Free Republic

ABC, AP and others ran with false information on shooter’s ties to extremist groups. Following misrepresentations by a white nationalist leader and coordinated efforts by internet trolls, numerous researchers and media outlets spread a seemingly false claim that the man charged with killing more than a dozen people at a Florida high school belonged to an extremist group. Law enforcement agencies say they have no evidence so far to support this claim, and the rumor appears to have been perpetrated by white nationalist trolls themselves.

The flu vaccine is more effective than expected, federal health officials said on Thursday at a special news conference held to discuss the dangerous flu season, which is expected to kill more than 50,000 Americans. This year’s vaccine is about 25% effective against the H3N2 strain of flu that is causing most illnesses and deaths, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Per the NYT. But look at the AP story. The flu vaccine is doing a poor job protecting older Americans and others against the bug that’s causing most illnesses. Preliminary figures released...

the NFL's ongoing ratings slide has been an exercise in highly subjective interpretation. Ask 20 fans why they believe the league's popularity is on the wane, and you'll get 20 responses, ranging from political (players taking a knee during the anthem) to pragmatic (the specter of repetitive brain trauma). In the interest of trying to get at the heart of what's actually driving the ratings erosion ... Horizon Media began an investigation. While the NFL and its network partners may not find the data terribly reassuring, the good news is that many factors that have alienated fans appear to be...

Kentucky became the first state with a work requirement for Medicaid, and now it has to do something arguably more daring: Build a mobile-friendly website that works. The state will require people who get taxpayer-funded health insurance to work or volunteer. It's the kind of government program that often draws disdain from small-government Republicans, but GOP Gov. Matt Bevin has embraced it as "a more efficient use of resources." Government-run websites are notorious for glitches. Kentucky had problems in 2016 when "Benefind" — meant to consolidate all assistance programs — caused chaos. Kentucky officials say this time will be different....

Since President Enrique Peña Nieto won in 2012, the Mexican presidential elections of 2018 has had one clear contender: Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Not one to give up easily, Mr. Lopez Obrador has twice run for president as candidate of the left-wing party the PRD (in 2006 and 2012) and has already expressed he will do so again, as the Morena candidate. Since its undeniable success in the mid-term elections, Morena, will now have a substantial amount of funding and a visible platform from which to prepare Mr. Lopez Obrador´s candidacy. Regarding Mexico´s three main political parties, there is less...

My pediatric practice is one that harkens back to days long ago when physicians knew their patients and pertinent medical histories by heart. My 81-year-old father and I were in practice together for the past 16 years; he still used the very sophisticated "hunt and peck" to compose emails. The task of transitioning to an electronic record system seemed insurmountable, so we remain on paper. Our medical record system has not changed in almost five decades. I would not have it any other way. This past spring, he walked into my office shaking his head in disbelief after thumbing through...

UPS said Tuesday that it is making a "strategic cross-border investment" that serves a manufacturing region across New Mexico, Texas and part of Mexico. The Atlanta-based logistics giant announced development of a new package operations center to support commercial and residential commerce in the growing North America Borderplex. The $41 million facility in El Paso, Texas adds 153,000 square feet of new processing capacity to the UPS Smart Global Logistics Network for automotive, electronics, appliances and machinery producers, according to a news release. It is expected to begin operating in late 2018. The investment stretches into Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico,...

There’s no easy way to discuss end-of-life care. And there’s no easy way for patients and families to make decisions related to it. But there are advances in technology that could help providers frame the discussion to help patients and families better understand their situation and gain confidence in the choice they are making. “I do believe that we’re really at a point that we’re starting to see data analytics and predictive modeling for individuals, especially as we start to look at population health,” says Michael L. Munger, MD, a family physician in Overland Park, Kansas, and president of the...

The idea that spending more on preventive care will reduce overall health care spending is widely believed and often promoted as a reason to support reform. It’s thought that too many people with chronic illnesses wait until they are truly ill before seeking care, often in emergency rooms, where it costs more. It should follow then that treating diseases earlier, or screening for them before they become more serious, would wind up saving money in the long run. Unfortunately, almost none of this is true. Let’s begin with emergency rooms, which many people believed would get less use after passage...

Kentucky’s new Medicaid waiver will ask low-income people to jump over hurdles to keep their coverage. Evidence suggests that many will fail. Washington State ..Instead of requiring people to establish eligibility annually, began requiring them to do so twice a year, and added some paperwork. It worked: Enrollment in the health insurance program fell by more than 40,000 children in a year. Louisiana wanted to maximize the number of eligible children who signed up for coverage, so officials simplified the sign-up process. It also worked: Enrollment surged, and the number of administrative cancellations fell by 20 percentage points. In 2006,...

