Kaiser Health Reform Quiz results
BEFORE READING MY RESULTS BELOW
Please take the quiz yourself at http://healthreform.kff.org/quizzes/health-reform-quiz.aspx
Brandon's Health Reform Quiz results
|
QUESTION |
CORRECT RESPONSE |
% OF AMERICANS ANSWERING CORRECTLY |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Will the health reform law require nearly all Americans to have health insurance starting in 2014 or else pay a fine? | Yes, the law will do this. You answered this correctly.
Yes. Starting in 2014, most U.S. citizens and legal residents will be required to obtain health coverage, or pay a penalty. Some exemptions will be granted, for example, for those with religious objections or where insurance would cost more than 8% of their income. |
64% |
| 2. Will the health reform law allow a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare? | No, the law will not do this. You answered this correctly.
No. No such panels exist. While early versions of the law did contain provisions that would allow Medicare to reimburse physicians for voluntary discussions with patients about end-of-life planning, these provisions were dropped from the final legislation. |
45% |
| 3. Will the health reform law cut benefits that were previously provided to all people on Medicare? | No, the law will not do this. You answered this correctly.
No. The law reduces payments to the privately administered Medicare Advantage plans, but they will still be required to provide all benefits that are covered by traditional Medicare. |
40% |
| 4. Will the health reform law expand the existing Medicaid program to cover low-income, uninsured adults regardless of whether they have children? | Yes, the law will do this. You answered this correctly.
Yes. Medicaid will be expanded to cover nearly all individuals under age 65 with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level ($14,400 for an individual or $29,300 for a family of four in 2010). |
62% |
| 5. Will the health reform law provide financial help to low and moderate income Americans who don't get insurance through their jobs to help them purchase coverage? | Yes, the law will do this. You answered this correctly.
Yes. Individuals without access to affordable coverage who purchase coverage through the new insurance Exchanges and have incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty level will be eligible for premium tax credits based on their income. |
72% |
| 6. Will the health reform law prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of a person's medical history or health condition? | Yes, the law will do this. You answered this correctly.
Yes. Starting in 2014, all health insurers will be required to sell coverage to everyone who applies, regardless of their medical history or health status. |
67% |
| 7. Will the health reform law require all businesses, even the smallest ones, to provide health insurance for their employees? | No, the law will not do this. You answered this correctly.
No. The law does not require employers to provide health benefits. However, it does impose penalties, in some cases, on larger employers (those with 50 or more workers) that do not provide insurance to their workers or that provide coverage that is unaffordable. |
25% |
| 8. Will the health reform law provide tax credits to small businesses that offer coverage to their employees? | Yes, the law will do this. You answered this correctly.
Yes. Beginning in 2010, business with fewer than 25 full time equivalent employees and average annual wages of less than $50,000 that pay at least half of the cost of health insurance for their employees are eligible for a tax credit. |
65% |
| 9. Will the health reform law create a new government run insurance plan to be offered along with private plans? | No, the law will not do this. You answered this correctly.
No. The law does not create a new government-run health insurance plan. The existing Medicaid program will be expanded to cover more low-income people, government regulation of the health insurance industry will be increased, and tax credits will be provided to make private health insurance more affordable for people. |
27% |
| 10. Will the health reform law allow undocumented immigrants to receive financial help from the government to buy health insurance? | No, the law will not do this. You answered this correctly.
No. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive financial help from the government to buy health insurance, nor are they eligible for Medicaid or to purchase insurance with their own money in the new Exchanges. |
42% |
Odette to be PSR Dir Field Ed Context Learn
Before concluding this communion message, I need to make an announcement.
This is a most difficult one for me to make.
I have been invited to join the faculty of Pacific School of Religion as Director of Field Education and Contextual Learning. After a great deal of anguished prayer and deep discernment on my own and with Jim, I have decided to accept the invitation. I am confident by God's grace that I am led to do so. This means that I will be leaving as pastor of Epworth United Methodist Church as of August 1st.
