I think I've always known this. I remember watching the early seasons of "The Waltons" and my Dad, who remembered the Great Depression, refusing to watch. "It's a lie," he'd say.  "They want to show you this family closing ranks and prospering despite their poverty, but the reality is that being poor tears families apart." Late I encountered Ruby Payne's work on the culture of poverty, and it reinforced what my Dad had said; everything I saw there matched to everything I saw in the real world. But now it turns out that there may be measurable cognitive deficit associated with being in poverty. Here's what a Princeton study recently published in Science shows : In a series of experiments, the researchers found that pressing financial concerns had an immediate impact on the ability of low-income individuals to perform on common cognitive and logic tests. On average, a person preoccupied with money problems exhibited a drop i...

From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette : Highmark Inc. has not accumulated "excess profits" in violation of state law, and its executives make a "reasonable" salary, according to a judge's dismissal of a lawsuit that had been filed against the insurer.   The state's largest health insurer was sued two years ago by Philadelphians Herman Wooden and Thomas Logan, both former nonvoting "lay" members of a since-disbanded Highmark advisory committee serving the company's  board of directors .   Both of the plaintiffs argued that the $1.2 billion in profits that Pittsburgh-based Highmark had earned from 2005 to 2009 was excessive.   This month, Philadelphia Court of  Common Pleas Judge  Patricia McInerney also rejected arguments that Highmark shouldn't be able to reinvest money in its  for-profit  subsidiaries and that the company awarded improper bonuses to its executives.   In an Aug. 8 order, the judge wrote that the "plaintiffs' ...

... because US military intervention ALWAYS makes it better ...

Seriously?  Yes. Because this issue is big enough, and far enough beyond partisanship, that Senators Carper and Coons, as well as Congressman Carney, need direction from us. And if they don't follow those directions, there need to be consequences. First, here is the most sane thing I have read on the subject, by my friend Jess McVay (and you could have voted for him for Governor last year on the Libertarian ticket): I'm not in a position to know all the facts about Syria. Neither are you. None of the players can be trusted, including (especially?) the US government. So what do you do? Read as much as you can. Read all sides. Learn from all of it. Trust none of it. Then make up your own mind. No one's claims deserve the benefit of the doubt. No one deserves the expectation that we defer to their experience or their more seasoned judgement. It is particularly important to stay grounded in that understanding of just how little we can trust our own government.  We know...

Apologies to those accustomed to regular reading here (both of you). Blogging has been light for the past week because real life keeps intervening. The semester started at DSU on Monday, and the older I get the more that first week kicks my ass. But there are also elements of personal activism outside the blogosphere that intervene to keep me away from this keyboard. Several I can mention: 1.  I am working with Rep. Paul Baumbach and the Certified Midwives of Delaware on an informal task force that seeks to revise the criminalized situation of midwives and home birth created by the passage of HB 194 last session. 2.  I am not just writing about the issue of Highmark in Delaware, but am also engaged in working with the local Medical Aid Units to help keep them in business against what appears to be a State-supported (or at least State-condoned) attempt to create a virtual monopoly for Highmark and MedExpress. 3.  I have been representing special needs childre...

I have, of course, been going into great detail to explain t he relationship between Highmark and MedExpress , and to lay out what appears to be the Highmark plan for establishing a monopoly on health insurance and even health care in Delaware . This is apparently worrisome to some of the leaders of Highmark Delaware, who appear to have become new followers of this blog, like President/CEO Timothy Constantine and (this title is not only a mouthful but quite unintentionally revealing) Senior Vice President for Provider Strategy and Integration Paul Kaplan . Well, I always welcome new readers, even aggrieved new readers. It is important right now to step back and take an even broader look at the overall Highmark empire, to include specifically the parts of that empire that impinge on Delaware. I will warn you at the outset that this is a long, LONG post, but if you actually care about free-market competition, monopolistic business practices, or government corruption, you need to...