I did breakfast early this morning at McDonalds near a large ATLANTA institution construction site with hundreds of workers on a cold Saturday morning. McDonalds was crowded with them. The women behind the counter were obviously family of some of the construction workers, all macho. All construction workers were Hispanic. Almost all were Mexican. Many were obviously recent immigrants. A significant number were teenagers. Some appeared to be as young as 14. The teenagers might qualify as Dreamers. (I have experience since 1962 developing this skill of recognizing them. Were these young teenagers here on Saturday morning on a take...

The tax plan that President Trump signed into law last week creates one of the largest new loopholes in decades: a 20% deduction for “pass-through income.” Pass-through income is business income that is immediately “passed through” to the owner’s personal tax return, thereby avoiding the corporate income tax. Proponents of the Republican tax plan claim the cut benefits small businesses, but that’s a red herring. In reality, the new deduction disproportionately benefits the wealthy, penalizes workers and, in part because it is so complex, will ultimately reward those who can afford the best tax advice. The new deduction could have...

Is a low income or prolonged unemployment truly cause for financial stress? According to one study, not really. In some states, public assistance programs, or welfare, could pay more than full-time, minimum-wage jobs. Cato Institute’s 2013 Work Versus Welfare Trade-Off study totaled the welfare benefits offered in each state and compared that value with the wages workers would need to earn in order to have an equivalent take-home income. Cato found for long-term dependents, welfare actually pays pretty well. The study examined the package for a single mother with two children, who could use programs such as Temporary Assistance for...

When financial advisers discuss Social Security benefits, it is usually in the context of counseling clients when to claim retirement benefits and the impact of that decision on the amount of survivor benefits for the remaining spouse. But one of the Social Security program's most valuable features is disability benefits that are paid to workers and their dependent family members when they are too sick or injured to work. Yet many advisers are at a loss when it comes to guiding a client through the disability application labyrinth. That's when it's time to call in the pros. One adviser contacted...

A blind man in a dark room is looking for his black cat, and he can't find it. He calls in a sighted person for help. He can't find the cat either but is more confounded than the owner. Because the room is dark and the cat is black, the sighted person can't presume the cat isn't in the room. Anthony Scriffignano and his data science team at Dun & Bradstreet Inc. work on problems like this all the time: They search for data that is elusive -- maybe hiding in plain sight or not there at all. Scriffignano, SR...

I’ve written a lot of controversial things in my young career here, and as a natural consequence of this I’ve had to learn how to deal with the surreal experience of receiving truckloads of angry comments, private messages and emails on a daily basis while still keeping my skin thin enough to be able to write poetry. It comes with the territory, and I hurl my own share of insults, so I am not complaining when I say that I have never, ever written anything that has drawn nearly as much widespread vitriol as my last few Russiagate articles. I...

With unemployment low and demand for new homes high, a company like Home Depot could be spending most of its surplus billions on raises for workers or the rollout of new stores. Instead, it is using $15 billion to buy back shares of its own stock, a move that will reward shareholders including chief executive Craig Menear. Home Depot’s statement was a reminder that corporate America may have other plans for that cash. Several companies already have indicated that they will use excess funds to pay off debt, increase dividend payments or repurchase their own shares rather than create new...

When Monica Spalding got the renewal letter from her health insurance company with premium details for the upcoming year, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The insurer estimated that the share of the monthly premium that she and her husband would owe for their marketplace silver plan would go up from the current $28 a month to $545. She immediately called Sharon Barker, a health insurance navigator with Family and Children’s Service in Nashville, Tenn., with whom she and her husband had worked this year to buy a marketplace plan after relocating from California to take care of her husband’s ailing...

The CMS' Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program was an expensive wake-up call. Hospital leaders needed to prevent patients from making a U-turn after discharged. The hospital was hit with a $397,153 penalty. The penalty program established under the Affordable Care Act has motivated hospitals to change care practices. Readmissions have fallen as hospitals respond to penalties that can dock up to 3% of their Medicare payments. (excerpts from article.) But the tactics hospitals have adopted to avoid a penalty might not always be in the best interest of patients. As hospitals reduced readmissions for heart failure mortality rates increased. Financial incentives...

Disaster/CR/Debt Bill Postpones Fiscal Cliff to Dec. 8, 2017 On Sept. 8, 2017 President Trump signed HR 601, an emergency measure negotiated with congressional Democratic leaders... all the “no” votes being Republican. The bill has four components: 1. Provides $15.25 billion in emergency supplemental appropriations ... 2. Extends the National Flood Insurance program... 3. Suspends the debt ceiling through December 8, 2017, temporarily avoiding a Treasury default on U.S. obligations; and 4. Provides continuing appropriations