As millions of Americans lose their jobs and go without healthcare, President Donald Trump has decided not to reopen Healthcare.gov marketplaces to new customers.
Trump opted not to allow a special enrollment period, which would have reopened the Affordable Care Act’s Healthcare.gov marketplaces for a set time period for the uninsured or those soon to be, as the country grapples with unprecedented calamity in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump had been mulling the idea for about a month, but decided to explore other options outside of Obamacare, a White House official told Politico.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media during a Cabinet meeting at the White House December 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images)
People who recently lost their jobs still qualify to find a health insurance plan on the marketplaces, however, they must show proof that they lost their insurance coverage. If Trump would have allowed a special enrollment period, it would have made the process less cumbersome for people to enroll, as it would not have required that paperwork.
Further, it would have given additional people, who previously opted not to buy health insurance this year, another avenue to do so, according to The New York Times.
Trump’s decision isn’t shocking for people who have followed his stance on Obamacare. He is still calling for the law to be overturned and replaced, and has even joined a lawsuit with other Republican-leaning states hoping the Supreme Court will rule to cancel the law in its next term.
People celebrate in front of the US Supreme Court after ruling was announced on the Affordable Care Act. June 25, 2015 in Washington, DC. The high court ruled that the Affordable Care Act may provide nationwide tax subsidies to help poor and middle-class people buy health insurance. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Recently, Trump told reporters: “What we want to do is get rid of the bad health care and put in a great health care.”
Some politicians have criticized Trump’s decision, including former Vice President Joe Biden, who is challenging Trump in the 2020 presidential race. Also, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee issued a statement, slamming “Washington Republicans” for taking part in a “crusade against the health and safety of the American public.”
“By blocking uninsured Covid-19 patients from getting health care, Trump and his allies have decided to bankrupt American families,” Fabiola Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the group, said in the statement, according to the Times.
“The American people deserve to know if House Republicans will stand up for the millions of Americans who face the challenge of being jobless and uninsured during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
It remains unclear what other options the Trump administration will make available for Americans who have lost their jobs and healthcare benefits.
Amid the coronavirus, outbreak, also known as COVID-19, there has been a huge call for donations of medical supplies for healthcare professionals working on the front lines of the crisis. Due to the shortage in necessary materials such as N95 masks and gloves, many doctors, nurses, and other essential workers have been left vulnerable to contracting the virus themselves as they treat patients.
Mississippi-based entrepreneur Alexis Williams is the founder of a local African and Hawaiian inspired clothing boutique called Aloha Glamour. In response to the coronavirus outbreak, Williams started selling reusable face masks with Ankara prints for use as protective measures against the spread of COVID-19.
“My masks are 100% cotton, reversible, reusable and machine washable,” says Williams in a statement “My masks are not meant to replace surgical masks, but it is a contingency plan for those who don’t have the ability to get surgical masks because of the shortage. It is not medical-rated, but it is good enough to filter other hazardous particles and bad smells. The response to it has been overwhelming and we want to do anything we can to help out.”
While the masks are not N95 certified, they are big enough to wear on top of the mask, which helps with keeping your hands off your face. For every face mask sold, Williams will be donating a free one to local healthcare workers.
“I decided to encourage my other customers to help provide masks for those on the front line in this pandemic battle,” Williams said. “I asked them to make contributions so my business could provide face masks for someone in public service for free. Several of my customers have responded by donating to help in this important effort.”
As if you didn’t know, art has been in Kanye West’s life for as long as he’s been able to talk about it. The rapper/producer/overall creative was enrolled at Chicago’s Hyde Park Art Academy at the age of 4, and of course, dropped out of Chi-Town’s American Academy of Art, where he was studying to receive his B.F.A. …
The mayor of Los Angeles on Wednesday told everyone in the nation’s second-largest city to start wearing masks to combat the coronavirus, but California’s governor isn’t ready to take that idea statewide.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday he’s focused instead on keeping people inside. He also announced the state may need 66,000 additional hospital beds, 16,000 more than previously forecast, to handle the crush of illnesses expected during the second part of May.
At an afternoon news conference, Mayor Eric Garcetti said he had been awaiting advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on mask-wearing but with the COVID-19 rate surging had decided to wait no longer.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti listens as California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks in front of the hospital ship USNS Mercy that arrived into the Port of Los Angeles on Friday, March 27, 2020, to provide relief for Southland hospitals overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic. Admiral John Gumbleton, United States Navy stands behind Mayor Garcetti. (Photo by Carolyn Cole-Pool/Getty Images)
The mayor said all 4 million residents who are performing essential tasks such as food shopping should wear homemade, non-medical face coverings, or even bandannas, as people in other COVID-19-struck countries have done.
“To be clear, you should still stay at home. This isn’t an excuse to suddenly all go out,” Garcetti said.
He also said people shouldn’t use medical-grade masks, which are in short supply and are needed by health care workers and first responders.
