Is it me, or does Barbara Boxer look 20 years younger?

Retirement definitely agrees with her.

Oregon voters approve new taxes for Medicaid costs

PORTLAND — Oregon approved taxes on hospitals, health insurers and managed care companies in an unusual special election Tuesday that asked voters — and not lawmakers — how to pay for Medicaid costs that now include coverage of hundreds of thousands of low-income residents added to the program's rolls under the Affordable Care Act.

The single-issue election drew national attention to this progressive state, which aggressively expanded its Medicaid rolls under President Barack Obama's health care reforms. Oregon now has one of the lowest rates of uninsured residents in the nation at 5 percent. About 1 million Oregonians — 25 percent — now receive health care coverage from Medicaid.

Maine voters recently went to polls to approve the expansion of their Medicaid program, but experts said Oregon was the first state to take the issue of funding that expansion directly to voters.

The taxes are a short-term fix for health care funding that will generate between $210 million and $320 million in revenue over two years.


http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/elections/state/oregon-approves-new-taxes-for-medicaid-costs/article_31ad7897-f49e-5fb2-8c6b-436ba2695075.html

SF supervisors name Mark Farrell interim mayor

San Francisco has a new interim mayor: moderate Supervisor Mark Farrell.

The vote to appoint Farrell — led, in a twist, by the board’s progressives — happened twice, after Supervisor Katy Tang withdrew her initial vote of support, saying she had been caught up in the moment.

In the end, Farrell carried the vote 6-3, with Supervisors Malia Cohen, Ahsha Safai and Tang dissenting. It came amid shouts and jeers by supporters of acting Mayor London Breed.

“Shame on you!” shouted spectators, some of whom had waited through hours of public comment before the tense debate over who should fill former Mayor Ed Lee’s term until the June 5 election. Lee died on Dec. 12, at which point Breed became acting mayor.

Scores of residents showed up for the public comment, which lasted well into the evening, many to support Breed. Some accused the board of racism and sexism — and even of reviving the Jim Crow policies of the 1950s and 1960s — for moving to replace Breed, an African American woman, with an interim mayor.


http://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/It-s-not-Columbus-Day-in-SF-anymore-Supes-12519438.php?utm_campaign=twitter-premium&utm_source=CMS%20Sharing%20Button&utm_medium=social

Trump administration expands access to opioid medication

More healthcare workers can prescribe an opioid medication under a U.S. measure announced on Tuesday that expands treatment options for rural residents with limited access to physicians.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said in a statement it would allow nurses and physician assistants to prescribe buprenorphine for those with an opioid addiction. Previously, only physicians could prescribe the medication.

It cited a 2017 study published by the National Rural Health Association that found 53 percent of rural counties had no physician able to prescribe buprenorphine.

The opioid crisis is a leading cause of death in the United States, killing more than 42,000 people in 2016, the highest death toll of any year on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In October, Trump declared the crisis a public health emergency, which redirected federal resources and loosened regulations to combat opioid abuse.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-administration-expands-access-to-opioid-medication/ar-AAv4UnV?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

Schumer Withdraws Offer for Funding Border Wall

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “is taking his big spending boost for Donald Trump’s border wall off the table,” Politico reports.

“The Senate minority leader, through an aide, informed the White House on Monday that he was retracting the offer he made last week to give Trump well north of the $1.6 billion in wall funding Trump had asked for this year, according to two Democrats. And now they say Trump will simply not get a better deal than that on his signature campaign promise.”

https://politicalwire.com/2018/01/23/schumer-withdraws-offer-funding-border-wall/

FL-27: Donna Shalala Might Run for Congress

Former University of Miami president Donna Shalala “might be eying a bid for Florida’s 27th Congressional District, where nine Democrats are scrapping to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in a seat that Hillary Clinton almost won by almost 20 points,” Politico reports.

“If Shalala runs, she’s a likely frontrunner who could clear some of the field.”


https://politicalwire.com/2018/01/23/donna-shalala-might-run-congress/

Florida voters will be able to restore voting rights to over a million former felons in November

Florida voters will have a chance to restore voting rights to more than 1 million former felons through a ballot initiative this November.

The proposed constitutional amendment on Tuesday reached the 766,200 petition signatures required to go on the ballot. The Voting Restoration Amendment, which the state is expected to certify soon, would automatically restore rights to citizens convicted of most non-violent crimes who have completed their prison sentence, parole, and probation. Only those convicted of murder or felony sexual offense would be excluded.

If approved with 60 percent of the vote in November, the amendment has the potential to reshape electoral politics in Florida, a critical swing state, and set the example for other states grappling with whether to relax strict laws prohibiting people with criminal convictions from voting. Florida currently has one of the strictest felon disenfranchisement laws in the country — only Florida, Kentucky, Virginia, and Iowa permanently bar those with felony convictions from voting for life, unless they seek clemency. In total, roughly 1.6 million Florida citizens — about one in four African Americans — are barred from casting a ballot.

Sheena Meade, organizing director for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition which led the initiative to gather more than a million signatures, told ThinkProgress that getting the amendment certified is a “huge accomplishment for the people of Florida.”


https://thinkprogress.org/florida-ballot-voting-8b8decc2c7dd/

Something good came out of today whether you accept it or not

A two-week CR passed Congress that reauthorized the CHIP program for 9 million kids. And even if don’t think they were worth it, we just took them off the Republicans’ hostage list when go at this again in Feb. If that’s not something then I don’t know what to tell you.

Trumps voter fraud commission asked Texas for list of Latinos

This mess with DACA could have all been avoided in the first place

If Hillary had been elected President.