Links for health - spiritual, financial, and reproductive

"I thought it was disposable" isn't going to cut it.
In NY Times (via Fred Clark here):

"I don't think God is going to ask us how he created the earth, but he will ask us what we did with what he created."

Powerful post from Obsidian Wings, Hatred Is A Poison

Fred Clark on the bankruptcy bill, 30% annual interest, and the sin of usury

From comments on this post:

The people most likely to be adversely affected by the bankrutpcy bill are the middle class risk takers who start new businesses. The very people who are at the heart of the Republican rank and file.(*)

"In a letter to Congress two weeks ago, 104 bankruptcy law professors predicted that "the deepest hardship" would "be felt in the heartland," where the filing rates are highest - Utah, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi and Idaho" ( *)

"Credit card companies know when every politician in Washington ever visited a prostitute, strip club, or "massage" establishment."(*)

When the housing bubble bursts, or interest rates rise, or the dollar declines, or unemployment ticks up (pick one or more), there will be a cascade effect resulting in a massive number of personal bankruptcy filings. And this could affect the stability of the banking industry. This is already known to the lenders and in certain government circles, This bill is an effort to protect 'US financial institutions' and thereby the US economic system from this possible catastrophe.(*)

"As others have said, it's time to stop using consumer credit."(*)

"MBNA loaned Jim Moran (D-Va) over $400K as a personal debt-consolidation loan a week before he co-sponsored an earlier version of the bill." (*, *)

Rivka reporting her experiences as a credit card debtor -

...Eventually, we fell behind in our bill payments. At that point we were flooded by new credit card offers, far more than ever before or since, all of them bearing stratospheric interest rates and enormous penalties for late payments. Five or six offers a day. We were terrible credit risks at that point, and the credit card companies were falling all over themselves to sign us up for more debt.

And quoting from the LA Times series on increased income instability:

In the early 1970s, the inflation-adjusted incomes of most families in the middle of the economic spectrum bobbed up and down no more than about $6,500 a year...These days, those fluctuations have nearly doubled...

The recent news that medical bills make up half of bankruptcies -

Most of those seeking court protection from creditors had health insurance, with more than three-quarters reporting they had coverage at the start of the illness that triggered bankruptcy. The study said 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy, with illness frequently leading to the loss of both a job and insurance.

This one is for today's phone spammer:

...for eight years running, Berkeley has had the lowest teen pregnancy rate in the state, and among the lowest rates in the country. So what is Berkeley doing right?

Statistics on rates of teen pregnancies and STDs in the U.S. vs. Germany, France and the Netherlands.

Eliminating teen health care confidentiality will not be cheap.