Today in What Government Is For

You know who collects the data from doctors and clinics and hospitals all over the state, figures out when cases of dangerous diseases are increasing and gets the word out to parents, caregivers, teachers, doctors, hospitals and others who need that information? 

Government employees, that’s who.  State workers.  The ones Governor Matt "Connecticut Yankee Lying Coward" Bevin is planning to get rid of.  By the thousand.

From the Kentucky Department of Public Health, housed in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services:

Kentucky experienced a rise in reported cases of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, at the end of 2015, with public health officials reporting 87 cases of the illness between August and December. Pertussis is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by bacteria and is transmitted through respiratory droplets from sneezing, coughing or talking. This vaccine-preventable disease can be deadly to infants too young to have been fully vaccinated, so it’s especially important for parents and caregivers of young children to be up-to-date on immunizations.

You know how many private corporations are capable of handling that responsibility?  None, that's how many.  Not that that will stop Bevin from giving millions of taxpayers dollars to one to fuck up the job.

Only the Rich Will Get Drinking Water

Maybe you think the rich deserve their exclusive access to the best houses in the best neighborhoods and the best schools for their kids and the best jobs and the best of everything.

Do you think they deserve all the drinking water?

It's already happening, right here in the US of A.

 

Think Progress:

As the commonwealth’s reservoirs drop to their lowest levels in decades, the government has declared a state of emergency, and implemented strict rationing. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans now have had tap water only every third day, and that tightened this past weekend, giving families water only two days a week.

“It’s been water for one day, then no water for two days,” explained Fernandez. “In the one day you have water, you fill your buckets.”

Government officials are telling residents that now is “not the time” to wash their cars, fill private swimming pools, or hose down their sidewalks and patios. Luis F. Cruz Batista, Director of Puerto Rico’s Office of Management and Budget, told local press: “The rationing affects the rich, the middle class and the poor; it affects children, adults and seniors.”

But the rationing has not hit everyone equally. As poor islanders fill up buckets and bathtubs on the few days they have water, the pools, fountains, and showers of the coastline’s hotels and resorts remain untouched.

“The most affected residents have been those with the fewest resources,” San Juan academic and activist Jose Rivera told ThinkProgress. “But in the hotels and the majority of condominiums, like the one I live in, the rationing either isn’t being done at all, or they’re only partially implementing it. So far, the population has remained calm, but I expect this inequality of sacrifices to eventually provoke protests.”

Rivera added that when public schools reconvene this month, the water rationing will disrupt class schedules and the school breakfast and lunch programs. This will especially harm more than half of Puerto Rican children living in poverty.

For Fernandez, the water rationing policy is a symbol of deeper problem. “I see it as such as parallel of government policy in general,” he said. “The government puts more value into those from abroad than they are concerned about the local situation and the well-being of the public.”

Public Funds

ummagumma.co:

(Source: nevertheh3ro)

The Real Price of Inequality

Economic inequality doesn't just mean that some people are way richer than others.  It means that the bigger the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest, the more damage it causes to the economy and society, harming everyone.

It's already driven the U.S. into the ranks of the Third World.

Down With Tyranny:

Lately you've been hearing a few political leaders, particularly Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, Brian Schatz and Bernie Sanders in the Senate and some of the Progressive Caucus members in the House, talking about steeply rising income inequality. They're talking about the kind of inequality that's part of vicious cycle that inevitably leads to oligarchy, plutocracy or outright fascism, in which a few families, through an accumulation of wealth and power, can dictate the laws and even the societal norms and control the mechanisms of enforcement to such an extent that they can virtually enslave an entire passive population.