The mayor said even a “tucked-in bandanna” could slow the spread of the virus and the masks also are good for reminding people to keep their distance.
“I know it will look surreal,” he said, donning a mask. “We’re going to have to get used to seeing each other like this … This will be the look.”
Los Angeles County reported more than 500 new cases on Wednesday, a 17% hike over the previous day.
Garcetti’s announcement came after Riverside County public health officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser urged that people who need to go out in public should use something — even bandanas or neck warmers — to cover their mouths and noses to protect others and themselves.
The governor had been expected to release guidelines for masks, but at his own news conference Newsom said he did not think they should be a substitute for keeping a safe distance from other people and taking additional measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference at the California justice department on September 18, 2019 in Sacramento, California. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, California attorney general Xavier Becerra and California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols held a news conference in response to the Trump Administration’s plan to revoke California’s waiver to establish vehicle emissions standards for greenhouse gas emissions and standards to require manufacturers to sell zero emissions vehicles. Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is allowed to set its own vehicle emissions standards that are at least as protective as the federal government’s standards. The state has received 100 waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for higher standards than federally mandated over the past 50 years. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“They are not a substitute for a stay-at-home order. They are not a call to get folks to find N95 masks or surgical masks and pull them away or compete against our first responders,” Newsom said.
Newsom focused instead on adding thousands more hospital beds than previously stated. He now projects needing 66,000 more hospital beds for the anticipated peak of cases in late May — 16,000 more than his prior projections.
In Riverside County, Kaiser said the virus is transmitted in droplets that can be spread through coughs or sneezes, so some type of covering could help even if it’s not a hospital-grade mask.
Kaiser issued the recommendation because the state’s fourth-largest county was seeing infections rise faster than predicted. At the current rate, he said Wednesday that it would run out of hospital beds April 12 and ventilators by April 26.
“When the situation changes, the rule book changes,” Kaiser said in a news release. “We’re seeing our numbers increasing even sooner than we predicted, and that means our strategy must change too.”
U.S. and global health authorities have said people who are not health care workers shouldn’t wear a mask unless they’re sick — to prevent infecting others.
The World Health Organization recommended people caring for a sick relative wear a mask. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agreed — as long as the person who was ill was not able to wear a mask.
But there has been some conflicting direction. Austria said this week it would require masks for grocery shoppers. President Donald Trump suggested people who are worried should wear a scarf.
California’s public health officer, Dr. Sonia Angell, said face coverings could prevent the spread of the virus, but if worn incorrectly or handled improperly could lead to infection. They could also lead people to let down their guard and not stay the recommended distance of 6 feet (1.8 meters) away from others.
Palm trees stand behind a street art piece by artist Pony Wave depicting two people kissing while wearing face masks on Venice Beach on March 21, 2020 in Venice, California. California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a ‘stay at home’ order for California’s 40 million residents in order to slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). Californians may still go to the beach without violating Newsom’s order as long as they maintain social distancing and adhere to other public health measures related to the coronavirus. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
“When we speak about the potential downfalls, which we also must acknowledge, they can be that if people have these masks on, they feel somewhat immune, they feel like they can get closer to other people,” Angell said.
The spread of the virus statewide has, so far, been slow enough to give the state time to prepare for an expected spike in cases that could overwhelm hospitals if extreme measures aren’t taken to keep most people home and away from others.
The state had nearly 10,000 virus cases and 215 deaths reported Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is keeping a global tally.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
Newsom has been talking in the past week about increasing hospital beds in the state by two-thirds to add 50,000 new beds at locations that could include convention centers and arenas to cope with peak demand next month. On Wednesday, he increased that number.
“Modeling shows we’ll need roughly 66,000 beds towards the end of May,” Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said at a news conference with the governor.
Newsom had bad news for parents Wednesday when he said schools should plan to teach from afar for the rest of the academic year.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond provided similar guidance to districts Tuesday evening. The decision on whether students will return to the classroom will ultimately be up to school districts.
Ellis Marsalis Jr., jazz pianist, teacher and patriarch of a New Orleans musical clan that includes famed performer sons Wynton and Branford, has died after battling pneumonia brought by the new coronavirus, one of his sons said late Wednesday.
He was 85.
Ellis Marsalis III confirmed in a phone interview with The Associated Press that his father’s death was brought about by the virus that is causing the global pandemic.
“Pneumonia was the actual thing that caused his demise. But it was pneumonia brought on by COVID-19,” said the younger Marsalis, speaking of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Harry Connick Jr. and Ellis Marsalis perform at the 57th NBA All-Star Game, part of 2008 NBA All-Star Weekend at the New Orleans Arena on February 17, 2008 in New Orleans, Louisiana. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
He said he drove from Baltimore on Sunday to be with his father as he was hospitalized. He said others in the family also were able to spend time with their father.
