Month: August 2021

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Health

5 issues to know earlier than the inventory market opens Friday, Aug 20

Retail earnings and consumer spending

Here are the top news, trends, and analysis investors need to start their trading day:

1. Stock futures are lower as Wall Street is set for a week of losses

A view of the New York Stock Exchange building on Wall Street in downtown Manhattan in New York City.

Roy Rochlin | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

US stock futures were lower on Friday, the day after the S&P 500 posted a slight gain to break a two session loss. S&P 500 and Dow futures were down 0.4%, while Nasdaq futures were down 0.25%. All three major indices enter Friday in the red for the week. The 30-strong Dow is on a three-day losing streak and is in its worst week since June. The Nasdaq, which rose 0.1% on Thursday, is on track for its worst week since May. Factors weighing on Wall Street this week include concerns about a possible tightening of its asset purchases by the US Federal Reserve and the course of the economic recovery amid rising Covid cases. The benchmark ten-year government bond yield was 1.235% on Friday morning, down nearly 1 basis point.

2. Joaquin Duato replaces Alex Gorsky as J&J CEO

Joaquin Duato, Executive Vice President and Worldwide Chairman of Pharmaceuticals at Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday, January 31, 2017.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Joaquin Duato will replace Alex Gorsky as Chief Executive Officer of Johnson & Johnson effective January 3, the pharmaceutical giant announced on Thursday. The Dow component stocks were slightly lower in Friday’s pre-trading session as investors processed the news. Duato, currently Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee, will also be appointed to the J&J Board of Directors. Gorsky, Chairman and CEO since 2012, will become Executive Chairman. Gorsky ran the company while facing a number of legal issues related to its talc-based baby powder and other products, as well as the opioid crisis.

3. China passes important data protection law

China’s national flag

Russell Monk | The image database | Getty Images

China’s lawmakers passed an important data protection law on Friday, according to state media, a development that follows Beijing’s stricter regulatory approach towards tech companies in recent weeks. Although a final version of the Personal Data Protection Act has not yet been published, it is said to contain stricter rules on how companies collect and store users’ personal data. The law goes into effect on November 1, according to Reuters, and will likely add to the compliance rules that businesses operating in the country must follow.

Investors have become more skeptical of Chinese companies since the government cracked down on ride-hailing giant Didi Global and other industries in early July. Star money manager Cathie Wood told CNBC on Thursday that she believes these recent events, particularly those related to the online education industry, “will stay with our memories for a long time”. She added, “That could happen to any industry.”

4. Tesla plans to build a humanoid robot prototype, says Elon Musk

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said Thursday the electric vehicle maker plans to build a humanoid robot called the Tesla Bot that aims to eliminate “dangerous, repetitive and boring tasks.” Musk, who made the announcement during Tesla’s AI Day, said the company “will likely have a prototype that looks like this next year” while standing on stage near a human actor wearing a white robotic bodysuit. Musk is known for making predictions about upcoming Tesla products or initiatives that, if at all, will not arrive on its original schedule. Tesla shares were about 0.5% higher in pre-trading on Friday. On its AI Day, Tesla also unveiled plans for a custom chip for use in its data centers.

5. NATO will try to speed up evacuations from Afghanistan, says an official

A handout photo received on August 17, 2021 from Twitter via @Bw_Einsatz shows evacuees from Afghanistan arriving in an Airbus A400 transport aircraft belonging to the German Air Force in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Marc Tennessohn | via Reuters

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World News

Desperation as Afghans Search to Flee a Nation Retaken by the Taliban

Desperation as Afghans Seek to Flee a Country Retaken by the Taliban

On Saturday morning, a former interpreter for an American company in Kabul plunged into a mass of humanity outside a gate at the Kabul airport with her family in tow.

Even as she was jostled and elbowed by people in the throng, she pushed ahead, desperate to secure a flight out of the country for everyone accompanying her — her husband, 2-year-old daughter, disabled parents, three sisters and a cousin.

Then the crowd surged. The entire family was slammed to the ground. People trampled them where they lay, the woman recalled just hours later.

She remembered someone smashing her cellphone and someone else kicking her in the head. She couldn’t breathe, so she tried to tear off her abaya, a robe-like dress.

As she struggled to her feet, she said, she searched for her toddler. The girl was dead, trampled to death by the mob.

“I felt pure terror,” the woman said in a telephone interview from Kabul. “I couldn’t save her.”

In the six days since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, Afghans have negotiated a terrifying new reality after enduring 20 years of war and suicide bombings. Their world has been upended, and something as prosaic as a trip to the airport now inspires terror. Just stepping outside the front door can be jarring and disorienting.

With the situation increasingly chaotic, the U.S. embassy warned American citizens to stay away from the airport, citing “potential security threats outside the gates.”

Across the country, Afghans who served the American military effort in Afghanistan, or the American-backed former government, are in hiding, many of them threatened with death by the Taliban. Gunmen have gone door-to-door, searching for “collaborators” and threatening their family members, according to human rights groups.

A 39-year-old former interpreter for the U.S. military and Western aid groups was hiding Saturday inside a home in Kabul with his wife and two children. He said the Taliban had telephoned, telling him, “Face the consequences — we will kill you.”

The interpreter, whose identity was shielded like others in this article for safety concerns, said he had given up trying to secure a flight after a harrowing and ultimately futile attempt to force his way past Taliban gunmen and unruly mobs at the airport the day before. He has been spending his time calling and texting American soldiers and officers in the United States who are struggling to find ways to rescue him and his family.

“I’m losing hope,” he said by telephone. “I think maybe I will have to accept the consequences.”

Another former interpreter for the U.S. military was also in hiding in Kabul Saturday. He, too, said he had abandoned any hope of getting a flight for him, his wife and young son after two terrifying forays to the airport.

“I’ve lost hope,” he said. “I’ve lost trust in the U.S. government, which keeps saying, ‘We will evacuate our allies.’”

Updated 

Aug. 22, 2021, 12:03 p.m. ET

“Evacuation is impossible,” he added.

