Author: jplucas

That’s why the results of a recent study of new plans offered in California are especially troubling. Simon Haeder, a West Virginia University political scientist, and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of California, Irvine, found that access to primary care physicians was relatively poor for a sample of plans offered through California’s Affordable Care Act Marketplace in 2015. Most Obamacare marketplace plans in California, as well as in other states, are narrow network plans.

Noted: UW-Madison associate professor of journalism Mike Wagner says tonight’s debate gives the public an opportunity to hear from the candidates in an environment they don’t completely control. “So far we’ve only heard campaign speeches and campaign ads that are pretty tightly managed by both sides,” he notes.

Noted: The Affordable Care Act has had its share of problems, according to Donna Friedsam of the UW-Madison School of Public Health. She says the biggest has been the expense.

Quoted: Paul Robbins, a political ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, called the environmental movement’s blaming of the poor for deforestation an “obsession” that is both “ironic” and “empirically questionable.” In West Africa, for example, the idea that local communities have caused deforestation is orthodoxy among development and environmental policymakers, but analysis of historical data and first-person accounts rarely support it.

Quoted: “It’s about as rare as expensive pieces of art or things like that,” said Kent Weigel, Chair of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Dairy Science Department. “It doesn’t happen every day, but it happens occasionally.”

Quoted: To fix the mutation, the team created a special pre-formed molecule that works like using a pair of scissors to snip directly at the gene. Other methods, without the pre-formed molecule, are like sending scissor parts to the tailor and asking them to put the scissors together before snipping. The procedure is “technically well-done and kind of a tour de force” says Krishanu Saha, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved with the study.

Quoted: Comcast “has every right” to deny a ballot measure committee’s ads, said Robert Drechsel, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Journalism Ethics. “There really isn’t any law that I can think of or regulation that would in any way prohibit that.”

Quoted: “It’s a little bit of every person for themselves,” University of Wisconsin Madison political science professor Barry Burden told me during the Republican convention. “A lot of people are there to think about their future in the party. Skipping [the convention was] not a viable option, but they don’t want to be attached to a sinking ship.”

Noted: “I think that’s unlikely,” said Steven Wright, a clinical instructor at University of Wisconsin Law School who previously served as a trial attorney in the Voting Section of the United States Department of Justice.

Quoted: “The quicker that they can get (the crop) harvested, the faster that they can get the grain in, and the less likely that there’s going to be these issues down the road which could affect that grain,” said Damon Smith, an assistant professor of field crops pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: “There’s a real urgency right now to learn about Zika virus, and we’re still at an early enough stage that what we don’t know is more than what we do know,” says David O’Connor, a pathologist at the University of Wisconsin who wasn’t involved in the research.

Noted: First, China’s influence in Laos has been “exaggerated” and Vietnam has always been more influential than China, says Ian Baird, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s geography department. “There’s been a lot of journalists in recent years who have got it totally wrong,” he suggests. “They saw the money coming in from China and thought this meant it was gaining a lot of political strength in Laos. It’s not the case.”