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What the Food Industry Is Doing to Keep Americans Hooked on Junk

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By April M. Short / Alternet

With the exposure of troubling obesity rates, outrage over undisclosed genetically engineered wheat (and other) crops, the successful worldwide March Against Monsanto effort in May and statewide bans of GE crops that followed, the US citizenry is expanding its awareness and concern about food health. The junk food industry is responding by getting sneakier in its tactics to entice, exploit and beguile people into consuming its concoctions.

Here are a few of the most disturbing deceptions the industry is using to keep Americans hooked on its junk.   [Read more…]

Olive Garden, Red Lobster Restaurants’ CEO Fights for Healthcare Law Loophole in California

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By Doug Porter

The Orlando Sentinel reported this week on lobbying efforts by Clarence Otis, CEO for Darden Restaurants (Oliver Garden, Red Lobster) in opposition to proposed California legislation that would penalize companies with more than 500 employees for cutting workers’ hours to avoid paying for insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Assembly Bill 880 has national implications, as many states are expanding Medicaid eligibility in preparation for provisions of the Affordable Care Act that go into effect in 2014.  Large companies doing business in California would have to pay fines for each employee working more than eight hours a week who is enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program, called Medi-Cal.

In 2012, Darden was one of a number of companies that began experimenting with using more part-timers to keep potential health-care costs low. Following a public backlash, Darden later said it would not cut full-timers to part-time.

Organized labor has rallied supporters in California to urge legislators to pass AB 880, which seeking to close the so-called WalMart loophole, a provision of the ACA which does not impose a penalty on employers whose part-time workers enroll in Medi-Cal.
  [Read more…]

Dramatic Day of Debate and Decision on Medi-Cal Expansion and the State Budget

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By Anthony Wright/California Progress Report

Saturday, the California Legislature passed historic legislation to expand Medi-Cal to over one million Californians, as well as key budget trailer bills that restore many dental services to over three million Californians and other key improvements in Medi-Cal.

The bills the Legislature passed included the major Medi-Cal expansion bills (AB1x1/SB1x1), and budget bills such as the main health trailer bill that includes the restorations to dental and other benefits (SB77/AB82), the reallocation of county safety-net dollars (SB80/AB85), and another to reinstitute the Managed Care Organization (MCO) tax to help fund health in the budget (SB78/AB83).   [Read more…]

Texas Congressman: Masturbating Fetuses Prove Need for Abortion Ban

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by Adele M. Stan, Senior Washington Correspondent, RH Reality Check

As the House of Representatives gears up for Tuesday’s debate on HR 1797, a bill that would outlaw virtually all abortions 20 weeks post fertilization, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) argued in favor of banning abortions even earlier in pregnancy because, he said, male fetuses that age were already, shall we say, spanking the monkey.

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” said Burgess, a former OB/GYN. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”

  [Read more…]

Lawsuit Seeks to Shut Down Over The Line’s Boozin Beach Tournament; Preferential Treatment Claimed

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By Doug Porter

A non-profit group has filed suit against the City of San Diego, seeking to block approval of a special-event permit for the 60th Annual World Championship Over-The-Line Tournament (OTL), scheduled for two weekends in July.

FreePB.org, a group that in the past opposed the city’s alcohol ban on beaches, is saying that the permit approval process was illegal and therefore null and void until an environmental review is conducted.

Their opposition to the OTL tournament permit was triggered by the city’s rejection of a permit for a beach event called the Leisure Olympics. FreePB asked for many of the same concessions granted to OTL, including exemptions from San Diego’s beach booze ban that would allow for individuals to bring their own alcohol and purchase alcohol from vendors. They also vowed to impose exactly the same “safeguards” promised by OTL   [Read more…]

One Sharp Health Care Experience: Uncoordinated, Sub-Standard, and Ultimately Tragic

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The opinions and views expressed in the following article are solely those of the author and his subjects and do not reflect the opinions and views of the editors and staff of the San Diego Free Press.

by John Lawrence

This article is about the shoddy treatment of one woman by San Diego’s Sharp Health Care. Her name is Donna Lichtenfels. I interviewed her by phone on Saturday, May 18.

Donna was an employee of Sharp Health Care. She had gone to work there in the corporate office in August 2011, and, as a condition of her employment, she had to take Sharp Insurance called Sharp Health Plan. She had no choice in the matter.

Donna has worked in the healthcare field for over 30 years. She started working in the field for Blue Shield of California as a claims adjuster and in fraud and abuse. She has worked for physicians and major hospitals all over the US. She also has written for several websites  including OpEdNews, Winning Progressive and Daily Kos under her pen name, Jillian Barclay. She currently is too sick to write.

