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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (751094)	11/4/2013 12:33:56 AM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578141

inordinate increase in college tuition takes the cake

To: i-node who wrote (751094)	11/4/2013 11:11:27 AM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578141

Texas Denies Former House Speaker a Voter ID JIM WRIGHT WILL BE ABLE TO VOTE, SAYS HE WORRIES ABOUT OTHERS By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff newser.com Posted Nov 4, 2013 10:00 AM CST (NEWSER) – Texas' 2011 voter ID law has proved a hurdle for a longtime national political figure. Jim Wright, who briefly served as speaker of the US House in the late '80s, realized his expired driver's license and university faculty ID weren't enough to validate his ballot—so he headed to a state Department of Public Safety Office to get a new voter ID. But officials there said no. "Nobody was ugly to us, but they insisted that they wouldn’t give me an ID," Wright said. So he'll have to go back today with his birth certificate, the Star-Telegram reports. "From my youth, I have tried to expand the elections," said Wright, who was in Congress from 1955 to 1989. "I pushed to abolish the poll tax. I was the first to come out for lowering the voting age to 18." Now he's concerned about the new laws. "I earnestly hope these unduly stringent requirements on voters won’t dramatically reduce the number of people who vote," he notes. But "I think they will reduce the number to some extent." Those who don't have the correct IDs can still cast a ballot tomorrow, officials say; they'll then have six days to present identification to get the vote counted.

To: i-node who wrote (751094)	11/4/2013 12:36:25 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1578141

Special Investigation: How Insurers Are Hiding Obamacare Benefits From Customers Donna received the letter canceling her insurance plan on Sept. 16. Her insurance company, LifeWise of Washington, told her that they’d identified a new plan for her. If she did nothing, she’d be covered. A 56-year-old Seattle resident with a 57-year-old husband and 15-year-old daughter, Donna had been looking forward to the savings that the Affordable Care Act had to offer. But that’s not what she found. Instead, she’d be paying an additional $300 a month for coverage. The letter made no mention of the health insurance marketplace that would soon open in Washington, where she could shop for competitive plans, and only an oblique reference to financial help that she might qualify for, if she made the effort to call and find out. Otherwise, she’d be automatically rolled over to a new plan — and, as the letter said, “If you’re happy with this plan, do nothing.” If Donna had done nothing, she would have ended up spending about $1,000 more a month for insurance than she will now that she went to the marketplace, picked the best plan for her family and accessed tax credits at the heart of the health care reform law. "The info that we were sent by LifeWise was totally bogus. Why the heck did they try to screw us?" Donna said. "People who are afraid of the ACA should be much more afraid of the insurance companies who will exploit their fear and end up overcharging them." Donna is not alone. Across the country, insurance companies have sent misleading letters to consumers, trying to lock them into the companies’ own, sometimes more expensive health insurance plans rather than let them shop for insurance and tax credits on the Obamacare marketplaces — which could lead to people like Donna spending thousands more for insurance than the law intended. In some cases, mentions of the marketplace in those letters are relegated to a mere footnote, which can be easily overlooked. The extreme lengths to which some insurance companies are going to hold on to existing customers at higher price, as the Affordable Care Act fundamentally re-orders the individual insurance market, has caught the attention of state insurance regulators. [read more] talkingpointsmemo.com