#5SmartReads - February 17, 2023

Marisa is a corporate account executive by day, a freelance writer and #5SmartReads contributor by night, and a mom 24/7. Congratulations to her hometown team, the Kansas City Chiefs, on an incredible Super Bowl victory!

Currently reading: This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub Currently watching: Iron Chef on Netflix

The US Just Hit The Debt Limit. What Happens Now? (Vox)

If you're only paying attention to one current news story, it should be this one.

I know that brinksmanship around the debt ceiling seems to be de rigeur in modern American politics, but this time is different... and is once again a tragic opportunity for me to scream from the rooftops that EVERY ELECTION HAS CONSEQUENCES.

We are not even 20 days into the 118th US Congress and this is where we find ourselves. I wonder if the Boomers who voted Republican in 2022 really had this in mind for our collective future?

Scientists Have Reached A Key Milestone In Learning How To Reverse Aging (TIME)

While politics is... bleak, to say the least, we do at least live in a time when science is freaking amazing.

The TL;DR for this article? Think about reversing aging in your genes as something like restoring a prior version of a Word document. Incredible!

Religious Leaders Sue To Overturn Missouri’s Abortion Ban (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

I am excited to see fellow midwesterners and people of faith standing up for abortion rights. People definitely tend to see both of those groups as a conservative monolith, but they (we!) are not.

I am a pro-choice Catholic and midwestern mom.

I think everyone has a right to their own sincerely held religious beliefs - and that no one has a right to impose those on anyone else. And to that end, this lawsuit is the best hope I've had for my adopted home state in a long, long time.

‘Medical Cost-Sharing’ Plan Left This Pastor On The Hook For Much Of A $160,000 (NPR)

There is a lesson to be learned here that is very applicable to literally everyone in the US: please make sure that you carry some kind of major medical insurance.

I know it's expensive, and I know it's hard to understand, but!!! These are the precise kind of scenarios that it is intended to cover.

Choking down $7,000 in annual premiums for a $5,000 annual deductible makes you feel uninsured every time you have to pick up a script or pay a $200 doctor's office bill - but when your first round of chemo runs you $40,000 a month, or you find yourself dealing with rheumatoid arthritis or ulcerative colitis and the drugs for those conditions cost $10k to $15k a month, or you have a baby in the NICU incurring tens of thousands A DAY in medical charges... you will be thankful that you have it.

(Not-so-fun fact: most of the $1 million+ claims I have seen in my career have been for kiddos - and the vast majority of those, for NICU babies.) That's not to say that there aren't many, many things about how the healthcare and healthcare payor systems in America work that need to be fixed - there certainly are. But for the time being, do yourself and those you love the favor of making sure you don't find yourself in a situation like this one.

I Was Alone. Abandoned. With Only A Hundred Million In The Bank’- Spare, Digested By John Crace (The Guardian)

I am probably not going to make a lot of friends by reposting this (and full disclosure - while I have followed this story with some interest, I have not read Prince Harry's book and don't plan to for the time being) - but I honestly thought this was too funny.

Let's end with some levity shall we?