My Page: David Frey
HEALTH CARE
West Among Nation’s Highest Uninsured Rates
Richard Angus had been managing just fine without health insurance. A careful skier and cyclist, the Glenwood Springs, Colo., resident figured he could avoid the costs of health insurance, and the risks of going without it. Then last year, he contracted a blood infection that nearly cost him his life.
Instead, it cost him his livelihood. Three weeks in the hospital left him with $90,000 in medical bills he says he’ll never be able to pay off. His credit rating trashed, he’s seeking bankruptcy protection to stay afloat.
“You’re very happy that you get home. You’re alive!” says Angus, 48. “Then three months, four months down the road, you have to deal with the bills and the people. You almost wonder why they’re keeping me alive when they’re just going to make my life hell.”
Angus isn’t alone. The West has one of the highest rates of uninsured in the country, due largely to the region’s dominant industries. Apart from lots of small, independent businesses, much of the West is driven by the service sector, which often doesn’t provide health insurance. Neither do many construction contractors, energy industry contractors or agriculture operations.
[more]OIL SHALE
In Issuing New Oil Shale Leases, Salazar Seeks Probe into Past
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday a new set of experimental oil shale leases with stricter controls than Bush-era leases, and he’s calling for an investigation of an 11th-hour move by the previous administration that critics saw as a giveaway to energy companies.
Salazar said he had “serious questions” about whether the January 15 lease addenda, which opened up 50,000 additional acres to oil shale leasing for six companies, “are in fact legal or whether or not they should be rescinded.”
He asked for the department’s inspector general to launch a probe into the Bush move before his office would take action on it.
[more]DOC SHOCK
Film Shines Light on West’s Energy Battles
For residents of the West’s gas patch, the story is a familiar one. Gas companies roll in, wanting to drill. Homeowners find out they may own the land, but they don’t own the gas reserves underneath.
The drill rigs appear. For some, a battle ensues. Some complain of environmental problems. Some complain of health problems.
Outside the gas patch, the story of the battle between natural gas companies and residents is less well known, but a new documentary may help change that.
Santa Fe, N.M., filmmaker Debra Anderson set out to capture the stories of residents of western Colorado and New Mexico in her documentary Split Estate. The film is scheduled to run Oct. 17 and Oct. 22 on Planet Green, a Discovery Communications network.
[more]AMERICA'S HOTTEST IDEA
Climate Change ‘Greatest Threat’ to National Parks, Report Says
It’s not just melting ice at Glacier National Park. A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council calls climate change the “greatest threat” to America’s national parks.
It lists 25 parks most at risk to melting ice, drought, flooding, diminishing wildlife and other factors.
“This is not just a concern for the future,” says the report, which was produced by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization for the NRDC. “The national parks that we Americans so cherish are already being harmed by a changing climate.”
[more]YES, NO, MAYBE
Interior Halts Some Utah Leases, OKs Others, Defers Most
Following a review of 77 controversial Utah gas leases, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has put a halt on eight of them, deferred 52 of them and is allowing 17 of them to go forward.
The decision follows the recommendations outlined in an interagency report on the leases, which Salazar found had been rushed through by the Bush administration without adequate review.
“I think the report demonstrates that there was a headlong rush to leasing in the prior administration and it ended up taking the kind of shortcuts that we have discovered here,” Salazar told reporters on Thursday. “There were areas that should not have been leased because of the ecological values.”
[more]HOME OFF THE RANGE
West’s Wild Horses Heading East?
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is proposing to move wild horses – for many an iconic image of the wildness of the West – to controlled preserves in the East or Midwest. The plan is intended to tackle the growing environmental problems associated with wild horses and burros as their populations swell on what are often marginal desert landscapes.
“It’s both a humane solution and a fiscally-responsible solution,” said Bob Abbey, director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management which runs the wild horse program, on Wednesday.
Salazar is asking Congress to create two new preserves to maintain herds of nonproductive horses and burros that are rounded up on public lands each year but are not adopted.
[more]FORBES 400
Who’s the Richest in the West?
If Wyoming’s three richest families decided to boost the economy by giving all their money to fellow Cowboy State residents, each resident of Wyoming would walk away with $44,493.
That gives Wyoming the biggest chunk of billionaire dollars per capita in the country, according to Forbes magazine’s latest list of 400 wealthiest people in America.
It helps that Wyoming’s sparse population makes the state better known for wide-open spaces than urban squalor. It also helps that Wyoming is home to the richest family in the West.
[more]MYSTERIOUS DEATH
Suspicion Surrounds Colorado Wolf Death
A wolf that wandered from Montana and died in Colorado earlier this year met its end on a hillside about 24 miles north of Rifle, according to government documents obtained by an environmental organization.
Federal wildlife law enforcement officers continue to investigate the death of a Montana wolf that wandered from Montana and died in Colorado, nearly after a year after the wolf’s carcass was collected, raising speculation that the wolf was killed by a human.
“It’s a good question, but I’m not going to answer it,” says George Morrison, Colorado senior wildlife agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
[more]COME TOGETHER
National Parks Preserve Common Ground in a Divisive Time
There I was, standing on the National Mall, when I found myself accidentally surrounded by the throng of protesters gathered for the Taxpayers March on Washington.
Around me were signs with President Obama painted up in white face like the Joker. There were signs questioning his birth certificate. There were lots of American flags and more than a few “Don’t tread on me” banners.
But what, exactly, were they protesting? Health care reform? Taxes? One thing was for sure. They had it out for all things public.
How lucky for them, I thought, that they had the manicured lawn of the National Mall to stand on while they protested America’s slide into the slavering jaws of socialism. The National Mall is a national park, one of 391 of them from Arcadia to Zion. Thank God for commie green space.
[more]WORLD WANDERER
Will the Real Tim Cahill Please Stand Up?
OK, so this guy walks into a bar in small-town New Mexico. He sits at the counter, turns to the guy beside him and says something like, “Hi, I’m Tim Cahill, famous adventure writer.”
Their conversation changes the other guy’s life. He’s so moved, he zaps Cahill an email thanking him for inspiring him to follow his dream.
That’s very nice, Cahill shoots back, only I’ve never been to that bar, or that town, and I’ve never met you. The punch line? Tim Cahill is so cool, other people walk around pretending to be him.“Some guy is getting laid using my name,” Cahill laughs. “I’m not even getting laid using my name.”
Cahill has the job the rest of us dream about. As a travel writer, he has bounded across the planet in high-adrenaline pursuits. His writing is so funny it’s easy to forget how insightful it is, but by the end of his essays, readers find themselves transported not just across the globe, but into a whole new way of thinking about the world around them.
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