For many across the country, there is little difference between an economic recovery and an economic recession. The New York Times writes:
“In Atlanta, the Bank of America tower, the tallest in the Southeast, is nearly a fifth vacant, and bank officials just wrestled a rent cut from the developer. In Cherry Hill, N.J., 10 percent of the houses on the market are so-called short sales, in which sellers ask for less than they owe lenders. And in Arizona, in sun-blasted desert subdivisions, owners speak of hours cut, jobs lost and meals at soup kitchens.
“Less than a month before November elections, the United States is mired in a grim New Normal that could last for years. That has policy makers, particularly the Federal Reserve, considering a range of ever more extreme measures, as noted in the minutes of its last meeting, released Tuesday. Call it recession or recovery, for tens of millions of Americans, there’s little difference.”
Mental health providers are struggling to understand what a Medicaid expansion means for them, writes Darryl Fears in The Washington Post:
“For District health officials, it was an easy decision.
“The federal government handed them an opportunity to save $56 million over four years by expanding Medicaid this summer and they jumped at it. They switched 35,000 low-income residents from the city -funded D.C. Health Care Alliance insurance plan to a Medicaid plan and reaped the reward.
“It looked like a win-win: The city got some financial relief and the new Medicaid beneficiaries got mental health coverage, which was not part of the Alliance plan. But it creates a problem for the city's mental health-care providers, who said this week that they are faced with serving thousands of new clients they are not prepared to manage.
“‘We support expanding Medicaid eligibility, but you have to have the provider capacity to do it,’ said Shannon Hall, executive director of the D.C. Behavioral Health Association, an advocate for providers. ‘If you do one without the other, you're going to have a bad experience for the people who need care.’
“The complaint by Hall and local mental health providers echoes general concerns about the health-care overhaul raised by hospitals, doctors, nurses and their advocates nationwide who say the mammoth program is being built on a network that cannot support it.”
Judge Susan Bolton allows a lawsuit against SB 1070, the controversial “Papers, please” law in Arizona, to continue. CNN writes:
“U.S. District Court Judge Susan R. Bolton rejected a request by Gov. Jan Brewer, Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio and other defendants to dismiss the case. The judge issued her order on Friday.
“Home to the busiest border crossing for illegal immigration, Arizona has passed a sweeping law allowing police to check a person's immigration status while officers enforce other laws, and which criminalizes people who fail to carry ‘alien registration papers.’ That law also is referred to as Senate Bill 1070.
“The lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Friendly House, the ACLU and other advocacy and labor groups is one of several challenging the law. The U.S. Justice Department also has filed a lawsuit.
“While dealing a setback to the defendants, the judge also ruled against the plaintiffs who had sought an injunction against the law. Bolton called that request "moot" because in the Justice Department suit, the court already has issued a preliminary injunction against the more controversial provisions of the law. In Friday's ruling, the judge also threw out a few of the plaintiffs' claims for ‘lack of standing.’”
Do your children like vegetables? You can certainly put a plate of broccoli in front of them, but what does it take to make them eat it? Jedi mind tricks? USA Today writes:
“Hide the chocolate milk behind the plain milk. Get those apples and oranges out of stainless steel bins and into pretty baskets. Cash only for desserts.
“These subtle moves can entice kids to make healthier choices in school lunch lines, studies show. Food and restaurant marketers have long used similar tricks. Now the government wants in on the act.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced what it called a major new initiative Tuesday, giving $2 million to food behavior scientists to find ways to use psychology to improve kids' use of the federal school lunch program and fight childhood obesity.
“A fresh approach is clearly needed, those behind the effort say.
“About one-third of children and teens are obese or overweight. Bans on soda and junk food have backfired in some places. Some students have abandoned school meal programs that tried to force-feed healthy choices. When one school district put fruit on every lunch tray, most of it ended up in the garbage.
“So instead of pursuing a carrot or a stick approach, schools want to entice kids to choose the carrot sticks, figuring children are more likely to eat something they select themselves.”