WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama‘s healthcare law, despite a rocky rollout and determined opposition from critics, already has spurred the largest expansion in health coverage in America in half a century, national surveys and enrollment data show.
As the law’s initial enrollment period closes, at least 9.5 million previously uninsured people have gained coverage. Some have done so through marketplaces created by the law, some through other private insurance and others through Medicaid, which has expanded under the law in about half the states. The tally draws from a review of state and federal enrollment reports, surveys and interviews with insurance executives and government officials nationwide.
The Affordable Care Act still faces major challenges, particularly the risk of premium hikes next year that could drive away newly insured customers. But the increased coverage so far amounts to substantial progress toward one of the law’s principal goals and is the most significant expansion since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.
The millions of newly insured also create a politically important constituency that may complicate any future Republican repeal efforts. Precise figures on national health coverage will not be available for months. But available data indicate:
• At least 6 million people have signed up for health coverage on the new marketplaces, about one-third of whom were previously uninsured.
• A February survey by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found 27% of new enrollees were previously uninsured, but newer survey data from the nonprofit Rand Corp. and reports from marketplace officials in several states suggest that share increased in March.
• At least 4.5 million previously uninsured adults have signed up for state Medicaid programs, according to Rand’s unpublished survey data, which were shared with The Times. That tracks with estimates from Avalere Health, a consulting firm that is closely following the law’s implementation.
• An additional 3 million young adults have gained coverage in recent years through a provision of the law that enables dependent children to remain on their parents’ health plans until they turn 26, according to national health insurance surveys from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• About 9 million people have bought health plans directly from insurers, instead of using the marketplaces, Rand found. The vast majority of these people were previously insured.
• Fewer than a million people who had health plans in 2013 are now uninsured because their plans were canceled for not meeting new standards set by the law, the Rand survey indicates.
Republican critics of the law have suggested that the cancellations last fall have led to a net reduction in coverage.
That is not supported by survey data or insurance companies, many of which report they have retained the vast majority of their 2013 customers by renewing old policies, which is permitted in about half the states, or by moving customers to new plans.
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HARTFORD — Several hundred Trinity College students, faculty and alumni greeted Joanne Berger-Sweeney, named Thursday as the college’s first African-American and first woman president, with enthusiastic whoops and applause. “How could you have a warmer welcome for someone?” said Berger-Sweeney, a dean at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. “It’s not very often that I get to walk into a room and there’s a standing ovation.” But then, she noted, to a roar of laughter, there were no seats in the room.
Berger-Sweeney, 55, a neuroscientist who was accompanied at Thursday’s announcement by her husband and two children, told the crowd she fell in love with Trinity the moment she first set foot on campus — shortly before New Year’s. “We came through the arch … I looked to the left and saw the chapel, I looked to the right and saw this beautiful long walk, and I thought: I think I could be here,” Berger-Sweeney said. “… Some people may want to be on small bucolic campuses in Maine, but not me. I want to be right here.”
After that visit Berger-Sweeney decided to apply and emerged as the winner when the Trinity board of trustees Tuesday voted unanimously for her. She will be the college’s 22nd president. Berger-Sweeney will take the helm at Trinity as it continues to grapple with financial challenges, a reputation as a party school, security concerns, campus climate and conflict with fraternities and sororities over policy changes.
“Trinity is a forward-looking institution that excels in liberal arts and sciences, and both are areas of excellence for Dr. Berger-Sweeney, who rose to the top of our highly competitive candidate pool,” said Cornelia Parsons Thornburgh, who led the search committee and will become chairwoman of Trinity’s board of trustees on July 1. “She impressed us with her strong academic credentials, curricular innovations, collaborative nature and enthusiasm for the Hartford community.
“I strongly believe that her vision of Trinity College as an elite liberal arts college with an urban pulse is one that will guide us, inspire us and lead us on a path to distinction and greatness,” Thornburgh said. James F. Jones Jr., who has been Trinity’s president for a decade and will retire June 30, called the moment historic and said that Berger-Sweeney’s appointment brought him “an enormous sigh of relief” to know that his “successor is going to be a star.”
Berger-Sweeney, who has been dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts since 2010, brings with her experience that is relevant to Trinity, Thornburgh said. “At Tufts, she has proven herself in areas that coincide closely with, and are important to, Trinity: proximity to a city, a strong athletic tradition, budget and program coordination, an historical Greek tradition, and a deep appreciation for a liberal arts education.”
