Last Saturday’s One Nation Working Together rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC drew tens of thousands of participants. According to The Washington Post:
“Saturday's gathering featured many speakers; at times it appeared that organizers wanted to give everyone an opportunity to have their say. The rally lacked central charismatic speakers like Beck and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, or the two men who will headline an Oct. 30 event on the Mall - Comedy Central television personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Also unlike the Beck event, the progressive groups were explicit about their desire to reenergize their political base. Beck said his goal was to honor soldiers.
“The more than four hours of speeches, poetry and music were buttressed with testimonials from out-of-work Americans, immigrants, veterans and Native Americans. They focused on jobs, education and human rights issues in particular.
“Edrie Irvine, a laid-off legal secretary from Silver Spring, shared her story with a gathering of unemployed workers that fed into the larger rally. ‘The recession was caused by the banks, greed and deregulation,’ she said. ‘It didn't have anything to do with me, but I lost my job.’"
Bank of America and other lenders are halting foreclosure proceedings due to paperwork mistakes, according to USA Today:
“Bank of America is halting foreclosures in 23 states because of paperwork problems, the Associated Press is reporting.
“The announcement follows the disclosure that a BofA official admitted to signing up to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month, usually without reading them.
“Earlier today, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered a 60-day moratorium on all foreclosures by all banks, the first state to implement an industrywide freeze. Wednesday, JPMorgan Chase announced it was suspending foreclosures on 56,000 homes because of potential problems with documentation.
“California expanded its moratorium on foreclosures by Ally Financial and its GMAC unit, announced last week, to include JPMorgan Chase.”
Drug makers are being accused of not following new pricing laws, according to The New York Times:
“Drug manufacturers often flout a federal law that requires them to provide the government with pricing data needed to calculate discounts on medications prescribed for poor people under Medicaid, federal investigators say in a new report.
“The information is not submitted at all, is filed late or is incomplete, the investigators said, and as a result Medicaid overpays for prescription drugs.
“The problem, they said, could become more significant under President Obama’s new health care law, which increases the amount of the discounts and promises to add millions of people to the Medicaid rolls.
“In a new initiative intended to force compliance, Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, who led the investigation, said he would impose civil fines on drug manufacturers that fail to meet their price-reporting obligations.”
What kind of health insurance a family has could determine if they do or don’t follow a doctor’s recommended treatment, according to a new study that gets coverage from the Los Angeles Times:
“Researchers from the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Ohio surveyed 1,978 parents to see if health insurance -- or the lack of it -- was a factor in following doctors' orders. About 13% of parents said they couldn't fulfill at least one of their child's doctor's recommendations in the last year because they couldn't afford it. This constituted being underinsured by the researchers.
“There was a divide among insured and underinsured children. The study authors found that children with private insurance were about two times as likely as children with public insurance to be underinsured, after they adjusted for annual family income and health status. And after controlling for various demographic factors, the authors discovered that having an annual family income between $15,000 and $34,999 was the best forecaster of a child's health taking a hit because the family couldn't pay.”