. For what is likely the first time in U.S. history – certainly the first since the early days of the country – the actual number of American Christians has declined. Christianity, however, remains by far the nation’s dominant religious tradition, according to the new report by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. The rapid increase in the number of adults without ties to traditional religious institutions has strong implications for...

One fellow senator calls David Vitter’s years-long crusade to scrap health care subsidies for lawmakers and their staffers “disingenuous.” Another says it’s obviously being done “for political purposes.” “I just don’t think he’s made a lot of progress on this issue,” a third senator says. And those are just fellow Republicans talking. Within the chummy confines of the U.S. Senate, Vitter has emerged as one of the most disliked members. The second-term senator’s effort to kill the federal health care contribution, worth several thousand dollars to lawmakers and their staffers, is a big part of it.

Two Oregon teenagers who sought to force state lawmakers to work harder on a plan to reduce carbon emissions and help stave off climate change have struck out a second time with a state judge. On Monday, Lane County Circuit Court Judge Karsten Rasmussen agreed with the state argument that a judge lacks authority to essentially rewrite state laws. He also rejected the teens' central arguments. The case was filed in 2011 when plaintiffs Kelsey Juliana and Olivia Chernaik were 15 and 11 years old. Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum says she's pleased. Plaintiffs' lawyer Christ Winter declined comment.

If you are intent on convincing people there is no climate change, then the last thing you want is NASA — with all its heroism and accuracy — telling folks climate change is real. So, faced with this dilemma, climate denialist's have come up with a clever solution: Get NASA out of climate change science. The House Science, Space and Technology Committee recently approved a bill that would cut at least $300 million from NASA's earth-science budget. This comes after the head of the Senate committee overseeing NASA claimed the agency should stop doing earth-science and focus only on space...

Luis Lopez used to be a big fan of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. Lopez, who owns an auto repair shop, gave $100 to Garcetti's 2013 campaign for mayor. He spread the word about Garcetti on the Facebook page of the local Chamber of Commerce, where he serves as executive director. Now, as the mayor fires up his bid for reelection, that enthusiasm is gone. Lopez doesn't like Garcetti's minimum wage proposal, or the way it was unveiled. He described Garcetti staffers as largely unresponsive on the topic and says he won't vote for him in 2017. "The way he...

From contraception to colonoscopies, the Obama administration Monday closed a series of insurance loopholes on coverage of preventive care. The department of Health and Human Services said insurers must cover at least one birth control option under each of 18 methods approved by the FDA — without copays. Also, insurers can't charge patients for anesthesia services in connection with colonoscopies. Other services covered without copays or cost-sharing include: - Preventive screening, genetic counseling and BRCA genetic testing for women at increased risk for having a potentially harmful mutation in genes that suppress cancerous tumors. - Prenatal care and other services...

The water flea has genetically adapted to climate change. Biologists from KU Leuven, Belgium, compared 'resurrected' water fleas—hatched from 40-year-old eggs—with more recent specimens. The project was coordinated by Professor Luc De Keester from the Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Evolution and Conservation. The water flea Daphnia is a zooplankton organism that is typically found in shallow ponds and lakes. Under normal circumstances, water fleas reproduce asexually: they clone themselves. But in difficult living conditions - during food shortages or heat waves, for instance - they switch to a different type of procreation: they mate and lay dormant eggs. As the...

If information was all we needed, we’d have solved climate change by now. The scientific position has been clear for decades. Researchers have been waving a big red flag that has been impossible for our politicians to miss. Information, it seems, is not enough. Journalists have transmitted the warnings of scientists, but they have sometime focussed too much on the mini-controversies and the unimportant disagreements and not enough on the big picture. That has often left readers confused. As the Guardian’s editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger explained when he introduced the paper’s Keep it in the Ground project, journalism struggles with climate...

America, this country of many different parts and different blended cultures is in trouble. A good part of our citizens and insular, shut off from a country of which they have no thoughts of exceptionalism, and unique in history. Having an older, more mature outlook on my country, I have seen changes in our culture, our education, even in areas considered in my youth to be resistant to change. There are many in past generations that have no worth of a society that has stood the test of time since our founders. These are the areas where I have seen...

Noting that he’s “perhaps the most progressive member of the United States Senate,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) described today how, as president, he would do socialism in America. “When we talk about Democratic socialism, I think it is important to realize that there are countries around the world, like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, who have had social democratic governments on and off for many, many years. And we can learn a whole lot from some of those countries,” the 2016 Democratic presidential contender said on CBS this morning. “For example, the United States is the only major country on earth...

New climate change records have come along to remind us that Earth's thermostat is steadily pushing upward. March 2015 was the warmest March since record-keeping began in 1880, says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And the first quarter of 2015 was the warmest first quarter on record in those same 136 years. That gives 2015 a stab at trumping the hottest year on record -- which was 2014. The uninterrupted continuation of the warming trend is no surprise. The 10 warmest years on record have occurred in the past 17 years. And though the rise in the last 10...

Warm weather is coming, and with it the perennial student search for a summer job. Though often seen as an economic cure-all, minimum-wage requirements have the unintended consequence of decreasing economic opportunity for young workers and making that treasured summer job harder to find. Over half of those who earn at or below the minimum wage are between the ages of 16 and 24, many in the hospitality and leisure sector. Since the majority of those earning minimum wage are younger workers, increases in the minimum-wage rate affect them the most. Negative effects extend into the future, because young people...

Venezuelans are criticizing electricity rationing that government officials began carrying out this week after the country’s electrical system continued to overload because of an ongoing heat wave. Ministries and other public institutions will now work until 1:00 p.m., reducing their workday from 8 to 6 hours. Private companies have also been required to cut their electricity intake by 10 percent. The overall goal is to achieve a 20-percent reduction of country’s power consumption in order to prevent overloading the system. "We are in the presence of a significant increase in the temperature," said Jesse Chacón, the country's Energy Minister, according...

KEENE, New Hampshire – At a country club here in the southern part of this crucial, early voting state, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie broke from some of his potential 2016 Republican presidential rivals, saying he believes in climate change and that humans have something to do with it. “I think global warming is real. I don’t think that’s deniable. And I do think human activity contributes to it,” said Christie. He added, however, that there needs to be more discussion about the degree to which humans play a role.

... Since January, there has been a shortage of subs in Autauga County, which leaders say is a first for the school system. The shortage means students may be disbursed and placed in another class for the day or teachers take turns during their planning period. Superintendent Spence Agee says the shortage is due to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The law requires large employers to provide insurance for employees working more than 30 hours a week. Due to the requirement, the schools have had to cut back on substitutes' hours, only allowing them to work three...

...Ms Bachelet's son, Sebastian Davalos, was accused by the opposition of using his influence to get a $10m (£6.5m) bank loan for his wife. His wife's company used the money to buy plots of land in central Chile which her company then resold for profit. Although Chile's national bank regulator cleared him of any wrongdoing, the issue has become a scandal. Ms Bachelet always maintained she had not been aware of the deal but in a TV interview on Wednesday night she acknowledged she had made "important mistakes" in not returning from holiday or commenting on the case sooner. Correspondents...

Under current law, employers are required to pay time-and-a-half wages to employees working more than 40 hours a week only if they earn less than $23,660 annually. The Obama administration is intent on increasing - and likely more than doubling - that salary threshold, according to people briefed on the administration's plans. That change is likely to have significant impact on workers in retail and the food services industry, like a restaurant manger who earns $30,000 a year but works 60 hours a week. "We need a national wage floor that that rises each year, so that its purchasing power...