Happy, Healthy, Hopeful 2020

Here’s to a happy, healthy, and hopeful 2020. Happy New Year, everybody!

—
Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 01, 2020

ObamaCare: Signed. Sealed. Delivering.

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Sara Kliff: Survey: 57 Percent Of Obamacare Enrollees Were Previously Uninsured

A slim majority of Obamacare’s private insurance enrollees were uninsured when they signed up for coverage, a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds. Obamacare opponents have regularly argued that most enrollees already had coverage, meaning that health reform wasn’t driving down the uninsured rate. The new Kaiser survey, which uses a randomly-selected panel of 742 people who bought private coverage through the new exchanges,

finds that 57 percent of those who signed up for private coverage didn’t have an insurance plan when they enrolled. The Kaiser survey suggests that most people who bought on the marketplace weren’t trying to replace a plan they already had. They were people who lacked insurance coverage, and were using the new health care law to gain access to a plan they didn’t have before.

More here

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Mother Jones: About Half of Obamacare Exchange Enrollees Were Previously Uninsured

A new Kaiser survey shows that 57 percent of those who bought health insurance on Obamacare exchanges were previously uninsured. That’s about 4.5 million people who gained private insurance via the exchanges, and the vast majority of them say they would have remained uninsured if not for Obamacare. If this number is correct, it suggests that the number of newly insured by the end of the year will be a little higher than I’ve projected before—perhaps around 11-13 million.

More here

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Tara Culp-Ressler: Young Adults Got Healthier And More Financially Stable After Obamacare Was Implemented

Obamacare’s efforts to expand access to health insurance for young Americans may be helping them maintain better health and financial security, according to a large new study analyzing the impact of health care reform over the past four years. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Wednesday, found that young Americans are now reporting better physical and mental health and their out-of-pocket medical expenses have declined. “The health insurance that people are gaining seems to be doing what it is supposed to do,” Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, a pediatrician at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and the lead author of the study, told the Los Angeles Times. In 2010, Obamacare began allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until the age of 26. Since then, several surveys have found that the rate of uninsurance among that population has sharply declined. The JAMA study is one of the first to attempt to more broadly measure the impact of this aspect of the Affordable Care Act in the four years since it took effect.

In order to assess Obamacare’s impact, the researchers analyzed annual survey data collected between 2002 and 2011, before and after the coverage provision’s implementation. They tracked information from more than 60,000 people who fell into one of two different groups: young people between the ages of 19 to 25, who became newly eligible to remain dependents on their parents’ plans, and a control group of older adults between the ages of 26 to 34 who could not take advantage of that provision. Some significant differences emerged between the two populations. Among the younger group, there was a 6.2 percentage point increase in people reporting excellent physical health, as well as a 4 percentage point increase in people reporting excellent mental health. That group was also more likely to be insured, and experienced an 18 percent decline in their annual out-of-pocket medical costs.

More here

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“We’re The Best Chefs In The Game!”

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1. @RSherman_25 2. His Seahawk Sous-chefs 3. @FLOTUS Inside the frozen tundra of the @WhiteHouse kitchen → youtu.be/3PhV9DzkV-s #LetsCook

—
The First Lady (@FLOTUS) May 29, 2014

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We premiered @FLOTUS' new PSA this morning on TODAY with the @Seahawks! ICYMI check it out: on.today.com/1tTDyXj http://t.co/0y8Cpefvkc

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TODAY (@TODAYshow) May 29, 2014

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"We're the best chefs in the game!" —@RSherman_25 on why his salmon cakes and succotash are healthy—and delicious: youtu.be/3PhV9DzkV-s

—
The First Lady (@FLOTUS) May 29, 2014

a ghoulishly good evening

Original video here

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First Lady Michelle Obama waits with Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg in the Green Room of the White House before making remarks to the White House Historical Association, Oct. 31. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

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This is excellent:

GOPolitico: Anchors from nine local television affiliates will spend a day behind the scenes at the White House on Tuesday, meeting with top officials and getting brief individual interviews with President Obama before broadcasting evening newscasts from the South Lawn.