Afghans who have been crowding airport gates tend to panic every time tear gas is released or shots are fired into the air to disperse the crowds, the former interpreter said.

“Your child could get trampled,” he said. “If the U.S. gives me the entire universe after I lose a child, it is worthless.”

To cope with the expected flood of Afghan refugees, the Biden administration wants to enlist commercial airlines to ferry those arriving in Gulf states from Kabul to transport them to countries willing to offer them resettlement.

In the Shar-e-Naw neighborhood of Kabul, a female Afghan journalist said she finally ventured outside after hiding indoors since last Sunday. Trying to obey randomly enforced Taliban strictures on women, she wore a full-body abaya.

“It was so heavy it made me feel sick,” she said. And in the street, she said, “There is no music, nothing. All you hear is the Taliban talking on TVs and radios.”

She said her sister-in-law appeared in front of male family members with her hair uncovered. Her brother-in-law gave her a vicious kick and told her, “Put your bloody scarf on!”

Understand the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan

Card 1 of 5

Who are the Taliban? The Taliban arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that came after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here’s more on their origin story and their record as rulers.

Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who have spent years on the run, in hiding, in jail and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to govern, including whether they will be as tolerant as they claim to be.

What happens to the women of Afghanistan? The last time the Taliban were in power, they barred women and girls from taking most jobs or going to school. Afghan women have made many gains since the Taliban were toppled, but now they fear that ground may be lost. Taliban officials are trying to reassure women that things will be different, but there are signs that, at least in some areas, they have begun to reimpose the old order.

Also in hiding was a former Interior Ministry police officer who had seen Taliban fighters ransack the ministry, combing through paperwork that contained detailed information about employees. He worried that they would come looking for him.

“Kabul has become a city of fear,” the officer said.

In Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan, a journalist said he was hiding inside his home Saturday, afraid to show his face. He had reported on Taliban atrocities when the government controlled the province. Now the Taliban were in charge and on the prowl for journalists, he said.

“The Taliban will kill me and members of my family, just like they’ve killed my colleagues,” the journalist said.

In the eastern province of Khost, another journalist was also in hiding, moving between his home and the home of a family member. Taliban fighters were roaring through the province in American-supplied vehicles captured from Afghan security forces, he said. He feared they would find him soon.

“I’m out of hope,” he said. “Pray for me.”

In Kabul, the woman whose daughter was killed said the family was able to bring the girl’s body back for burial. She wept as she recalled how she would try to ease her daughter’s fears whenever gunshots rang out in their neighborhood: She had told her they were “crackers” — firecrackers.

“My baby was such a brave child,” she said. “When she heard the gunshots, she would just yell out, ‘Crackers!’”

She said she and her family were unlikely to return to the airport anytime soon. “I’d rather die a dignified death here at home than die in such an undignified way.”

Inside the Kabul house where the 39-year-old former interpreter was hiding, hope was fading. He said he was gratified by persistent attempts at assistance by the American soldiers he once served, but had concluded they could do nothing.

“If the Taliban kill me, OK, I can accept that,” he said. “I only ask them to spare my children.”

Jim Huylebroek, Sharif Hassan, Fahim Abed and Fatima Faizi contributed reporting.

Categories
Politics

Home Democrats Return to D.C. Deeply Divided

House Democrats Return to D.C. Deeply Divided

Moderates have also allied with Shield PAC, founded by Democrats ousted in November from Republican-leaning districts, to push back on efforts to tar all Democrats with the slogans of the left. Some have backed a new pro-Israel group, Democratic Majority for Israel, determined to thwart the party’s emerging Palestinian rights movement — and defeat left-wing candidates who they say have crossed an unacceptable political line on the Jewish state.

Understand the Infrastructure Bill

    • One trillion dollar package passed. The Senate passed a sweeping bipartisan infrastructure package on Aug. 10, capping weeks of intense negotiations and debate over the largest federal investment in the nation’s aging public works system in more than a decade.
    • The final vote. The final tally in the Senate was 69 in favor to 30 against. The legislation, which still must pass the House, would touch nearly every facet of the American economy and fortify the nation’s response to the warming of the planet.
    • Main areas of spending. Overall, the bipartisan plan focuses spending on transportation, utilities and pollution cleanup.
    • Transportation. About $110 billion would go to roads, bridges and other transportation projects; $25 billion for airports; and $66 billion for railways, giving Amtrak the most funding it has received since it was founded in 1971.
    • Utilities. Senators have also included $65 billion meant to connect hard-to-reach rural communities to high-speed internet and help sign up low-income city dwellers who cannot afford it, and $8 billion for Western water infrastructure.
    • Pollution cleanup: Roughly $21 billion would go to cleaning up abandoned wells and mines, and Superfund sites.

On Friday, yet another centrist group, No Labels, began airing an advertisement backing Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, one of the nine holdouts on the budget who is being challenged by a young liberal, Jessica Cisneros, in the upcoming primary season. The ad extols him for “fighting for the Biden agenda,” though arguably he is now trying to hold much of it up.

The idea, moderates say, is to inoculate the party from slogans like Defund the Police that were effectively used against swing-district Democrats in November, and stop progressive gains before divisions in the Democratic Party grow as deep as they have been in the Republican Party. The issue is more about tone and cooperation than ideology, said Mark S. Mellman, a longtime Democratic strategist and pollster, who helped found the Democratic Majority for Israel and its political action committee.

“There’s nothing revolutionary about ‘Medicare for all,’ moving to a clean energy economy, a $15 minimum wage,” he said. “There’s a lot of consistency around the general direction of policy. But the rhetoric is different.”

The efforts have left liberals feeling aggrieved and worried that the Democratic establishment is actually hurting the party — by sapping the vital energy of younger voters. Young liberals like Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman not only defeated Democratic stalwarts to win their seats in New York, but they have captured the imagination of the next generation, said Waleed Shahid, a spokesman and strategist for Justice Democrats, which promotes insurgent progressive candidates.

Updated 

Aug. 17, 2021, 6:05 p.m. ET

“The future of the party looks a lot more like A.O.C. than Joe Biden,” he said.

