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Working for Healthcare-NOW

Healthcare-NOW

I was recently hired by Healthcare-NOW to update their website–I know, it needs a ton of work. If the site isn’t confusing enough, you should see the code. Couple that with my non-profit endeavor, City Prosper, and I’m well on my way to becoming a real writer.

I’m thrilled to start working with Healthcare-NOW because I believe a single-payer health care system is far superior to our current, failed private health care system. Not only is single-payer humane, but it’s far cheaper than our current system, despite what the right would have us believe.

I don’t want to get into too many statistics, but I should mention that we pay twice as much, per-capita, than Germany (which has universal health care) does–$6,102 per capita vs. $3,005 per capita–and receive poorer service. Also, we leave about 45 million people without any insurance, causing about 22,000 needless deaths a year.

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Poverty Facts Released

The Urban Institute recently released a report called “Poverty Facts, 2004.”

According to the report:

In 2004, 36.6 million people—or 12.6 percent of the U.S. population—were poor. The “poverty gap”—the amount of additional income required to remove all Americans from poverty—was $105.6 billion. Poverty rates were highest for African Americans, Hispanics, women, and persons under 25. Without government benefits, 61 million people would be poor. Social Security and other social insurance programs remove 21 million people from poverty. Means tested programs remove 3 million people from poverty. If food and housing assistance were counted as income for poverty purposes, an additional 7.6 million people would be counted as not poor.

Full report: Poverty Facts, 2004

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Portland Considered Most Bicycle-Friendly City in North America

Portland has become an urban planner’s dream lately–with their urban growth boundary and celebrated environmental planning.

Now Portland’s considered North America’s most bicycle-friendly city.

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, recently interviewed Scott Bricker, Executive Director of Portland’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance and Elly Blue, a Portland-based transportation activist about what makes Portland so bicycle friendly.

Amy’s guests were there to promote the Towards Carfree Cities Conference coming up in June.

Interview: Portland Considered Most Bicycle-Friendly City in North America
Above image from www.StreetsBlog.org.