EPA’s own studies found that tighter rules could save 12,000 lives a year. But EPA also estimated businesses would pay up to $90 million to make the air cleaner.

LA, Riverside lead California in smog days | 89.3 KPCC

At that cost, it seems obvious that these rules should be implemented.

That’s 7500$ per life. I’d say that’s worth it.

Rotavirus: The Killer Disease You’ve Never Heard Of Can Be Easily Stopped
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Rotavirus: The Killer Disease You’ve Never Heard Of Can Be Easily Stopped

Obamacare Provides Incentives for Employers to End Their Healthcare Plans

The McKinsey study found that 30% of employers overall will definitely or probably stop offering health insurance to their workers. However, among employers with a high awareness of the health-reform law, this proportion increases to more than 50%.

Many employees who will need to seek another source of coverage will take advantage of the health-insurance subsidies for families making as much as $88,000 a year. This will drive up the cost of ObamaCare.

In short the law creates incentives for companies and employees to begin relying on the government for healthcare, rather than purchasing healthcare from private insurance companies.

This is a big deal.

The average 56-year-old couple pays about $140,000 into the Medicare system over a lifetime and receives about $430,000 in benefits back. The program is also completely unaffordable. Medicare has unfinanced liabilities of more than $30 trillion.

Where Wisdom Lives - NYTimes.com

This is such a great article….more nuggets:

Some Democrats simply want to do nothing as Medicare careens toward bankruptcy. Last Sunday on “Face the Nation,” for example, Nancy Pelosi said, “I could never support any arrangement that reduced benefits for Medicare.”

 Democrats generally seek to concentrate decision-making and cost-control power in the hands of centralized experts.

Republicans at their best are skeptical about top-down decision-making. They are skeptical that centralized experts can accurately predict costs. In 1967, the House Ways and Means Committee projected that Medicare would cost $12 billion by 1990. It actually cost $110 billion. 

It’s sad that medicare is such a massive problem and yet politicians are not forthright about the size and scope of the problem.

It’s Pretty Ridiculous That Hemp Seed Can’t Be Grown in the US

The United States is the only industrialized nation where growing industrial hemp is illegal. And because of that we’re missing out on huge economic opportunity.

Retail sales of hemp products in the US were $400 million in 2010

Based on Canadian stats, an acre of hemp is worth $200-400; and acre of soy or corn just $50.

In addition to being an excellent source of protein, hemp seed have a “perfectly balanced 1:3 ratio of naturally-occurring omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids…unlike other seeds and nutritional oils, such as flax and fish fish oil, hemp seeds also contain super omega-3 stearidonic acid and super omega-6-gamma-linolenic acid in nutritionally relevant amounts that help to reduce inflammation and improve mental functioning, as well as make up for potentially impaired fatty acid metabolism.”

via @shelbysalinas

Republican Budget - misguided on science spending - ‘like saying I want to save money on your car, we’re not going to change the oil’

Gingrich said that Ryan’s intention to reduce science funding was “essentially like saying I want to save money on your car, we’re not going to change the oil. And for about a year I can get away with it. And then the engine will freeze up and we’ll have to replace your engine. But if I have a CBO that scores oil but doesn’t score engines, I can annually replace the engine for free, because it won’t count as a budget cost.”

Gingrich cited estimates that federal spending alone to treat Alzheimer’s would be $20 trillion between now and 2050, or one and a half times the current federal debt. “Now you would think that a serious country with serious leaders would look at a $20 trillion cost center, which by the way implies an enormous amount of human pain,” Gingrich said, “and yet, there is no serious conversation.”

To support his position of increased investment in science, Gingrich cited the approximate $10 billion expense of AIDS research saving $1.4 trillion in government expense.

The argument above is persuasive and concise. If we’re going to spend 20 trillion treating Alzheimers we might as well spend 10 or 20 billion funding research that leads to a cure - and perhaps a lot more than that.

This makes me happy. One thing I really love about Obama is that he’s pro-science. Unfortunately Obama rarely has the guts to stand up for science like this. Obama, you can do better. As for Gingrich I often disagree with him, but I’m happy that two prominent politicians who often oppose each other see the light on this. It’s kind of important.