President Barack Obama gave Pope Francis a box of seeds as a gift, a fitting token as their first-ever meeting provided a fresh start of sorts between the administration and Catholic leadership after years of strained relations. “These, I think, are carrots,” Obama told the Pontiff, showing him a pouch from the box, which was made from timber from the first cathedral to open in the United States, in Baltimore.
The Pope gave the President two medallions — one symbolizing the need for peace and solidarity between the two hemispheres — and a copy of “Evangelii Gaudium,” or “The Joy of the Gospel.” The book was penned by the Pope and calls for a new era of evangelization and a renewed focus on the poor. The tokens of goodwill underscored the goal of the meeting: Focus on areas where two of the world’s most influential men agree, and gently tread ground where they differ.
The two men greeted each other with a smile and a handshake and posed for pictures before sitting down across a table from each other. They spoke privately for nearly an hour. When they emerged from the meeting, the President and the Vatican had slightly different takes on the tenor of their discussions, especially when it came to issues that have frayed the relationship between the Obama administration and American Catholic leaders.
“… (I)t was hoped that, in areas of conflict, there would be respect for humanitarian and international law and a negotiated solution between the parties involved,” the Vatican said in a statement. “In the context of bilateral relations and cooperation between Church and State, there was a discussion on questions of particular relevance for the Church in that country, such as the exercise of the rights to religious freedom, life and conscientious objection. …”
Obama, in a news conference that followed, told reporters that such issues were “not a topic of conversation” with the Pope and instead were discussed with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. According to the Vatican, the two men also discussed the issue of immigration reform and “stated their common commitment to the eradication of human trafficking throughout the world.”
On this point, the President and the Pope were simpatico. “I was grateful to have the opportunity to speak with him about the responsibilities that we all share to care for the least of these, the poor, the excluded,” Obama told reporters after the meeting. “And I was extremely moved by his insights about the importance of us all having a moral perspective on world problems and not simply thinking in terms of our own narrow self-interests.”
The meeting took place two days after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on a contraception mandate included in the President’s signature health care reform law. The law exempts churches and houses of worship from the requirement, but nonprofit, religiously affiliated groups are required either to provide contraception coverage to their employees directly or through a third-party insurer.
It’s cheaper to give homeless men and women a permanent place to live than to leave them on the streets.
That’s according to a study of an apartment complex for formerly homeless people in Charlotte, N.C., that found drastic savings on health care costs and incarceration.
Moore Place houses 85 chronically homeless adults, and was the subject of a study by the University of North Carolina Charlotte released on Monday. The study found that, in its first year, Moore Place tenants saved $1.8 million in health care costs, with 447 fewer emergency room visits (a 78 percent reduction) and 372 fewer days in the hospital (a 79 percent reduction).
The tenants also spent 84 percent fewer days in jail, with a 78 percent drop in arrests. The reduction is largely due to a decrease in crimes related to homelessness, such as trespassing, loitering, public urination, begging and public consumption of alcohol, according to Caroline Chambre, director the Urban Ministry Center’s HousingWorks, the main force behind Moore Place.
One tenant, Carl Caldwell, 62, said he used to go to the emergency room five to seven times a week, late at night, so he could spend the night there. “You wouldn’t believe my hospital bills,” Caldwell, who hasn’t had health insurance for years, told The Huffington Post. Caldwell was a teacher for 30 years and became homeless five years ago, when he lost his job and his roommate moved out.
While living on the street, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The disease was particularly challenging for Caldwell, who said he spent his days “trying not to get robbed or killed” and trying to find bathrooms and shelter from freezing weather. Since he moved into Moore Place when it opened in March 2012, Caldwell has gained a regular doctor and has undergone radiation. Now his cancer is in remission. Without having to worry about where he will sleep, he can take his medicine regularly and keep it in his mini fridge.
“Moore Place saved my life,” Caldwell said. “When you’re homeless, you are dependent on everybody. Now I am independent and can give back.” Caldwell said he regularly helps feed homeless people now and has reconnected with family members he hadn’t spoken to in years.
Chambre said she expects Moore Place tenants’ mental and physical health to continue to improve with consistent access to health care. “The idea of having a primary care doctor was just a fantasy when they were living on the street,” said Chambre. “Now they all have a regular doctor.”
BEIJING — On a visit that was supposed to be nonpolitical, first lady Michelle Obama delivered an unmistakable message to the Chinese on Saturday, saying in a speech here that freedom of speech, particularly on the Internet and in the news media, provided the foundation for a vibrant society.
