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Kerry Dobransky

@kaeemdee

Sociologist: mental illness, health care, disability, digital inequality. Dad: human, cat. Husband. Into: punky/funky/folky/indie music, poker, bourbon, Da Bears. Hilarity ensues

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Latest posts by Kerry Dobransky @kaeemdee

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This one hits hard.

21.02.2026 22:59 πŸ‘ 35649 πŸ” 10553 πŸ’¬ 779 πŸ“Œ 591

The richest man on earth owns X.

The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok.

The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post.

See the problem here?

24.09.2025 20:00 πŸ‘ 57347 πŸ” 19375 πŸ’¬ 1824 πŸ“Œ 1010
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National Climate Assessment Interactive Atlas The Interactive Atlas of the 5th National Climate Assessment of the United States provides maps, data, and stories from the 5th Assessment.

The NCA5 Atlas, an incredible resource introduced for the fifth assessment, is available here: nca-atlas-nationalclimate.hub.arcgis.com

30.06.2025 21:42 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

An archived version of NCA5 is available here: nca2023-globalchange.govarchive.us and the USGCRP website is here: globalchange.govarchive.us. Thank you @webrecorder.net!!!

30.06.2025 21:38 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0
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For a split second, I thought she was wearing an Iggy Pop suit.

20.06.2025 09:17 πŸ‘ 2185 πŸ” 127 πŸ’¬ 161 πŸ“Œ 16

Chatbots β€” LLMs β€” do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re β€œright” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

19.06.2025 11:21 πŸ‘ 36830 πŸ” 11350 πŸ’¬ 631 πŸ“Œ 960

It also tries to distinguish between "patient care" and "psychosocial support", as though those are different things, and treats the latter as "munchable" This is insane, particularly given the trauma veterans experience and the hard work that has been done to expand VA's work in this area.

06.06.2025 12:09 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
Bureaucracy in Action: The Sociology of Public Administration | Annual Reviews This review articulates sociology's emerging approach to public administration, building on long-standing interest in bureaucracy. The sociology of public administration aims to understand how pu...

Erin McDonnell's (@profmcdonnell.bsky.social) amazing new paper "Bureaucracy in Action: The Sociology of Public Administration" is online now at the Annual Review of Sociology. Check it out!!! @ndsociology.bsky.social @artslettersnd.bsky.social @asanews.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1146/annu...

05.06.2025 16:31 πŸ‘ 27 πŸ” 12 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

In light of the new article on AI and higher education, here are my 6 pedagogically-defensible ways to assess in the era of generative artificial intelligence.

07.05.2025 14:53 πŸ‘ 16 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 5
Cost-cutting tactics

The secret bonuses were just one of many maneuvers UnitedHealth devised to track and cut expenses in its nursing home initiative.

Internal emails show, for example, that UnitedHealth supervisors gave their teams β€œbudgets” showing how many hospital admissions they had β€œleft” to use up on nursing home patients.

The company also monitored nursing homes that had smaller numbers of patients with β€œdo not resuscitate” – or DNR – and β€œdo not intubate” orders in their files. Without such orders, patients are in line for certain life-saving treatments that might lead to costly hospital stays.

Two current and three former UnitedHealth nurse practitioners told the Guardian that UnitedHealth managers pressed nurse practitioners to persuade Medicare Advantage members to change their β€œcode status” to DNR even when patients had clearly expressed a desire that all available treatments be used to keep them alive.

Cost-cutting tactics The secret bonuses were just one of many maneuvers UnitedHealth devised to track and cut expenses in its nursing home initiative. Internal emails show, for example, that UnitedHealth supervisors gave their teams β€œbudgets” showing how many hospital admissions they had β€œleft” to use up on nursing home patients. The company also monitored nursing homes that had smaller numbers of patients with β€œdo not resuscitate” – or DNR – and β€œdo not intubate” orders in their files. Without such orders, patients are in line for certain life-saving treatments that might lead to costly hospital stays. Two current and three former UnitedHealth nurse practitioners told the Guardian that UnitedHealth managers pressed nurse practitioners to persuade Medicare Advantage members to change their β€œcode status” to DNR even when patients had clearly expressed a desire that all available treatments be used to keep them alive.

UnitedHealth secretly pressured nurses to change patients' records to include DNRs (Do Not Resuscitate) without their consent, so those patients would die instead of being saved with medical interventions that could cost UnitedHealth money.

This is murder.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

21.05.2025 17:39 πŸ‘ 5587 πŸ” 2969 πŸ’¬ 219 πŸ“Œ 604

While you highlight it, please note is the product of local journalism, which has been carrying a lot of the burden in an environment where national outlets simply can't cover everything everywhere all at once. Support your local journalists!

29.04.2025 16:26 πŸ‘ 10411 πŸ” 3798 πŸ’¬ 381 πŸ“Œ 232
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How to Contact ProPublica or Send a Tip Securely β€” ProPublica Our job is to hold people and institutions accountable. To do that, we need evidence.

Federal workers: We understand you may be taking a risk in contacting us, and we take your confidentiality extremely seriously.

