Brain Study: Children With Absent Dads at Risk

Kids need dads, according to a neurobiological study published this month in the journal Cerebral Cortex. The absence of fathers during childhood may lead to impaired behavioral and social abilities, and brain defects, researchers at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Canada, found.

"This is the first time research findings have shown that paternal deprivation during development affects the neurobiology of the offspring," senior author Dr. Gabriella Gobbi told MUHC News.

Other studies have observed that children raised without fathers are more likely to demonstrate a number of risk factors, such as substance abuse. There are a large number of environmental factors, though, that could contribute to those risk factors, so previous studies have had difficulty demonstrating that the absence of fathers directly contributes to social and behavioral difficulties.

Full Story Here

SLED Asks for 65 New Agents to Fight Crime

The State Law Enforcement Division is asking for 65 additional agents as South Carolina’s statewide police force tries to rebuild after years of staffing cuts.

If lawmakers grant the agency’s request in the state’s next budget, SLED would have just more than the 383 agents that it had before the economic downturn struck in 2008, agency director Mark Keel said in a budget presentation Wednesday to a S.C. House subcommittee.

SLED officials told lawmakers they want $15.2 million in new spending next year. That does not include authorization to spend $3.5 million on a new helicopter with money the agency has in its accounts.

About half the new agents – 30 – would work in alcohol enforcement. They would make sure establishments have proper licenses and close on time, and checking for underage drinkers.

Keel said SLED had two alcohol-enforcement agents to monitor 16,000 licensed establishments statewide when he took over as director in 2011. The agency has 13 now.

To help tackle the state’s growing methamphetamine problem, SLED wants to add four narcotics agents and about $500,000 to its fund to dispose of meth labs, Keel said. Lab busts already have surpassed last year’s total, he added.

“We’re getting beaten up with meth labs,” Keel told lawmakers. “It’s hard to stop them because (meth is) so easy to make.”

SLED also wants to spend more than $2 million on new vehicles and more than $2 million on new computers and software to fight cybercrime, including keeping hackers from getting into the agency’s systems.

“It has to be state-of-the-art,” Keel told lawmakers. “It cannot get behind.”

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/12/11/3154008/sled-tells-sc-legislators-it-needs.html#storylink=cpy

Time: So Much for GOP Unity

The Republican Party’s unity project is not turning out to be much of a “Kumbaya” around the campfire.

A year after GOP leaders vowed that infighting between the party establishment and Tea Party activists would not derail Republicans’ electoral hopes again, the air appears as toxic as ever.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, facing a primary challenge in Kentucky, said on Tuesday that one of the outside groups funding insurgent candidates is “giving conservatism a bad name” and “participating in ruining the [Republican] brand.” Earlier that day, the head of the group accused him of trying to “blacklist” political strategists who work with Tea Party candidates. Late on Monday, a firebrand Congressman who brought Ted Nugent to the State of the Union pulled the trigger on a surprise primary against the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn.

Now, with the 2014 midterm elections nearing and Republicans looking longingly at their best chance of recapturing the Senate, many of the party’s power brokers first have to fend off primary challenges in eight of the 12 states where they have incumbents seeking re-election. “There is no magic wand that’s going to do away with primaries,” says former New York Republican Representative Tom Reynolds, a leading party fundraiser. “We’re just going to have to go through this.”

Read more: 2014 Election: So Much for Republican Party Unity in Senate Races | TIME.com http://swampland.time.com/2013/12/11/so-much-for-gop-unity-in-2014/#ixzz2nFvP6aPQ

Local Group Plans Anderson County Christmas Parade

On Dec 21 at 1 p.m., friends, neighbors and family are invited to the first annual Anderson County Circular Christmas Parade. The event will be at the balloon launch area off Martin Luther King Blvd. Anyone who wants is welcome to bring the sirens, the floats, horses bring or whatever else is in the spirit of the holiday. There are no fees and the public is invited. 

For more information visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Anderson-County-Christmas-Parade-First-Annual-2013/465125040275762

Sumter Air Force Base Removes Nativity Scene

Commanders at a U.S. Air Force base in South Carolina have booted a Nativity scene from its premises, agreeing with separation of church and state activists that the display violated both the U.S. Constitution and military code.

The removal of the Nativity scene at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, S.C., came at the pushing of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and its leader, Mikey Weinstein, WLTX-TV reported. Mr. Weinstein reportedly called the Pentagon to complain, saying 41 airmen agreed the display was offensive — and shortly after, the scene was removed, The Blaze reported.