“Live from the White House” is a 21st-century update to the “radio row” tradition, which brought talk-show hosts to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to interview West Wing officials going from microphone to microphone during their drive-time shows.

The White House is building risers on the South Lawn for the evening newscasts, which are being spread out by time zones – three from the East, two from Central, one from Mountain and two from Pacific.

The anchors will get to ask White House press secretary Jay Carney a question during the daily press briefing; have lunch with senior adviser David Plouffe; interview a White House staffer from each station’s home market; get an on-camera tour with a White House curator; and tour the White House kitchen garden with Sam Kass, White House assistant chef and policy adviser.

The ringmaster is Josh Earnest, principal deputy White House press secretary, who said the mission is “to increase interest and raise the profile of the president’s efforts to strengthen the economy and create jobs in local communities across the country, and explain to Americans how their communities will benefit from the president’s agenda.”

The stations and their anchors will be from Portland, Ore. (KGW, NBC, Tracy Barr); Phoenix (KSAZ, Fox, John Hook); Denver (KUSA, NBC, Adele Arakawa); Minneapolis (WCCO, CBS, Amelia Santaniello); Houston (KTRK, ABC, Dave Ward); Omaha (KETV, ABC, Rob McCartney); Tampa (WTVT, Fox, Mark Wilson); Hampton Roads (WAVY, NBC, Tom Schaad); and Philadelphia (WPVI, ABC, Brian Taff). A 10th participant will be Nikole Killion, representing Hearst stations.

“The highlight of the day will be an opportunity to briefly interview the President from the Cabinet Room about the American Jobs Act,” Earnest said. “The anchors will also interview Cabinet secretaries … about how the bipartisan proposals included in the president’s American Jobs Act would create jobs in their community and put money in the pocket of every single American worker and small business owner.”

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Also tomorrow: The President has a ceremony at which he’ll sign a proclamation – which the White House will identify later tonight …  discusses legislative strategy with House Democratic Leaders ….. welcomes the crew of the final space shuttle mission to the Oval Office ….. The First Lady holds a Let’s Move event for children In New Orleans and does fundraisers in New Orleans and Houston ….  On Wednesday the President will push for $60 billion in new spending in an 11:25 am ET speech in front of the Key Bridge at Georgetown’s Waterfront Park in Washington, DC.

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AP: President Barack Obama is in excellent health and tobacco free, his doctor said Monday in the results of the president’s second physical exam since taking office.

In the two-page report released by the White House, Dr. Jeffrey C. Kuhlman also said Obama is physically active, eats a healthy diet, stays at a healthy weight, and on occasion drinks alcohol in moderation.

“The president is in excellent health and ‘fit for duty’,” Kuhlman wrote. “All clinical data indicate he will remain so for the duration of his presidency.”

….. The president is 6-foot-1 and weighs 181.3 pounds, according to the report. His blood pressure was recorded at 107 over 71, up from 105 over 62 in February 2010, but still well within the normal range.

…. The president also has “periodic physical therapy” to deal with recurrent upper right back pain, and he had benign skin tags removed from his neck.

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Eugene Robinson: Responding to his insurgent campaign’s first crisis, Herman Cain was upbeat and defiant. “To quote my chief of staff and all the people around this country, ‘Let Herman be Herman,’ ” he said Monday. “And Herman is gonna stay Herman.”

I was afraid of that.

Cain’s policy positions range from the ignorant to the unworkable to the just plain goofy – and yet he is running first or second in most polls for the Republican presidential nomination. He trumpets his utter lack of government experience as a selling point and boasts of not knowing foreign leaders’ names. If through some bizarre series of events he were actually elected president, the result would surely be an unmitigated disaster.

It’s not yet clear whether this remote possibility has been made even more unlikely by reports that Cain faced allegations of sexual harassment from two female employees when he headed the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

…. He needs to answer more questions about the alleged harassment …. I hope he does, because we’re running out of bandwidth. Cain’s famous “9-9-9” tax plan would be ruinous. He wants to privatize Social Security. He believes that “extensive foreign policy experience” is not something a president needs, since when he was named chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, “I had never made a pizza – but I learned.”

So many reasons to oppose this loopy candidacy, so little time.