To collect tips, we use encrypted forms and apps, so messages cannot be read by anybody other than you and ProPublica.

➑️ Reach out here: propublica.org/tips

12.04.2025 02:02 πŸ‘ 11993 πŸ” 5810 πŸ’¬ 187 πŸ“Œ 185

Whatever fraud there is in Medicaid is largely on the provider side, not beneficiaries. It's health insurance, its not cash.

"Fraud" here means going to a doctor if you are unemployed.

10.04.2025 17:04 πŸ‘ 3325 πŸ” 821 πŸ’¬ 187 πŸ“Œ 37

What are the main differences between this and the ABLE Act? Is it that this would cover any assets, not just disability-related?

04.04.2025 20:43 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Val Kilmer tweeting I once tickled Lou Reed. I regretted it for the longest while as he spoke to me few times after that dinner. But I'm glad now. He needed it.

Val Kilmer tweeting I once tickled Lou Reed. I regretted it for the longest while as he spoke to me few times after that dinner. But I'm glad now. He needed it.

RIP King

02.04.2025 04:08 πŸ‘ 9598 πŸ” 1313 πŸ’¬ 56 πŸ“Œ 34

The entire staff.

β€œAlso terminated was the entire staff of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.” An expert said β€œhe doesn’t see how the agency can β€˜allocate the remaining $387 million in funds for this year without federal staff.”

And that’s not to mention next year!

01.04.2025 21:26 πŸ‘ 13 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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RFK Jr. moves to close Administration for Community Living The shutdown will mean "more people forced into institutional settings."

Disability experts I spoke to expressed that the decision reflected a lack of awareness of the Administration for Community Living’s crucial role for disabled and aging Americans.

28.03.2025 17:54 πŸ‘ 530 πŸ” 249 πŸ’¬ 64 πŸ“Œ 34

A broad conclusion is that if you study anything related to the US government, join with colleagues to make a credible and accessible second home for the data you use, now.

19.03.2025 09:47 πŸ‘ 45 πŸ” 16 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
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Comic Bill Burr [Extended Version] Fresh Air Β· Episode

I love Bill Burr. Beautiful, flawed, brilliant mess of a man. He’s fantastic.

15.03.2025 17:22 πŸ‘ 420 πŸ” 34 πŸ’¬ 14 πŸ“Œ 1

In 2023, an SSI client told me if she didn’t call Social Security early in the morning, she faced absurd waits.

β€œI actually ended up hanging up a couple of times simply because I was exhausted, or hungry, or had to go to the bathroom.”

DOGE’s changes (incl firing thousands) would make this worse.

12.03.2025 21:20 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
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Renowned geneticist Francis Collins retires from NIH, urging 'respect' for embattled workers Dr. Francis Collins, a renowned geneticist, and former longtime director of the National Institutes of Health, is retiring from the government agency and urging β€œrespect” for its embattled workers.

"When you hear about patients surviving stage 4 cancer because of immunotherapy, that was based on NIH research over many decades. When you hear about sickle cell disease being cured because of CRISPR gene editing, that was built on years of research supported by NIH"

apnews.com/article/nih-...

01.03.2025 21:44 πŸ‘ 334 πŸ” 125 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 9
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F.D.A. Cancels Meeting of Vaccine Experts Scheduled to Advise on Flu Shots The cancellation plays into fears among scientists who worry that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will use his position as health secretary to sow doubts about vaccines.

First, they said postponed; now the meeting is canceled. That means no flu shots next year.

β€œ'It’s a six-month production cycle,' Dr. Offit said. 'So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.'"

Fundamentally, that's a form of mass murder.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u...

27.02.2025 20:14 πŸ‘ 6279 πŸ” 3429 πŸ’¬ 294 πŸ“Œ 828
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RFK Jr. kills policy on public comment for health regulations HHS is reversing a decades-old policy of soliciting public comment before it issues regulations affecting government benefits and grants.

RFK doesn't care what you or anyone else thinks, & he doesn't want you to have a say.

HHS "is reversing a decades-old policy [from 1971] of soliciting public comment before it issues regulations affecting government benefits and grants, including NIH funding."

www.axios.com/2025/02/28/r...

01.03.2025 03:10 πŸ‘ 60 πŸ” 34 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 3

youtube.com/watch?v=2aQT... RIP David Johansen

01.03.2025 19:27 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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How it started/How it's going

28.02.2025 11:57 πŸ‘ 15179 πŸ” 4585 πŸ’¬ 353 πŸ“Œ 267
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A Look at Federal Health Data Taken Offline | KFF This post looks at federal government databases with key health data that went offline on Jan. 31, 2025, including several related to HIV, some of which had returned by Feb. 2, 2025. It briefly descri...

NEW: several federal datasets and health surveys came offline on Friday

We @kff.org explain what these data are & how they’re used in interventions to address our nation’s biggest health challenges
@jenkatesdc.bsky.social @mattrae.bsky.social @lindseydawson.bsky.social

www.kff.org/policy-watch...

02.02.2025 18:24 πŸ‘ 62 πŸ” 49 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3