The establishment’s efforts are showing results. One of the left’s political heroes, Nina Turner, lost a House special election primary in Cleveland this month, after Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the most senior African American in Congress, and Mr. Mellman’s group swooped in to prop up a little-known but more conciliatory candidate, Shontel Brown. In New Orleans, the favored progressive candidate in the race to replace Representative Cedric Richmond, who joined the Biden White House, also lost.

Liberals say the moderates, not the progressives, are now the ones standing in the way of Mr. Biden’s agenda, by provoking the House’s stalemate and threatening the social policy bill in the Senate.

Categories
Health

A Rush of Information: Behind The New York Instances’s Dwell Protection

A Rush of News: Behind The New York Times's Live Coverage

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and gives a behind-the-scenes look at how our journalism comes together.

As the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan accelerated at a breathtaking pace, the New York Times quickly switched to live reporting mode: reporters and editors covered the collapse of Kandahar, the disintegration of the Afghan military, the global response to US government actions and more, all in one package.

The live coverage format, which allows journalists to share the news as they experience it, has become known at The Times for covering big events. So far this year the newsroom has published more than 800 live stories, each made up of a series of news and updates that together can add up to thousands of words. On a typical day, The Times releases four live packages – covering the coronavirus, politics, business news, and extreme weather – but there have been days with up to eight.

At the heart of it all is the live team, a unit of about a dozen reporters and editors that was formed earlier this year to work with desks across the newsroom to create and execute breaking news.

The Times has outgrown its role as a New York print newspaper, said Marc Lacey, an assistant editor-in-chief who leads the live team. It is now a global digital news organization that produces podcasts, videos and newsletters in addition to a newspaper – investing in the live team is just the latest step in its continued evolution, he added.

“I want people all over the world to think of us when a big story begins,” he said. “Whether in Times Square or Tiananmen Square or somewhere in between.”

Front page events – forest fires, the Haiti earthquake, the resignation of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo – are obvious candidates for live coverage. But The Times did offer live coverage of the Grammy Awards, the National Spelling Bee, the Olympics, and even Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.

“Anything people want information about right away fits in well,” said Traci Carl, one of two assistant editors on the live team.

Live stories are anchored by Beat reporters who are experts in their fields and the live team works as a group of consultants for other departments. The journalists offer ideas, fix problems, help with reporting and editing, and sometimes create or manage a live story. “We act as a desk support system,” said Ms. Carl. “We help them build a team and advise them on the best approaches, but we don’t want to do their reporting.”

While the Times Express Desk, another unit of reporters and editors, initially responds to a lot of breaking news, the Live team works with other departments to focus on setting up live coverage. Express reporters often make a decisive contribution to the live reporting, as other desks such as international and national correspondents of the scene are on site.

The Times mainly uses two types of live formats. A fast-paced blog, topped with the latest information, allows for short comments from reporters interspersed with incisive reports, a format used for the Derek Chauvin Process and Emmy Awards. Briefings that have an index of their entries at the top “are more of a synthesis of a great story, a little higher,” said Lacey.

“A blog is like a fire hose for news,” said Melissa Hoppert, assistant editor for the live team. “A briefing is a curated experience with takeaways at the top: you need to know that if you only read one thing on the same topic all day.”

The Times has been experimenting with live blogs for about a decade, turning to live reporting to cover momentous events like the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. The Times published its first daily coronavirus briefing on January 23, 2020 and has not stopped since, making it the organization’s longest-running 24-hour live briefing.

Reader demand for live coverage, particularly the coronavirus briefing that recently topped 900 million page views, prompted The Times to create the live team.

Creating the daily live briefings requires the collaboration of dozens of editors, reporters, and researchers around the world: the coronavirus briefing, for example, is a 24-hour relay with multiple time zones and three hubs in Seoul, South Korea; London; and New York.

The editors who oversee the briefings stay in constant contact via video conferences as well as email, several encrypted apps, internal chat groups and Google Docs.

“It’s intense,” said Ms. Hoppert of working a briefing shift during a fast-breaking news event. “You are essentially figuring out what is going on with the readers at the same time.”

Categories
Health

Delta variant sparks renewed curiosity in faculty tuition insurance coverage

Delta variant sparks renewed interest in college tuition insurance

A year ago, rising coronavirus cases ended the fall semester at many universities abruptly when classes began.

This year, too, the Delta variant threatens school closings again. And the possibility of further campus closures has sparked renewed interest in college refund policies and tuition insurance.

According to a survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, about 78% of colleges and universities plan to resume all classroom courses for the fall, and only 19% plan a mix of classroom and online courses.

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However, some colleges and universities have already announced that they will start remotely due to rising cases of Covid, including the University of Texas at San Antonio and Stanislaus State in California.

“Due to the Delta variant of Covid-19 and the need to reduce potential exposures on campus, we are temporarily postponing the start of face-to-face teaching and resettlement plans until October 1,” said Stanislaus President Ellen Junn in a letter the community.

For most students, distance learning is a poor substitute for face-to-face teaching. And almost everyone says it’s not worth the same high cost.

“Paying full price for a fraction of the college experience is going to piss off a lot of people,” said Jill Gonzalez, an analyst at WalletHub.

Almost half of the students believe universities haven’t done enough to support them during the pandemic, a recent report from WalletHub found.

In the future, some families will become more proactive about protecting their investments.

Laura Hoder, 52, recently purchased a tuition refund policy for her daughter who will be a junior at Dean College in Franklin, Massachusetts. “It is unknown what will happen to Covid,” she said.

Hoder, who works as a nurse in Fairfield, Connecticut, said she wanted the extra coverage also because of her job and the increased risk posed by her family. “There’s an added level of fear just because of what I’ve seen and know,” she said.

Laura Hoder with her daughter at Dean College.

Source: Laura Hoder

While a number of colleges and universities have announced that they will reimburse fees and room and board if campus closes again, reimbursement policies vary from school to school – and almost all have drawn the line on tuition.

Depending on when a student de-signs out during a semester, a school’s refund policy can reimburse a significant amount (especially if it is done within the first month or so of the semester, although this varies by school).

