From award-winning ProPublica reporter Marshall Allen, a primer for anyone who wants to fight the predatory health care system--and win. Every year, millions of Americans are overcharged and underserved while the health care industry makes record profits. We know something is wrong, but the layers of bureaucracy designed to discourage complaints make pushing back seem impossible. At least, this is what the health care power players want you to think. Never Pay the First Bill is the guerilla guide to health care the American people and employers need. Drawing on 15 years of investigating the health care industry, reporter Marshall Allen shows how companies and individuals have managed to force medical providers to play fair, and shows how you can, too. He reveals the industry's pressure points and how companies and individuals have fought overbilling, price gouging, insurance denials, and more to get the care they deserve. Laying out a practical plan for protecting yourself against the system's predatory practices, Allen offers the inspiration you need and tried-and-true strategies such as: Analyze and contest your medical bills, so you don't pay more than you should Obtain the billing codes for a procedure in advance Write in an appropriate treatment clause before signing financial documents Get your way by suing in small claims court Few politicians and CEOs have been willing to stand up to the medical industry. It is up to the American people to equip ourselves to fight back for the sake of our families--and everyone else.
Match Prints is a visual and editorial dialogue between two important photographers and longtime friends. Over the course of their twenty-year friendship, Jim Marshall and Timothy White discovered that their work often shared striking similarities despite time differences of as much as three decades. Sometimes the similarity presented itself in the form of a common pose or expression, a common prop or situation. Sometimes the photographers' subject was the same, the images taken decades apart. Marshall and White have collaborated in selecting more than fifty stunning pairings for publication for the first time in Match Prints. An introduction by renowned music writer Anthony DeCurtis compares the work of the two photographers and provides firsthand behind-the-scenes anecdotes—an entertaining, informative read that sheds light on the photographers' approach to their work and captures the essence of their enduring friendship. Also included throughout the book are first-person anecdotes from the subjects themselves on the images and their creation. Whether poignant, dramatic, hilarious, or shocking, these are powerful visual pairings by two masters of photography.
If you’re like most people, you want nothing more than a fair shot in life: a chance to seek out opportunities, work hard, and make your own way in this world. But as author Allen Marshall explains in How You Got Screwed, the game has been rigged, making it almost impossible for you to win. How You Got Screwed explains exactly how the rules have been made to favor those in charge. Consider the financial system, which steals your earning power with money that doesn’t hold its value and lets banks break the law practically without consequence. Think about our politicians, who serve their donors and lobbyists, and a government more interested in serving itself than its people. And remember big business, which uses its money and political power to twist the rules in their favor, hurting you as a consumer, employee, and citizen. Yes, the cards are stacked against you. But that’s only if you play by their rules. It’s time to play your own game—and How You Got Screwed is your guide to making the system work for you.
Here is a book about Walden that takes Thoreau on his own terms. Two Fish on One Hook is a transcendental study of Thoreau's transcendental work. It offers us the task of doing as Thoreau does, exhorting us to follow the patterns Thoreau sets up in Walden and to approach his work as "an act of communication"--one that urges us to listen, to hear, and to act upon what he has to say, one that becmes a transformative experience. "Thoreau's first step is to remind us of how very idle and blockheaded we are. The busy folk 'mind[ing] their own affairs' he leaves to their own devices. Books about Walden are also obliged to begin on the right note by sounding Thoreau's stern wake-up call. Many will find it a jarring note, but there is no better way to wake up from the Procrustean 'sense of men asleep' and to get 'a sick one to lay down his bed and run' into Walden in time. It may be wisdom to let the dead bury the dead; but Thoreau is convinced that 'a man is not requried to bury himself.' He, therefore, begins by asking his readers "Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born?'" --Raymond Tripp
The nation’s approach to managing environmental policy and protecting natural resources has shifted from the national government’s top down, command and control, regulatory approach, used almost exclusively in the 1970s, to collaborative, multi-sector approaches used in recent decades to manage problems that are generally too complex, too expensive, and too politically divisive for one agency to manage or resolve on its own. Governments have organized multi-sector collaborations as a way to achieve better results for the past two decades. We know much about why collaboration occurs. We know a good deal about how collaborative processes work. Collaborations organized, led, and managed by grassroots organizations are rarer, though becoming more common. We do not as yet have a clear understanding of how they might differ from government led collaborations. Hampton Roads, Virginia, located at the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay, offers an unusual opportunity to study and draw comparative lessons from three grassroots environmental collaborations to restore three rivers in the watershed, in terms of how they build, organize and distribute social capital, deepen democratic values, and succeed in meeting ecosystem restoration goals and benchmarks. This is relevant for the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed, but is also relevant for understanding grassroots collaborative options for managing, protecting, and restoring watersheds throughout the U.S. It may also provide useful information for developing grassroots collaborations in other policy sectors. The premise underlying this work is that to continue making progress toward achieving substantive environmental outcomes in a world where the problems are complex, expensive, and politically divisive, more non-state stakeholders must be actively involved in defining the problems and developing solutions. This will require more multi-sector collaborations of the type that governments have increasingly relied on for the past two decades. Our approach examines one subset of environmental collaboration, those driven and managed by grassroots organizations that were established to address specific environmental problems and provide implementable solutions to those problems, so that we may draw lessons that inform other grassroots collaborative efforts.
In 1795 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe produced his tale of tales--The fairytale of "The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily," an extraordinary masterwork that is unique among Goethe's works. An initiatory fable of transformation, the tale arose out of the Rosicrucian, alchemical impulses that play an important role in Faust and Goethe's other writings. Among those influenced by it was Rudolf Steiner, whose mystery dramas employ similar themes. The authors begin by placing the fairytale against the background of Goethe's life and cultural setting. They then discuss its importance in the development of Steiner's spiritual science. Finally, they describe its visual language, profound mystical insights, and relevance for us today. The book includes Carlyle's classic translation of the tale and illustrations, plus Steiner's essay on its inner meaning. The authors offer a positive look at the possibilities of the twenty-first century. They view Goethe's fairytale as fully relevant to our time, just as it was when Goethe first wrote it.
Team KO, a group of Obstacle Course Racers and Martial Artists, featured on NBC’s new TV show Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge, band together to share their secrets to success in overcoming obstacles in both life and Obstacle Course Racing (OCR). By compiling their life struggles—cancer, addiction, and poverty—readers alike find relatable guidance to overcoming their own challenges. Spartan Strong introduces each team member—Bethany Marshall, Zac Allen, Jessica Burton, Andres Encinales—before identifying 19 qualities the team has used as essential tools to incorporate in everyday life. Each chapter includes an opportunity for immediate reader response in the form of a practical takeaway with an accompanying journal prompt. These four team members emphasize they are not superheroes and they are no different than anyone else. Their message encourages readers to join Team KO’s community and take steps towards overcoming their own obstacles in life, no matter what those may be.
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