By Margot Sanger-Katz, New York Times

When Bernie Sanders released his long-awaited health care plan last month, it was light on the details. But it did include one major, crowd-pleasing promise: Under his Medicare-for-all proposal, no American would ever have to pay a deductible or co-payment to receive health care again.

Deductibles and other forms of cost-sharing have been creeping up in the United States since the late 1990s. A typical employer health plan now asks an individual to pay more than $1,000 out of pocket before coverage kicks in for most services. The most popular plans on the Affordable Care Act exchanges require customers to pay several times as much. Even Medicare charges deductibles.

People tend to hate these features, but they were not devised to be cruel. Rather, they were fashioned with economic theory in mind.

Read the whole story

By USSA

HAFJELL, Norway — River Radamus (Edwards, Colo.) took the biggest victory of his young career, winning the men’s super G at the Youth Olympic Winter Games Saturday.

“The course was pretty technical today,” said Radamus. “There were a couple of really key spots that I think I nailed. I didn’t really go in with any sort of expectations. I knew that if I executed my lines and skied the way I wanted to, I would have a chance, but this is definitely a welcome surprise.”

Competing on the Hafjell, Olympic Slope, Radamus edged out Italy’s Pietro Canzio for the gold by 0.03 seconds. Austria’s Manuel Traninger won the bronze. Radamus, who just turned 18 on Friday, is the current U.S Junior National slalom champion.

“The entire experience here has been really awe-inspiring and something I think I’ll always remember,” said Radamus. “The fact that I got to go out and win a medal is something that I don’t think I’ll ever forget and something that I’ll be very proud of for a long time.”

Radamus grew up in ski racing, with his father Aldo a former U.S. Ski Team coach and longtime head of Ski & Snowboard Club Vail. Radamus moved up through the alpine development pipeline in the Vail club and into the USSA’s National Training Group program. He also attended the USSA TEAM Academy, the U.S. Ski Team’s program for high school aged athletes. He graduated from the academy last year at the same time he was named to the U.S. Ski Team’s D team.

“This is a great result by River on a big stage against an international field of the best athletes his age,” said USSA Alpine Development Director Chip Knight. “It’s shows our next generation is on track against the best in the world.”

In the women’s super G, 16-year-old Keely Cashman (Squaw Valley) finished 10th. Austria won the gold and silver with Nadine Fest and Julia Scheib going 1-2. Switzerland’s Aline Danioth won the bronze.

Modeled after the Olympic Games, the Youth Olympic Games debuted its winter event in 2012 at Innsbruck, Austria. Held every four years, the Youth Olympic Winter Games feature more than 1,100 athletes aged 15 to 18, from around the world. Alpine events will include slalom, giant slalom, super G, downhill and alpine combined. The Games continue through Feb. 21.

By CNN

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the leading conservative voice on the high court, has died at the age of 79, a government source and a family friend told CNN on Saturday.

Antonin Scalia

His death set off an immediate debate about whether President Obama should fill the seat in an election year. Obama said Saturday night that he plans to nominate a replacement, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the nomination should wait until the next president comes into office while top Democrat Harry Reid called for the seat to be filled “right away.”

Scalia died in his sleep during a visit to Texas. A government official said Scalia went to bed Friday night and told friends he wasn’t feeling well. He didn’t get up for breakfast on Saturday morning, and the group he was with for a hunting trip left without him.

Read the whole story

·       Urologist Bradley Anderson with Barton Health in March will begin seeing patients in Incline Village in addition to his South Lake Tahoe office.

·       Out of the 20 resorts nominated by a panel of pro skiers and snowboarders, USA Today and 10Best announced that their readers selected Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows as the winner of the 2016 Readers’ Choice Poll for Best Ski Resort.

·       There will be a joint Truckee Town Council and Planning Commission workshop regarding the Railyard Master Plan Amendment on Feb. 16 from 6-10pm at the Truckee Airport.

·       Lake Tahoe native Houston Guy, who now lives in Los Angeles, has created an independent animated sci-fi film entitled “Superpositioned”. It will be a full feature length film. He launched a Kickstarter campaign to get support for it.

·       Here is the El Dorado-Tahoe roadwork schedule from Caltrans for this week.

By Brian Kahn, Climate Central

For most states in the U.S., winters without snow would be like a Super Bowl performance without Beyonce, Donald Trump without a combover or an overseas flight without a passport.

And yet that’s exactly what’s been happening. As the world warms, it’s changing the essence of winter. It’s not that less precipitation is falling (though that is happening in some areas). It’s that less winter precipitation is falling as snow, according to a new Climate Central analysis.

Not all winter precipitation is created equal. Less winter precipitation falling as snow is bad news for water supplies and wildfires out West and the financial fate of ski resorts across the country.

Read the whole story

By Kim Wyatt

“Between the World and Me”

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Spiegel & Grau, 176 pages, $24 hardcover

One-line review: A challenging, lyrical and heartbreaking must-read for Americans.

“Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates is titled after Richard Wright’s 1935 poem of the same name about a lynching. This powerful book, written as a candid letter to Coates’s 15-year-old son, offers a personal investigation into the history of the black man in the United States from slavery to a time when unarmed black men and boys are killed on film in broad daylight by police officers. The choice of epistolary structure is superb, bringing poetic urgency to the material through the father-son relationship, with the founding of our country and its aftereffects the drumbeat.

I read this short book in one sitting, and a veil was lifted. Not that I wasn’t aware of racism or of my own complicity, but I hadn’t considered it at the cellular level, in the DNA of the USA and in each of us. Coates asserts that the violence that breaks black bodies isn’t a failure of the system, it is part of the system. It is tradition and it is legacy—the American Dream “rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies.” From Civil War battlefields and cotton plantations to our modern prison-industrial complex, it’s hard to disagree.

Once we get into Coates’s personal history, the book soars. “My understanding of the universe was physical, and its moral arc bent toward chaos then concluded in a box.” From the streets of Baltimore to Howard University and Paris, the author’s erudition and vulnerability elevate this book, and the [white] reader is given raw insight into a world we can’t possibly understand. Despite progress in civil rights, black parents know on a visceral level that their children can be taken or brutalized for any reason or no reason at all.

Of Howard University student Prince Jones, who was killed by a police officer, Coates writes: “And the plunder was not just of Prince alone. Think of all the love poured into him. Think of the tuitions for Montessori and music lessons. Think of the gasoline expended, the treads worn carting him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little League. . . . Think of the surprise birthday parties, the daycare, and the reference check on babysitters . . . Think of the checks written for family photos. Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into that vessel of flesh and bone. And think of how that vessel was taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into him, sent flowing back to the earth.”

This book requires that you bring an open mind and heart to the table. Winner of the 2015 National Book Award, “Between the World and Me” is important, timely and immensely readable. Inspired by James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time,” which begins addressed to his 15-year-old nephew, Coates offers no easy prescriptions to his son (or the reader), rather, the belief that the value lies in the questioning and in the struggle. “The struggle to understand is our only advantage over this madness.” It’s time for all of us to struggle with his questions.

Kim Wyatt is the owner of the independent press Bona Fide Books.

To the community,

Tahoe Best Friends owner Paige Rice has a big heart not only for all of the family pets that she and her team at Tahoe Best Friends train and care for, but also for those less fortunate members of our community who are in need of a helping hand.

On Feb. 1, Rice sponsored an Adopt A Day of Nourishment dinner held by Bread & Broth at St. Theresa Grace Hall. She brought Tahoe Best Friends’ employees Allison Brilliant and Maureen Stuhlman, and friend and customer Judy Arnold to help at her sponsorship dinner.

“The smiles of both the guests and the volunteers brightened the day. It is a wonderful mix of people who share experiences at dinner,” said Stuhlman. Complementing the B&B cooks, she added, “The taste of the food was restaurant quality and we all felt the gratitude for it.”

The dinner guests agreed, with over half coming back for seconds of the evening’s meatloaf, pasta with a mushroom sauce, sauté cauliflower and salad.

Bread & Broth would like to thank Rice and her sponsor crew for their kindness and helpfulness throughout their time at the dinner event. These four ladies kept busy working alongside the B&B volunteers and “enjoyed the wonderful experience.”  Taking the time to help others and provide the funding to help those struggling with hunger speaks volumes for Rice and her sponsor crew.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

Starting about noon Friday, Truckee Donner PUD started getting call from business customers who had been contacted by phone by someone claiming to be with the district, stating that they had a past due account, and threatening to disconnect them if they did not pay them immediately over the phone by pre-paid debit card, credit card, or money transfer.

This is a scam.

TDPUD mails monthly bills with past due balances, 15-day notices, and 48-hour notices. TDPUD never asks for a pre-paid debit card or money transfer and doesn’t disconnect for non-payment over the phone or after normal business hours.

If you are suspicious of a collection call, hang up immediately and call TDPUD at 530.587.3896 during normal business hours to check on the status of your account.

If you believe you have been a victim of a scam, file a report with the Truckee Police Department.

By Soumya Karlamangla, Los Angeles Times

More Californians are falling sick with the flu this month, but the season looks to be far less dangerous than those of past years.

As of the first week of February, 11 Californians under the age of 65 had died from the flu since the season began in October. At this time last year, there had been 25 flu deaths, and two years ago, there were 202.

Health officials say that could be because this year’s flu season may peak this month, while the last three seasons peaked in December. February is the most common peak for the flu season, which can continue all the way through May.

Read the whole story

Lake Tahoe Basin Fire Academy students are seeking support from the community for the annual St. Baldrick’s Foundation fundraiser, taking place March 5 at Heavenly Mountain Resort.

St. Baldrick’s is a volunteer-powered charity that is committed to funding research to find cures for childhood cancers.  To show solidarity with young cancer patients, St. Baldrick’s has an annual head-shaving event to raise awareness and money for cancer research.

LTCC fire academy cadets participating in the head-shaving event are trying to raise more funds than any other area fire agency. To support this effort, go online and enter “96150” in the search bar at the top right, and then choose “LTCC Fire Academy Class 10” from the list of participants.