Michigan Disability Resistance

There’s an apparent paradox in modern life: Society as a whole is getting smarter, yet we aren’t any closer to figuring out how to all get along. “How is it possible that we have just as many, if not more, conflicts as before?” asks social psychologist Igor Grossmann at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

The answer is that raw intelligence doesn’t reduce conflict, he asserts. Wisdom does. Such wisdom—in effect, the ability to take the perspectives of others into account and aim for compromise—comes much more naturally to those who grow up poor or working class, according to a new study by Grossman and colleagues.

As with the first part of the experiment, those in lower social classes consistently had higher wise-reasoning scores than those in higher social classes, the researchers reported today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. IQ scores, however, weren’t associated one way or another with wise reasoning.

The findings make sense, Jayawickreme says, as people who grow up in a working-class environment have to rely on shared, communal resources more than people in the middle class, and therefore hone social techniques that smooth out conflicts with their peers. Those in the middle class, in contrast, tend to focus on education, which improves their IQ scores, but they don’t put nearly as much effort into conflict resolution skills, Grossmann says.

If you want to foster wise reasoning in yourself, Grossmann advises, try to use third-person language when thinking about conflicts. Mentally address both yourself and your conflict partner by name, for example, as it forces you to see the situation as others would see it. And seek out situations where your own experiences and expectations aren’t in the spotlight, such as by attending a multicultural movie festival or by volunteering at a homeless shelter.

It isn't just your credit cards they can hack. They can get your entire health history and make money off it......

https://goo.gl/sjDGKT

Protenus has released its November healthcare data breach report – a summary of healthcare data breaches reported by HIPAA-covered entities. The report shows there has been a month on month fall in healthcare data breaches, and a major reduction in the number of records exposed by data breaches.

November saw the lowest total of the year to date for breaches with 28 incidents included in the report – four incidents fewer than February, the previous best month when 32 breaches were reported. This is the second consecutive month when reported breaches have fallen. There were 46 breaches reported in September and 37 in October.

November was also the best month of the year in terms of the number of records exposed. 83,925 individuals were impacted by healthcare data breaches in November. The previous lowest total was May, when 138,957 records were exposed. November was the third consecutive month where the number of breached records fell.

While the November healthcare data breach report offers some good news, the fall in breaches and breached records should be taken with a large pinch of salt. Healthcare organizations have a maximum of 60 days to report breaches, so the figures do not indicate there has been a reduction in incidents. Also, figures have only been obtained for 25 of the 28 breaches. As Kira Caban, Director of Public Relations at Protenus, notes, “The number of both data breach incidents and affected patient records are lower than any other month thus far in 2017, but it may also just indicate that people wanted to get ready for Thanksgiving, so they delayed reporting.”

For most hearing people of color, the ability to code-switch, or move freely between two separate languages or a dialect of a single language, comes with ease. Big-name celebs, including hip-hop/R&B crooner Drake, Rihanna and J-Lo, have mastered it in their music. Even Black Americans do it daily, seamlessly switching between the Afro-American vernacular — sometimes referred to as Ebonics — and grammatically correct English.

The same can be said of Black folk who are deaf or hard of hearing. For them, it’s common to utilize both mainstream American Sign Language and Black American Sign Language, or “Black Signs,” depending on whom they’re speaking to.

“I have used mainstream ASL because a lot of people in the community use it,” Black deaf woman Sheena Cobb told Splinter News via a video-phone interpreter system. “When I am with Black deaf people, then we usually, naturally revert to Black ASL.”

This is a problem in the US as well, and Michigan.....

https://goo.gl/2NUdCQ

Cognitive disability is not well accommodated in criminal justice systems. Yet, people with cognitive disability are overrepresented in these systems. Unfitness to plead law is one legal mechanism that is purported to assist when a person with a cognitive disability is charged with a crime. The aim of such laws is claimed to be to prevent an individual with a cognitive disability to have to engage in a trial process.

It has been said that unfitness to plead law exists in an effort to ensure the right to a fair trial for people with disability. However, in practice, once an individual is found unfit to plead, they do not get the opportunity to engage with the trial process at all and are not afforded the same rights to due process and procedural fairness. In addition, it is common that once an individual is found unfit to plead, they are detained for longer than they could have been if they were convicted – in some jurisdictions, they can even be held indefinitely.

The new Republican tax bill, which the House passed this afternoon and the Senate is expected to approve tonight, is complex, but what it will mean for health in the United States is simple: less.

It will mean less health insurance for individuals; less coverage for elderly and poor Americans; less revenue for doctors, hospitals, and myriad health care businesses; and, quite possibly, a less-healthy, less-productive workforce.

The tax bill will be the most important health care legislation enacted since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. The law’s two major health-related aspects are the elimination of the penalties paid by people who fail to have health insurance as required by the so-called individual mandate, and the bill’s overall impact on the federal deficit — which will increase by an estimated $1.45 trillion after allowing for predicted economic growth.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the repeal of the individual mandate penalties could result in as many as 13 million fewer Americans having health insurance. About 5 million are projected to be people who previously bought health insurance as individuals either within or outside the ACA’s marketplaces. Some will choose not to buy insurance because the penalty has disappeared. Others, especially higher-income individuals who don’t qualify for subsidies under the ACA, will drop insurance because of increases in average premiums predicted by the CBO. These premium increases will occur because, with the repeal of the mandate, many young, healthy people will exit markets, leaving a sicker, more costly insurance pool behind. Older individuals will be most affected. For example, a 60-year-old not receiving subsidies could face premium increases of $1,781, $1,469, $1,371, and $1,504, respectively, in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, and Maine.