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New York Times
6 hours ago
- Health
- New York Times
Why a G.O.P. Medicaid Requirement Could Set States Up for Failure
The strict Medicaid work requirement at the center of the Republicans' major policy bill wouldn't just require millions of poor Americans to prove they are employed to sign up for health insurance. It would also require dozens of states to quickly build expensive and complex software systems to measure and track who is eligible. This new responsibility for states, whose existing Medicaid computer systems are often outdated, would be accompanied by reduced federal funding through other changes in the bill. The result, according to state officials, software developers and policy experts, could be major failures in state systems for enrolling people in Medicaid. 'That's how happens,' said Julie Brinn Siegel, a former top Biden administration budget official, referring to the Obama administration's botched launch of the online Affordable Care Act enrollment portal in 2013. Ms. Siegel and others familiar with Medicaid systems envision problems like websites that don't load or incorrectly tell applicants they are not eligible. And Medicaid workers may be overwhelmed as they try to run call centers and process applications. The fallout could mean eligible Americans will have their coverage dropped. Republicans contend that the work requirement achieves twin goals: It ensures that the government directs resources to Americans who are contributing to society, while saving money to help finance an extension of President Trump's tax cuts. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
11 hours ago
- Health
- New York Times
Corrections: June 28, 2025
An article on Friday about the impact that Republican efforts to reduce federal funding flowing to schools has had on Johns Hopkins University misstated the source of a Trump administration plan to cut about 40 percent of the budget for the National Institutes of Health. It is contained in a budget proposal, not in the Trump policy bill under consideration in Congress. An article on Thursday about U.S. rivals celebrating the Trump administration's decision to cut its support for Voice of America and Radio Free stations referred incompletely to the number of followers on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Instagram accounts. It has 44,500 followers on its English-language account and a total of 17.4 million followers across the network's various language services. It does not have a total of 44,500 followers. An article this weekend on Page 12 about the Brazilian artist Luana Vitra includes outdated information. Hélio Menezes is no longer the director of the Museu Afro Brasil in São Paulo. Errors are corrected during the press run whenever possible, so some errors noted here may not have appeared in all editions. To contact the newsroom regarding correction requests, please email nytnews@ To share feedback, please visit Comments on opinion articles may be emailed to letters@ For newspaper delivery questions: 1-800-NYTIMES (1-800-698-4637) or email customercare@
Forbes
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Forbes
An EV Roadtrip Shows The Value Of Hotel Charging And How To Price It
Map of an EV road trip. Lightning bolts are mostly hotels, Stalls are superchargers Most of the debate on EV charging infrastructure focuses on the desire for fast charging stations, which recharge a car in 30-60 minutes. Up to $7B of federal money has been allocated to build those, though this may vanish with a recent executive order from President Trump. These stations have value, but it turns out that charging at motels is even more important, and it gets almost no attention. The issues around how to get charging at most hotels, how to make it convenient and how to price it are key issues for EV travel infrastructure. Ideally, when taking a road trip, one stays at a hotel with EV charging which refills the car overnight while the driver sleeps. Such charging is vastly cheaper (in fact, often provided free to guests) and more convenient, as it involves no driving out of your way or time spent waiting—it happens when you sleep. The driver wakes up to a full, warm car and depending on their itinerary may do all their driving on that energy, or on hard-slog road trips, can at least get to lunch for a fast charge. In shorter range cars or very intense driving, they may use another fast charge before their hotel. This is important because fast charging has become very expensive. It's not unusual to see fast chargers costing 60¢/kWh. Tesla stations tend to be 40-50¢. It's hard to make a business fast charging and that's forced many providers to charge these very high prices. (The average cost of electricity in the USA is now up to 17¢/kWh, but depends on the state and time of day, ranging from 9¢ to 40¢.) Fast charging thus costs anywhere from 10 to 15 cents per mile, which is similar to, and sometimes more, than the cost of gasoline in average cars, and more than that for an efficient hybrid. EV owners definitely didn't buy their EVs to pay more for energy than they did with gasoline cars. Because hotel charging is often free to guests, that can make a big difference. For drivers going 400-500 miles/day, that means one hotel charge and one fast charge, and cuts the total cost in half. On a recent road trip I took of 2800 miles from California to Utah, the first half was slower paced, and the second half was a fast return home. I picked up 500 kWh at superchargers and roughly 300 kWh from hotels (all free except one hotel at 25¢/kWh.) That made my trip much cheaper, and about $200 less than in my old gasoline powered Acura TL, and of course, lower emissions. For the first half the trip, the ratio of hotel and fast chargers was about even. Two Teslas charging at a hotel at Bryce Canyon National Park. The left one is keeping itself warm ... More and meling the snow. I also gained from charging my first and last 200 miles at home from my solar panels. While that power's already paid for, any power like this that I use rather than feed back to the California grid effectively loses me just 7¢/kWh. (Alternately, home solar at today's interest rates costs about 10¢/kWh.) Can it be Free? My typical hotel charge was around 40 kWh. At the average Utah price of 11.4¢, that's around $4.50 cost to the hotel. At the national average closer to $7. The value to me is much greater, because otherwise I will have to pay 40-60¢ at a fast charger, or around $20, plus a lot of inconvenience. This easily justifies going to a pricier hotel if it has charging, and you get all the other benefits of the higher-end hotel. But today we're seeing many different pricing decisions by hotels: Many hotels are being pulled to the 'minibar' style of pricing, a premium or super-premium price well above the ordinary retail price, because the hotel guest is a captive customer getting convenience. Those who do so can make a modest profit on charging, and also reduce contention at their stalls, as guests will no longer use the charging