By the numbers: The share of poor Americans who were uninsured declined substantially in 2014, according to the first full year of federal data since the Affordable Care Act extended coverage to millions of Americans last year. As The New York Times reports, the drop was largely in line with earlier findings by private polling companies such as Gallup, but was significant because of its source—the National Health Interview Survey, a long-running federal survey considered to be a gold standard by researchers. The findings are being released today. The survey also registered a sharp decline in the share of black Americans who were uninsured, which fell by nearly a third to 13.5% from 18.9% in 2013. That was the largest annual change for any racial or ethnic group since the survey began in 1997. Read the full story.
Talk is cheap: Stanford, Oxford and Georgetown universities have won praise for promising to purge their endowments of direct investments in coal, embracing the fight against climate change. But as Bloomberg reports, one key detail has been lost in the celebration: The colleges have few, if any, such investments to sell in the first place. “These efforts are pure window dressing,” says Frank Wolak, an economics professor who directs Stanford’s energy and sustainable development program. “And, much to my surprise, the student groups are complicit in this deception.” Almost three dozen colleges have announced fossil-fuel divestment pledges over the last three years, and their actions tend to have less substance than advertised. The divestment movement is letting colleges take credit for largely empty gestures, some academics and environmentalists say. Read the full story.
Blowing in the wind: Walmart and Sears have announced they will stop selling products bearing the Confederate flag, a week after a white gunman shot nine dead at a historically black South Carolina church. Reuters reports the move by the major retailers came Monday—the same day South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called on lawmakers to take down the flag, considered by opponents to be a symbol of slavery and racism, at the state capitol grounds. The accused white gunman posed with the flag in photos online. Supporters, who fly the flag or wear it on clothing, see it as a symbol of the South’s history and culture, as well a memorial to the Confederate casualties during the 1861-65 Civil War. A Walmart spokesman says the company does not want to offend anyone with the products it offers. Sears, which operates Sears and Kmart stores, does not sell confederate flags at its stores and has decided to remove sales of such merchandise by third parties on its online marketplace, says a spokesperson. Read the full story.
