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The Good Apples: Not All States ‘Rebelling’ Against Health Reform

By Igor Volsky on May 6, 2010 at 8:20 pm

Since I fill up so much of this blog with news about how the states are resisting health reform, I thought it would be a good idea to point out that some states are in fact doing their very best to comply with the requirements in the new law. Thirty states have already indicated that they would be managing the temporary high-risk insurance pool program until the exchanges become operation in 2014 and others have announced that they will go further to prepare for implementation:

- California: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that he supports reform and will direct his administration “to begin putting the new system in place in California immediately.” The governor said he would call a special session of the Legislature, if necessary, to quickly get in place various legislative changes needed for the implementation of the federal healthcare plan.”

- Illinois: This week, the Illinois legislature “passed the Health Care Justice Implementation Act (SB3047) with bi-partisan support.” The bill will “monitor the implementation of the federal health care reforms and make recommendations per state implementation.

- Colorado: Gov. Bill Ritter “signed four bills intended to enhance the state’s role in health reform. He also issued an executive order naming a director of implementation and creating a new interagency reform task force.”

- Washington: Washington has already put in place many of the elements of the new federal health-care law, putting it closer than most states to making the federal law work for its residents. For instance, the state has high risk pools, basic health care plans and “state lawmakers already have authorized pilots for the coordinated approaches touted in federal law, including accountable care organizations.”

- Montana: “State Auditor Monica Lindeen said her office will have a new high-risk insurance pool running this summer” which will charge rates that are “equal to the cost of health insurance in the normal market.” The state is also excited about implementing the new exchanges. “We may be one of the first states in the nation to figure out exactly what our exchange looks like,” Lindeen said. “The rest of the nation will be looking at us.” “All of the market reforms really make sense,” she said.

- Minnesota: On Tuesday, the Minnesota House passed a health care bill that expands the Medicaid program and “lays the groundwork for federal health care changes.” Unfortunately, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) has threatened to veto the measure.

As I’ve argued before, the success of health care reform will largely depend on the states. Each state is tasked with creating and administering the new health care exchanges and enforcing the new insurance regulations. The more states do now to prepare for reform, the smoother the implantation process and the greater the chance that public opinion will shift in its favor.

Health

How The Arizona Immigration Law Undermines Public Health

By Igor Volsky on May 6, 2010 at 7:09 pm

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R)

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R)

Republicans are fond of saying that everyone in America has access to health care, because anyone can go to an emergency room and receive treatment. “There is a misnomer out there, I think, there’s a misconception, that somehow or another… uninsured means that you have no health care,” Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) has said. “That’s not correct. Everyone in this country has access to health care.” Similarly, Mitt Romney also makes the argument while defending reform in Massachusetts. “Everybody in America today has health care. If they get sick, even without insurance, they get free care, paid for by government. We said no more of that. No more free riders. We want people taking personal responsibility for getting health insurance if they can afford it,” he explains.

Since Gov. Jan Brewer signed the draconian immigration bill into law, however, this may be less true in Arizona than anywhere else. In fact, at least one doctor is now speaking out against the measure on medical grounds, claiming that the law could deter undocumented immigrants from seeking treatment in hospitals or free clinics, endangering their own health and the well being of the broader community.

This afternoon, during a briefing on national health disparities at the National Press Club, Dr. Winston Wong — Medical Director of community benefit at Kaiser Permanente — argued that doctors have a professional obligation to oppose any measure that endangers the care of their patients and the public’s general health. During a brief phone interview with me following the event, Wong expanded on his thinking. While focusing on the physician’s responsibility towards treating all patients fairly and equally, Wong explained that discouraging portions of the population from seeking regular medical care would harm the individual patient and also potentially facilitate the spread of communicable conditions like the flu throughout the state. It could keep the children of undocumented immigrants from receiving critical immunizations or other prenatal and preventative services that maintain the health of that individual child and the broader population.

“That this kind of policy really causes a lot of weariness among the target population around which you’re trying to launch initiatives,” Wong explained. “If you think about how we as doctors care for patients with chronic disease, it requires a long term relationship.” “We need to open up communication, we don’t need to narrow them,” he said. Wong also expressed concern that the law prevent families with mixed legal statuses from seeking medical attention, since doctors often inquire about family background when prescribing treatments. “This whole issue with regards to individuals begin fearful that their immigration status would either be identified or scrutinized, even if they are legal, really puts a barrier towards improving and maintaining clinical care,” Wong told me.

Climate Progress

255 National Academy of Sciences members, including 11 Nobel laureates, defend climate science integrity

By Joe Romm on May 6, 2010 at 6:40 pm

“There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.”

Tomorrow the journal Science publishes a remarkable Lead Letter supporting the accuracy of climate science.  The must-read statement, “Climate Change and the Integrity of Science,” is signed by 255 of the world’s leading scientists.  It begins:

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular.

The lead signer, Pacific Institute President Peter Gleick, notes in a HuffPost piece:

It is hard to get 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to agree on pretty much anything, making the import of this letter even more substantial.