However, refunds are usually staggered and most schools don’t give any money back after the fifth week of classes.

Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards

Typical refund policy for schools

Source: GradGuard

Many schools now also offer protection from outside lessons or can be purchased directly from a provider such as GradGuard or AWG Dewar up to the first day of class.

Tuition insurance, also known as Tuition Reimbursement Insurance, generally covers families for medical or psychological reasons, with some obvious exclusions, such as:

GradGuard tuition insurance starts at $ 39.95 for $ 2,500 per semester coverage. Most families, however, buy $ 10,000 per term insurance coverage starting at $ 106 to cover their expenses, excluding loans and grants. This covers tuition fees as well as financial losses from room and board and tuition fees.

Since the beginning of Covid, we have seen dramatic interest from schools, students and families.

Natalie Tarangioli

Marketing manager at GradGuard

“Since the beginning of Covid, we’ve seen dramatic interest from schools, students and families,” said Natalie Tarangioli, Marketing Director of GradGuard. The company now works with more than 400 universities.

Before the pandemic, health conditions such as mononucleosis and pneumonia were among the top diseases that stood in the way of timely or even conclusion.

“The real concern last year was that the students were getting Covid,” said Tarangioli. There are additional concerns this year given the Delta variant, mental health and well-being, and other risks, she added. “Sales are more than four times as high as in 2019 and twice as high as in 2020.”

Even though 63% of parents said their child’s plans after high school have returned to what they were before the coronavirus crisis, cost remains a top concern.

Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards

Tuition and fees plus room and board for a four-year private college averaged $ 50,770 for the 2020-21 school year. It was $ 22,180 at four-year state colleges, according to the College Board, which tracks trends in college pricing and student grants.

When you add other expenses, the total bill can be in excess of $ 70,000 a year for students at some private colleges, or even for students out of state attending public four-year schools.

While the cost of a four-year college degree continues to skyrocket, tuition insurance is relatively inexpensive, said Nick Holeman, director of financial planning at Betterment.

Additionally, some tuition insurance policies will reimburse you for up to 100% of the total cost of attending – not just tuition fees – including room and board and even books and other materials.

However, not all policies offer the same level of protection, added Holeman.

“Many Covid-19 tuition fee insurances only pay out if your child actually falls ill with the disease,” he said. “So you will not be reimbursed if you pull your child out due to Delta variant concerns or future outbreaks.”

“You are also non-refundable if your child’s college changes their teaching method from face-to-face to virtual,” added Holeman, which means you can still be hooked on college courses through Zoom.

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Categories
Politics

Supreme Court docket refuses to dam development of Obama library in Chicago

Supreme Court refuses to block construction of Obama library in Chicago

US President Barack Obama waves after his speech at the SelectUSA Investment Summit March 23, 2015 in National Harbor, Maryland.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an advocacy initiative to temporarily halt construction of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in a Chicago park.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, an agent of former President Donald Trump in charge of Midwestern affairs, denied the application for a restraining order without referring the case to the nine-member court.

The Chicago-based nonprofit Protect Our Parks and some local residents argued that the $ 700 million library would have “serious environmental impacts” for Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago.

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They said in the petition that the “deliberate act” will destroy at least 800 trees and that it will have “significant effects on migratory birds and their nesting practices,” adding more “dust, noise and a deterioration in air quality, which is public health endangered in the surrounding community. “

“Once these trees are felled, there is no going back,” said the group.

They also complained that the government bypassed the necessary regulatory reviews and illegally split the project in two to avoid considering alternative locations for the park.

“During all public hearings, government agencies cordoned off anyone who tried to address them about avoidance and mitigation issues,” the petition reads.

They directly called on Barrett to freeze “further groundbreaking construction and excavation activities” and “tree felling” in the park pending an appeal against a rejection by a lower court last week.

Her emergency request required a response by Monday, when construction of the presidential center was due to begin.

Barrett’s rejection was not accompanied by any text or explanation.

Categories
Entertainment

A Starry Central Park Comeback Live performance Is Silenced by Lightning

A Starry Central Park Comeback Concert Is Silenced by Lightning

The homecoming show required everyone 12 years old and up to show proof that they had had at least one dose of a vaccine; children younger than that, who are still ineligible for the vaccines, were required to wear masks.

“When it comes to the concerts, they are outdoors — they are for vaccinated folks only,” the mayor had said on Wednesday. “We are definitely encouraging mask use. But I really want to emphasize the whole key here is vaccination.”

The Central Park show came after the city had hosted a week of free hip-hop shows, with local heroes including Raekwon and Ghostface Killah in Staten Island, and KRS-One, Kool Moe Dee and Slick Rick in the Bronx. Tickets were required to attend the concert on the Great Lawn — most were free, but V.I.P. packages cost up to $5,000 — and the show was broadcast on television by CNN and on satellite radio by SiriusXM.

The concert was programmed by Clive Davis, the 89-year-old music eminence, who, in an interview this week, stressed the role that music could play in shaping society.

“It’s vital and important that New York be back,” he said.

From the stage on Saturday night, Mr. Davis, a Brooklyn native, made a plea to the audience: “Tonight, I only ask one thing: When you’re having a great time, cheer loud — loud enough so they can hear you all the way in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights.”

The abbreviated concert came at an uncertain moment for the music industry. While some high-profile artists, including Garth Brooks, BTS and Nine Inch Nails, have canceled tour dates recently, the show is largely going on in the live-music business — but it hasn’t been easy. Concert protocols, in New York and elsewhere, have been in flux for months, as the federal authorities, local governments and businesses have adjusted to the changing realities of the virus.

Categories
Health

Easy methods to Look Up Costs at Your Hospital, if They Exist

How to Look Up Prices at Your Hospital, if They Exist

This year, some Americans can do something that was previously impossible: look up the price of care before going to the hospital.

A new federal rule requires hospitals to publish the prices they negotiate with private insurers.

The data is a rich source of new information. We have shown that some insurers pay twice or three times as much for basic services as their competitors – and that paying in cash instead of using your insurance cover can often result in a lower price.