I know this may be shocking. I have four important things I need to say to you.
First of all, I had assumed I would continue as pastor of this amazing congregation for years to come. The Bishop and our District Superintendent, Renae Extrum-Fernandez, did not initiate nor advocate for this move in any way.
Secondly, I was not seeking to leave. Late Spring PSR completed an internal search and then a national search and then approached me. They knew of my interest and work in founding the contextual education program twelve years ago. I agreed to meet with the Committee. The President of PSR, Riess Potterveld offered me the position.
This has been a extremely difficult and wrenching decision for me. I love this community and I love being in ministry with you...
But this new position will bring together my years in higher education, mentoring, teaching, and pastoral ministry. It will also be a season to work with faculty here in Berkeley to help form and transform leadership for church and society.
I have served eight years as your pastor. I am continually amazed by your gifts and growth and discipleship. My heart is here.
I ask your forgiveness, especially staff, and leaders, for not speaking to you personally before making this announcement. I could not. It was absolutely in the best interest of Epworth. I also ask your forgiveness for not being a part of the pastoral relationships and projects that will go forward without me.
Finally, I want to say a word about the path ahead.
Our Superintendent knows the importance of appointing the best pastoral leadership for the Epworth congregation. She met with the Pastoral Staff Parish Relations Committee this morning when they were informed of my decision so they could immediately begin the consultative process. PSPRC: Chairperson, Becky Wheat (met with her on Thursday); Molly Brostrom; Tracy Emayan; Glenn Eagleson; Susan Harrison; Vivian Chavez; Anna Martinez. Lay leaders, Don Arreola-Burl and John Schweitzer will also be involved.
The caliber and character of your former pastors, including Dave Slorpe, Bill Dew, Nobu Hanaoka, Jim Lockwood-Stewart, and Ron Parker, gives me comfort in my grief at leaving you. I am also confident that the ministers of this congregation, you, will continue to show up for each other, step up, and step out on faith to welcome everyone to the love of God and challenge everyone to live out their ministry in the world.
Immediately following worship, I will send this announcement out by email and U.S. mail to the full membership. Again, I ask forgiveness for the suddenness of this word. In fact, this morning I made copies of this statement that will be available downstairs- so that if you stopped listening at any part of this announcement, you can take one with you.
My last Sunday will be July 29th. I will preach three of the next four weeks, and in the coming days and weeks I will make myself as available as possible for conversations.
Sisters and brothers, let's pray for each other without ceasing.
Holy communion embodies the reality that the Body of Christ is found in community. If our connection is for one moment, for eight years, for decades, "Eternity is going on all the time." Thanks be to God.
Pastor Odette Lockwood-Stewart
http://www.psr.edu/job-posting/director-field-education-and-contextual-learning
http://www.psr.edu/contextual-learning
From the pulpit and then via Email - July 1, 2012
How a solid beating can make you less risk averse
Click here for the saga of my encounter with a tree at the hands, sorry, hooves of a horse named O.J. at the J and P Ranch.
Brandon WilliamsCraig Teaching Videos
NEW FEATURE
At http://teaching.culturesmith.com my public offerings on video are arriving and available in one place! Please have a look, share it with friends, and comment. Special additional content is available for those who subscribe at Culturesmith.com.
20120513+BW+Recommendations
Lisa's Mother's Day card:
Rainbow pooping, virgin schlepping, singularly horny white chargers..not so much
For you, sparkling in flight, with darkness to glitter before, wingéd, enwrapped with gold...
Rosie ran her fingers over the card front, looked up at me, and said with a smile "Mmmmmamama."
"You said it," I said.
Smart kid.