The group said on its website that the Nativity scene “was very sectarian in nature and a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution as well as a blatant violation of Air Force [code],” especially since it was located right next to a Christmas tree. And Mr. Weinstein bragged that it took only a little more than two hours after lodging his complaint for the Pentagon to vow to have the display torn down, The Blaze reported.

But some aren’t so enamored with the group’s touted success.

“I don’t know where a plastic baby Jesus could cause such emotional distress on somebody that they would want to get involved with the military freedom folks and then have that removed,” said one veteran, John Sammons, quoted on WLTX-TV. “Many have died overseas today for the right for your religious freedom and it breaks my heart.”

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/11/outrage-sc-air-force-base-boots-christmas-nativity/#ixzz2nDWD2Iz5 
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Anderson Christmas Parade Cancelled

The City of Anderson has cancelled the 2013 Christmas Parade after a rain delay created a situation where arranging volunteers and rescheduling parade participants for another date became impossible.

The cancellation is the first in the city's history.

Still Time to Adopt a Meals on Wheels Route for Christmas

Meals on Wheels-Anderson implemented an Adopt-a-Route program for Thanksgiving Day where volunteers cooked and delivered a hot meal to the regular Meals on Wheels recipients on the day the office was closed for Thanksgiving. This program went over so well, the organization is seeking assistance for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as well. 

Meals on Wheels usually sends a frozen meal to recipients any day that the office is closed for a holiday. However, the Adopt a Route program will offer the community an opportunity to lend a helping hand during the holidays and serve hot meals to recipients. 

Adopt a Route invites individuals, families, churches, civic groups and more to choose a standard Meals on Wheels food delivery route, prepare a meal to serve to those on the route and deliver it on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. 

To Adopt a Route, one must prepare (or purchase) the food and arrange for delivery. The staff at Meals on Wheels will assist in finding a route that suits the needs of the volunteers based on location and number of people to serve.

If you are interested in Adopting a Route, contact Jeanie Campbell at the MOW office at 864-225-6800 or jcampbell@acmow.org.

Three of Richest Health Care Companies Avoiding Obamacare

This graph illustrates how many companies are enrolling in the state Obamacare exchanges across America. The median average is 5.

Three of the richest healthcare insurance companies in America are reluctant to join the state exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare." One expert believes their minimal participation will contribute to making the Obamacare plan in the exchanges essentially the same low quality as Medicaid.

"Most people will be outside the market, mostly in employer provided coverage," Edmund Haislmaier, senior research fellow in Health Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told The Christian Post on Monday. This employer coverage, Haislmaier explained, is the service in which United HealthCare, Aetna, and Cigna — the three with a minimal presence in the exchanges — specialize.

All three rank in the top five healthcare companies in CNN Money's Fortune 500 list, along with WellPoint and Humana. Each company provides most of its business in administrative services, Haislmaier said — 61 percent for Aetna, 54 percent for United HealthCare, and 84 percent for Cigna. In these plans, the employer bears the risk and the insurer merely administers it.

"While Cigna is a leading U.S. health insurer among employer-paid health plans, we have only been in the individual and health plan space for 4-5 years, in just 10 states," Cigna's public relations director, Joe Mondy, wrote CP in an email statement. He listed the states in whose exchanges Cigna will participate: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas. It will continue to offer individual and family plans off the exchanges in California, Connecticut, Georgia, and North and South Carolina.

Mondy assured CP that Cigna's 2014 individual plans are "ACA-compliant both on and off the exchange — and specifically designed to meet the unique needs of both marketplaces now and in the forseeable future."

Despite this limited involvement in the exchanges, the spokesman said "Cigna is committed to delivering on the promise of health care reform." Among the advantages of reform, he listed "affordable access to quality health care from the best local doctors and medical facilities, easy to understand plans and information, resources and service to improve the health, well-being, and sense of security of individuals and their families."

Susan Millerick, director of communications at Aetna, made similar commitments in explaining her company's decision to withdraw from at least five exchanges. In deciding which exchanges to join, Aetna "focused our on-exchange participation to the markets where we can be most competitive and deliver the greatest value to our customers."

Millerick admitted that Aetna withdrew plans to participate in certain state exchanges during the summer, she declared that the company is "participating on exchanges in all or portions of 17 states across the country." These decisions were not made lightly, Millerick explained, "and followed an extensive review of Aetna's overall company strategy." While Aetna chose to opt out of the exchange in its home state of Connecticut, she explained it will still be able to operate off the exchange.

