Medical debt pushes Americans over the edge and discourages them from getting help Providing information and ideas to build a healthier, more sustainable America. - September 2021 - We looked at the role of medical debt in bankruptcies in Oregon, tracked the impact of slaughterhouses on our waterways and examined how reducing compensation for solar power could stall the drive toward clean energy. On the blog, we wrote about the true meaning of "innovation," the dangers of air pollution and the high price of convenience. A shock to the heart...and the bank account In 2019, more than 60% of people who filed for bankruptcy in Oregon reported having medical debt. That’s the key finding of our report Unhealthy Debt, which analyzed more than 8,000 bankruptcy filings. The report also found that a significant number of filers reported large amounts of medical debt: more than 600 people had over $10,000 of health care-related debt. The high cost of health care in the U.S. is a big source of financial hardship and can discourage Americans from seeking out care. The industrial-scale meat industry pollutes our waterways In 2019, slaughterhouses released more than 28 million pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus directly into the nation's rivers and streams. In fact, meat and poultry processing facilities are the largest single-site sources of industrial nitrogen pollution discharged to waterways, according to 2015 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data. We turned our analysis of EPA records into an interactive map of the meat processing facilities in the U.S., allowing you to look at the pollution these slaughterhouses produce and find out which facilities might be affecting your local watershed. After the map was released, the EPA announced a plan to update its regulations for pollution from slaughterhouses for the first time since 2004. How to not go solar When compensation is cut to owners of rooftop solar panels for the power they supply to the grid, new solar adoption plummets. That's the finding from our report, Rooftop Solar at Risk, which reviews cases where cuts to programs like "net metering" have put the brakes on local solar markets – critical information for the state of California to consider as it decides the future of the state's solar compensation programs. On the blog Sarah Nick examines how the value of “innovation” in engineering has been co-opted to produce stuff we don’t need, and argues that innovation should focus on designing products and systems to improve our lives and protect the environment...Bryn Huxley-Reicher reflects on how air pollution problems, including wildfire smoke, affect the whole country and lays out the huge array of health problems associated with air pollution...Tony Dutzik mulls over our preoccupation with convenience, the ways it impedes progress on important issues – like climate change – and the value of things that might be called inconvenient...Summer intern Gaby Lewis takes on the myth that our phones are listening to us, and describes how, instead, all they’re doing is tracking everything you do. Coming soon In October we’ll release an update of Trouble in the Air, our report on how even low levels of air pollution affect our health. The report also analyzes EPA data to describe how often millions of Americans are exposed to elevated levels of pollution. Frontier Group staff Susan Rakov, Director Tony Dutzik and Elizabeth Ridlington, Associate Directors and Senior Policy Analysts R.J. Cross, James Horrox and Adrian Pforzheimer, Policy Analysts Sarah Nick and Bryn Huxley-Reicher, Policy Associates Frontier Group is part of The Public Interest Network, which operates and supports organizations committed to a shared vision of a better world and a strategic approach to social change. Subscribe to this newsletter Frontier Group | 1129 State Street, Suite 10, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected]