Medicaid drew massive rallies, little action at Texas Capitol this session

AUSTIN -- Of all the issues on the march at the Texas Capitol this session, few matched the numbers and volume of demonstrations demanding Texas expand Medicaid. Groups representing business interests, the medical profession and religious branches, as well as activist organizations and unions, all took turns demonstrating both together and separately.

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"I have sickle cell, and last year I almost died of my sickle cell crisis, "Houston mother Latoya White told KVUE at a March 5 rally which saw hundreds marching down Austin's Congress Avenue. "I have three children. If I die, where are my kids going to be?"?

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At a cost to the state of roughly $15 billion over the next 10 years, expanding Medicaid as outlined under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would secure an estimated $100 million in federal funds for Texas. The expansion would cover more than a million low-income Texans who can't afford private coverage by raising the current cutoff for Medicaid, a system Gov. Rick Perry has argued is broken.?

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"We would be foolish to continue onto a path that will bankrupt this country and that will bankrupt our states," Perry told reporters during an April 1 media conference inside his Texas Capitol office which was nearly drowned out by angry protesters just outside the door.

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"The problem is that the federal government, either they don't think we're smart enough or they don't trust us," said Perry, who has consistently advocated instead for a block grant from the federal government which would enable Texas to craft its own strategy for addressing the highest rate of uninsured citizens in all 50 states.

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"My plan increases the pool, it gives flexibility and it gives health care access to those folks," physician and state Sen. Bob Deuell (R-Greenville) told KVUE in March. One of a handful of Republican lawmakers who attempted to find a solution to lower the state's uninsured rate without alienating conservatives concerned with the appearance of aiding the ACA's implementation, his plan aimed to incorporate the state health care exchange and non-insurance options such as health savings accounts.

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Despite the efforts of Deuell and others, the 83rd Texas Legislature ultimately decided to do nothing on the issue of expanding health care access. As state lawmakers returned to the Capitol last week in a special session called by the governor to address redistricting maps, eleven Texas Democrats in the U.S. Congress signed a letter asking Perry to add expanding Medicaid to the call.

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"Among those Texans who are most affected by the failure to expand Medicaid insurance coverage are almost 50,000 Texas veterans," Doggett told KVUE Monday. "Our letter was timed with Memorial Day and our honoring our veterans to say let's honor them also by providing them access to health insurance."?

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"Texas will lose out on billions of dollars that it should be getting, that its taxpayers have contributed to finance," said Doggett. "Texas will be one of the few states that does not get the federal money that was appropriated to try to eliminate our distinction in Texas of having a greater proportion who are uninsured than most any other state."

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In response to the letter, a spokesperson from the governor's office issued the statement, "Gov. Perry and a majority of the Texas Legislature have sent the very clear message that they do not support expanding Medicaid under Obamacare."?

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So what does it all mean for patients and providers?

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"I think it is a huge missed opportunity, and certainly it's a fiscal impact for providers because we're already taking payment cuts under the Affordable Care Act. The coverage expansion was meant to help offset those payment cuts," said John Hawkins with the Texas Hospital Association. "It's a clinical impact as well. Folks won't have access to health care, that creates a cost shift to the private market and to local taxpayers in the county."

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"I think the hope is as we continue to visit this issue more, as we see other states look for innovative models to do alternatives to Medicaid expansion, that Texas will somehow administratively look at following suit," explained Hawkins. "I think it's still too early. The session's just been over for a week. I think it's going to be important to see what other states do, how far their conversations go with the federal government."

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At the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, ongoing efforts to secure outcome-based federal Medicaid Transformation Waivers have begun to pay off. Twenty regional health partnerships have submitted project proposals aimed to reduce local providers' reliance on Medicaid reimbursements through proactive measures such as open more minor emergency clinics. So far, about $3.2 billion has been awarded to participants.

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Meanwhile state officials negotiating a compromise with the Obama Administration must still answer to the governor, and a rider attached to a key piece of legislation in the waning days of the regular session requires any plan to be approved by the Texas Legislature as well. Meanwhile, hospitals and patients continue to hope a political cure can be found.?

Source: http://www.kvue.com/news/politics/Medicaid-drew-massive-rallies-little-action-at-Texas-Capitol-this-session-210154701.html

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NFL Agent Drew Rosenhaus Says DeSean Jackson Owes Him $400,000

When DeSean Jackson parted ways with his former agent Drew Rosenhaus recently, it was widely reported that he did it because he wanted to sign with Jay-Z's sports representation agency Roc Nation Sports. But as it turns out, there may be another reason D-Jax decided to make a break from Rosenhaus. According to a grievance that Rosenhaus reportedly just filed with the NFL Players Association, Jackson owes him $400,000 in unpaid loans. He claims Jackson took out the loans at various times between November 2009 and March 2012 when he served as Jackson's agent.