unless they truly need it. (It's ironic that minibars often lose money even at their high prices and are mostly being removed from hotels.) The more interesting dynamic applies to how guests choose their hotel. Today, EV roadtrippers are more rare—on this trip, outside of Las Vegas and Reno, we didn't see another EV charging at these hotels, though the stalls in those Nevada cities were full and cars were turned away. Those EV roadtrippers who do look for it will always choose a hotel with charging over one without if they are even roughly comparable. They will choose a hotel with free-to-guests charging over one that charges premium fees, even if the former hotel is $20 more per night, for simple financial reasons—you get the free charge and a better hotel for the same total spend. Today, almost all road trip hotels provide breakfast 'free' to guests. Estimates suggest this simple breakfast costs the hotel around $4-$5 per person, or $10-$15 per room depending on occupancy. More expensive hotels often charge extra for breakfast but for the mid-range motorist hotels, free-to-guests breakfast is now a must-have feature in rural America. It costs more per room than charging, so that suggests we might get a world were free-to-guests charging is a standard amenity in order to get EV driving guests. At the same time, the minibar pricing plan is also growing in popularity. There's an irony that metered stalls cost a lot more than simple ones, so in many cases the premium fee is charged to cover the cost of being able to do billing. Many of the free-to-guests chargers are Tesla Destination Chargers, which Tesla provided free to many hotels. Tesla doesn't forbid the hotel charging, but there was no mechanism so most don't. (This is changing as Tesla now supports billing.) Even so, a fancy public station with credit card processing can cost 5 times as much, for the equipment, as a basic one, though the electrician can cost more. One factor that could change this would be a facility for guaranteed reservations. Drivers want to be sure they can charge, though in most places today if they can't, they just have to waste time at a fast charger, perhaps during dinner after they check in and see all stalls are taken. Drivers will likely be willing to pay reservation costs that cover the cost of the electricity, so the hotel gets that paid for while also winning a stay. At present, there are no systems for hotels to automate reservation of charging stalls, but this can come. Today's option involves a hotel staffer putting a cone in a space or parking a car in one to hold it. Guests will still stay at hotels with premium fees, but they will no longer consider them an automatic win over other hotels. As the EV transition progresses, there will be few hotels with no charging, the only question will be the price, whether a spot can be reserved, and if not, how many stalls there are. Hotels without charging will just not get any EV guests at some point, and be pushed to make the change. Fortunately, with modern power management, hotels can often install lots of stalls without boosting their electrical service, as long as power use in the hotel goes down at night, leaving capacity for the cars. (Disclaimer: I have an investment in a company which sells such tools.) One possible pricing scheme, not in use today would be a combination price, such as a low ($5) flat reservation fee (or even free) for a typical charge of up to 40 kWh (around 160 miles) with reasonable per-kWh fees above that to recover costs on large battery cars. Footnote: A large fraction of hotels have an exterior 120v dedicated plug they will let you use. Carry your adapter. It may seem of limited use to add only 50 miles (which is about all such a plug will do) but that means more time and options in the morning, and it's like having a bigger battery. 30a RV plugs (different adapter) can give you 100 miles, which can make a real difference, especially if staying 2 nights.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Johns Hopkins Gets the Most Federal Money, but Now Much of It Is at Risk
As President Trump unleashes dizzying firepower at the nation's top universities, he and his supporters have made the argument that the institutions have brought such action onto themselves. They turned into bastions of leftism hostile to conservative thought and lost the trust of the American people, according to the administration. The universities accrued massive endowments, becoming less like noble nonprofits spreading good to the world and more like corporations taking advantage of government largess, the argument goes. Ronald J. Daniels, the president of Johns Hopkins University, which receives the most federal funding of any American university, has been listening. For years, he has been warning that higher education should make efforts to attract more conservatives to the ranks. His school has pushed for more viewpoint diversity and has touted a partnership with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Those efforts do not appear to have protected the university. Johns Hopkins, the first research university in the U.S., has been one of the hardest hit by a Republican effort to reduce federal funding flowing to schools. The Trump administration has not singled out Johns Hopkins with lists of demands or threats that it would be cut off from funding, as the administration has done with Harvard and Columbia. Still, Johns Hopkins has already laid off more than 2,000 people in the wake of an $800 million research cut. And officials of the university are bracing for deeper cuts to the $4.2 billion it receives in annual federal research money. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
E&E News
3 days ago
- Politics
- E&E News
Blue states launch latest legal challenge to Trump funding cuts
Nearly two dozen Democratic attorneys general are teaming up to challenge the Trump administration's rationale for slashing billions of dollars of federal grant funding for states and other recipients. The new lawsuit filed in a Massachusetts federal district court on Tuesday is the latest in a series of court battles over the administration's 'slash-and-burn campaign' to freeze congressionally mandated funding for programs that do everything from ensuring clean drinking water to reducing asthma risks. 'On top of causing dangerous chaos and confusion, these cuts are simply illegal. Congress has the power of the purse, and the president cannot cut billions of dollars of essential resources simply because he doesn't like the programs being funded,' said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the suit along with Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell and New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin. Advertisement The lawsuit, unlike other pending challenges, does not ask a federal court to restore canceled grant funding. Instead, it asks for a judge to weigh in on the Trump administration's reliance on a clause in a 2020 regulation that states agencies can cancel grant funding that 'no longer effectuates … agency priorities.'
