Undernews For August 22, 2009

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Friday Aug 21

WORRYING ABOUT HEALTH CARE RATIONING IS NOT IRRATIONAL

Robert Pear, NY Times - White House officials and Democrats in Congress say the fears of older Americans about possible rationing of health care are based on myths and falsehoods. But Medicare beneficiaries and insurance counselors say the concerns are not entirely irrational. Bills now in Congress would squeeze savings out of Medicare, a lifeline for the elderly, on the assumption that doctors and hospitals can be more efficient.

President Obama has sold health care legislation to Congress and the country as a way to slow the growth of federal health spending, no less than as a way to regulate the insurance market and cover the uninsured.

Mr. Obama has also said Medicare and private insurers could improve care and save money by following advice from a new federal panel of medical experts on "what treatments work best."

The zeal for cutting health costs, combined with proposals to compare the effectiveness of various treatments and to counsel seniors on end-of-life care, may explain why some people think the legislation is about rationing, which could affect access to the most expensive services in the final months of life. . .

An independent federal panel, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, conducts annual surveys of beneficiaries and says they generally have good access to care. But, it said, some beneficiaries have difficulty finding new doctors, especially primary care physicians, and blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to report problems.

Mr. Obama has repeatedly said, "Nobody is talking about cutting Medicare benefits." At the same time, he wants to eliminate what he describes as "unwarranted subsidies" and giveaways to private Medicare Advantage plans, which use some of the money to provide extra benefits.

More than one-fifth of the 45 million Medicare beneficiaries are in Medicare Advantage plans operated by insurance companies like Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealth. The House bill would cut payments to private plans by more than $160 billion over 10 years. Mr. Obama says those payments "boost insurance company profits, but don"â„¢t make you any healthier."

In the past, insurers reacted to such cuts by increasing premiums, reducing benefits or pulling out of the Medicare market, and beneficiaries complained loudly. . .

In effect, Mr. Obama says he can cut bloated Medicare payments to inefficient health care providers without adversely affecting any beneficiaries. Many doctors are dubious.

Medicare officials recently proposed changes that could increase payments for some primary care services but reduce payments to many specialists. Cardiologists would be especially hard hit, with cuts of more than 20 percent in payments for electrocardiograms and 12 percent for heart stent procedures.

"Cuts of this magnitude could cripple cardiology practices and threaten access to services for millions of patients," said Dr. John C. Lewin, chief executive of the American College of Cardiology. . .

Moreover, if a bill becomes law, no one can say for sure how it may be applied or extended. The 1965 law that created Medicare prohibited "any federal interference" in "the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided," or in the operation of any institution providing health care.

Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, called this "a majestic message from Congress about how it expected the Medicare program to be run."

But the meaning of that guarantee has shrunk as Medicare officials and Congress have set more detailed standards for doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and others in Medicare.

CALIFORNIA'S UNEMPLOYMENT RATE REACHES POST WORLD WAR II HIGH

LA Times - California's unemployment rate took an unexpected leap in July, reaching a post-Word War II high of 11.9%. The increase contrasts with the national rate, which declined slightly over the same period, and reflects ongoing weakness in the state's battered construction and financial services industries. The state lost a net 35,800 jobs last month, more than any other state, the U.S. Labor Department said today. It has lost 760,200 jobs over the last year. Every category of non-farm jobs in the state except education and health services experienced year-over-year losses. The construction sector was the hardest hit, shedding 18.6% of its jobs. Manufacturing jobs fell 8.7% from the same time last year.

A TOO TAME WILDERNESS?

Sam Smith, Progressive Review - The other day, driving down the two lane road to tourist-heavy Boothbay Harbor, ME, I ran into a traffic tie-up in both directions. I assumed it was an accident until I got closer and realized that the people out of their cars and trucks were all looking in the same direction - away from the road. The cause: a moose walking in a field next to the woods. One might have expected, what with all the human excitement, for the moose to have gone swiftly into the woods. Instead, she turned and casually marched towards the crowd as if auditioning for a re-run of North Exposure. She the, just as casually turned, and headed awaqy.

