Medicare+Choice in Palm Beach: Watching and Waiting?

Under the Medicare+Choice program, firms have been able to offer products on a county by county basis, making participation decisions based on factors such as county payment rate, strength of local provider networks, and beneficiary\u27s affinity for managed care. In 2003, Medicare+Choice payment rates paid to plans range from $495 in rural floor counties to a high of$872 in Staten Island, NY. Consequently, there is large national variation in benefits, premiums, and plan participation. A recent site visit to Palm Beach county and neighboring Miami-Dade highlighted many of the differences between counties which may pose challenges to firms trying to enter large service areas

Fenomenologia do corpo em Michel Henry: uma leitura a partir da imanência subjetiva

The present study aims to introduce the topic of body on Michel Henry more specifically, subjective body from the absolute immanence. Classic and phenomenological theories investigated the question of the body and gave their contributions, however, were formed from a transcendental ratio. To develop the argument of subjective body is essential to understand the concept of immanence, which will be presented at the first time of the research. Afterwards, will be crafted theme about the subjective body and finally held a contrast to transcendental body. So, this essay seeks to sustain the thesis that in the phenomenology of Henry subjective body will exist as long as this can be constituted from the absolute immanence.O presente estudo visa apresentar o tema do corpo em Michel Henry mais especificamente, o corpo subjetivo a partir da imanência absoluta. As teorias clássicas e fenomenológicas investigaram a questão do corpo e deram suas contribuições, no entanto, foram constituídas a partir de uma relação transcendental. Para desenvolver o argumento do corpo subjetivo é fundamental compreender a noção de imanência, que será apresentada no primeiro momento da pesquisa. Posteriormente, será trabalhada a temática sobre o corpo subjetivo e por último, realizada uma contraposição com corpo transcendental. Assim, este ensaio busca sustentar a tese de que na fenomenologia de Henry existirá o corpo subjetivo desde que esse possa ser constituído a partir da imanência absoluta

The Long Exception: Rethinking the Place of the New Deal in American History

The Long Exception examines the period from Franklin Roosevelt to the end of the twentieth century and argues that the New Deal was more of an historical aberration—a byproduct of the massive crisis of the Great Depression—than the linear triumph of the welfare state. The depth of the Depression undoubtedly forced the realignment of American politics and class relations for decades, but, it is argued, there is more continuity in American politics between the periods before the New Deal order and those after its decline than there is between the postwar era and the rest of American history. Indeed, by the early seventies the arc of American history had fallen back upon itself. While liberals of the seventies and eighties waited for a return to what they regarded as the normality of the New Deal order, they were actually living in the final days of what Paul Krugman later called the interregnum between Gilded Ages. The article examines four central themes in building this argument: race, religion, class, and individualism

Situating Speech: A Rhetorical Approach to Political Strategy

Ideas are increasingly acknowledged as factors in explaining political behaviour. But often they are treated as inert resources rather than dynamic instances of action in themselves. The latter, I propose, requires reflection on the character of speech – as the medium of ideas – in responding to and refiguring a prevailing situation. I undertake such reflection by setting out a rhetorical approach to political strategy. Building upon ‘interpretive’ advances in political science I shift the focus from stable cognitive frames to the dynamics of argumentation where ideas work expressively. I then explore the rhetorical aspect of strategising with attention to the way speech serves to orient audiences by creatively re-appropriating a situation. That approach is shown to be consistent with a ‘dialectical’ political sociology that emphasises the interaction of structure and agency. Finally, I sketch a method for undertaking rhetorical analysis and indicate how it might be applied to a concrete example

Degassing Behavior of Nanostructured Al and Its Composites

The synthesis of bulk ultrafine-grained (UFG) and nanostructured Al via cryomilling can frequently require a degassing step prior to consolidation, partly due to the large surface area of the as-milled powders. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects associated with cryomilling with stearic acid additions (as a process-control agent) on the degassing behavior of Al powders. This objective was accomplished by completing select experiments with Al-7.5Mg, Al-6.4 wt pct Al85Ni10La5, and Al-14.3 wt pct B4C. The interaction between Al and stearic acid was determined using thermal analysis combined with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The degassing experiments were carried out under high vacuum (10−4 to ~10−6 torr) in a range from room temperature to 400 °C, with the pressure of the released gases monitored using a digital vacuum gage. The results showed that the liberation of chemisorbed water was suppressed in cryomilled Al powders and both the chemisorbed water and stearic acid were primarily released in the form of hydrogen. It was also demonstrated that under certain conditions, a nanostructure (grain size ~100 nm) can be retained following the hot vacuum degassing of cryomilled Al