The Boston Globe - 11.09.2019

A2 The Boston Globe WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

The Nation

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Dan
Bishop, a Republican state
senator, scored a narrow victo-
ry Tuesday in a special House
election in North Carolina that
demonstrated President
Trump’s appeal with his politi-
cal base but also highlighted
his party’s deepening unpopu-
larity with suburban voters.
Bishop defeated Dan Mc-
Cready, a moderate Democrat,
one day after Trump made a
full-throated plea for support
for the Republican at a rally
on the conservative, eastern
end of a Charlotte-to-Fayette-
ville district, which the presi-
dent carried by nearly 12
points in 2016.
With most votes counted
Tuesday night, Bishop was
ahead by about 2 percentage
points, according to the Asso-
ciated Press.
As Trump heads into a re-
election year, the closeness of
the outcome in a district that
hasn’t been held by a Demo-
crat since the 1960s con-
firmed once more that he en-
ergizes Democrats and some
independents to fight against
him just as much as he in-
spires Republicans to fight for
him.
For Democrats looking
ahead to 2020, those midterm
results and Bishop’s slim mar-
gin in a conservative seat offer
more evidence that Trump
could face trouble in states
such as North Carolina, which
is Republican-leaning but

filled with the sort of college-

educated voters who have

grown uneasy with the presi-

dent.

The House district extends

from Charlotte through a

number of exurban and rural

counties to the east. In 2016,

Representative Robert Pit-

tenger carried the district by

16 percentage points. But in

the midterms of 2018, Mc-

Cready, surfing the national

anti-Trump mood, ran a close

race, losing by 905 votes to the

Republican candidate at the

time, Mark Harris.

Then came one of the more

bizarre plot twists in recent

American politics: The state

elections board threw out the

entire election and ordered a

new one after evidence sur-

faced that Harris’s campaign

had funded an illegal vote-har-

vesting scheme in rural Blad-

en County.

McCready, 36, focused on

the issue of health care afford-

ability and criticized Bishop

for opposing the expansion of

Medicaid under the Affordable

Care Act.

Bishop, 55, a Charlotte law-

yer, is perhaps best known

statewide for sponsoring the

so-called bathroom bill that

required transgender people

to use restrooms that corre-

sponded with the sex on their

birth certificate. He boasted of

his endorsement from the Na-

tional Rifle Association.

NEW YORK TIMES

GOP’s Bishop ekes out win in N.C.

WASHINGTON — A federal

judge on Tuesday set sentenc-

ing for Dec. 18 for President

Trump’s former national secu-

rity adviser Michael Flynn as

prosecutors warned they re-

served the option to recom-

mend prison time instead of

probation for Flynn.

Assistant US .Attorney

Brandon Van Grack issued the

notice as the government and

Flynn’s new defense team es-

calated their fight in Washing-

ton over Flynn’s request that a

court throw out his prosecu-

tion because of alleged mis-

conduct by prosecutors in for-

mer special counsel Robert

Mueller’s Russia investigation.

US District Judge Emmet

Sullivan set an Oct. 31 hearing

to weigh those allegations.

But Sullivan pressed

Flynn’s team about the rele-

vance of its claims, and said

both sides would have to pon-

der how to proceed if the gov-

ernment stands by its position

that no such evidence exists.

Flynn pleaded guilty on

Dec. 1, 2017, to lying to the

FBI about contacts with then-

Russian Ambassador Sergey

Kislyak, becoming the highest-

ranking official charged in

Mueller’s investigation of Rus-

sian interference in the 2016

presidential election.

WASHINGTON POST

Flynn sentencing set for Dec. 18

NEW YORK — Federal

prosecutors in Manhattan

have opened an investigation

into possible lending fraud in

the New York City taxi indus-

try, the most significant action

taken in response to practices

that trapped thousands of cab-

drivers under crushing debt,

according to people with

knowledge of the inquiry.

In the past month, agents

have interviewed cabdrivers

who said they were encour-

aged to take on huge debt un-

der exploitative terms in order

to buy a taxi medallion, the

city permit that allowed them

to own their own cab.

The investigation, which is

in its beginning stages, ap-

pears to be looking at possible

crimes including bank, wire,

or mail fraud.