Full article here

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😆 – thank you Marlz

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Nothing more to say

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hail to the chefs

AP: Encouraged by Michelle Obama’s campaign to reduce childhood obesity, the company that owns the Olive Garden, Red Lobster and four other popular restaurant chains is pledging to cut the calories and sodium in its meals and overhaul its kids’ fare. Darden Restaurants was unveiling the changes Thursday, with the first lady on hand to lend support.

The company will pledge to reduce the calories and sodium in all its meals by 10 percent over five years, and by 20 percent over 10 years… All kids’ meals will automatically come with a side of fruit or vegetables….

… Darden’s restaurants serve more than 400 million meals annually at more than 1,900 locations nationwide. Its four other restaurant chains are LongHorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52.

Darden’s promise is part of a trend by the restaurant industry to serve healthier food ….. White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes said Darden’s announcement amounts to a “full-throated endorsement” of the types of changes Mrs. Obama has asked the nation’s restaurant owners and operators to make.

In a National Restaurant Association survey of chefs, two-thirds of those working in the kitchens of family dining, fine dining and fast-food restaurants said their customers were ordering healthier items and paying more attention to nutritional content than they did two years ago.

…. Mrs. Obama participation in Thursday’s announcement, scheduled for an Olive Garden restaurant in the Washington suburb of Hyattsville, Md., will be her latest appearance with retailers and others in support of her anti-obesity efforts.

Full article here

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First Lady Michelle Obama announces a new partnership between Darden Restaurants and her Lets Move! Campaign at an Olive Garden Restaurant in Hayattsville, Maryland on September 15

‘healthy, hunger-free kids’

Detroit Free Press: All Detroit Public Schools students will receive free breakfast, lunch and snacks in an effort to remove the stigma of being from a low-income family.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture program chose Michigan as one of three states to participate in the pilot program. Charter schools and districts in Michigan can participate if at least 40% of students are eligible for public assistance.

“One of the primary goals of this program is to eliminate the stigma that students feel when they get a free lunch, as opposed to paying cash,” said DPS Chief Operating Officer Mark Schrupp. “Some students would skip important meals to avoid being identified as low-income. Now, all students will walk through a lunch line and not have to pay. Low-income students will not be easily identifiable and will be less likely to skip meals.”

Although not required to participate, parents are still being asked to fill out a survey that includes income analysis to ensure that children, schools and the district will continue to receive millions of dollars in benefits and resources from the state and federal governments, as well as private grants. Program funding dependent on the surveys includes tutoring, after-school programs, field trips, technology and equipment, DDOT bus cards, free college testing, enrichment activities and others.

The Community Eligibility Option is among the early reforms enacted under President Obama’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which authorized the USDA to select up to three states to test the option in School Year 2011-12. A main factor in choosing the finalists was the prevalence of high-poverty areas. The option will be offered to more states in successive years, and will be available to all states beginning School Year 2014-15.

Thank you BWD 😉

December 2010:

food for thought

First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks in the East Room of the White House about commitments from major food retailers to provide access to healthy, affordable food to millions of people in underserved communities across the country, July 20

food for thought

First lady Michelle Obama, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Surgeon General Regina Benjamin unveil a new food icon during an event at the Agriculture Department in Washington. The Agriculture Department unveiled the new food icon as a replacement for the food pyramid to help people to make healthier food choices.

More information here

healthy progress

First Lady Michelle Obama speaks at the Walmart announcement initiative to make food healthier and more affordable in Washington, January 20

The Guardian: Michelle Obama is to back plans by the world’s biggest retailer, Walmart, to provide its customers healthier and more affordable food options as part of a drive to cut US obesity levels. The first lady has made promoting healthy eating her key initiative in the White House. She will join Walmart representatives at a press conference to launch the initiative later today.

Walmart is planning to cut prices on thousands of its packaged foods, reduce fat and salt content, and cut the prices of fresh fruit and vegetables. The retailer is also expected to address the problem of “food deserts” – poor urban areas that do not have supermarkets. By 2015, the company hopes to have lowered sodium content by 25% and sugar by 10% in its processed goods, and to have phased out any remaining trans-fats.

Full article here

phew, healthy kids act put to bed