The letter underscores our deep understanding of human-caused climate change and helps illuminate how science works.  It deserves to be widely read in its entirety:

Read more

Climate Progress

“I’m in this to Win,” Graham says of Senate climate bill

By Joe Romm on May 6, 2010 at 6:24 pm

Sen. Lindsey Graham doesn’t sound like someone who’s abandoned the push to pass a global warming bill….

“I’m not playing the game to win 43 [votes],” he said, referring to the high-water mark of past Senate climate bill roll calls. “I’m not in this to make a statement. I’m in this to win.”

Lindsey Graham is tough to read, that’s for sure.

UPDATE:  E&E News (subs. req’d) interviewed Graham in which he said, “I could see myself being the 60th vote for an energy-independent, job creation, clean air bill.”  But he has doubts the bill will get the other 59 votes and wants to see how the oil disaster plays out.  See also Politico’s piece today, “Graham unlikely to fold on energy bill.”

He apparently will not be joining his climate bill compadres Kerry and Lieberman next Wednesday when they launch the climate bill.  And he has given a multitude of conflicting statements in the past few weeks:

Read more

Climate Progress

Florida Panhandle GOP No Longer Supports ‘Drill Baby Drill’

By Brad Johnson on May 6, 2010 at 6:20 pm

The Wonk Room is blogging, photographing, and tweeting live from the Gulf Coast. See previous dispatches from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Pensacola/Destin drilling areas
The Senate-energy-committee-approved ACELA (S. 1462) would lift the moratorium on drilling in the Pensacola and Destin areas, just off the coast of the Florida Panhandle.

Florida Panhandle politicians who had been ardent offshore drilling advocates are changing their tune as the BP oil disaster begins harming their constituents. State Representative Greg Evers (R-FL-1) and State Senator Don Gaetz (R-FL-4) joined Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum (R-FL) at a press conference at the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce yesterday. Before the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, both Gaetz and Evers advocated drilling near the Florida shoreline. Now that “a lot of businesses are already feeling the pinch,” however, Evers says the white beaches of Escambia County “must be protected at all costs,” and Gaetz says that the “many” economic losses coming from this oil spill mean “these are the worst of times“:

GAETZ: We are very, very fortunate that in this fight for our economic and ecological lives, the Attorney General Bill McCullom is at the front of the fight. . . . These are the worst of times. We don’t know how badly or when we’ll be hit, but we’re pretty sure we will be hit.

EVERS: You have to understand: this is our way of life. These white sands are our way of life. We must protect them at all costs. . . . At this point, no, I’m definitely not comfortable with [drilling off the Florida coast], until actual safety precautions are put in place before any drilling is done, whether it even be off the coast of Texas right now.

Watch Evers’ comments:


Before this looming catastrophe, Evers and Gaetz were enthusiastic about bringing oil rigs within sight of their beaches. Evers called for an expansion of “clean, spill-proof drilling.” After the commander of the Eglin Air Force Base said in January that “oil and gas drilling in Florida waters could pose a threat to military operations,” Gaetz told reporters those concerns “are still not enough to convince him to oppose offshore drilling.”

In contrast, it should be noted that Republican State Senator Durrell Peaden (R-FL-2), who also represents the Panhandle coast, has never liked “the idea of risking our beaches on a crap shoot.”

McCollum, a candidate for Florida governor who had previously raised objections to bringing oil rigs off the valuable coast of Florida, told the Wonk Room he is willing to consider punitive damages against BP when the time comes.

Watch the full Wonk Room interview with Rep. Greg Evers.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on May 6, 2010 at 6:14 pm

Right from the start:

— Good news pretty much across the board on the FinReg amendment front.

— Al Franken eyes ratings agency reform.

— Tom Coburn launches more abusive holds including of Dana Perino.

— Claire McCaskill tries to slightly curb holds.

— Stripping people of their citizenship sounds bad, but I believe the Obama administration asserts the right to have citizens assassinated which seems like a more drastic measure.

— If you subscribed to my celebrated public tweeter feed you would have already read my joke that Angela Merkel is lucky that the bar for “worst German leader ever” is really high.

The XX, “Basic Space”

Politics

McCain Caught Fundraising With Business Group That Killed McCain-Feingold, Shouts ‘I Love The Chamber!’

By Lee Fang on May 6, 2010 at 6:10 pm

Today, while the Senate continued to debate Wall Street reform, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) ventured south of the Capitol to a fundraiser hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Years ago, when McCain still considered himself a “maverick,” McCain and the Chamber clashed bitterly as McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts and pushed for campaign finance reform to rein in corporate power over elections.

ThinkProgress approached McCain as he walked to the fundraiser from his car. Asked if he supports new campaign finance reforms, McCain said no, and said that Rep. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD) bill does not include disclosure requirements for unions. In fact, the DISCLOSE Act would force ads funded by unions to reveal the same information as ads funded by corporations. Asked why he was attending a fundraiser hosted by the organization that helped kill his own campaign finance reforms, McCain flashed ThinkProgress a thumbs up and yelled that he “love[s] the Chamber of Commerce”:

TP: Have you taken a position on the DISCLOSE Act, the new campaign finance bill?

