GPCI is one of those tricky problems that’s hard to fix because it’s complicated and because it affects a relatively limited area.

The acronym GPCI stands for Geographic Practice Cost Index. Simply put, this index is used to modify Medicare payments to doctors to reflect differences in physician costs in different areas.

This index, established more than 40 years ago, is used to designate counties as either “urban” or “rural,” depending on how expensive it is to operate a practice there.

Bonny Doon company wants people to go electric
“About the most disgusting thing in the world,” Mike Brown says conversationally, “is to be parked in traffic, and have one of those Dodge Ram trucks with a huge exhaust pipe sticking in your window. Most of them don’t even have enough class to use biodiesel.”

Just days before leaving on his first volunteer trip to Honduras, UC Santa Cruz senior Daniel Truong was “scared to death, but very excited.” As one of two founders of the UCSC branch of Global Medical Brigades (GMB), Truong had spent the better part of his school year recruiting students, fundraising, collecting donated medicines and cutting through red tape in preparation to lead 20 student volunteers to the Latin American country.

‘Green’ diaper company wants to keep things clean
The life span of a disposable diaper is interminable. From the time one is thrown out and schlepped away to the nearest landfill, to the point when it has completely broken down can be up to 500 years. It will still be slowly rotting at the bottom of a toxic pit long after you, and your diaper-wearing bundle of joy, are gone.

According to Karen Nelsen, one of the founders of the EarthBaby diaper company, disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, preceded only by paper (Number One) and beverage containers. (Both of which are recyclable—go figure). The Bay Area alone contributes 375 million diapers to landfills each year, she says

The irony about the Democratic budget that failed passage last week is that 45 percent of the proposals we voted on were the exact same proposals as those in the governor’s May revise.  Of the remaining portion of the budget proposed last week, at least 93 percent contained a portion of the governor’s budget proposals.  ( It may be ironic, but I doubt readers will applaud how aligned with the governor the Dems are. Best not to draw attention to the similarities, since most people seem to loathe the governor’s proposal right now.

An eco-conscious approach to pest management is now up for debate thanks to a memo recently released by a Home Depot senior executive.

After a year and a half of persistent negotiations with the Santa Cruz nonprofit Ecology Action, Home Depot released a memo in early May that supports integrated pest management. The approach uses low-toxic methods to curb the critters that munch on garden veggies and dash across the kitchen counter.

Sent by Senior Vice President Ron Jarvis, the memo gives the green light for California Home Depots to participate in eco-minded training programs lead by environmental nonprofits and government agencies. Fliers and product labels made by environmental groups can be dispersed in stores, so long as individual store managers approve.

Coffee is no mere drink. It can be a crutch, sometimes a drug, a social lubricant and a cash cow, the tissue of many a first date and a multitude of jittery sleepless nights. Throughout history, it’s been both banned and consecrated, outlawed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shunned by many Seventh-Day Adventists, and elevated to a sacrament by 16th century Sufi mystics. It’s one of the most traded commodities in the world, as well as one of the most valuable, second only to petroleum.

Downtown’s new Pacific Blue Inn brightens up lower Pacific Avenue

The elderly man with a walker who didn’t want to take the stairs; the Arizonan who insisted on being “green”; the carpet-phobic Swedish couple that loves bamboo floors; the bride and groom who wanted to rent out a hotel for their wedding party without breaking the bank.

UCSC students ready to offer free health-care in Honduras

Daniel Truong meets me over a cup of coffee during UC Santa Cruz’s finals week, yet, unlike most of his peers, he isn’t fretting over studying or upcoming exams. Truong, a third-year neuroscience major, had a biology final in the morning; his physics test is in a day. He says he simply has bigger things to think about.