But most hospitals have not yet released the necessary data. Even if it does, it can take time and effort to find. Also, you may have to be a computer programmer to open it.

“Get some coffee and drink because it will take a while,” said Touré McCluskey, co-founder of the health start-up Redu Health, which collected some of the data files. “There’s information out there, but it’s not consumer-friendly.”

To help those who’d like to try, we interviewed several researchers who spent months collecting the data. They recommended several simple strategies.

Before you start looking for prices, you want to know what type of health insurance you have – both the name of your insurer and details such as: B. Whether you opted for an HMO plan or a PPO option during open enrollment.

Insurers often have half a dozen tariffs in the same hospital. Some are specific to the plan you choose and whether you purchased the insurance through the Obamacare marketplace or a specific employer. Others have to do with the network you chose to have coverage for when you signed up.

Knowing the type of insurance you have is the best way to see what the rates in the dates are for you.

Most hospitals publish the data on a page called “Price Transparency”. Many researchers say they start looking for price files by searching Google for that term and the name of the hospital.

“This search should lead you to a top result related to billing for quotation or patient information,” said Morgan Henderson, a University of Maryland-Baltimore County health economist who worked with The Upshot on the Used to collect price files in our recent articles. “Sometimes what you want is at the bottom of this page or you have to follow a few links.”

The page should look something like this from the MedStar Hospital Center, the largest hospital in Washington, DC

The hospital pricing transparency page is likely to have multiple sections and links, and the labeling of the pricing files is not always clear. You should look for something like a “comprehensive machine readable file” or a “negotiated price list”.

It is also worth opening files described as “Standard Loads” or “Chargemaster”. Here’s what these Indiana University health look like:

When you open the files, you’ll see that the hospital-negotiated rates and cash prices are also included.

The government has not established a standard format for hospitals to report their pricing data, and each hospital seems to have a slightly different approach.

Some post their details in Excel or CSV files that you can open with free software such as Google Sheets. However, some use JSON files, a data format commonly used by computer programmers and professional data scientists that ordinary people may find difficult to open.

“I trained in health economics and policy and work on a machine that has a lot of storage space,” said Morgane Mouslim, also a health economist at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County who helped The Upshot collect and standardize File. “If a file is not in Excel, you may need additional software.”

A typical data set lists rates by procedure for each insurer, like this one from the University of Pennsylvania Hospital:

The leftmost five-digit numbers in this table are CPT codes that hospitals use to describe each service they offer. Most files also contain brief descriptions of each code, but they can be confusing. For example, code U0003 translates as “PR COV 19 AMP PRB HIGH THRUPUT” – a jargon description of a coronavirus test.

In order to determine the cost of a particular service to expect in a hospital, you will most likely need to call the facility and ask what CPT codes will be charged for your visit.

You may also see other numeric codes, sometimes called procedural codes or sales codes, as in the file below from the Baptist Medical Center in Little Rock, Ark. You probably don’t need to pay much attention to these and should focus on the CPT codes. (If the CPT codes aren’t labeled, you can generally recognize them as five-digit codes.)

Usually you should see dollar numbers that represent real prices. However, you might come across files where the price is listed as “variable”, which means it may be different for two patients on the same insurance who have received the same treatment in different circumstances.

Molly Smith, vice president of public order for the American Hospital Association, gave the example of a patient who is hospitalized for a flu shot versus one who happens to get one while having an operation there.

“In the contract, we generally negotiate the price for the main service, but if it is an ancillary service, maybe 15 percent is deducted,” she said. “That cannot be reflected in these files.”

The files should also contain two other prices: the “fee” or “gross price”, the sticker price for a particular service that hospitals often use as the basis for negotiating discounts. There should also be the “cash price” that the hospital charges to patients who do not have insurance. Whether this price applies to insured patients varies from hospital to hospital. Some low-income patients may be eligible for even higher discounts based on how little they earn.

Once you have found the data point you are looking for, you may need to understand it even better. Most hospitals report prices as dollar numbers, but some display the data as a percentage of the gross charge – which means that patients have to calculate their costs in order to understand their costs.

Most hospitals have not published the required data, so a lot can happen.

For example, NYU Langone’s pricing transparency website only has standard fees and a patient estimation tool that uses information about your insurance plan to create a custom estimate of the cost of a particular procedure.

These tools provide limited information. The standard fees can tell you the maximum amount that you can pay for a particular service, and the patient estimator shows the costs associated with simple services such as mammograms and blood tests. However, when a Times reporter attempted to use the NYU website in late July, error messages were generated for all of the services investigated.

A representative from NYU Langone declined to comment on why the hospital hadn’t released its full data.

With compliance rates still low, the federal government promises to increase enforcement. It has sent nearly 170 warning letters to non-compliant hospitals and plans to increase penalties for non-compliance from $ 109,500 to up to $ 2 million annually.

If you believe a hospital has not released the required information, you can file a complaint with the federal government to inform them of the problem.

Some health professionals say the large data files become more useful after third-party data companies clean up and organize the information so that patients can search across multiple hospitals and health services.

A data transparency company, Turquoise Health, has already developed a free price search tool. Others are expected soon.

The Times has so far examined records from 60 hospitals. But there are many more.

If you see something surprising on a hospital’s price list – for example, exceptionally high prices or large differences in the cost of a service – we’d love to hear about it. You can email us what you found.

Categories
World News

Cryptocurrency, the Taliban, and capital flight

Cryptocurrency, the Taliban, and capital flight

Crypto trader and vlogger Farhan Hotak traveling to the Shah Wali Kot District in Afghanistan.

Farhan Hotak isn’t your typical 22 year-old Afghan.

In the last week, he helped his family of ten flee the province of Zabul in southern Afghanistan and travel 97 miles to a city on the Pakistani border. But unlike others choosing to leave the country, once his relatives were in safe hands, Hotak then turned around and came back so that he could protect his family home – and vlog to his thousands of Instagram followers about the evolving situation on the ground in Afghanistan. 

He has also been keeping a very close eye on his crypto portfolio on Binance, as the local currency touches record lows and nationwide bank closures make it next to impossible to withdraw cash.