It can't happen here? The manifestations are already undeniable. The greed and rapacity of the .01% has become so overbearing and their refusal to pay their fair share of taxes so debilitating that a UNICEF report I ran across this morning, a report that would have scandalized an empowered middle class anytime between the time Harry Truman was president until the beginning of the new normal under Ronald Reagan. The report goes a lot deeper than the shocking chart at top of the page which ranks 29 developed countries according to the overall well-being of their children. The 5 countries ranked at the very bottom include 4 of the poorest-- Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Greece-- plus the U.S., which is both one of the richest and one with the least economic equality. Those 5 countries, along with Italy, Portugal and Spain, have child poverty rates higher than 15%. The only countries that have allowed the child poverty gap to widen to more than 30%. are Bulgaria, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and, of course, the United States.

Some of the manifestations of America's rush to the bottom:

• The only developed countries with infant mortality rates higher than 6 per 1,000 births are Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and the United States.

• Only in Greece, Hungary, Portugal and the United States does the low birthweight rate exceed 8%.

• Only Canada, Greece and the United States have childhood obesity levels higher than 20%. The United States had the highest proportion of children overweight at both the beginning and end of the decade, reaching almost 30% by 2009/2010.

• Romania, the UK and the United States have the highest rates of teenage births (above 29 per 1,000).

• Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the United States are the only countries in which the homicide rate rises above 4 per 100,000. Almost all other countries fall into the range of 0 to 2.5 per 100,000.

Stop Mandatory Rape Bills in Kentucky

Remember:  When these misogynistic motherfuckers use the word "ultrasound," they're really talking about forcing doctors to commit object rape by shoving a hard plastic stick up a woman's vagina and all the way into her uterus against her will. For no legitimate medical reason.

Also, when you put obstacles of waiting periods and great distance and object rape between a woman and a safe-because-legal medical procedure, you're not protecting her health; you're endangering her life. 

Because abortion restrictions do not reduce the number of abortions. They just reduce the number of safe, legal abortions. And vastly increase the number of women dying from unsafe-because-restricted abortions.

The legislators who file and vote for these bills should be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned for attempted murder.

From Planned Parenthood of Kentucky:

Bill filing deadlines have passed for the 2014 Kentucky legislative session and there were 8 abortion restriction bills filed.  Members of the Senate filed three bills and passed two of the them.  Members of the House filed five bills.  Currently, seven of the bills have been assigned to the House Health and Welfare Committee; one remains in the Senate Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protections Committee. We encourage you to stay connected to the action network for updates. 

Please contact your representatives at 1-800-372-7181 or email them and tell them to vote NO on any anti choice legislation.

Assigned to the House Health and Welfare Committee

HB184-A bill that would limit access to safe, legal abortions by requiring a woman seeking an abortion to come to a clinic 24 hours prior to her procedure, and would set requirements for information a doctor would have to share with her.

HB575-Creates new sections to require an ultrasound prior to an abortion and to allow a civil suit for medical malpractice if not performed; amends to provide a criminal penalty; amends to require the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to provide various pregnancy-related materials and information in print from and on a stable Internet Web site.   Mandates abortion provider's website provide two links back to that section on CHFS's website.  Requires notification and availability of print materials 24 hours in advance to a pregnant woman that:  list agencies “that provide ultrasound and heart tone monitoring at no charge;”  inform pregnant women of anatomical and physiological characteristics…”including any relevant information regarding the possibility of the fetus’s survival” and to include new pictorial or photographic depictions.

SB3-A bill that would force a woman seeking an abortion to come to a clinic 24 hours prior to her procedure and to make her receive an ultrasound and listen to the results of the ultrasound.

SB8-Legislation that would force a woman seeking an abortion to receive an ultrasound and listen to the results of the ultrasound regardless of her wishes.

HB163-A bill that would place unnecessary restrictions on doctors treating patients that are seeking an abortion.

HB132-A bill that would regulate abortions in relation to the detection of a fetal heartbeat.

HB180-Legislation that would impose additional restrictions on the judicial bypass system.
Assigned to Senate Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection Committee

SB57-A bill that would ban nearly all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

No Snark: Your Tax Dollars at Work

This is why you pay taxes to support a civilized society that enforces health and safety regulations.