On the second day of a weeklong trip to China with her two daughters and her mother, Mrs. Obama spoke to an audience of Americans and Chinese at Peking University, and in the middle of an appeal for more American students to study abroad, she also talked of the value for people of hearing “all sides of every argument.” “Time and again, we have seen that countries are stronger and more prosperous when the voices and opinions of all their citizens can be heard,” she said.
The United States, she said, respected the “uniqueness” of other cultures and societies. “But when it comes to expressing yourself freely,” she said, “and worshiping as you choose, and having open access to information — we believe those are universal rights that are the birthright of every person on this planet.”
The forthright exposition of the American belief in freedom of speech came against a backdrop of broad censorship of the Internet by the Chinese government. The government polices the Internet to prevent the nation’s 500 million users from seeing antigovernment sentiment, and blocks a variety of foreign websites, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The authorities compel domestic Internet sites to censor themselves.
Growing up in the 1970s at opposite ends of New York State, two girls were immersed in all things cool, black and funky.
Saturday morning cartoons won their hearts. Loreen Williamson, in Rochester, and Pamela Thomas, in the Bronx, would park themselves in front of the The Jackson 5ive, featuring a tiny Michael sporting a big Afro, and Josie and the Pussycats, with the black tambourine-playing Valerie Brown performing in a hip girl band.
Eventually, the two met and bonded over their mutual interests. Not content to leave the funk (or their pasts) behind, Ms. Williamson, now 49, and Ms. Thomas, 51, have amassed more than 300 pieces of black animation art from the 1960s and ’70s, a collection that they believe is one of the world’s most extensive in that field. In 2007, they created the Museum of UnCut Funk, an online showcase for original animation cels, posters, storyboards and other objects celebrating black culture of the 1970s and its standard-bearers. Now, the two collectors have hit the road with a traveling museum exhibition, Funky Turns 40: Black Character Revolution, which represents 24 animated productions, including Saturday morning and after-school cartoons and animated feature films.
The revolution that it documents is from stereotype to superhero: Funky, which is currently at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem and will travel to museums in Chicago, Seattle and West Reading, Pa.honors the cartoons’ image-affirming black characters, including those of The Harlem Globetrotters, Kid Power, Schoolhouse Rock and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
The programs are more than entertaining nostalgia, the two curators and some cultural historians say. They represent the fruits of a struggle for a say in the representation of blacks in television images, among other rights, and the newfound ability of popular black entertainers to get such programming on the air, based on their own appeal to a wide audience.
The shows offered a striking counterpoint to the previous stereotypical portrayals of blacks as buffoons in mainstream films, books, theater, advertising and cartoons. “It shows a time in American history when art and diversity and civil rights aspirations all came together,” said Christopher P. Lehman, a professor of ethnic studies at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and the author of The Colored Cartoon: Black Representation in American Animated Short Films, 1907-1954 (University of Massachusetts Press). “Before 1970, African-Americans were not much on television at all, except as the domestic servants of Jack Benny and Danny Thomas or as guests on variety series.”
It was no accident that Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert, described by curators as the first “positive” black-cast cartoon on TV (and the basis of the later series), was an NBC prime-time special in 1969, or, in the same vein, The Jackson 5ive, the first Saturday morning cartoon series featuring black musicians, made its debut in 1971. Both were created by two entertainment powerhouses, Bill Cosby (Fat Albert and the gang were part of his stand-up comedy routine) and Berry Gordy Jr., the founder of Motown Records, who marketed the family music act to appeal to the broadest possible audience.
Recalling her generation’s response, Ms. Williamson, who works as an independent consultant for marketing and business, said, “We got to see Martin Luther King’s dream, at least in cartoon form.”
“There was a lot of cross-pollination with what was going on in black culture,” she said. “You could watch the cartoons, go to the concerts, see the stars on variety shows. And our white friends were watching, too.” Ms. Thomas, a preschool teacher, said: “It made me feel like, wow, I see myself on TV. I started feeling good about myself.”
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama awarded 24 minority U.S. soldiers, who collectively served in three of the nation’s wars and were never rewarded for their courage, with the Medal of Honor, reports the Associated Press. Only three of the 24 were alive for President Barack Obama to drape the medals and ribbons around their necks; the others were awarded the honor posthumously.
“Today we have the chance to set the record straight,” Obama said. “No nation is perfect, but here in America we confront our imperfections and face a sometimes painful past, including the truth that some of these soldiers fought and died for a country that did not always see them as equal.”