It probably wouldn't have struck me except for the fact that some days earlier another moose had wandered into an office building in another coastal town and I had also read a report of a bear being killed in Montana because it was getting too comfortable being around humans.

And now this story from the LA Times. Together they raise the interesting question: is the wilderness getting too tame?

LA Times - If you appreciate marine mammals and you have not taken a trip this summer aboard the Condor Express out of Santa Barbara, you're missing out. Not only are majestic blue and gregarious humpback whales concentrated in the same area in the outer channel, some of the humpbacks seem to truly enjoy the company of the vessel's passengers.

In fact, veteran Capt. Mat Curto is sure of it. "They just want to be friendly with the boat," he says. They will stay with you up to two hours at a time, circling the boat, looking up at you while they turn on their side.

"They have a real big interest in whale watchers and I seem to find that the more the whale watchers react to the whale, the more the whale will react to the whale watchers. If you get people clapping and yelling and whistling and cheering for the whale, the whale just feeds off of it."

THREE QUARTERS WANT PUBLIC CHOICE IN HEALTH CARE

Huffington Post - More than three out of every four Americans feel it is important to have a "choice" between a government-run health care insurance option and private coverage, according to a public opinion poll. A new study by Survey USA puts support for a public option at 77 percent, . . . Earlier in the week, after pollsters for NBC dropped the word "choice" from their question on a public option, they found that only 43 percent of the public were in favor of "creating a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would compete directly with private health insurance companies." Opponents of the president's agenda jumped on the findings as evidence that backing for the public option was dropping. Proponents responded by arguing that NBC's tinkering with the language of the question had contributed to the drop in favorability for a public plan. . . While arguments about what type of language best describe the public option persist --"choice" is considered a trigger word that everyone naturally supports -- it seems clear that the framing of the provision goes a long way toward determining its popularity.

CASH FOR CLUNKERS. . .SOMETIME

KRQE - Some New Mexico auto dealers have backed out of the cash-for-clunkers program and more may do so as the federal government takes its time providing cash reimbursements. Dealers across the state are owed more than $3.6 million, according to a dealers' group which says that so far Uncle Sam has only written three checks totaling about $14,000. . . Dealerships put up the cash for the rebates after being told by the Obama administration they would be paid back within 10 days of the sale. . . "You simply can't ask businesses to front $200,000, $300,000 for any period of time," Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., told KRQE News 13. "These applications are simply not being processed fast enough.

WHEN BUREAUCRATS TRY TO BE HIP

Washington Post - Metro is struggling with overruns again, but this time the problem isn't train operators overshooting platforms. It's mysteriously incomplete tweets. In March, Metro set up a Twitter account and configured software to tweet onto the popular social networking site all of the advisories about service disruptions already e-mailed to subscribers. Because a majority of the alerts are longer than the 140-character limit, Twitter has been truncating them automatically. As a result, Metro's updates sometimes leave the agency's 1,507 followers scratching their heads. What did Metro mean, for instance, when it posted: "No Line: There is no Blue line train service between Rosslyn & King Street. Shuttle bus service is established. Customers are encouraged to"? The anonymous blogger behind Unsuck DC Metro has hosted four "Complete the Tweet" contests on his site, in which visitors can speculate about what the rest of a message might have said. One was based on the Blue Line message encouraging riders to do . . . something or other. A commenter responded: "ford the Potomac River at their own risk." Another said, "go to the closest bar and drink away the stress . . . and then call your designated driver." A third guessed: " . . . walk, as that will probably be faster and more convenient than taking the bus." Staffers in Metro's public relations office have seen these. "We find humor in that as well," Metro spokeswoman Cathy Asato said.