“In Afghanistan, we don’t have platforms like PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle, so I have to depend on other things,” said Hotak. 

Afghanistan still mostly operates as a cash economy, so money in Hotak’s crypto wallet won’t help him put dinner on his table tonight, but it does give him peace of mind that some of his wealth is safeguarded against economic instability at home.

It also offers bigger promises down the road: Access to the global economy from inside Afghanistan, certain protections against spiraling inflation, and crucially, the opportunity to make a bet on himself and a future he didn’t think was possible before learning about bitcoin. 

“I have very, very, very limited resources to do anything. I’m interested in the crypto world, because I have earned a lot, and I see a lot of potential in myself that I can go further,” he said.

Run on the banks

For many Afghans, this week has laid bare the worst-case scenario for a country running on legacy financial rails: A nationwide cash shortage, closed borders, a plunging currency, and rapidly rising prices of basic goods.

Many banks were forced to shutter their doors after running out of cash this week. Photos featuring hundreds of Kabul residents crowding outside branches in a futile effort to draw money from their accounts went viral. 

Afghan people line up outside AZIZI Bank to take out cash as the Bank suffers amid money crises in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 15, 2021.

Haroon Sabawoon | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

“There’s no bank I can go to right now, no ATM,” said Ali Latifi, a journalist born and based in Kabul. “I live above two banks and three ATM machines, but they’ve been off since Thursday,” said Latifi, referring to the Thursday before the palace ouster. 

Without an authority helming the Central Bank, it appears that printing cash to cover the shortfall isn’t an option, at least in the short-term. 

The Western Union has suspended all services and even the centuries-old “hawala” system – which facilitates cross-border transactions via a sophisticated network of money exchangers and personal contacts – for now, remains closed.

Sangar Paykhar, a Kabul native currently living in the Netherlands, has been in constant touch with relatives there in recent weeks. He said that many who live paycheck to paycheck were, at first, borrowing money from others to get by, but now, those able to lend out cash have started conserving their funds.

“They’ve realized the regime has collapsed” and that those they are lending to “might not have a job tomorrow,” said Paykhar.

A few days before the Taliban entered Kabul, Musa Ramin was among the people who queued outside a bank in a fruitless attempt to withdraw cash. But unlike other Afghans in line with him that day, months earlier, he had invested a portion of his net worth into crypto. Ramin had been burned before by a rapidly depreciating currency, and decentralized digital money had proven to be a trusted safeguard. 

In 2020, on what was meant to be a brief layover on a trip from London to Kabul, Ramin got stuck in Turkey. A one-week, mandatory Covid quarantine ballooned into six months.

“I converted all my money to the lira,” he said. After the Turkish currency began to spiral, Ramin said his capital was cut in half, and he was forced to conserve it. “That is when I discovered bitcoin.”

With all flights cancelled and no other options for departure, Ramin realized he needed to find alternative ways to support himself while stranded in Turkey during the pandemic-related shutdown. That’s when he started trading crypto. 

“At first, I lost a lot of money,” he said. But he’s since gotten the swing of managing his digital assets, thanks to Twitter and tutorials on YouTube. 

Musa Ramin at the Royal Opera House in London, just before his six-month quarantine in Turkey.

Even after returning to Kabul, the 27 year-old says he put all his focus into trading crypto. 80% of his crypto capital is in spot exposure, primarily in major coins, like bitcoin, ethereum, and binance coin. The other 20% he uses to trade futures. 

“I was making more money in crypto in a month than in construction in a year,” said Ramin, though he did acknowledge the risk that’s involved. “It’s easy making money in crypto but keeping that wealth is the difficult part.”

Despite that volatility, Ramin still sees crypto as the safest place to park his cash. “If a government isn’t formed quickly, we might see a Venezuela-type situation here,” Ramin told CNBC. He feels virtual tokens are his safest hedge against political uncertainty and plans to increase his exposure to digital currencies in the coming year to as much as 40% of his total net worth.

Ramin isn’t alone in his thinking. Google trends data shows that web searches in Afghanistan for “bitcoin” and “crypto” rose sharply in July just before the coup in Kabul. That said, because this tool is a measure of interest, the spike could be referring to 10 searches or it could be 100,000.

But in a country that has long relied on physical cash for virtually all transactions, not many people have the option to let their savings sit in a bank account, let alone a digital wallet. 

Just take Hotak. He lives in a remote part of Afghanistan where there are no ATMs or bank branches nearby. That means he has to keep a lot of physical cash on hand, in order to cover daily expenses. “Afghanistan is an unexpected country, and you have to be ready for anything,” he said.

While Hotak thinks that crypto is his future, for now, the bulk of his income comes from day labor jobs, like shoveling, brick work, digging wells, and running a tailor shop that makes clothes.

“Zabul is not a very developed city. It’s a village, so that’s how I earn,” he said.

Signs of a growing crypto economy

It’s hard to get insight into crypto adoption in Afghanistan.

Beyond the fact that measuring cryptocurrency adoption at the grassroots level isn’t easy, people actively go out of their way to hide who they are.

Some Afghans, for example, will conceal their IP address by using a virtual private network, or VPN, in order to mask their geographic digital footprint.

And unlike many crypto boosters – who tend to be vocal and community-driven – digital currency supporters inside Afghanistan often don’t want others to know they exist.

“The crypto community in Afghanistan is very small,” said Hotak. “They actually don’t want to meet each other.” He thinks that could change if the political situation normalizes, but “for now, everyone just wants to stay hidden until things are nice.”

However, new research from blockchain data firm Chainalysis is offering fresh optics on the country’s apparently burgeoning peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto network, which is increasingly the most telling metric of adoption in Afghanistan. Hotak, as well as his friends, use Binance’s P2P exchange, which allows them to buy and sell their coins directly with other users on the platform.

Chainalysis’ 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index gives Afghanistan a rank of 20 out of the 154 countries it evaluated in terms of overall crypto adoption. And when you isolate for its P2P exchange trade volume, Afghanistan jumps up to seventh place. That’s a big move in just 12 months: Last year, Chainalysis considered Afghanistan’s crypto presence to be so minimal as to entirely exclude it from its 2020 ranking.

