Longer Looks: Obamacare And Rent Payments, Lonely Cities & Juul
Each week, KHN's Shefali Luthra finds interesting reads from around the Web.
CityLab:
For The Poor, Obamacare Can Reduce Late Rent Payments
When Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the decision in 2012 to uphold the Affordable Care Act, the court set the stage for a natural experiment in economics. His majority opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius invalidated the part of the law that would have penalized states that refused to participate in the Medicaid expansion, making it optional for states to extend coverage for the most vulnerable Americans. As a result, poor adults in some states would receive health insurance, while poor adults in others would go without. (Kriston Capps, 12/4)
VICE:
Our Cities Are Designed For Loneliness
Loneliness, partly social isolation and partly our own subjective interpretation of our lives, is a public health problem in our cities: It makes our lives shorter, our bodies more subject to disease, our minds vulnerable to depression and other mental illness. (Ankita Rao, 12/3)
The Atlantic:
‘Juul’s A Business, And They’re Behaving Like A Business’
Juul Labs’ Instagram account was once a repository of images of attractive young adults hanging out in sunny locales while puffing away at the brand’s popular vapes. Now it’s more like a digital grave. Everything is buried, save for one post, a lone marker explaining the void. (Amanda Mull, 11/30)
WIRED:
US Biotech Firms Made China's Gene-Edited Babies Possible
American Crispr companies, many of them founded or advised by the field’s biggest stars, have also been hard at work to lower the costs and labor associated with gene editing. Their mission is to make Crispr accessible to everyone. And now they’re getting a lesson in what democratization of that technology really looks like. (Megan Molteni, 11/30)
Vox:
The Problem With All The Plastic That’s Leaching Into Your Food
Most of our food containers — from bottles to the linings in aluminum cans to plastic wraps and salad bins — are made using polycarbonate plastics, some of which have bioactive chemicals, like bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates. These man-made chemicals can leach from the containers or wrappings into the food and drinks they’re holding — especially when they’re heated. (Julia Belluz and Radhika Viswanathan, 12/4)