Because in low-tax, low-service Galtian paradises like Texas, you have no way of knowing if that chicken quesedilla is going to kill you.

From the Herald:

The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department inspects about 1,500 food-service establishments twice each year. The scores include restaurants, schools, supermarkets and more.

Use this database to see which establishments passed inspection, or failed, since 2012.

Remember: Repugs who oppose regulations on business don't care if you die.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/02/24/3106700/check-lexington-restaurant-cafeteria.html#storylink=cpy

KY's 49th Rank in Well-Being Entirely Due to Embracing the Decomposing Corpse of Coal

From Gallup:

North Dakota residents had the highest well-being in the nation in 2013, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. South Dakota trailed its northern neighbor in second place, with its highest score in six years of measurement. Hawaii held the top spot for the previous four years, but fell slightly last year. West Virginia and Kentucky had the two lowest well-being scores, for the fifth year in a row.

Let's see: what do those two states have in common?  Something harmful to economic growth, public health and social advancement. What could it be?

AynRandy: Fuck Public Health, We Need More GUNZZZZ!

Truly, only Wonkette can do the Tribble-Toupeed One justice:

Has it been more than ten minutes since Rand Paul reared his ugly reactionary head to yammer about if only you could keep a nuclear silo made of guns in the bedroom, you could defend your home against all enemies? It has? Then it must be time for another installment of How Criminally Awful Is Rand Paul? Today’s episode teaches us that he is really really awful!

The youngest cruelest Paul is trying to block Obama’s nomination for Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy. Generally, the surgeon general post is not a particularly controversial thing, because most people dig on promoting public health, unless they are idiots named Rand Paul. (A notable exception, of course, is Joycelyn Elders, Clinton’s surgeon general that got herself tossed because she didn’t hate the idea of children masturbating enough for Republicans.) Does Dr. Vivek Murthy want children to touch themselves? Not to the best of our knowledge, but he does unforgivably believe in regulating guns so people don’t just get themselves killed all over the place, and this sentiment is completely unacceptable to Rand Paul because guns guns gunsgunsgunsGUNSGUNS.

“In his efforts to curtail Second Amendment rights, Dr. Murthy has continually referred to guns as a public health issue on par with heart disease and has diminished the role of mental health in gun violence,” wrote Paul in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “As a physician, I am deeply concerned that he has advocated that doctors use their position of trust to ask patients, including minors, details about gun ownership in the home…Dr. Murthy has disqualified himself from being Surgeon General because of his intent to use that position to launch an attack on Americans’ right to own a firearm under the guise of a public health and safety campaign.”

Ohemgee! Can you imagine a world where doctors are allowed to ask if you have guns and if that makes you feel a little bit not safe? Those doctors might as well drive to your house and steal the guns right out of your kids’ hands. Funny you should mention the whole part about how you’re a physician, Rand Paul, since pretty much every other physician believes that having shooty things in the house exacerbates public health issues because of how people get deaded from gunshots.

It gets even better.

And of course the good doctor's not-quite-Mayflower-descendant name and appearance have nothing to do with AynRandy's disapproval.

Why Most Obese People Are Poor

It's not because they're spending their $1.40 per person per meal from food stamps on on gold-flecked truffles.

Via Firedoglake:

- A new study has found that obesity is mainly affecting poor people, specifically minority women in the U.S.

This shouldn't be a surprise. Good nutrition and healthy, low-calorie food is extremely expensive: fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, lean meat, gluten-free food are the highest-priced items per calorie in the grocery.

If you have limited money to buy food, you seek the highest number of calories for the least amount of money.

The lowest price-per-calorie items in the grocery are also the least nutritious and the most fattening: potatoes, white bread, pasta and rice.  They also have the advantage of making you feel "full" even though you are not getting the nutrients needed for good health.

Most poor people have jobs - minimum wage jobs that don't pay a living wage for one person, much less a family - but require food stamps to survive. 