Fortunately, Jackson should be good for it. He signed a five-year contract with the Eagles in 2012 and will receive a bunch of guaranteed money after next season. But this is not a good sign for the talented wideout. He's at the peak of his career and he's already?not doing well when it comes to money. So that doesn't bode very well for his future.

We hope that Jackson signs both a new agent and a new accountant sometime very soon.

RELATED: Money to Blow: A Recent History of NFL Players Going Broke

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Source: http://www.complex.com/sports/2013/06/drew-rosenhaus-says-desean-jackson-owes-400000

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Analysis: Glimmer of hope for cash-starved Pakistan economy as Sharif takes over

By Tomasz Janowski

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's economy is in its worst shape in nearly a decade and yet there is a sense of hope that the incoming government not only seems to know what is needed to fix it but, for once, may also have enough determination and clout to do it.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif swept back to power in last month's election, riding a wave of public anger at rival Pakistan People's Party's failure to tackle endemic corruption, power cuts and militant violence.

Voters hope that armed with a solid parliamentary majority Sharif, who takes office on Wednesday, has a better shot at fixing the economy than his predecessors, beset by internal strife and strained relations with the powerful military.

Stakes are high not just for Sharif, 63, who won his third chance to lead the 180-million nation largely by making economic revival and fixing government finances the centerpiece of his policy platform.

Economic turnaround is also essential to ensure greater political stability in the nuclear-armed nation, which is a key ally in the U.S. fight against Islamist militancy.

Economists say it will take years to fully revive a long-neglected economy starved of power and investment that has seen it slip behind its neighbors including arch rival India.

"This is not a country which lives beyond its means. It doesn't have the means," says Werner Liepach, country director at Asian Development Bank.

The government must start collecting taxes it is owed and overhaul power companies so they can produce enough electricity and stop draining public funds that have kept them afloat.

Less than a million Pakistanis pay income taxes, fiscal deficits run at close to 8 percent of gross domestic product and a big chunk of government revenue is used up subsidizing a power sector that covers just over half the country's needs.

Pakistan's economy will expand 3.5 percent in fiscal 2012/13, the International Monetary Fund says, from a peak of 9 percent in 2004. The rupee, meanwhile, has lost almost 40 percent of its value against the dollar since the last election in 2008.

Sagging exports and debt repayments have nearly halved official currency reserves over the past year to $6.5 billion in late May. That is just enough to cover five weeks of imports.

The ADB estimates that about $500 million flows out of Pakistan every month, meaning that it may not have enough to meet about $5 billion in loan repayments due this year and next.

Economists say Pakistan has vast potential for growth with a location at the crossroads between the Gulf nations, Central Asia, China and India and a young and growing population.

But Sharif is also inheriting a country barely in control of its northeastern areas, plagued by militant and sectarian violence.

A U.S. drone strike that killed a top militant commander last week further complicates Sharif's efforts to hold peace talks with the militants.

STRONG MANDATE

Yet lenders, economists and ordinary Pakistanis are willing to give the new administration the benefit of the doubt.

"The economy was just not on the previous government's radar," said Ashfaque Khan, dean of NUST Business School in Islamabad. "But the new government appears very serious about it."

ADB's Liepach agrees.

"If we are talking about whether there is a momentum for reform, I do think there is," he says.

Lenders, rating agencies and commentators also say that Sharif's economic policy ticks a lot of the right boxes.

There is a promise to revive growth by boosting investment funded by improved tax revenues and subsidy cuts. There is a plan to turn around loss-making state-owned firms including Pakistan International Airlines, Pakistan Steel Mills and the National Shipping Corporation.

There is also a plan to diversify Pakistan's energy mix to help end 20-hour power cuts and a promise to bolster business ties with India.

Sharif's team plans to make an emergency cash injection of $5 billion to break a chain of payment arrears that has paralyzed the power sector. The money would be raised through the sale of treasury bills.

The administration is also considering taxing heavy electricity users, plugging tax loopholes, cutting the number of ministries and slashing by a third the non-development federal budget.

Sartaj Aziz, set to serve as Sharif's chief policy adviser, says once reforms are under way the government will discuss a possible loan from the IMF to meet its international obligations.

"We've encouraged them to develop their own (economic) program and when they feel ready, we are very eager to work with them," IMF Deputy Managing Director Nemat Shafik said.

Economists warn that time is short, but Aziz says three months should be enough to see the effects of the new policies.

Sharif, who was toppled by the military 14 years ago, will be hard pressed for excuses if he fails to deliver.

"This is not Japan where we are at the frontiers of economic science," one international financial analyst said. "The problems that Pakistan is facing are well known and have been already successfully tackled before."

(Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik in Islamabad and Martin Dokoupil in Dubai; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-glimmer-hope-cash-starved-pakistan-economy-sharif-211419893.html

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Lost RPG

RolePlayGateway is proudly powered by obscene amounts of caffeine, duct tape, and support from people like you. It operates under a "don't like it, suggest an improvement" platform, and we gladly take suggestions for improvements or changes.

The custom-built "roleplay" system was designed and implemented by Eric Martindale as of July 2009. All attempts to replicate or otherwise emulate this system and its method of organizing roleplay are strictly prohibited without his express written and contractual permission; violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

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Congressmen, Seagal find few Boston attack clues in Russia

MOSCOW (AP) ? The head of a U.S. congressional delegation said Sunday that its meetings in Russia showed there was "nothing specific" that could have helped prevent the Boston Marathon bombings, but that the two countries need to work more closely on joint security threats.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who led the six-member delegation, described discussions with Russian parliament members and security officials as productive. Some of the meetings, he said, were made possible by actor Steven Seagal.

Seagal, who attended the news conference in the U.S. Embassy, is well connected in Russia. He met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in March, and last week paid a visit to Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman who rules Chechnya, a province in southern Russia that has seen two brutal wars between federal troops and Chechen separatists since 1994.

Those wars spawned an Islamic insurgency that spread across the region, including to neighboring Dagestan, now the center of the violence. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who is accused of carrying out the Boston bombings with his younger brother, spent six months in Dagestan last year. Investigators have been trying to determine whether he had contacts with the militants there.

Rep. Steve King said Russian security officials told the delegation they believed that Tsarnaev and his mother had been radicalized before moving to the United States in 2003. "I suspect he was raised to do what he did," said King, a Republican from Iowa.

His account of the meeting at the FSB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, was disputed by Rep. Steven Cohen, an Iowa Democrat, who said he understood that the radicalization took place much later, when the family was living in Boston.

Rohrabacher said a higher level of cooperation between the United States and Russia is necessary to keep people safe in both countries. "Radical Islam is at our throat in the United States, and is at the throat of the Russian people," he said.

The congressman repeatedly thanked Seagal, who took credit for arranging the congressmen's meeting at the FSB, and said it helped avoid the experience of past foreign trips when all of the meetings had been arranged by the U.S. Embassy.

"You know what we got? We got the State Department controlling all the information that we heard," Rohrabacher said. "You think that's good for democracy? No way!"

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congressmen-few-boston-attack-clues-russia-152155966.html

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Okla. residents opt to flee storms this time

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) ? It's a warning as familiar as a daily prayer for Tornado Alley residents: When a twister approaches, take shelter in a basement or low-level interior room or closet, away from windows and exterior walls.

But with the powerful devastation from the May 20 twister that killed 24 and pummeled the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore still etched in their minds, many Oklahomans instead opted to flee Friday night when a violent tornado developed and headed toward the state's capital city.

It was a dangerous decision to make.

Interstates and roadways already packed with rush-hour traffic quickly became parking lots as people tried to escape the oncoming storm. Motorists were trapped in their vehicles ? a place emergency officials say is one of the worst to be in a tornado.

"It was chaos. People were going southbound in the northbound lanes. Everybody was running for their lives," said Terri Black, 51, a teacher's assistant in Moore.

After seeing last month's tornado also turn homes into piles of splintered rubble, Black said she decided to try and outrun the tornado when she learned her southwest Oklahoma City home was in harm's way. She quickly regretted it.

When she realized she was a sitting duck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Black turned around and found herself directly in the path of the most violent part of the storm.

"My car was actually lifted off the road and then set back down," Black said. "The trees were leaning literally to the ground. The rain was coming down horizontally in front of my car. Big blue trash cans were being tossed around like a piece of paper in the wind.

"I'll never do it again."

Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Betsy Randolph said the roadways were quickly congested with the convergence of rush-hour traffic and fleeing residents.

"They had no place to go, and that's always a bad thing. They were essentially targets just waiting for a tornado to touch down," Randolph said. "I'm not sure why people do that sort of stuff, but it is very dangerous. It not only puts them in harm's way, but it adds to the congestion. It really is a bad idea for folks to do."

At least nine people were killed in Friday's storms, including a mother and her baby sucked out of their car as a deadly EF3 twister tore its way along a packed Interstate 40 near the town of El Reno, about 30 miles from Oklahoma City.

A 4-year-old boy died after being swept into the Oklahoma River on the south side of Oklahoma City, said Oklahoma City police Lt. Jay Barnett. The boy and other family members had sought shelter in a drainage ditch.

More than 100 people were injured, most of those from punctures and lacerations from swirling debris, emergency officials reported.

A total of five tornadoes struck the Oklahoma City metro area, the National Weather Service said.