The inquiry is being con-

ducted by the US Attorney’s

Office for the Southern District

of New York. It could reverber-

ate throughout the city’s taxi

industry, which has been en-

gulfed in a financial crisis and

rocked by a string of suicides

among cabdrivers. More than

950 drivers have filed for

bankruptcy, and many more

are still buried in overwhelm-

ing debt.

NEW YORK TIMES

US targets loans crushing N.Y. cabbies

FARGO, N.D. — A federal
judge in North Dakota on
Tuesday blocked a state law
enacted earlier this year that
required physicians to tell
women they may reverse a so-
called medication abortion if
they have second thoughts.
North Dakota is among
eight states to pass or amend
laws requiring doctors to tell
women undergoing medica-
tion abortions they can still
have a live birth after the pro-
cedure.
The other states with simi-
lar laws are Arkansas, Idaho,
Kentucky, South Dakota, Okla-
homa, Nebraska, and Utah.
Five of those laws were passed
this year.
The North Dakota law also
would require doctors to tell

the patient ‘‘time is of the es-

sence’’ if she changes her

mind.

Tammi Kromenaker, direc-

tor of North Dakota’s sole

abortion clinic in Fargo, which

filed a lawsuit in June, said in

a statement that the law would

force doctors to give false in-

formation that is not backed

up by science.

US District Judge Daniel

Hovland said in his order that

state lawmakers should not be

mandating unproven medical

treatments and the provisions

of the bill ‘‘go far beyond’’ any

informed consent laws ad-

dressed by the US Supreme

Court, the US Court of Appeals

for the Eighth Circuit, ‘‘or oth-

er courts to date.’’

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Judge blocks N.D. abortion reversal law

She was a 27-year-old med-

ical student in 2007, suffering

from depression and going

through hard times, when a

self-proclaimed spiritual coun-

selor approached her at a mall

in Houston with the promise

of supernatural help.

The purported psychic said

her name was Jacklyn Miller

and told the student that her

mental problems stemmed

from a curse that had killed

her mother.

The student met with the

psychic, whose real name is

Sherry Tina Uwanawich, sev-

eral times a week and, for

years, paid large sums of mon-

ey for meditation materials in

order to lift the curse.

Over a decade later, the

psychic was charged with

three counts of wire fraud, one

of which she pleaded guilty to

in June as part of an agree-

ment with prosecutors.

On Friday, Uwanawich, 28,

appeared in federal court in

West Palm Beach, Fla., and

was sentenced to pay $1.6 mil-

lion in restitution and serve 40

months in prison.

NEW YORK TIMES

‘Psychic’ who vowed to lift curse jailed

Arnold Schwarzenegger has

resumed his ongoing feud with

President Trump, claiming

that the root of their animosity

is that the president is ‘‘in

love’’ with the actor.

Since Schwarzenegger, an

immigrant bodybuilder turned

actor turned California gover-

nor, took over for Trump as the

host of NBC’s ‘‘Celebrity Ap-

prentice,’’ the president has

ridiculed him for the show’s

poor ratings.

In turn, Schwarzenegger

has not held back his scathing

assessments of the president,

telling Men’s Health magazine

in an interview published

Tuesday that Trump is basical-

ly obsessed with him.

‘‘He’s in love with me.

That’s the reality of it,’’

Schwarzenegger said.

In July, Trump said at an

event at the White House that

Schwarzenegger had ‘‘died,’’

meaning it figuratively as it re-

lated to his ratings.

Schwarzenegger responded:

‘‘I’m still here. Want to com-

pare tax returns, @realDon-

aldTrump?’’

WASHINGTON POST

Schwarzenegger resumes Trump feud

Reporting corrections

The Globe welcomes information about errors that call for

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left in a message at 617-929-8230.

Daily Briefing

By Amy Goldstein
and Heather Long
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON — The pro-
portion of Americans without
health insurance grew signifi-
cantly last year for the first time
this decade, according to new
federal figures that show the
number of people lacking cov-
erage rose to 27.5 million.
Findings released Tuesday,
based on a Census Bureau sur-
vey, reverse a trend that began
when the Affordable Care Act
expanded opportunities for
poor and some middle-income
people to get affordable cover-
age. With health care a central
issue in the 2020 presidential
campaign, the fresh evidence
that insurance is slipping fur-

ther out of Americans’ reach

can be expected to escalate par-

tisan warring about coverage.

