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Our tangled web
TOM WILLIAMS/CQ ROLL CALL
UPFRONT
Unaffordable care SIMPLY avoid getting sick. That might be the only strategy left for the 24 million Americans expected to lose healthcare insurance if the Trump administration pushes through a law to replace the existing Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare (see page 24). An assessment by the politically impartial Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has concluded that by next year, 14 million more Americans will be uninsured than under Obamacare, rising to 24 million by 2026. When combined with the 28 million who already lack insurance, this will leave a sixth of all Americans – 52 million people – without medical cover. Trump’s allies have dismissed the findings. “If you’re looking to the CBO for accuracy, you’re looking in the wrong place,” White House
spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters last week. But many fellow Republicans are also concerned about the impact of the act, not least because some govern states where Obamacare has greatly improved the health of adults on a low income. Trump’s law will scrap enhanced funding for Medicaid, which helps low-income families, and instead awards states a fixed amount per person enrolled, effectively devolving the responsibility – and cost – of citizens’ welfare to individual states. The CBO also concluded that premiums could be 15 to 20 per cent higher, at least until 2020. Insurers will be able to charge older people five times as much as young people, compared with three times at present, as they are more likely to get sick.
Our tangled web
that prioritise content based on what people are likely to click on. He also questions the ethics of online political campaigning, which can exploit vast amounts of data to target various audiences. “Targeted advertising allows a campaign to say completely different, possibly conflicting things to different groups,” he writes. “Is that democratic?” He also says that we are losing control of our personal data, which we often divulge to sign up to free services. The Web Foundation, founded by BernersLee, plans to work on these issues.
–No substitute for Obamacare–
No jab, no play
exclude unvaccinated children from preschools during infectious disease outbreaks. The proposed policy is based on Victoria’s model, which is the strictest. It requires all children attending childcare to be fully immunised, unless they have a medical exemption, such as a vaccine allergy. But punitive measures may galvanise the anti-vaccination movement, warns Julie Leask at the University of Sydney. It may also further marginalise children from disadvantaged families, who are less likely to be vaccinated.
UNVACCINATED children will be barred from attending preschools and daycare centres, the Australian prime minister has announced. Currently, 93 per cent of Australian children receive the
standard childhood vaccinations, including those for measles, mumps and rubella, but the government wants to lift this to 95 per cent. This is the level required to stop the spread of infectious disease and to protect children who are too young to be immunised or cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. Childcare subsidies have been unavailable to the families of unvaccinated children since January 2016, and a version of the new “no jab, no play” policy is already in place in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Other states and territories only 6 | NewScientist | 18 March 2017
HEMIS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
“The policy will require all children to be fully immunised, unless they have a medical exemption”
TIM BERNERS-LEE, creator of the World Wide Web, has spoken out about fake news, political advertising and the misuse of personal data. These issues need to be solved, he says, for the web to “fulfil its true potential as a tool which serves all of humanity”. In an open letter to mark the web’s 28th birthday on 12 March, Berners-Lee writes that it is too easy for misinformation to spread, because most people get their news from a few social media sites and search engines
Tobacco endgame SWEDEN is lighting up the way to a cigarette-free world. The proportion of Swedish men aged between 30 and 44 who smoke fell to just 5 per cent in 2016, government figures reveal. This makes the country the first to hit a notional tobacco “endgame” target proposed by global health bodies and some governments, to lower the prevalence of smoking to 5 per –Cheeky alternative to cigarettes– cent or below by an agreed date.
UPFRONT
Unaffordable care SIMPLY avoid getting sick. That might be the only strategy left for the 24 million Americans expected to lose healthcare insurance if the Trump administration pushes through a law to replace the existing Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare (see page 24). An assessment by the politically impartial Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has concluded that by next year, 14 million more Americans will be uninsured than under Obamacare, rising to 24 million by 2026. When combined with the 28 million who already lack insurance, this will leave a sixth of all Americans – 52 million people – without medical cover. Trump’s allies have dismissed the findings. “If you’re looking to the CBO for accuracy, you’re looking in the wrong place,” White House
spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters last week. But many fellow Republicans are also concerned about the impact of the act, not least because some govern states where Obamacare has greatly improved the health of adults on a low income. Trump’s law will scrap enhanced funding for Medicaid, which helps low-income families, and instead awards states a fixed amount per person enrolled, effectively devolving the responsibility – and cost – of citizens’ welfare to individual states. The CBO also concluded that premiums could be 15 to 20 per cent higher, at least until 2020. Insurers will be able to charge older people five times as much as young people, compared with three times at present, as they are more likely to get sick.
Our tangled web
that prioritise content based on what people are likely to click on. He also questions the ethics of online political campaigning, which can exploit vast amounts of data to target various audiences. “Targeted advertising allows a campaign to say completely different, possibly conflicting things to different groups,” he writes. “Is that democratic?” He also says that we are losing control of our personal data, which we often divulge to sign up to free services. The Web Foundation, founded by BernersLee, plans to work on these issues.
–No substitute for Obamacare–
No jab, no play
exclude unvaccinated children from preschools during infectious disease outbreaks. The proposed policy is based on Victoria’s model, which is the strictest. It requires all children attending childcare to be fully immunised, unless they have a medical exemption, such as a vaccine allergy. But punitive measures may galvanise the anti-vaccination movement, warns Julie Leask at the University of Sydney. It may also further marginalise children from disadvantaged families, who are less likely to be vaccinated.
UNVACCINATED children will be barred from attending preschools and daycare centres, the Australian prime minister has announced. Currently, 93 per cent of Australian children receive the
standard childhood vaccinations, including those for measles, mumps and rubella, but the government wants to lift this to 95 per cent. This is the level required to stop the spread of infectious disease and to protect children who are too young to be immunised or cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. Childcare subsidies have been unavailable to the families of unvaccinated children since January 2016, and a version of the new “no jab, no play” policy is already in place in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Other states and territories only 6 | NewScientist | 18 March 2017
HEMIS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
“The policy will require all children to be fully immunised, unless they have a medical exemption”
TIM BERNERS-LEE, creator of the World Wide Web, has spoken out about fake news, political advertising and the misuse of personal data. These issues need to be solved, he says, for the web to “fulfil its true potential as a tool which serves all of humanity”. In an open letter to mark the web’s 28th birthday on 12 March, Berners-Lee writes that it is too easy for misinformation to spread, because most people get their news from a few social media sites and search engines
Tobacco endgame SWEDEN is lighting up the way to a cigarette-free world. The proportion of Swedish men aged between 30 and 44 who smoke fell to just 5 per cent in 2016, government figures reveal. This makes the country the first to hit a notional tobacco “endgame” target proposed by global health bodies and some governments, to lower the prevalence of smoking to 5 per –Cheeky alternative to cigarettes– cent or below by an agreed date.