“Afghanistan on top makes sense from a capital controls point of view, given it’s hard to move money in and out,” explained Boaz Sobrado, a London-based fintech data analyst.

And some experts tell CNBC that Chainalysis could actually be underestimating its overall adoption.

“Unlike many other countries, sanctioned nations don’t have good and clear data on P2P markets,” explained Sobrado. He says that is partly to do with the fact that it is harder to track those transactions.

Afghan currency traders at a central money market in Kabul.

Getty

There are other anecdotal signs of adoption across the country.

Nearly a decade ago, sisters and Afghan entrepreneurs Elaha and Roya – both of whom had a focus on computer science at Herat University – founded the Digital Citizen Fund, an NGO that helps women and girls in developing countries gain access to technology. The organization has 11 women-only IT centers in Herat and another two in Kabul, where they teach 16,000 females everything from essential computer skills to blockchain technology.

Before classes were suspended earlier this week, creating a crypto wallet was also part of the curriculum. Elaha Mahboob tells CNBC that some students have chosen to secure their money in crypto accounts and a few have specifically started investing in bitcoin and ethereum in order to achieve their long-term financial goals.

“This is especially important as they don’t have to worry about not having access to their money, because major banks in Afghanistan have closed,” Mahboob said.

A few Digital Citizen Fund participants have left the country and used the crypto accounts they made in class as a way to transfer their money out.

Afghanistan’s exposure to the cryptosphere was also taking place inside the presidential palace. Blockchain company Fantom told CNBC it had been working in tandem with the previous government.

One such project with the Ministry of Health involved piloting blockchain technology to track counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Fantom says the pilot “concluded successfully,” and they had been preparing for national rollout before the Taliban took over.

Then there’s Sweden-based Bitrefill, an online marketplace that helps customers live on cryptocurrency by exchanging digital coins like bitcoin or dogecoin for gift cards with partner merchants. In Afghanistan, the card offerings include multiple mobile phone service providers, games such as Fortnite and Minecraft, Hotels.com, and Flightgift, which can be redeemed for flights with 300 international airlines.

While the company wouldn’t share sales numbers on the record with CNBC, Bitrefill does have the endorsement of Janey Gak, who uses it to top up her phone. Her Twitter account has become a must-follow for those who want to understand the situation on the ground through her eyes, but she’s also evangelizing the power of bitcoin to transform the country.

“I’m just an ordinary person. I’m not anyone special,” she said. “I am just someone who discovered bitcoin a couple of years ago.”

In 2018, Gak — who goes by the name “Bibi Janey” — started a Facebook page as a hobby to see what Afghans thought of bitcoin. “I remember getting a lot of comments and questions like, ‘Can you explain more?'” she said. “People would be fascinated by it, but they would be so confused.” She also got lots of questions about where to buy bitcoin.

Since entering this world, she has learned how to code and reads as much as she can about bitcoin. “I don’t trade, I don’t do any of that,” she said. “I just make some money here and there and save it in bitcoin.”

Through her research, she’s come to the conclusion that in order for Afghanistan to be a truly sovereign state, it must never borrow money – and adopt a bitcoin standard. To foment wider adoption, Gak commissions articles to be translated to local languages.

“It’s not much, but it’s a start,” she told CNBC.

DIY crypto rails

The on-ramp to participating in the crypto economy in Afghanistan is complicated and there are still multiple barriers to entry.

Access to the internet, while growing, remains low. There were 8.64 million internet users in Afghanistan in January 2021, according to DataReportal.com and internet penetration stood at 22%.

Unreliable electricity poses another major issue, as power outages are common. “Power goes out once every day for a couple of hours,” said Ramin, though he noted that it happens in some parts of Kabul more often than others.

When CNBC first spoke to Hotak, he was seated near one of the land-crossings into Pakistan, tapping into a WiFi network across the border. “We don’t have proper internet on the Afghanistan side,” he explained. 

Hotak also uses solar power to charge his phone, given the country’s long-standing issue with electricity outages. 

Electricity and a stable internet connection are two essential rails for widespread crypto adoption. Also critical is having access to some form of online banking or a credit card that is recognized internationally – which again, poses a big problem for many Afghans. Eighty-five percent of the country is unbanked, according to one U.N. estimate, meaning they do not have a bank account.

So people wishing to deal in crypto have to get creative.

Hotak and some of his contacts enlist the help of family and friends in neighboring Pakistan or across the Gulf of Oman in the United Arab Emirates, where they have easier access to global markets.

“It’s very easy in Pakistan,” he said. “Most people have relatives in Dubai, who buy crypto for them using their credit cards.”

When the person then wants to liquidate their crypto stake, relatives will sell it for them and use the hawala system, an honor-based system of credit common in Asia and the Middle East, to transfer the funds across the border to Afghanistan. The strategy requires a great deal of trust. In the case of Hotak, his friend in Pakistan doubles as his crypto broker.

“He is a very, very close friend. He has his details on the account that I use, so we could say that it’s his account, but I use it,” Hotak said of the arrangement.

The Salma Hydroelectric Dam in Herat, Afghanistan, is close to the Iran border.

Getty

Trust is also key when it comes to judging the quality of trading tips. “There’s a lot of scammers on YouTube and Twitter,” warned Ramin. When he first started off, he would spend most of his money buying coins promoted by people looking for exit liquidity. “That’s why I stopped trading small-cap coins.”

Hotak, on the other hand, has found a reliable online community that offers him sound trading advice.

“There’s a few groups on Telegram, WhatsApp, and there’s even a Pakistani community on Facebook I follow that gives me the signals to sell. I follow them, and it’s been good so far,” said Hotak.

Brokers advertising crypto services on Facebook appear to be operating across the country. Hotak visited one in Herat in early 2020. He went to interview for a job there and says the two-story data center was packed with boys, mostly aged 20 to 25.

“They were all university people,” he said. “They all had smartphones in their hands, and they were just scrolling down and down.”

