Health bill a huge victory for young adults
The health care bill provides young adults with the most benefits.
Adults 19 through 29 currently make up a third of America’s uninsured. Because of the health care bill’s expansion of Medicaid, 9 million young Americans will now have access to health care. An additional 2 million young adults will continue to be insured under their parents insurance due to the cut off age being extended two years.
Young adults affected with pre-existing conditions will no longer be denied coverage or have their coverage dropped due to the passage of Sunday’s bill. Tax credits will help millions more young Americans afford coverage for themselves.
The much-underreported Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act was passed has a part of the health care package. The Act provides the more help for students and their families paying for college than ever before. Over the next 10 year $36 million will be invested in the Pell Grant program allowing 500,000 students to continue to receive aid. Billions of dollars will also be invested in community colleges.
This article was published at CNN.com and can be found at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/23/williams.healthcare.young/index.html
Could human life be put on hold?
It may soon be possible to put humans into a state of suspended animation for a period of time and then return them to normal.
Scientist Mark Roth and his colleagues have found way to lower some animals’ metabolism enough to no longer show signs of life. Breath and heartbeat have been stopped with small amounts of hydrogen sulfide in animals such as frogs and zebra fish. Animals have been returned to normal up to 24 hours later. Roth discusses the medical possibilities of suspending humans for small periods of time.
This article was published at CNN.com and can be found at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/23/roth.suspended.animation/index.html
In China, Bing's turn to show some spine
Since Google stopped censoring its search engine in China on Monday, will Microsoft’s Bing also make a strong stance against China’s ethics violations?
On Monday, Google moved its service to Hong Kong, a city that doesn’t require censorship. The same day they stopped censoring material throughout China. Since this time China has begun to block much of Google’s content, thus leaving a large hole in the Chinese search engine industry (say that five times fast).
Before Monday Google controlled about 35 percent of the market. Google’s estimated 140 million users now have a choice between Baidu, China’s largest domestic search engine, and Bing that currently controls only about one percent of the market.
Microsoft has indicated that it intends to continue to operate under Chinese laws. They insist that Microsoft continually tries to promote freedom of speech and Internet privacy wherever they operate. But the question remains-- does a company stand up to China’s questionable human rights policy or does it continue to exploit China’s 400 million Internet users? Google did the right thing in my mind.
This article was published at CNN.com and can be found at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/24/mackinnon.google.china/index.html