20120510+BW+Recommendations
At the beginning of May 2010, Epworth UMC Berkeley's most excellent Pastor, Odette Lockwood-Stewart wrote
"I have only just begun to reflect on rather than react to General Conference and the amazing ways the Spirit is at work in this global human connection. On May 20th Epworth's adult study will be dedicated to our reflections and responses. This is a paradoxically powerful time to baptize and to receive new members at Epworth. Resistance is the secret of joy. Grace and peace. Odette"
It is "Resistance is the secret of joy" that caught my eye. What could she mean?
Linda Haverty Rugg responded on Facebook:
I knew an elderly lady in Germany who had lived through two World Wars and imprisonment of her sons in concentration camps for refusal to serve in the military. She had herself been a resister under Nazism and later under Soviet Bloc rule in East Germany. She said, "We have been lucky! We have always been able to afford resistance." That is "Wir haben uns Widerstand immer leisten können." I've always thought that this was one of the most profound things anyone ever said to me.
20120508+BW+Recommendations
To Violent encounters with random strangers…
http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.org/profiles/blog/show?id=780588%3ABlogPost%3A730205&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_post
I responded:
I was once on a BART train on my way from San Francisco back to Berkeley when two young men began a shouting/shoving match right over the seat of a tiny older woman dressed head-to-toe in the all-black of the archetypal Eastern European Grandmother. I'd have ignored them like everyone else, as best I could, if she hadn't looked so panicked and horrified. Not knowing what to do precisely, but sure I didn't want her to get squashed, I stood up and stepped just out of arm's length. I began nodding to each in turn, as though I were listening to them carefully and watching with great interest. One turned and said "What are YOU looking at?" To which I replied that I didn't know, which was true, and kept giving them my full attention. The speaker yelled an expletive at me and broke away to storm into an adjacent car. I looked at the other guy, who shrugged and went back to what apparently had been his seat. Could I have been attacked? I suppose so, but not without witnesses and potential legal consequences. If that had been my grandmother sitting there, now with a look of profound gratitude on her face, I would have wanted somebody to do something.
When you ask the questions above (What would you do/say? How would you respond? How can we step in to de-escalate violent confrontations with strangers in our lives? Is avoidance the best policy?), the one that remains unaddressed by my story is the question of avoidance being best, which seems to me only possible to answer in retrospect. In advance, all we can do is prepare ourselves to be ready to make the decision to engage or not. For me, that preparation has involved practicing what I now call Martial Nonviolence. As we see frequently on PCDN (Peace and Collaborative Development Network), peace has more to do with "conflict done well" than avoided, which is why I use that phrase on my invitations to students and colleagues to learn martial arts (my choice is aikido) to begin dealing with the fear associated with physical conflict, and improvisation to bring imaginative options into verbal conflict, and some process art (group process design and facilitation) to bring that imagination into groups. In short, peace requires practice. If we don't practice some specific basics, then we can't expect to have tools at hand when the opportunity to call for peace or for justice presents itself.
Original post here with comments: http://apeaceofconflict.com/2012/05/08/violent-encounters-with-random-strangers-14/
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20120503+BW+Recommendations
A spouse who calls
reaching out to both suffer with and love you
A child who smiles
lighting up the shadowy depths of history with the promise of a future with beauty in
A dog who watches
his mind on welcoming trees nearby, his body curled on the feet of your soul
A life worth living
The Renaissance School - Peace Practices staff training 20120223 video introduction
This is an introduction to Peace Practices, which takes my Martial Nonviolence method and puts it into a curriculum for a specific organization, in this case The Renaissance School, a particularly well regarded Montessori community in Oakland, California. Martial Nonviolence, or MNv, begins with aikido movement and themes, which lead to non-destructive self-defense in physical conflict, and then takes the student through theater improvisation techniques, so that they are more comfortable with non-violent verbal interactions while under pressure and can deal with bullying and other forms of hostility. More advanced practitioners are invited to learn the third phase, which involves facilitating groups such that responsible citizenship is possible, which is to say that everybody involved gets what they need and a chance at what they really want.