Often poor people have multiple part-time jobs, all paying minimum wage, and all with constantly changing schedules that mean workers have no time to plan, much less prepare and cook, the nutritious meals you can theoretically achieve on food stamps - but only if you have hours every day to spend cooking from scratch.

Poor people have even less time than they have money. So poor people eat cheap, filling calories that don't require a lot of preparation. That's why they're obese.

One-third of Americans are obese because one-third of Americans are poor, and one-third of Americans are poor because the one percent of Americans with all the money are greedy, motherfucking parasites who killed the middle-class economy.

Yes, You Get Cancer From Breathing

Air pollution in the United States may not be as chokingly visible as it is in China and Mexico City, but the invisibility of the carcinogens emitted in this country makes air pollution a greater, not lesser, threat.

Kiley Kroh at Think Progress:

Outdoor air pollution has been definitively linked to cancer and is officially classified as a carcinogen, according to research released Thursday by The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization.

“The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances,” said Kurt Straif, head of the IARC’s monographs section, which is tasked with ranking carcinogens.

The IARC’s research found the toll of air pollution on public health worldwide is significant. In 2010 alone, exposure to ambient fine particles was recently estimated to have contributed to 3.2 million premature deaths, predominantly from cardiovascular disease, and 223,000 deaths from lung cancer. More than half of the lung cancer deaths attributable to ambient fine particles were projected to have been in China and other East Asian countries.

Sources of air pollution identified by the agency include emissions from motor vehicles, industrial processes, power plants and household heating and cooking fumes and while the chemical makeup of outdoor air pollution varies around the globe, the IARC was clear that “the mixtures of ambient air pollution invariably contain specific chemicals known to be carcinogenic to humans.”

SNIP

“This is something governments and environmental agencies need to take care of,” Straif emphasized. “People can certainly contribute by doing things like not driving a big diesel car, but this needs much wider policies by national and international authorities.”

Stay Out of Restaurants Unless You Want the Flu

There are already 18 dead, and it's just getting started. Do you know what your favorite eatery's sick-leave policy is?

Pat Garofalo at Think Progress:

The 2013 flu season is in full swing, and according to the Centers for Disease Control, it will be the worst in ten years. The New York Times reported that “the country is in the grip of three emerging flu or flulike epidemics: an early start to the annual flu season with an unusually aggressive virus, a surge in a new type of norovirus, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years.”

The CDC recommends that those who experience flu-like symptoms “should stay home and avoid contact with other people except to get medical care.” However, for a huge number of American workers, that option doesn’t exist due to a lack of paid sick days. 40 percent of private sector workers and a whopping 80 percent of low-income workers do not have a single paid sick day. One in five workers reports losing their job or being threatened with dismissal for wanting to take time off while sick.

This problem is especially acute in the food industry, with its high potential for spreading disease. 79 percent of food workers say they have no paid sick time.

Lack of paid sick time led to an estimated 5 million additional cases of H1N1 flu in 2009, according to a study in the American Journal of Public Health. And as the National Partnership for Women and Families noted, paid sick days don’t just benefit workers, but businesses and the economy as well:

Replacing workers can cost anywhere from 25 to 200 percent of annual compensation. Paid sick days result in reduced turnover, which leads to reduced costs incurred from advertising, interviewing and training new hires. This is particularly important in lower-wage industries where turnover is highest. Employers also reap the benefits of greater worker loyalty…Paid sick days help to decrease the productivity lost when employees work sick – known as “presenteeism” – which is estimated to cost our national economy $160 billion annually, surpassing the cost of absenteeism. The majority of human resources executives agree that presenteeism is a problem because of potential productivity loss and the risk of spreading infection.

For an average family, “missing work for just three-and-a-half days results in lost wages equivalent to an entire month’s grocery bill.” Paid sick days guard against that outcome, while ensuring that businesses stay productive.

 Failure to provide paid sick leave is a public health menace and should be illegal.