Oklahoma wasn't the only state to see violent weather on Friday night. In Missouri, areas west of St. Louis received significant damage from an EF3 tornado that packed estimated winds of 150 mph. In St. Charles County, at least 71 homes were heavily damaged and 100 had slight to moderate damage, county spokeswoman Colene McEntee said.

Tens of thousands were without power, and only eight minor injuries were reported. Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency.

Northeast of St. Louis and across the Mississippi, the city of Roxana was hit by an EF3 tornado as well, but National Weather Service meteorologist Jayson Gosselin said it wasn't clear whether the damage in both states came from the same EF3 twister or separate ones.

Back in Oklahoma, Amy Williamson, who lives just off I-40 in the western Oklahoma City suburb of Yukon, said when she learned the tornado was moving toward her home, she piled her two young children, baby sitter and two cats into her SUV.

"We felt like getting out of the way was the best idea," Williamson said. "It was 15 minutes away from my house, and they were saying it was coming right down I-40, so we got in the car and decided to head south."

Williamson said she knows emergency officials recommend taking shelter inside a structure, but fresh in her mind was the devastation of the Moore tornado. Seeing homes stripped to their foundation made her think that fleeing was the best idea, she said.

"I'm a seasoned tornado watcher ... but I just could not see staying and waiting for it to hit," she said. She ended up riding out the storm in a hospital parking garage.

On Saturday, muddy floodwaters stood several feet deep in the countryside surrounding the metro area. Torrential downpours followed for hours after the twisters moved east ? up to 7 inches of rain in some parts ? and the city's airport had water damage. Some flights resumed Saturday.

The Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office said the body of a man who went missing from his vehicle early Saturday near Harrah, east of Oklahoma City, was found later in a creek by deputies. Roadways around the area were crumbling because of water, especially near an intersection in northeastern Oklahoma City and in Canadian County south of I-40, between Mustang and Yukon.

When the storm passed between El Reno and Yukon, it barreled down I-40 for more than two miles, ripping billboards down to twisted metal frames. Debris was tangled in the median's crossover barriers, including huge pieces of sheet metal, tree limbs and a giant oil drum. The warped remains of a horse trailer lay atop a barbed-wire fence less than 50 yards from the highway.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission reported more than 91,800 homes and businesses across the state remained without power Saturday.

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Sean Murphy can be reached at www.twitter.com/apseanmurphy.

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Associated Press writers Ken Miller in Oklahoma City and Jim Suhr in St. Louis contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/frightened-okla-residents-opt-flee-tornadoes-193124867.html

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C-section OKed for pregnant woman in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) ? A seriously ill Salvadoran woman whose struggle to get a medical abortion drew international attention received permission on Thursday to end the troubled pregnancy with a cesarean section.

El Salvador's Health Minister on Thursday approved the C-section for the 22-year-old woman suffering from kidney failure and lupus, a day after the Supreme Court ruled that she could not have an abortion despite her lawyers' appeal that the pregnancy was life-threatening.

Ultrasound images indicate that her fetus is developing with only a brain stem and is given no chance of surviving.

The case of the mother known only as Beatriz drew widespread attention and criticism as she sought to end the pregnancy in a country with some of the strictest abortion laws in Latin America. Salvadoran laws prohibit all abortions, even when a woman's health is at risk, and the woman and any doctor who terminated her pregnancy would face arrest and criminal charges.

"She is in the hands of top-notch doctors," Health Minister Maria Isabel Rodriguez said Thursday. "The medical team at the Maternity Hospital is ready to act immediately at the slightest sign of danger."

"For me what matters is to protect Beatriz's life," she added.

Because the pregnancy is 26 weeks along, abortion laws are no longer at play, according to women's groups who have supported her petition. Rather, the health ministry can determine what's most medically sound for the mother versus the unborn baby.

Just as the government was resolving the case, the Inter-American Court on Humans Rights ruled that El Salvador needs to protect Beatriz's life and integrity and help her end her pregnancy. The ruling does not impact the resolution of the case because the Salvadoran government had already decided to safeguard her life.

The Health Department hasn't given a day or time for when Beatriz will deliver the baby by Cesarean section, said Morena Herrera, a member of the Feminist Collective for Local Development, an organization that has been supporting Beatriz.

"She is going through all the medical exams to be ready for surgery," Herrera said.

The Supreme Court said physical and psychological exams done on the woman by the government-run Institute of Legal Medicine found that her diseases are under control and she could continue the pregnancy. The judges voted 4-to-1 to reject the appeal by the woman's lawyers, who argued that continuing with the pregnancy put her life at risk.

Amnesty International called the court decision "cruel and callous" and "a potential death sentence for Beatriz."

Abortion opponents said the case was being used to press for legalized abortion in El Salvador, which has some of the toughest abortion laws in Latin America, along with Chile, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Suriname.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-30-LT-Salvador-Abortion/id-1393e6f9506043429081757d05d09bb6

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