RECORD NUMBER OF GREENS RUNNING FOR OFFICE

Across the country a record number of Green Party candidates are running for office. There are currently 144 Green Party candidates running in local and state races, nearly ten more than at this point in 2005 and nearly 50 more than at this point in 2007. . . . Among them: Allan Brison is running for re-election as Alderman of New Haven, Connecticut. . . Cam Gordon is seeking re-election to the Minneaspolis, Minnesota City Council. Cam has received the endorsement of his local Green Party, a local Sierra Club chapter, the Minnesota Nurses Association, and several other area unions. Also: artist and anti-corporate activist Reverend Billy Talen is running for mayor of New York City. Earlier this week Billy's volunteers turned in over 18,000 signatures to get the Green Party on the ballot.

WORKERS HAVE TO TOIL TEN TIMES AS LONG IN MEXICO CITY FOR A BIG MAC AS IN CHICAGO

Economist - A UBS report published this week offers a handy guide to how long it takes a worker on the average net wage to earn the price of a Big Mac in 73 cities. Fast-food junkies are best off in Chicago, Toronto and Tokyo, where it takes a mere 12 minutes at work to afford a Big Mac. By contrast, employees must toil for over two hours to earn enough for a burger fix in Mexico City, Jakarta and Nairobi.

NADER ON THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE

Ralph Nader, Democracy Now - What is emerging here is what was being planned by the Obama White House all along, which is they would only-they would only demand legislation that was accepted by the big drug companies and the big health insurance companies.

You can see this emerging over the last few months. President Obama has met with the heads of the drug companies and the health insurance companies. Some executives have met with President Obama four to five times in the White House in the last few months. He has never met with the longtime leaders of the "Full Medicare for Everybody" movement, including Dr. Quentin Young, who is a close friend of his in Chicago; Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the head of the Health Research Group of Public Citizen; Rose Ann DeMoro, the leader of the fast-growing California Nurses Association-not once in the White House.

That's all you need to know to realize that the deal that's being cut here is from Obama to Senator Baucus, the Blue Dog senator from Montana, who is cutting a deal, largely in private, with right-wing Republican senators and getting it through the Senate and presenting Henry Waxman and John Dingle and others in the House with a fait accompli. So whatever they pass in the House will be watered down in the Senate-House conference. And what we'll end up with is another patchwork piece of legislation, allowing huge and expanded profits for the health insurance companies and the drug companies, and continuing this pay-or-die system that has plagued this country for decades, a system that takes 20,000 lives a year, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. That's about fifty to sixty people who die every day.

The big mistake that the Obama administration made was they did not have continual public congressional hearings documenting the greed, the fraud, the $250 billion in billing fraud and abuse alone that the GAO years ago has documented. They didn't document the $350 billion of waste, the overhead of Aetna and United Healthcare and other health insurance companies with their massive executive salaries and bureaucracies. They did not document the deaths, the injuries, the sickness that hundreds of thousands of Americans go through every year because they can't afford healthcare. And by not doing that, by playing this behind-the-scenes game with these executives from the big health-industrial complex, they were vulnerable to the split in their own party in the House, with the Blue Dog Democrats emboldened by an apparently wavering and indecisive President Obama, and they made sure that they were placed on the defensive. . .

Obama is being undermined by his own party in Congress, because the Blue Dogs are getting far more money from these corporations and campaign contributions than the so-called liberals in the Democratic Party.

So why isn't the President of the United States, who was elected in large part by these same people, why isn't he representing them in Congress and in the White House? Because he is not a transforming leader. He is a harmony ideology person. He's a concessionary person. He wants any bill with the label "health insurance reform" on it, no matter what. He's not even willing to draw the line and say there will be no bill, I will veto any bill that doesn't have a vigorous public option, not a phony public option that will allow-that will allow people to be dumped into the public option when they're the sickest and leave the healthiest people for the profiteering insurance companies.