Four of the jazz patriarch’s six sons are musicians: Wynton, the trumpeter, is America’s most prominent jazz spokesman as artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. Branford, the saxophonist, led The Tonight Show band and toured with Sting. Delfeayo, trombonist, is a prominent recording producer and performer. And Jason, the drummer, has made a name for himself with his own band and as an accompanist. Ellis III, who decided music was not his gig, is a photographer-poet in Baltimore.
Said Ellis III: “I was with him in the hospital for six or seven hours yesterday. Branford was with him Monday, I was with him yesterday and Jason was with him today. He passed right after Jason departed.”
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced the musician’s death in a somber news release Wednesday night. The elder Marsalis had continued to perform regularly in New Orleans until December.
“Ellis Marsalis was a legend. He was the prototype of what we mean when we talk about New Orleans jazz,” Cantrell said in her statement. “He was a teacher, a father, and an icon — and words aren’t sufficient to describe the art, the joy and the wonder he showed the world.”
Because Marsalis opted to stay in New Orleans for most of his career, his reputation was limited until his sons became famous and brought him the spotlight, along with new recording contracts and headliner performances on television and on tour.
“He was like the coach of jazz. He put on the sweatshirt, blew the whistle and made these guys work,” said Nick Spitzer, host of public radio’s American Routes and an anthropology professor at Tulane University.
The Marsalis “family band” seldom played together when the boys were younger, but in 2003 toured up East in a spinoff of a family celebration that became a PBS special when the elder Marsalis retired from teaching at the University of New Orleans.
Harry Connick Jr., one of Marsalis’ students at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, was a guest. He is just one of the many now-famous jazz musicians who passed through the Marsalis classrooms; others include trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Terence Blanchard, saxophonists Donald Harrison and Victor Goines, and bassist Reginald Veal.
Pianist Ellis Marsalis (L) and host Harry Connick Jr. attend the Jazz at Lincoln Center 2017 Gala “Ella at 100: Forever the First Lady of Song” on April 26, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Jazz At Lincoln Center)
Marsalis was born in New Orleans, son of the operator of a hotel where Marsalis met touring black musicians who could not stay at the segregated downtown hotels where they performed. He played saxophone in high school but was also playing piano by the time he went to Dillard University.
Although New Orleans was steeped in traditional jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll was the new sound in the city’s studios in the 1950s, Marsalis preferred bebop and modern jazz.
Spitzer described Marsalis as a “modernist in a town of traditionalists.”
“His great love was jazz a la bebop — he was a lover of Thelonious Monk and the idea that bebop was a music of freedom. But when he had to feed his family he played R ‘n’ B and soul and rock and roll on Bourbon Street,” said Spitzer.
The musician’s college quartet included drummer Ed Blackwell, clarinetist Alvin Batiste and saxophonist Harold Battiste playing modern.
Ornette Coleman was in town at the time, and in 1956 when Coleman headed to California, Marsalis and the others went with him, but after a few months Marsalis came back home. He told the New Orleans Times-Picayune years later, when he and Coleman were old men, that he never did figure out what a pianist could do behind the free form of Coleman’s jazz.
Back in New Orleans, Marsalis joined the Marine Corps and was assigned to accompany soloists on the service’s weekly TV programs on CBS in New York. It was there, he said, that he learned to handle all kinds of different music styles.
On returning home, he worked at the Playboy Club and ventured into running his own club, which quickly went bust. In 1967 trumpeter Al Hirt hired him. When not on Bourbon Street, Hirt’s band was appearing on national TV — doing headline shows on The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, among others.
Marsalis got into education about the same time, teaching improvisation at Xavier University in New Orleans, and in the mid-1970s joined the faculty at the New Orleans magnet high school where he influenced a new generation of young jazz musicians.
When asked how he could teach something as free-wheeling as jazz improvisation, Marsalis once said, “We don’t teach jazz, we teach students.”
In 1986 he moved to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond as coordinator of Jazz Studies, a post he kept until 1989 when the University of New Orleans lured him back to set up a program of jazz studies at home.
Marsalis retired from UNO in 2001, but continued to perform, particularly at Snug Harbor in New Orleans, a small jazz club that anchored the city’s contemporary jazz scene — frequently backing young musicians who had promise.
His melodic style, with running improvisations in the right hand, has been described variously as romantic, contemporary, or simply “Louisiana jazz.” He is always on acoustic piano, never electric, and even in interpreting the old standards there’s a clear link to the driving bebop chords and rhythms of his early years.
He founded his own record company, ELM (taken from his initials), but his recording was limited until his sons became famous. After that he joined them and other musicians on mainstream labels and headlined his own releases, many full of his own compositions.
He often played at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. For more than three decades he played two 75-minute sets every Friday night at Snug Harbor until he decided it had become too exhausting. But even then he still performed there on occasion as a special guest.
Marsalis’ wife, Dolores, died in 2017. He is survived by his sons Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo, Mboya and Jason.
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