U.S. Health Care Takes a Big 1st Step

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The hot topic of changing health care for Americans came down to an historic vote March 21 on Capitol Hill. After a year of arguing, party politics and countless REVISIONS, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the health care bill 219-212, without a single Republican vote!

Once passed, President Barack Obama signed the health care bill into law. “Everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care,” the president said at the signing. “We are a nation that faces its challenges and accepts its responsibilities. We are a nation that does what is hard, what is necessary, what is right.”

The new health care law will cost almost a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. If things go as planned, 32 million Americans who currently have no health insurance will have health coverage. In fact, people eventually will be required to have health insurance or face fines. Within six months, health plans will not be able to deny kids coverage because of any pre-existing medical problems, and the law will be expanded to cover all people by 2014. For the elderly, the law will help cover some costs for their prescription drugs. The law includes many more rules, too.

But polls show that Americans are worried about taking such a big first step—that costs might go up while the quality of care in this country might go down. One recent poll shows that 55 percent of Americans are in favor of overturning the new health care law!

Young Reporter Sarah Sakha is an eighth-grader at Rancho Solano Greenway. Her dad is a doctor of internal medicine, and her class has been talking a lot about the new law. “At first I was kind of worried based on my parents’ reactions,” Sakha says. “But as I learned about the pros and cons (of the law) I became more comfortable because it’s doing more good than harm—you have many more people with many more (health) benefits. Even though some taxes may increase, it goes for a good cause. It’s helping move the country along where it should be going.”

Baby Right Whales Mysteriously Dying

PATAGONIAN COAST, Argentina—It’s a very troubling trend: baby southern right whales are dying in record numbers!

Since 2005, 308 dead whales have been found off the Patagonian Coast, and 90 percent of them have been baby southern right whales less than three months old.

Scientists are scrambling to discover the cause of this mysterious die-off. Their findings will be presented in June during the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Morocco.

So far, the researchers doubt that the main cause is from ships hitting the calves, killer whale attacks, getting tangled in fishing nets or disturbances from whale watching boats.

But the young whales could have died from disease, naturally occuring toxins from algae or other marine organisms, a lack of food or something wrong with the mammals’ nursing grounds.

A layer of blubber, which helps the whales to survive, was unusually thin on some of them.

Southern right whales are slow swimmers that grow up to 50 feet long and can weigh up to 80 tons! These enormous sea creatures have baleen plates instead of teeth and live by straining out krill and copepods from the water.

Commercial whalers hunted southern right whales to near- extinction. But protective measures have increased their numbers to around 7,500. Their cousins, the northern Atlantic and northern Pacific right whales are very endangered.

Mother right whales have calves every three to five years, depending on food availability.