MCCAIN: No, I haven’t.

TP: Do you plan to support it or some type of campaign finance bill because of Citizens United?

MCCAIN: As far as I can tell, to start with, there is no provision concerning unions –

TP: No, they are regulated the same as business.

MCCAIN: No, they’re not. No, they really are not. I am answering your question. It favors the unions a great deal.

TP: Is that why you’re going to the Chamber of Commerce which opposed your campaign finance bill?

MCCAIN: I’m at the Chamber of Commerce because I love the Chamber of Commerce! They love business. I hope you’ll get involved in it too.

TP: They helped kill McCain-Feingold.

MCCAIN: They’re really wonderful people.

Watch it:

In recent years, McCain has flipped on his support for campaign finance reform. When the John Roberts Supreme Court struck down nearly a hundred years of campaign finance law, including most of McCain’s signature McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, McCain only squeaked that he was “disappointed.” During the Citizens United proceedings, the Chamber hired lawyers and filed an amicus brief to help argue in favor of striking down McCain’s reforms. Now, as both Democrats and some Republicans have come together to propose sweeping new laws aimed at adding disclosure to corporate and union campaign advertising after Citizens United, the Chamber is again promising a grueling fight.

As ThinkProgress has reported, the Chamber is the biggest front group fighting financial reform — pushing the elimination of consumer protections from the bill and even fighting the bill’s “fundamentals.” The Chamber is funded by some of the world’s largest corporations, including banks like CitiGroup, which were bailed out by taxpayers and still have not repaid the TARP funds.

Climate Progress

The BP disaster and Hobson’s choice of oil production

By Climate Guest Blogger on May 6, 2010 at 6:04 pm

Why weren’t containment chambers on shore and ready for deployment?

That is one of the many questions that Dr. Thomas D. Beamish poses in this guest post.

Part of the answer is that BP had joined the group think of the oil industry and truly believed a blowout disaster was ‘inconceivable,’ ‘unprecedented,’ and unforeseeable.  If you can’t conceive of it you can’t prepare for it.  Another reason is the voluntary, “trust us,” self-regulatory regime that BP and Big Oil demanded and received under the Cheney-Bush administration

Beamish is uniquely qualified to discuss these issues.  He is Associate Professor of Sociology at UC-Davis and his areas of expertise and interest include complex/ formal/informal organization, economic, and environmental sociology. He is author of the book “Silent Spill: The Organization of an Industrial Crisis” (MIT Press).

Read more

Economy

Corker: Banks Have To Rip Off Consumers To Make A Profit

By Pat Garofalo on May 6, 2010 at 5:30 pm

Today, the Senate debated Sen. Richard Shelby’s (R-AL) consumer protection amendment to Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) financial regulatory reform bill. As I’ve noted, Shelby’s amendment would gut the Dodd bill and prevent the consumer protection regulator from enforcing its rules against almost every institution in the financial system. It would also undermine the ability of individual states to police consumer lending practices.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) took to the Senate floor today to make his case against Dodd’s consumer protection title because the newly created Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection would have the ability to outlaw certain predatory products. He claimed that such power “has to undermine the safety and soundness of our financial institutions”:

One of the things that I think is most disruptive about this legislation is that, if you can imagine this. I think all of us realize that what led to this last crisis was we had very poor underwriting and loans. I mean, that was the essence of this last crisis, it got spread around the world, the fact that we had very poor underwriting…But what the Dodd bill does is give to a consumer protection agency loan underwriting standards. Now, if you can imagine that, I’d like people in this body to think about that, but a consumer protection agency being involved in setting underwriting standards for loans has to undermine the safety and soundness of our financial institutions. To me, that is a huge problem.

Watch it:

What Corker is saying, when you boil it down, is that banks have to rip off customers in order to make money. Without the ability to use predatory products, according to Corker, banks won’t be able to make a profit and will fall apart.

Not only is this preposterous — banks can get along perfectly fine employing only traditional banking products — but it is a very dim view of how we should protect financial consumers. While consumers should obviously be aware of the risks of financial products, there are some products that serve no purpose aside from trying to separate the buyer from his or her money.

As National Economic Council Director Larry Summers said last week, “we don’t allow you to sell baby seats that are unsafe for babies…I don’t see the problem with some regulation that actually goes to the content of the product.” Stephen Lubben put it this way at Credit Slips, when Shelby made a similar argument:

Did toaster companies go out of business when the Consumer Product Safety Commission stopped letting them sell exploding toasters? I guess the ones who couldn’t make it selling legitimate toasters did — but the Senator can’t really be saying that America’s banking industry is like a shoddy toaster company, can he?

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) aptly called Shelby’s amendment “a stimulus package for scam artists.” And that’s exactly what it is: an argument for preserving the banks’ ability to prey on consumers.

Update

Shelby’s amendment was defeated on a 38-61 vote. Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) voted no.

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