The three surviving recipients—Vietnam veterans Jose Rodela, Melvin Morris and Santiago Erevia—received a prolonged standing ovation as the stood by the president’s side.
According to AP, Tuesday’s ceremony is the largest since World War II, and issued by Congress in the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act issue and conducted under Army review. The law required the Army to go through all of the records of each Jewish-American and Hispanic-American veteran who received a Distinguished Service Cross during or after World War II to determine if they could be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. From this review some the Army found 6,505 recipients and narrowed that field to an eligible pool of 600 soldiers who may have been Jewish or Hispanic, AP reports. Of the two-dozen men honored, 18 are Latinos.
At the end of the ceremony, after a brief biography of each recipient had been recited and each medal accepted of behalf of those who had passed away, the president thanked their families for their service. “We are so grateful to them. We are so grateful to their families. It makes us proud and it makes us inspired,” he said.
Comedy Central duo Key and Peele are on a roll. After landing on the cover of New York Times Sunday Magazine last year, this week they are cover boys for national weekly news magazine Time. It’s the Ideas Issue, and Key and Peele offer an opinion piece about comedy that may or may not make you laugh, but at the very least will make you think. Check it out below:
Would you make fun of a burn victim? Well, we did. Sort of… We’re comics. In the most recent season of our TV show, in a sketch titled “Insult Comic,” a traditional stand-up comedian professes that he is “going to get everybody” in his set (the guy toward the front with big ears, the fat guy, the woman with comically large breasts). That’s the phrase, isn’t it, when a critic wants to praise a comedian for the fearless nature of his or her comedy? That he or she “gets everybody”? That “nobody is safe”? One of the club patrons in our sketch, however, is a wheelchair-bound burn victim. “You skipped me,” he calls from the audience, with a robotic-sounding artificial larynx. “Go for it,” he says, “I can take it.”
But can we, as a society, take it anymore?
Today it seems that we live in a world of extremes. On one end of the spectrum, we have anonymous Internet trolls looking for opportunities to dole out cruelty with impunity. But in mainstream culture, it often seems we’re drowning in a sea of political correctness that lapped up on our shores a couple of decades ago and has yet to recede.
It’s amazing to think how popular television shows like All in the Family and Good Times might fare today in a Hollywood pitch meeting. Films like Blazing Saddles and Silver Streak wouldn’t make it past the development stage at a studio. Too edgy.
The Brooklyn Nets signed center Jason Collins for the remainder of the season on Saturday, the team announced. Sources previously told ESPN.com that the Nets, who feel they’re getting everything they expected from Collins when they signed him for front court depth on Feb. 23, were already operating under the premise that the 34-year-old would finish the season with them even though his second 10-day deal didn’t expire until after Friday.
“It’s cool. Thank you to the Nets organization, coaches and players, the team is playing really well right now, and I’m glad to continue to be here,” Collins said.
Sources said that the internal expectation all along was that Collins would be a Net for the rest of the season, from the moment he signed his first 10-day deal, as long he proved that he could still be an effective defender, which he did immediately.
“We always focused on basketball,” Nets coach Jason Kidd said. “We let you guys do all the other stuff. But having him on the team was always about basketball.”
Collins is averaging 9.8 minutes per game off the bench in eight appearances since his historic debut against the Los Angeles Lakers last month, which made him the first openly gay athlete in North America’s four recognized major team sports. He most recently provided the Nets with some meaningful minutes defending against DeMarcus Cousins, logging 20 minutes in a 104-89 win over Sacramento last Sunday.
WALTHAM, Mass. — On the day in 1991 that the Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, Anita Hill — the little-known law professor who riveted the nation by accusing him of sexual harassment — faced news cameras outside her simple brick home in Norman, Okla., with her mother by her side, and politely declined to comment on the vote. In the nearly 23 years since, Ms. Hill, now a professor of social policy, law and women’s studies at Brandeis University, has worked hard, she likes to say, to help women “find their voices.” She has also found hers — and she is not afraid to use it.
“I believe in my heart that he shouldn’t have been confirmed,” she said in a recent interview, acknowledging that it irritates her to see Justice Thomas on the court. “I believe that the information I provided was clear, it was verifiable, it was confirmed by contemporaneous witnesses that I had talked with. And I think what people don’t understand is that it does go to his ability to be a fair and impartial judge.”
It was a surprisingly candid comment from a deeply private woman who has long been careful in the spotlight. But the quiet life Ms. Hill has carved out for herself is about to be upended — by her own choice — with the release of a documentary, Anita, opening on March 21 in theaters in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.