Insurance will still be legally available outside the exchanges, but Obamacare subsidies only apply within them, Haislmaier explained. "There is virtually no participation by individual market insurers in the exchanges," he added – "they just don't see it as an attractive business opportunity." These insurers tend to be small and expect exchanges to have high claims costs, and so avoid them.

On the other hand, Haislmaier explained that insurers "whose primary business is Medicaid-managed care" are joining the exchanges.

The scholar estimated that the exchanges will end up floosed with "particularly older, poorer people, who get coverage at very little cost but have very limited access to providers," hardly the healthcare dream the President waxed eloquent about. "It's a kind of Medicaid expansion by another means," Haislmaier said.

United HealthCare did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Study: Organic Milk Better for Heart

Scientists who looked at hundreds of samples found that organic whole milk offered more of the fatty acids good for the heart than conventional milk.

“We were quite surprised to see the magnitude of difference in milk from organic farms,” said Charles Benbrook, lead author of the study and a program leader at the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University.

Organic food advocates argue that grass and pasture is healthiest feed for cows. Federal organic standards require that cows get at least 30% of their dry food from pasture at least 120 days of the year.  Benbrook’s study is the first large-scale nationwide study of the fatty acids in organic and conventional milk. Cows on conventionally managed farms get more grains such as corn.

The study results, published Monday in the journal PLOS One, also question the common recommendations to consume nonfat or low-fat dairy products. Whole milk is around 4% fat, with 2%, 1% and skim being other choices. Skim milk does not have fatty acids.

“Consumers are going to get the full measure of this benefit in organic milk if they buy whole milk,” Benbrook said.

The study, Benbrook said, “provides consumers with some pretty powerful evidence that choosing full-fat dairy products is going to help bring about a greater degree of balance” between omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and help reduce the risk of heart disease and several other problems.

The broader message, he said, is that people need to pay attention to the type of fat as well as to the overall amount of fat they consume.

Over the last 100 years, Western diets have grown to contain more omega-6 fatty acids and fewer omega-3 fatty acids. The ratio should be flipped, the authors say.

The conventional milk had an average omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio of 5.8, and organic milk had a ratio of 2.3.

The scientists looked at 220 organic milk samples from the Organic Valley cooperative and 164 conventional milk samples. Organic Valley was a funder of the study.

The study found that the organic milk had 25% less omega-6 fatty acids and 62% more omega-3 fatty acids than conventional milk. The organic milk also had high concentrations of the individual types of omega-3 fatty acids, too, the authors wrote.

 “There is increasing evidence that the dietary balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids is perhaps as important as the dietary proportions of saturated, monounsaturated and total fat,” the authors wrote.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sn-organic-milk-20131210,0,908353.story#ixzz2n84k8JR6

House-Senate Budget Pact Would Avert Another Shutdown

House and Senate negotiators, in a rare bipartisan act, announced a budget agreement Tuesday designed to avert another economy-rattling government shutdown and to bring a dose of stability to Congress's fiscal policy-making over the next two years.

Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), who struck the deal after weeks of private talks, said it would allow more spending for domestic and defense programs in the near term, while adopting deficit-reduction measures over a decade to offset the costs.

Revenues to fund the higher spending would come from changes to federal employee and military pension programs, and higher fees for airline passengers, among other sources. An extension of long-term jobless benefits, sought by Democrats, wasn't included.

The plan is modest in scope, compared with past budget deals and to once-grand ambitions in Congress to craft a "grand bargain" to restructure the tax code and federal entitlement programs. But in a year and an institution characterized by gridlock and partisanship, lawmakers were relieved they could reach even a minimal agreement.

"In divided government, you don't always get what you want,'' said Mr. Ryan in announcing the deal.

Ms. Murray joined him in welcoming the prospect that lawmakers would steer away from a crisis-driven budget process. "We have lurched from crisis to crisis, from one cliff to the next,'' she said. "That uncertainty was devastating to our fragile economic recovery."

The deal, which goes to the House and Senate for approval in the coming days, marks a major change in the landmark 2011 budget-cutting law, which set in motion 10 years of fiscal austerity, including across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration.

The annual discretionary spending target will be raised to $1.012 trillion in 2014 and $1.014 trillion in 2015 under the accord.

The deal responds to the fears of most Democrats and some Republicans that government spending would be cut too much and too randomly under the next round of the sequester, which was slated to reduce the budget for most domestic and defense programs to $967 billion in 2014, down from $986 billion in 2013.

Full Story Here

Lawmaker Plan Pushes Performance-Based Pay for Teachers

A South Carolina Republican lawmakers is introducing his own plan for performance-based pay as dozens of schools test Superintendent Mick Zais' proposal for evaluating educators.