NEWS FROM THE BUBBLE MACHINE

One of the Obama administration's top priorities in its revamp is to regulate both derivatives and firms that trade them. But Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, warned key lawmakers in a letter this week that provisions of the administration's proposed legislation could leave significant elements of the derivatives market out of the reach of regulators and undermine efforts to combat fraud. . . Gensler helped craft an Obama administration plan to police this market for the first time. The proposal would require that most derivatives be traded on exchanges, like stocks and bonds, making the market much more transparent. It would also subject the banks and other firms that deal in the derivatives trade to robust requirements. However, the legislation contains several exceptions that are the source of Gensler's concern. For example, the administration has proposed exempting certain types of derivatives used to bet on currencies from regulation by the agency. The CFTC worries that traders could structure derivatives that would otherwise be regulated to fit within this exemption. . . A second concern is that minor traders in derivatives would not have to meet the robust trading requirements envisioned by the legislation. "This excludes a significant class of end users," the agency said. "This major exception may undermine the policy objective of lowering risk." Gensler said Wednesday that he still supports passage of the legislation. -Zachary A. Goldfarb, Washington Post

Dean Baker - The NYT reports that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke seems to be cruising to reappointment in spite of having missed the largest financial bubble in the history of the world, giving us the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The article notes that there are also critics of the way that he has handled the bailout effort, but does not provide details. These details would be helpful to readers.

First, he misled Congress last fall to help gain quick approval of the TARP. He told Congress that the commercial paper market was shutting down, so that non-financial corporations could not raise the money needed to pay their bills and meet their payrolls. In fact, the Fed had the ability to prevent a shutdown of the commercial paper market by directly buying commercial paper. Bernanke announced plans to establish a special lending facility to buy commercial paper the weekend after Congress approved the TARP.

Bernanke has also chose to keep all of the Fed's lending secret. While anyone can go to the Treasury's website and find out which banks received money from the TARP and under what terms, Bernanke has refused to make information on Fed's lending available even to members of the relevant congressional oversight committees.

Finally, Bernanke has allowed the distinction between commercial and investment banking to be obliterated. After Goldman Sachs became a bank holding company, Bernanke has allowed it to continue to operate as an investment bank. This means that it has effectively gambled with the FDIC's insurance fund money. Even proponents of the repeal of Glass Steagall insisted that they would never allow this sort of mixture of government insured deposits and speculative investment banking.

For these reasons, even some people who don't think that Bernanke's responsibility for the greatest economic disaster in 70 years disqualifies him for reappointment do not want to see him get another term as Fed chair.

Mike Lux, Open Left - There is a solution to all the complaining by Congress over the Obama administration's plan to give more power to the Federal Reserve. It is a solution that solves the worries people have about giving a secretive, undemocratic institution that blew it in the run-up to this financial crisis more power. It is a solution that looks at least in part to have broad bipartisan support, if one bill with 238 co-sponsors in the House is any indication. It is a solution that Democrats ought to be excited about if they take all their historic statements about government transparency and more democracy seriously.

The only downside is that it would be picking a big policy fight that directly challenges the power of the too-big-to-fail banks.

The idea is simple, has been around for a long time, should have been done a long time ago: make the Fed a more open and democratic institution, rather than the secretive one tied so closely to the big banks it is supposed to be regulating. There are a variety of ideas in this area, some of my favorites being:

- The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which now has 238 co-sponsors (weirdly a lot more Republicans than Democrats, but with 47 Democrats led by Alan Grayson). This bill gives GAO the authority to audit the Fed and report is findings to Congress.

Requiring the Fed to disclose which banks are receiving trillions of dollars to prop them up.

- Taking bankers off the governing board of the regional Feds, and making sure that only consumer, labor, and public interest representatives are on the governing boards (currently, banking industry representatives or those affiliated with the banking industry are allowed to have three out of nine seats board seats for each of the 12 Regional Feds). Having those kinds of reps placed inside the Federal Reserve is important as well.

- Making the Fed more transparent, and changing the governing structure so that more people than bankers are involved with it, would make it acceptable to progressives to give the Fed more power. Without that kind of restructuring, the issue will not go away, and will likely doom regulatory reform.

