Five Reasons Women are Getting a Better Deal Because the Health Care Law | National Women’s Law Center

Here are five reasons why women are getting a better deal:

Care when you need it: Before the health care law, women could be denied for pre-existing conditions like cancer, asthma, an old knee injury, or even pregnancy. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, up to 129 million non-elderly Americans have preexisting conditions, and 1 out of 5 are uninsured. Beginning in January, health insurance companies can no longer deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, so these millions of American who need care can get it.

Coverage for basic services, including maternity care: Health insurance plans purchased on the individual market often do not cover all the services women need. Plans frequently excluded maternity care, mental health services, and prescription drugs. Maternity care, for example, was only available in twelve percent of health plans offered on the individual market. New health plans are required to cover maternity care as well as other essential health benefits ensuring that women have access to the services they need.

Increased accountability for health insurance companies: Health insurance companies used to be able to spend an unrestricted amount of premium dollars towards overhead costs and company profits. Today, the health care law requires that health insurance companies use 80% of premium dollars towards health care, rather than channeling these dollars to their profits. And, insurance companies that fail to meet that standard must refund consumers the difference.

Insurance that works for your budget: The cost of insurance continues to be a significant barrier when seeking health coverage. Because of the law, health insurance will now be more affordable for millions of Americans who will qualify for financial help in the form of tax subsidies or expanded Medicaid coverage.

An end to gender rating: Women in particular had a hard time affording health insurance because insurance companies charged women more than men, a practice known as gender rating. According to our analysis, 92 percent of individual market plans practice gender rating, costing women collectively an approximate $1 billion each year. The health care law ends this practice so that women can no longer be charged more than men for the same coverage.

via Five Reasons Women are Getting a Better Deal Because the Health Care Law | National Women’s Law Center.

Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP Gets Censored for the Middle East

The mind cannot be censored – although the censors can imprison themselves

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

Like her or hate her, there’s basically no escaping her especially if you tune in for 10 minutes of local radio. Lady Gaga is gearing up to release her upcoming album which she has titled: ARTPOP. A few weeks ago, she revealed the album’s title to be the following:

ARTPOP

Pretty weird, right? It’s not like you’d expect anything less from her at this point though. However, Middle Eastern countries are getting a different and censored version of this same cover, which was just released and is the following:

BYP0Iz0CQAAE123.jpg-large

They’ve increased the dimension of that ball in front of her, whatever it might mean, to cover her breasts. They’ve also colored her legs black in order to give the impression that she’s covered up.

And yes, Lebanon is one of those countries as is evident by the Lebanese iTunes Store.

I really don’t get this. Did local authorities tell her…

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Where is Nadya? – NYTimes.com

Rumors have placed Nadya all over the country, from the Volga to the Urals. The Russian prison authority has said that she is in transit to a different facility and that her family will be informed of its location within 10 days of Nadya’s arrival.

Transit can be severely taxing physically and emotionally for inmates: It means no contact with family or friends and no care packages, which are often essential to sustaining them. A long period of transit without communication is not unusual; what sets Nadya apart are her fame and her weakened physical state.

Like Anatoly Marchenko, Nadya Tolokonnikova is an autodidact and an odd bird, even among dissidents. Like him, she heeds no one’s counsel but her own and seems to have no fear when confronting the system. For its part, the system probably does not want to kill Nadya any more than it wanted to kill Marchenko. But, three decades ago, as now, it reacts brutally to challenge. That has made the last two weeks unbearably frightening for anyone who cares about Nadya.

via Where is Nadya? – NYTimes.com.

New SARS-like virus discovered in Chinese horseshoe bats | Vaccine News Daily

not new – the original vector found

Zhengli Shi, director of emerging infectious diseases at Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said there have been disagreements about the origin of the virus that evolved into human SARS-CoV since 2003.

“Even though our team reported that bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-like coronaviruses in 2005, we have been searching for this missing link for 10 years, and finally we’ve found it,” Shi said.

Professor of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina Ralph Baric said the study provides “the most compelling information to date” that animal coronaviruses are programmed to transmit between species. He said the SARS-CoV is not extinct, but instead is “hiding” in animals.

“The study further demonstrates the critical importance of continued surveillance and the development of public health preparedness platforms to control these important and deadly emerging human coronaviruses,” Baric said.

via New SARS-like virus discovered in Chinese horseshoe bats | Vaccine News Daily.

Upsala Glacier Retreat : Image of the Day

This photograph by an astronaut on the International Space Station highlights the snout of the Upsala Glacier (49.88°S, 73.3°W) on the Argentine side of the North Patagonian Icefield. Ice flow in this glacier comes from the north (right in this rotated image). Dark lines of rocky debris (moraine) within the ice give a sense of the slow ice flow from right to left.

via Upsala Glacier Retreat : Image of the Day.

Mimi Writes…….: Dona Nobis Pacem ~ The Woman Of Leaves

Today my world doesn\’t feel safe. Does yours?

I want that elusive world peace just like you do. But it\’s not going to happen in my personal village of trees unless I make the right choices. So.

I will choose to plow uneven fields with as much love as I can muster. I will carve out safe places for people who need it. I will try to love my neighbor and follow the Golden Rule. The materials I need are not hard to find. I already have them. And I won\’t need any money. All I have to do is plow up the ground and plant.

If I could choose to become a woman who only runs to the safety of quilts instead of a bed of leaves, I would choose the latter and leave the pretty patchwork behind.

Because there is no more beautiful place in the world than to understand that it is not about the leaving behind of my comforts anymore, it\’s about how much of myself I am willing to scatter around in that pile of kaleidoscope leaves. There is beauty in the unknown. There is joy in the cobwebs of Earth. There is freedom in giving. And there is no safer place than to wallow around in a boudoir of acorns not knowing which nut you might find, but knowing you\’ll be OK if you do.

The safe place is not a place at all. The safe place is me.

Find your tree.

Make a stand.

via Mimi Writes…….: Dona Nobis Pacem ~ The Woman Of Leaves.

“Life Bar” Gemmayze asks guests to dress as maids

The side of Lebanon – we’d like to pretend does not exist… but they can be as elitist and racist as many other cultures…

Hummus For Thought

“This Friday Night, Be Sinkara or Milenga.. Be Soumatra or Domma.. Create your own Maid Costume, Speak Like them and look like a Philippino, Bengladish, Sri Lanka or any maid you want and definitely win 100$ in cash. They do work all the month to get it.. Imitate them and win it in some few comedy moments.”

We really can’t miss an opportunity to be disgusting can we? A friend of mine just sent me an article by The Daily Star showing the following headline:

“Beirut bar cancels event inviting guests to dress as domestic workers”

The Anti-Racism Movement revealed the bar to be “Life Bar” and this is the original description in their Facebook event:

“They do work all the month to get it.. imitate them and win it in some few comedy moments”

This isn’t some cultural-themed party precisely because there is no such thing as a “maid culture”…

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