Republican Rep. Andy Patrick of Hilton Head Island said he's pre-filing a bill for the upcoming legislative session that's aimed at rewarding excellent teachers and providing others targeted training. Tuesday is the last day for House members to pre-file bills for 2014. Senators have another week.

Evaluating educators based on performance is a required part of the state's exemption from the all-or-nothing provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind law. The federal Education Department approved Zais' plan in March, but educator groups have criticized it.

The state education board must approve a plan before it goes statewide. Patrick says his bill offers another process.

Hospitals Still Violating Law by Overcharging Poor

One of the patients featured in the TIME cover story I wrote last March--"Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us"--was Emilia Gilbert, a school-bus driver. Gilbert was 61 years old in 2008 when she slipped and fell one evening in her backyard in Fairfield, Conn.

She was taken to the emergency room at Bridgeport Hospital, where she was treated for some cuts and a broken nose. She left a few hours later with a bill for $9,418, which included $6,538 for CT scans and $239 for a routine blood test. The charges, I found, were based on something called the hospital chargemaster--a list of hugely inflated prices that no one could explain or defend.

Medicare--which by law pays hospitals and other providers their actual costs, including overhead--would have paid Bridgeport Hospital just $825 for those CT scans and $13.94 for that blood test.

When Gilbert, who was earning about $22,000 a year, was unable to pay, she was sued by the hospital, which is part of the Yale--New Haven Health System. A judge ordered her to pay off her bill in $20 weekly payments over six years.

But that was before Obamacare.

Tucked onto page 737 of the law, enacted on March 23, 2010, is a provision that was supposed to eliminate that kind of dunning and overbilling. Section 9007 of the Affordable Care Act instructs the Internal Revenue Service to take away the tax exemption for nonprofit hospitals like Yale--New Haven unless they become aggressive about informing patients clearly of the availability of financial aid and take steps to learn whether patients need such assistance before they hand over their bills to lawyers or debt collectors. 

More important for Gilbert and hundreds of thousands of patients like her, Section 9007 says the IRS can now take away a hospital's tax exemption if it tries to charge patients who needed financial aid more than the average amount paid for services by insurance companies and Medicare. In other words, hospitals cannot try to make people like Gilbert pay the inflated chargemaster prices.

That's a big deal. And it's been black-letter law for more than 3½ years.

Read more: Bungling the Easy Stuff - TIME http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2159286,00.html#ixzz2n4E03Hgf

S.C. Senate Bill Could Nullify Obamacare

A bill set for fast-track passage in the South Carolina Senate in January aims to eliminate Obamacare in the state. The law could become a model for other states fed up with the federal health-care law.

House Bill 3101, titled the “South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection Act,” passed the state House of Representatives last April by a 65-34 vote. The bill now heads to the GOP-controlled Senate with special-order priority, setting up the likelihood that South Carolina will become the first state to exempt citizens and businesses from all participation in the Affordable Care Act.

State Sen. Tom Davis, the bill’s sponsor who recently wrapped up study committee hearings for H3101 in Columbia, Charleston and other cities, says that the proposed legislation renders the Affordable Care Act void or inoperable through a handful of provisions.

“It will essentially have five components to it, all of which in my judgment are legal, effective, and within the state’s power to do,” Davis, a Republican from Beaufort, said in an interview.

The bill’s main component prohibits agencies, officers and employees of the state of South Carolina from implementing any provisions of the Affordable Care Act, leaving implementation of the national health-care law entirely in the hands of a federal government that lacks the resources or personnel to carry out the programs it mandates.

This provision, according to Davis, comes from the anti-commandeering doctrine established in case law that says feds can’t compel states to enforce federal laws.

“What the Supreme Court said in Printz v. United States is that states are not merely political subdivisions of the federal government to carry out what the federal government does; they are sovereign entities,” Davis said. “Congress can pass laws, but it cannot compel the states to utilize either their treasury or personnel to implement those federal laws.”

Additional provisions of H3101 further neuter the Affordable Care Act by outlawing state exchanges, issuing tax deductions to individuals equal to the tax penalties levied by the federal government, and directing the state attorney general to sue over whimsical enforcement of the law. Taken together, the provisions effectively repeal the federal law for the people of South Carolina.

Davis adds that lawmakers in Columbia are considering two additional provisions: one that outlaws Medicaid expansion, and another that suspends the licenses of insurers who receive federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/09/south-carolina-voting-on-bill-to-end-obamacare-in-state/#ixzz2n2AZN5TJ