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Compare Coco to Roman J Israel. Pixar is back - the bold, creative Coco ... manages to tell a family-friendly story centered entirely around death, one that reflects on the legacy we leave behind. Coco proves to be a pleasant surprise - an emotional, philosophical story of life and death, that despite the gorgeous visuals, doesn’t sugar-coat anything. Right away, both the importance and the potential danger of respecting one’s heritage is highlighted, and proves to be a poignant theme. Our young protagonist Miguel yearns to play the guitar, but his artistic urges are severely repressed by his family, who...

Healthcare costs for four common procedures are rising as hospitals and health systems employ more physicians, according to a new study. A 49% increase in hospital-employed physicians between 2012 and 2015 led to a $3.1 billion increase in Medicare costs related to four specific procedures in cardiology, orthopedics and gastroenterology, according to analysis from consulting firm Avalere Health. Medicare paid $2.7 billion more for diagnostic cardiac catheterizations, echocardiograms, arthrocentesis and colonoscopies delivered in hospital outpatient settings than it would for treatment in independent facilities, while beneficiaries footed a $411 million higher bill. Hospital-employed physicians performed more services in costlier hospital...

<p>ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — New guidelines lower the threshold for high blood pressure, adding 30 million Americans to those who have the condition, which now plagues nearly half of U.S. adults.</p> <p>High pressure, which for decades has been a top reading of at least 140 or a bottom one of 90, drops to 130 over 80 in advice announced Monday by a dozen medical groups.</p>

It’s not easy being an advocate for the Affordable Care Act right now. Health care advocacy groups are making an against-all-odds effort to sign people up despite confusion and hostility fostered by Republicans opposed to President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement. The Trump administration has taken numerous steps to undermine the law, and many states are doing little to promote coverage as health insurance open enrollment begins this week. Health care advocates are particularly concerned about people in Republican-led states with hundreds of thousands of uninsured residents, like Florida, Texas and Georgia. Many of these groups are scrambling to...

Groups charged with enrolling as many people as possible in Obamacare's insurance marketplaces say the Trump administration didn’t give them credit for signing up thousands more people for Medicaid when the administration dramatically slashed their federal funding this year. The groups known as "navigators," created under the Affordable Care Act to help people obtain coverage, are under fire as Republicans and the Trump administration fight the 2010 law that has provided health coverage to more than 20 million Americans. After attempts to roll back the ACA failed in Congress, Trump's Health and Human Services Department is now targeting the navigators,...

The Las Vegas massacre has been weighing heavily on the hearts and minds of everyone, including celebrities. In the immediate wake of the tragedy, we saw stars calling for better gun control laws, and now, a day later, we’re seeing many famous women share a powerful quote attributed to — but actually not originated by — Gloria Steinem, which compares gun control and abortion, as the House voted on legislation banning abortion after 20 weeks. Gloria Steinem didn’t say that guns vs. abortion quote that’s gone viral. (Photo: Getty Images) Gisele Bündchen, Kate Upton, Karlie Kloss, Kelly Rowland, Elisabeth Moss,...

GLENWOOD,GA ― If you want to watch a rural community die, kill its hospital. After the Lower Oconee Community Hospital shut down in June 2014, other mainstays of the community followed. The bank and the pharmacy in the small town of Glenwood shuttered. Then the only grocery store in all of Wheeler County closed in the middle of August this year. On Glenwood’s main street, building after building is now for sale, closing, falling apart or infested with weeds growing through the foundation’s cracks. Opportunity has been dying in Wheeler County for the last 20 years. Agriculture was once the...

FR was not blocked by Best Buy this morning. This afternoon it is. Geek Squad says they've seen this before. Something was posted between this morning and afternood that triggered the corporate algorithm. . . . . . . Best Buy This site is blocked due to CONTENT filtering [freerepublic.com] Sorry, freerepublic.com has been blocked by your network administrator. This site was categorized in: Forums/Message boards, Newsmedia, Politics, Research/Reference Block Thype: aup Bundle ID: 645031 Domain tagging Host: Blockopendns.com Origin ID:98691003 Query: url=7187070837081867777468156807816856721E ablock&server=mia19&prefs=&tagging=&nref Server: mia19

Saying the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “blatantly” ignored his directions, a federal judge in Atlanta dismissed the agency’s claims against a metro Atlanta payment processor and three others for allegedly aiding fraudulent debt collectors... U.S. District Judge Richard Story sanctioned the PBGC by dismissing its complaints.... The judge said the PBGC repeatedly stonewalled the defending lawyer's efforts to find out the facts of the case against their clients. “The CFPB willfully violated the court’s repeated instructions to identify for defendants the factual bases for its claims and that, in each deposition, it willfully failed to present a knowledgeable …....