The uninsured rate rose as

well in 2018, marking the first

time since 2009 that both the

number without coverage and

the rate of uninsurance rose

from the year before.

The change was driven pri-

marily by a decrease in public

insuranceforthepoor,withen-

rollment in Medicaid dropping

0.7 percent. The uninsured rate

spiked especially among adults

who are Hispanic and foreign-

born, with the increase in unin-

sured among both groups three

times the national average. In-

surance also dwindled among

children who are Hispanic and

naturalized citizens.

Health policy experts inter-

preted those patterns as evi-

dence of a chilling effect from

Trump administration efforts to

restrict several forms of public

assistance, including Medicaid

for immigrants seeking to re-

main in the United States. In

addition, the number of low-in-

come Americans on Medicaid

tends to decline when the econ-

omy expands, as it did last year,

while some states have been

clamping down on eligibility

and following the administra-

tion’s urging to impose work re-

quirements in the program.

The report was part of a se-

ries the Census Bureau releases

annually on the economy. It al-

so reported that the US poverty

rate fell last year to its lowest

level since 2001. The median

US income topped $63,000 for

the first time, though that is

roughly the same in inflation-

adjusted terms as middle-class

income was in 1999.

The Census Bureau painted

a picture of an economy pulled

in different directions, with a

falling poverty rate but high in-

equality, on top of the growing

cadre of people at financial risk

because they do not have health

coverage.

The availability of insurance

is influenced by a variety of fac-

tors, including economic condi-

tions, because most insured US

residents get their health plans

through an employer. In recent

years, however, both supporters

and opponents of the ACA have

looked at the census’s yearly in-

surance data as a portrait of

how well the law is working.

Expanding access to insur-

ance was a main goal of the

ACA; forged by Democrats

nearly a decade ago, it has re-

shaped much of the health care

system. President Trump and

other Republicans contend the

law is flawed, while Democrats

maintain it has been under-

minedbyrecentGOPpolicies.

As Trump works to disman-

tle the law, both sides can find

ammunition for their interpre-

tation of why the nation’s unin-

sured rate is rising again.

Republicans point to how, as

premiums escalate, fewer peo-

ple buy health plans through

the ACA’s marketplaces unless

they qualify for federal subsi-

dies. Democrats point to how

major tax changes, adopted by

a Republican Congress in 2017,

eliminated the financial penalty

for those who violate the ACA’s

requirement to carry insurance.

A decline in the number of

uninsured Americans that be-

gan in 2011 stopped in 2017,

census data show, with about

400,000 more people than in

2016 reporting they lacked cov-

erage. But that did not amount

to a statistically significant

change in the uninsured rate.

The 2018 figures show the

uninsured rate increased to 8.

percent of the population from

7.9 percent the year before.

Some 9 million Americans

gained coverage from 2013 to

2014, the year Medicaid ex-

panded in many states and ACA

insurance marketplaces

opened.

Tuesday’s data make clear

that the contraction of insur-

ance has been broad. Around

the country, insurance coverage

worsened in eight states and

improved in three states.

More Americans lacked health coverage in 2018

Wasfirstrisethis

decade,despite

strongeconomy

DERIK HOLTMANN/BELLEVILLE NEWS-DEMOCRAT VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

RAIL CARS BURN —Onlookers stopped in a parking lot in the Dupo, Ill., train yard Tuesday after a freight train

carrying a flammable liquid used in solvents derailed in the St. Louis suburb, causing a fire that sent thick, black

smoke into the air and prompted the evacuation of nearby schools and residences.

DAVE KOLPACK/ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE 2013

Tammi Kromenaker, director of the Red River Valley
Women’s Clinic in Fargo, N.D.

MANUEL BALCE CENETA/AP

Michael Flynn pleaded

guilty to lying to the FBI

about Russian contacts.

Somehealthpolicyexpertsseeevidence

ofachillingeffectfromTrump

administrationeffortstorestrictseveral

formsofpublicassistance.