Last July after a mammogram and a biopsy, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.   [Read more…]

Odd Man Out? Newly Minted Congressional Candidate DeMaio Left Off San Diego GOP Endorsement List

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By Doug Porter

After getting trounced in the 2012 elections, San Diego Republicans, led by Tony Krvaric, vowed to get into the next election cycle early and often with support and endorsements.

Just this week they’ve announced a list of official party candidate endorsements for the 2014 elections.  The roll call for the already blessed includes mostly incumbent Congressional, State Senate and Assembly members, County and Local officials, along with contenders for ‘key seats’. Chris Cate, candidate for the open seat in San Diego’s officially non-partisan City Council District 6 race is among those receiving the party’s backing.

Noticeably absent from that list is Carl DeMaio, who’s bounced back from his fall defeat in the Mayoral contest with an aggressive campaign aimed at unseating Congressman Scott Peters in the 52nd District.   [Read more…]

Tony Baloney Says Meatless Mondays in San Diego Schools are Government Coercion

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By Doug Porter

Today’s round up of the news starts with public education. And one of the ways the English language gets mauled by those who have an aversion to the ‘public’ part of it.

The San Diego Unified School District Board of Trustees approved a proposal yesterday to incorporate meatless Mondays into its cafeteria menus for elementary and K-8 schools for the coming school year.

This isn’t some radical notion. The concept started a decade ago, as an initiative backed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  A report by the American Meat Institute in February 2011 found that 18% of American households now participate in Meatless Mondays. Oprah’s endorsed it. School districts in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland and Arlington, Virginia all participate.

Note that the SDUSD policy doesn’t prohibit bringing a baloney and ketchup sandwich (a high school favorite of mine) from home, so if a student wants animal protein they can have it.

INSIDE: Peters to Come Out Swinging for Obamacare, VOSD Jumps the Shark, GOP Defunds (Non-existant) Acorn (Again)   [Read more…]

Helping Homeless People Die Indoors

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By Christine Schanes

There is one certainty in life – we are all going to die. How and where we die are the only issues.

Will we die quickly or have a lingering death? We don’t know. However, most of us housed people are pretty sure we will die indoors in some health facility or in our own home. In fact, some of us buy insurance so that we are assured of the particular standard of care and facility we prefer in our last days.

However, what about unsheltered homeless people? They live outside and very likely will die outside.

How do I know this? Because over the past several years I have been involved in the end of life care for three homeless friends. I’ve written about Bobby Ojala who passed in late August 2012 and Susan Hunt who died twelve days later in early September. But, Karen Lee Creeden was the first homeless person I helped die indoors.   [Read more…]

No “Sticker Shock” for Covered California Health Care Consumers

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By Anthony Wright/California Progress Report

Covered California held a press conference last week announcing plans and rates that will be available to consumers starting January 1. This is one of the most significant steps yet toward being ready to serve consumers by the federally mandated 2014 deadline for health exchange availability under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. You can watch the press conference on the Covered California website, where you can also download a booklet with a description of all the plans that will be offered and sample rates.

Covered California – the state marketplace for individuals, families and small businesses buying health coverage, and a core component of California’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act – announced the health plan options and premiums that will be offered next year, starting in January 1, 2014. Covered California is one of the only exchanges in the country that took advantage of the opportunity to employ “active purchasing” – using its purchasing power to negotiate with insurance companies for plans on behalf of California consumers.   [Read more…]

The Cost of Staying Beautiful

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By Judi Curry

People that know me know that the only make-up I wear is mascara and eyeshadow. I probably wouldn’t wear that if my eyelashes weren’t blond – or is it gray now – and I like to highlight my blue eyes.  But recently I have started dating – bad word – “going out with” – younger men and after changing the lights in my bathroom have discovered wrinkles I never knew I had. (Of course, having cataract surgery has helped (?) my vision.)

About the time I discovered a “road map” on my face, I attended a women’s conference where I was given free samples of “remove the wrinkles” cream; had my eyebrows “plucked” using thread (?); had a facial that made my dry skin feel vibrant, etc.  Even though I am a creature of habit, I never used any of the samples daily because I, quite simply,  forgot.  I’m one of those people that apply lipstick by rote. If I were to look in a mirror while applying it I would find it all over my face.

I shouldn’t tell you, but, of course you know I will, that I failed “How to teach Art to Elementary School Students” twice. Yes. TWICE!   [Read more…]

The First Step Toward a Balanced Budget is Getting Republicans Out of Office

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By Doug Porter

Welcome to the Memorial Day Edition of the Starting Line.  Our lead story in today’s review of the news comes from Sunday’s New York Times, focusing on California’s budget problems.

Over the past decade or so this kind of reporting would have focused on state budget deficits and spending cuts and the internecine warfare going on in our State, which would inevitably include forecasts of bankruptcy, economic chaos and predictions that these problems were destined to spread to other states.

This time the story was different.    [Read more…]

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