CNBC has not spoken with any of these brokerages directly, but Hotak says the site he visited in Herat is still going. Hotak also says that Herat is home to a bitcoin mining farm.

“They had these very big CPUs. Very advanced,” he said. But Hotak tells CNBC he didn’t get to see the entire operation. “I just got a little glimpse of it.”

Blockchain analysts Lorne Lantz and Rieya Piscano say they looked at various data sources and found no sign of bitcoin or ethereum nodes running in Afghanistan, so it is unclear whether this miner in Herat has covered his online footprint, or whether he’s cut off his rigs.

Even with all of these workarounds, the political turmoil of the last few weeks doesn’t make it easy to find time to think about crypto.

“The reality is I cannot focus on crypto trading when the ongoing events in Afghanistan are this intense,” said Hotak. “With no electricity and bad internet, crypto trading is near to impossible, so we just hold.”

Crypto trader and vlogger Farhan Hotak in Herat, Afghanistan.

Path to mass adoption

On Aug. 15, an hour and a half before Ramin’s flight bound for Turkey was due to take off, then-President Ghani arrived to the airport in Kabul. After that, Ramin says that all flights were halted and everyone was kicked out. 

Ramin still has plans to leave, along with his family. But finding a flight is proving to be difficult. He’s used his now dwindling supply of afghanis to purchase flights for ten members of his family. He’s done this three times, and all three times, the flights were canceled. With travel agencies shut, he remains in a bit of a holding pattern on the ground in Kabul. 

Ramin is one among many looking to leave the country. Every media outlet on the planet has been circulating the same photos of Afghans clinging to planes, fleeing the country with whatever possessions they can carry. For several, this has meant having to leave a lot behind.

Ramin estimates that around 5-10% of his net worth is in crypto, which makes it easier to plan an exit, knowing that there is some money in the bank to tide him over, especially since he doesn’t know if he will ever see the money in his bank accounts in Kabul.

“If some type of government doesn’t come to existence, then I could potentially see the majority of my wealth being wiped out,” he said. For now, he and his family are just sitting tight, waiting to catch a flight out.

But many people are staying put, in part because they want to foment positive change at home.

“In these circumstances, one can fully appreciate the censorship-resistance property of blockchain-based assets. I believe this is the main driver of the fundamental value of bitcoin and other cryptos,” said Andrea Barbon, Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of St. Gallen.

Gak, for example, thinks that using legacy financial rails like the hawala system might be one of the most effective ways to foster mass adoption. It is a vision she detailed in a prescient story she wrote for Hacker Noon in 2018.

She’s also thinking about opening her own exchange shop in Kabul. “The idea is that anyone with bitcoin can exchange it for fiat and then use that to buy goods like always. Anyone who is unable to receive can have their family for example, send the bitcoin to me with a unique address that only the recipient would know just like hawala,” she explained in a tweet.

Ramin has a similar plan to make crypto more accessible to Afghans. “I hope once I gain more knowledge in blockchain technology to create a team and develop an easily accessible trading platform which Afghans can use,” he said.

There are promising trends on their side. The number of social media users in Afghanistan increased by 22% from 2020 to 2021, and 68.7% of the total population now has a mobile phone connection, according to DataReportal.com. It helps that more than 60% of the population is under 25 and hungry to be a part of the modern economy. Shakib Noori, previously the CEO of a mobile money company in Afghanistan, says this younger demographic also tends to be more tech savvy.

Ultimately, CNBC is told that grassroots adoption comes down to one Afghan teaching another about how cryptocurrencies like bitcoin work. Hotak has already mentored three students, and that’s just the beginning.

“The Afghan people – they’re very complicated. And it’s very hard convincing them that digital currency exists,” he said. “I have plans to teach people about cryptocurrency in the future…but for now, people are just laying low and waiting to see what happens next.”

Evacuees crowd the interior of a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft, carrying some 640 Afghans to Qatar from Kabul, Afghanistan August 15, 2021.

Courtesy of Defense One | Handout via Reuters

Categories
Health

U.S. increasing Covid vaccine manufacturing to donate extra doses to world

U.S. expanding Covid vaccine manufacturing to donate more doses to world

The United States is expanding manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines to donate more doses to countries that don’t have as much access to the lifesaving shots.

“We are now working on greatly expanding the capacity to allow us to donate hundreds and hundreds of millions of doses to the low- and middle-income countries,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, medical advisor to President Joe Biden, said in an interview Thursday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”

Scientists around the world, including officials at the World Health Organization, have condemned wealthy nations for administering booster shots to fully vaccinated people while millions in other countries cannot get the vaccine.

Dr. Mike Ryan, director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said wealthy nations that decide to give booster doses are “handing out extra life jackets” to those who already have one while letting other people drown.

Fauci said the U.S. has given more than 120 million doses to 80 countries and has donated $4 billion in resources to the COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative, which is coordinated by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the WHO.

“We are doing both,” Fauci said of distributing booster shots and helping other countries. “We’re very sensitive to the needs of the developing world who need vaccine doses, but we believe we can do both.”

Worries about the delta variant continue to be on the minds of many Americans as health systems in states with high infection rates struggle to keep up with the demand for hospital beds. A continued acceleration of cases could be avoided in the U.S. if more people get vaccinated, Fauci said.

“There’s a lot we can do about it,” Fauci said, noting that 90 million people in the U.S. are eligible for vaccines but still haven’t gotten the shots. “We want to vaccinate the unvaccinated to the highest extent that we possibly can.”

He said it’s hard to know when the current delta outbreak will peak.

“It’s very difficult to predict. We’ve seen in the U.K. that after several weeks of a high acceleration, it’s turned around,” Fauci said.

Once delta infections begin to slow down, Covid could become an endemic disease that remains in the population at low levels, like the flu, though Covid is much deadlier. Fauci said he doubts that Covid — unlike the flu, which requires annual shots — will need recurrent boosters to maintain high levels of protection.

“I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I think this third shot will take us a long way,” Fauci said.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that the COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative is coordinated by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the WHO.