If youre feeling depressed today, youre in good company! January 24 is supposedly the most depressing day of the year.
According to Dr. Cliff Arnalls, a British psychologist with Cardiff University, its almost like clockwork. A number of factors coincide to make January 24th the perfect storm when it comes to feeling down. According to Dr.
The Eagle Ford spreads from Southwest Texas to the North East with pockets in the Dallas area. With a varying depth of 4,000 to 14,000 feet, the shale is most shallow in the northwest. The shallow areas have produced mostly oil while the deeper wells produce more natural gas.
Petrohawk Energy drilled the first productive well in the Eagle Ford in 2008 near Dallas. Since then, drilling permits have skyrocketed from 33 in 2008 to 1,229 in 2010. The Texas Railroad Commissioner said he believes that the shale could become the biggest economic driver in South Texas history. Full Post…
California’s “Medicare for all” bill goes before a key Senate committee today, the latest chapter in a long-running battle between universal health insurance supporters and business.
Senate Bill 810, introduced by San Francisco Democrat Sen. Mark Leno, would establish a California Healthcare Agency to run a single-payer health care system that would pool employer and employee payments. It would administer the money and negotiate rates with doctors, hospitals and other medical providers.
As a mammoth player in the industry, the thinking goes, a state-operated system would drive down medical costs and insurance premiums while improving access to care.
Social Insurance and Individual Freedom
By law, every German must have coverage for a prescribed benefit package. German employees and pensioners earning less than 49,500 euros ($66,350) per year (in 2011) are compulsorily insured under the statutory system.
Employees and pensioners above that threshold are free to opt out of the statutory system and purchase private, commercial coverage, but if they do, they cannot ever return to the statutory system unless they are paupers. The intent is to minimize gaming of the insurance system by individuals.
Its only January, yet Germany already is providing us one of the most important policy lessons of 2012.