- Opening up the Fed should be one of the major things progressives demand before they support giving them any more power.

Washington Examiner - The Inspector General of the Federal Reserve in a video acknowledges that trillions of dollars cannot be accounted for. The astonishing five-minute clip is taken from a Congressional hearing where Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman is questioned by Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida on May 6th about huge amounts of money for which the Federal Reserve is responsible.

The Inspector General avoids answering almost every question asked by the Congressman. In fact, she appears in this video clip to know less about the finances of the Federal Reserve than Congressman Grayson.

Among the many important questions raised, Grayson requests information on the Bloomberg report that many trillion of dollars in credit have been extended by the Federal Reserve. When the Inspector General avoids answering, Grayson states, "If you're not responsible for investigating that, who is?" Once again, she avoids the question stating, "We've not gotten to a specific level of detail to really be in a position to respond to your question."

At another point, Coleman answers a further question with, "We are not in a position to say whether there are losses." Yet if the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve cannot account for trillions of dollars extended, who can? Grayson holds his composure very well throughout the questioning. He concludes, "I have to tell you honestly, I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve, including the Inspector General, is keeping track of [the unaccounted for trillions]." THE VIDEO

BUSH REGIME PRESSURED HOMELAND CHIEF TO RAISE THREAT LEVEL BEFORE ELECTION

NY Daily News - Top advisers to George W. Bush pressed for a politically-motivated terror alert a few days before the 2004 election, ex-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge charges in a new book. . . "Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level and was supported by Rumsfeld," Ridge writes in the book due out Sept. 1 by St. Martin's Press. No intelligence hinted of a new attack. Ridge aides objected to the White House and no change was made to the threat level. Mark Corallo, Ashcroft's spokesman in 2004, denied the ex-AG played politics with national security, and said Ridge should "use his emergency duct tape" on himself. But exhaustive research by the Daily News in 2004 found that Ashcroft's Justice Department rolled out terrorism announcements frequently to give Bush a boost in the polls against Democrat John Kerry.

SCIENTISTS FIND NEW FORMS OF POLLUTION FROM PLASTICS IN SEA

Independent, UK - Scientists have identified a new source of chemical pollution released by the huge amounts of plastic rubbish found floating in the oceans of the world. A study has found that as plastics break down in the sea they release potentially toxic substances not found in nature and which could affect the growth and development of marine organisms. . The scientists found that when plastics decompose in the ocean they release a range of chemicals, such as bisphenol A and substances known as polystyrene-based oligomers, which are not found naturally. Bisphenol A has been implicated in disrupting the hormonal system of animals. A common form of plastic rubbish is styrofoam, which soon gets crushed into small pieces in the sea. However, it also releases substantial quantities of a toxic substances called styrene monomer, which is known to cause cancer, as well as styrene dimers and trimer, which are suspected of being carcinogenic.

MEDICAL MALPRACTICE CASES ADD LESS THAN ONE PERCENT TO HEALTH COSTS

Common Dreams - In an astonishing refutation of insurance company claims that medical malpractice verdicts are "exploding" and forcing dramatic rates increases, a new analysis shows that insurance companies are paying victims of medical negligence on average only $42,607.03. This is only slightly more than the average payout was a decade earlier -- $39,093.31. Moreover, medical malpractice costs, as a percentage of national health care expenditures, are at an all time low, 0.55 percent. The analysis, conducted for the Center for Justice & Democracy by actuary J. Robert Hunter, Director of Insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, examined year 2000 insurance data. . . He concludes, "Medical malpractice insurance is amazing value, considering that it covers all medical injuries for about one-half of one percent of health system costs."

FURTHERMORE. . . .

MEXICO DECRIMINALIZES SMALL AMOUNTS OF DRUGS

JULY HOME SALES SURGE MORE THAN 7%

TEN BEST COLLEGE ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS

BEST AND WORST PLACES TO LOOK FOR A JOB

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