Uber’s new insurance plan won’t do much to protect its injured workers; investigation finds 1,000 additional black lung cases in Appalachia; Washington state welcomes a new paid family leave law; and St. Louis workers face a pay cut after state legislators overturn the city’s minimum wage hike.
Five-part series investigates worker safety and lax accountability at nuclear facilities; workers at port trucking companies in Southern California report conditions mirroring indentured servitude; seventh journalist murdered in Mexico since beginning of 2017; and a new farmworkers union is born in Washington.
Affordable Care Act
GOP health care bills would cripple public health opioid response: ‘We’d essentially be putting up the white flag’
In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, nearly 200 people have died from opioid-related overdoses in the first five months of this year. That means that this one U.S. county is on pace to lose more than 700 people to fatal overdoses by the end of 2017.
I heard a few interesting things when I tuned in to listen to Labor Secretary Acosta testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Affordable Care Act
We’re close to universal insurance coverage for kids. The GOP health care bills would reverse that.
The House and Senate health care bills are overflowing with proposals that will strip Americans of access to quality, affordable health care. But perhaps the cruelest part is what they do to children — the most vulnerable and powerless among us. Children can’t show up at the ballot box to protect their health and so it truly is up to the rest of us.
The first six months of the Trump administration nine coal miners have been fatally injured on the job. That’s one more than all of 2016.
Affordable Care Act
Senate health care bill won’t improve the nation’s health, but it will make rich people richer
This is the harsh reality of the Senate health care bill: it provides tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, while taking away access to timely medical care from the poorest, most vulnerable Americans. You’ve probably been hearing this point a lot about the GOP’s repeal-and-replace efforts, and it’s easy to relegate it to partisan hyperbole. […]
The Union of Concerned Scientists filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit challenging the President’s order that agencies delete two regulations for every one it plans to propose.
Indonesian workers who make Ivanka Trump’s clothing line report poverty wages and unjust working conditions; Colorado lawmakers adopt law providing workers’ comp for injured workers; Trump administration rescinds more Obama-era labor rules; and Walmart workers report being punished for taking sick leave.
Affordable Care Act
Zika remains a serious threat. Federal funding cuts will make the problem even worse.
Last year’s emergency Zika funding is about to run out and there’s no new money in the pipeline. It’s emblematic of the kind of short-term, reactive policymaking that public health officials have been warning us about for years. Now, as we head into summer, public health again faces a dangerous, highly complex threat along with an enormous funding gap.