Tag: Pilot experiments

7 Medicare Policies That Are Quietly Being Rewritten Without Public Input

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Medicare may seem like a stable program, but behind the scenes, critical policies are being tweaked — and not always with public notice. These changes can affect your benefits, cost-sharing, and care options long before you hear about them. Transparency is fading fast, making it harder for beneficiaries to weigh in or prepare. Knowing what’s changing helps you stay informed, even if the announcements don’t show up in your mailbox. Here are seven current shifts in Medicare that are unfolding quietly — and why you should care about each.

7 Medicare Policies That Are Quietly Being Rewritten Without Public Input

Tricking Veterans: Using Suicide and Mental Health Struggles as a Guise for Privatizing the VA

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

While attention remains focused on the looming crisis of Department of Veterans Affairs employees facing termination, an even more ominous threat to veterans’ health care advances unnoticed through the halls of Congress

Tricking Veterans: Using Suicide and Mental Health Struggles as a Guise for Privatizing the VA

Previously:

Speak Up Before VA Health Care Is Gutted #Project2025

Thousands of sailors get access to *trendy* weight-loss app [Noom] in new deal

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Thousands of sailors get access to trendy weight-loss app in new deal

As of Feb. 1, the Navy is offering the commercial version of Noom free for a year to these sailors in what the service calls its Fitness Enhancement Program. The Navy’s contract with Noom, which is considered a one-year pilot program, is worth $466,560, paid for by excess funds released by Congress last fiscal year for quality of service initiatives.

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What Mobile Clinics in Dollar General Parking Lots Say About Health Care in Rural America

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Yves here. Having lowest of low end retailers take a flier with mobile clinics is yet another proof of the poor state of health care in the US. I would be curious to learn how countries in Europe encourage/incentivize doctors to practice out in the boonies. One can envision remedies, like scholarships for doctors who agree to practice in designated areas for at least five years, but dreaming up solutions and getting them implemented are in two different universes.

Needless to say, giving the poverty of local alternatives, some of the users of this service are fans. But your humble blogger is not comfortable with a purely profit-motivated party so remote from the health care industry providing treatments.

What Mobile Clinics in Dollar General Parking Lots Say About Health Care in Rural America

CBDC Failed: Congress Is Banning CBDC With Massive Support

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Lena Petrova, CPA – Finance, Economics & Tax

Related:

Dueling Digital Dollar Bills Debated in Congressional Hearing on U.S. CBDC

Will Citizens’ Distrust of Government Surveillance Stop CBDCs?

But the eNaira launch came nine months after the CBN effectively banned cryptocurrencies, which were used to fund anti-police brutality protests that swept the country in late 2020. The CBN claimed crypto jeopardized the financial system and could be used to fund terrorism and froze protestors’ bank accounts.

The Protecting Kids On Social Media Act Is A Terrible Alternative To KOSA

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

We have covered the Protecting Kids On Social Media Act a few times, when it was first introduced back in April, where we highlighted how it was both unconstitutional and the rationale behind it was not supported by any actual evidence, and then again just recently when Senator Chris Murphy (one of the bill’s co-sponsors) wrote a ridiculously confused op-ed for the NY Times, claiming it was necessary because kids these days get too many music recommendations and no longer could discover new music on their own.

The Protecting Kids On Social Media Act Is A Terrible Alternative To KOSA

Related:

Stop the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act

Senator Brian Schatz Joins The Moral Panic With Unconstitutional Age Verification Bill

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Senator Brian Schatz is one of the more thoughtful Senators we have, and he and his staff have actually spent time talking to lots of experts in trying to craft bills regarding the internet. Unfortunately, it still seems like he still falls under the seductive sway of this or that moral panic, so when the bills actually come out, they’re perhaps more thoughtfully done than the moral panic bills of his colleagues, but they’re still destructive.

Senator Brian Schatz Joins The Moral Panic With Unconstitutional Age Verification Bill

Related:

Bipartisan Senate bill would ban social media algorithms for minors

Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Chris Murphy (D-Conn), Katie Britt (R-Ala) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark) introduced the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act on Wednesday. The bill would set a minimum age of 13 to use social media sites, and would require parental consent and age verification for users under 18.