On Monday, Merck CEO Ken Frazier, announced he was leaving The American Manufacturing Council. Referring to the horrible events in Charlottesville where a 20-year-old who suffers from schizophrenia and -- according to his high school teacher -- became obsessed with German military history and Nazism, drove through a crowd of protesters killing one and injuring 19, stated: "America's leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal." What a strange non sequitur. It is obvious that Mr. Frazier's intent was...

Shareholder activists say they shake up companies by bringing in new, better ideas. What they don't bring, it turns out, is women. Or people of color. Firms targeted by activists end up with more white men on their boards, often replacing women and minorities in the process, according to a study by proxy-voting firm ISS. The researchers looked at 380 board seats spread across 93 companies in the S&P 1500 index targeted by activists between 2011 and 2015. A separate Bloomberg News analysis of the same period found that five of the biggest U.S. activist funds sought 174 board positions...

A few years ago, Cleveland-based MetroHealth noticed that although registration staffers were supposed to ask all patients their race, ethnicity and preferred language, it wasn't happening consistently enough. “We realized we needed to support our frontline staff with the right information and resources to consistently and appropriately ask for this information,” said Lourdes Negron-McDaniel, director of inclusion and diversity at MetroHealth. After all, knowing a patient's race, ethnicity and preferred language can help address the wide disparities that exist in healthcare. This personal information can offer insight into the differences in quality of care given to people of different cultural...

The structure of North America's manufacturing networks will be on the line when the first round of negotiations to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement begins here this week. The central showdown is expected to revolve around the amount of regional content products must contain to qualify for duty-free status, the so-called rules of origin. How that contest plays out will have profound implications for the auto industry. Administration officials have pointed to stricter rules of origin as one way to address reducing the $60 billion bilateral trade deficit with Mexico and shifting more production to U.S. factories. In...

The National Institutes of Health has chosen four community partners to join its All of Us precision medicine research program, which seeks to gather data from at least one million people in the United States to improve health. The program is part of the Precision Medicine Initiative created by President Barack Obama in 2015 and was formerly known as the PMI Cohort. The partners will receive a combined $1.7 million to raise awareness about the research program among African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, seniors and the LGBTQ communities. Researchers will use the data collected from the program to learn how...

HHS seeks applications for new health IT committee Would-be members of the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee have just a few days to get their applications in to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, as the Aug. 4 deadline approaches HHS is asking for applications for two of the three members it will appoint to the committee, established by the 21st Century Cures Act to recommend policies, standards and other digital health guidance to the ONC. The 21st Century Cures Act stipulates that of the three HHS appointees, one represents HHS and one is a public...

When I first read about neurosyphilis in medical school, I became convinced that Mrs. Thatcher, who I detested intensely because it was fashionable detesting her, had general paralysis of the insane. The condition, marked by episodic bouts of temporary insanity, which indicated that the spirochetes were feasting on expensive real estate in the brain, seemed a plausible explanation for why she had introduced the poll tax. There's something delightfully empowering, and annoyingly juvenile, about diagnosing the famous with medical conditions. It is also strangely pedagogic. I'll never forget the symptoms of syphilis, not because I've seen patients with them (nor...

Dismantling Medicaid is at the heart of President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress’ agenda. President Trump proposed cutting Medicaid by half in his budget, and Congress has proposed taking an ax to the program both through their repeal of the Affordable Care Act as well as through their budget blueprints. In all cases, these cuts to health coverage and services for children, people with disabilities, seniors, and low-income adults whom Medicaid serves would be used to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and corporations. These cuts would have devastating consequences for the individuals, families, and communities that Medicaid serves....

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he will continue to defend the supply management system that protects the Canadian dairy industry in talks about revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement. A U.S. House subcommittee raised the long-standing trade irritant at its hearing on NAFTA negotiations Tuesday, suggesting Canadian measures to protect the industry will be a sticking point. Congressman Ron Kind, a Democrat from Wisconsin, says he does not want to jeopardize a crucial trading relationship with Canada but thinks the system should be more balanced. The Trump administration released its objectives for a new trade deal earlier this...

A 1,500 page Medicare payment rule and next year's physician fee pay rule both dropped last week...on the same day as the Senate revealed revisions to its plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. And none of it was kind to the healthcare industry. The payment change that seemed to most ruffle industry feathers was a proposal to halve what Medicare pays when patients receive services at facilities that are owned by hospitals but located off campus. The Obama administration last year finalized a rule that paid most hospital off-campus facilities the same as hospital-based outpatient departments. In...

Just returned from Circo Hermano Vasquez. Ringling Brothers was run out of business for using animals in its circus. But Circo Vazquez lives because it handles animals in a 3rd world cultural tradition that the animals understand ... until PETA hears this. In the middle of the show the midget (little people play a special role in Mexican humor) came out with a Donald Trump wig and was a live Meme (just a couple blocks up the street from meme guru Laz). The audience roared with laughter. The clowns and MC did their typical humor. Immediately after Trump left the...