Wednesday, November 27, 2013
many SNAP recipients will face empty cupboards this Thanksgiving, in part due to the across-the-board benefit cut that took effect November 1.
As Thanksgiving approaches, we've taken a closer look this week at hardship in America. Our final post in the series explains how cuts to SNAP are affecting families.
This Thanksgiving Day, while many of us try to find room on the table for yet another pumpkin pie, many Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) will face empty cupboards. Ordinarily, most SNAP households run out of benefits before the end of each month (see chart). And now, that's happening earlier in the month, because every participating household had its benefits cut beginning November 1 when a temporary benefit boost from 2009 expired.
The cut, which averages $29 a month for a family of three, may not sound like a lot to those who don't struggle to put food on the table. But for that family of three, it's the equivalent of taking away 16 meals a month.
These families simply don't have the ability to make up that loss. SNAP participants are poor, as we explained yesterday. Four in five SNAP recipients have gross incomes below the poverty line (about $23,500 for a family of four), with two in five households below half of the poverty line. They rely on SNAP's assistance to purchase nutritious food; benefit levels afford no room for luxuries.
Charities have already reported rising numbers of people seeking food assistance since benefits were reduced. Further cuts — such as those proposed by the House of Representatives that would drop up to 4 million people from SNAP — would leave many more people without adequate food during this season of thanksgiving.
funding cuts under sequestration threaten to halt progress against homelessness and worsen the shortage of affordable housing.
Six years after the Great Recession began, the number of homeless families with children remains stubbornly high. And the number of low-income households with unmet needs for housing assistance — especially families with children — has soared. Funding cuts under sequestration threaten to halt progress against homelessness and worsen the shortage of affordable housing.
Let's first look at the homelessness data:
- Over 1.1 million children and youth were homeless during the 2011-2012 school year, according to the Department of Education. Four-fifths were living in homes that were not their own and that may be crowded and unstable; the rest were living in homeless shelters or on the street, in cars, or in abandoned buildings.
- The number of families with children in homeless shelters or temporary housing for the homeless jumped by 30 percent in the first two years of the recession (2007-2009) and remained only slightly below the 2009 level as of 2012, according to a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report. This figure doesn't include families who are doubling up with other households, even if they have to move every few weeks.
- HUD's latest count of the number of people living on the streets or in shelters on one night in January showed a modest drop among families with children. (The drop since 2007, however, was close to 25 percent each among people with disabilities and veterans.) And one-night counts are less reliable than counts of the number of homeless households over a whole year.
More than 2 million low-income households use vouchers to rent modest private-market housing at an affordable cost. But low-income seniors, people with disabilities, and working families with children eligible for the voucher program often must wait years for assistance due to limited funding.
Sequestration is hitting both the voucher program and anti-homelessness efforts (as well as public housing and other areas). Scheduled cuts in voucher funding could eliminate vouchers for as many as 185,000 low-income families by the end of 2014. Cuts in the grants that communities use to help homeless people could force them to cut back efforts to prevent homelessness or re-house homeless families. The voucher cuts also mean that many fewer families that are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness will have access to vouchers.
Sequestration's harmful impact on low-income housing is one of many reasons why budget negotiators should replace part or all of sequestration for the next year or two with alternative deficit-reduction measures.
millions of households have trouble affording adequate food and that SNAP (formerly food stamps) helps many Americans afford an adequate diet.
As many Americans celebrate Thanksgiving by sharing an elaborate meal with friends and family, it's important to remember that many other Americans lack the resources to meet their basic food needs. The share of American households that had trouble affording adequate food at some point in the year jumped in 2008 due to the recession and has remained high (see graph). More than 17 million households, containing 49 million people, were "food insecure" last year.
- Four in five SNAP recipients either work or cannot work because they are children, seniors, or have disabilities. Children alone make up nearly half of SNAP recipients.
- Four in five SNAP recipients have gross incomes below the poverty line, which is about $23,500 for a family of four and $11,500 for a single person living alone, such as an elderly widow. Two in five SNAP households have incomes below half of the poverty line.
- Three in four new SNAP recipients leave the program within two years. Half receive benefits for ten months or less.
Congress is debating SNAP's future in negotiations over a Farm Bill. The House has passed a bill that would cut nearly 4 million people off the program, including some of the poorest Americans, many children and seniors, and even veterans. Harsh cuts like these, at a time of extraordinary need, would leave many more households in this land of plenty unable to afford an adequate diet.
obless benefits for the long-term unemployed help relieve hardship and boost job creation but are slated to end abruptly at the end of December
The slow economic recovery continues to take a toll on workers. The share of the population with a job, which hit 62.7 percent at the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, has remained below 60 percent since early 2009 and dropped to 58.3 percent in October.
Many jobless workers — 4.1 million people, or 36.1 percent of the unemployed — are now considered "long-term unemployed," having searched for work for 27 weeks or longer (see chart).
Hardship among American households has risen in recent years, as we explained earlier in this series. Unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, makes it harder for workers to pay for such basic needs as rent, heat, electricity, and food.
Unemployment insurance (UI) has helped many of these workers fill the gap. UI benefits kept 1.7 million people — jobless workers and their families — above the official poverty line in 2012, according to Census figures.
But that's 600,000 fewer than UI kept out of poverty in 2011 and 1.5 million fewer than in 2010 — and the number is set to fall even further at the end of the year unless the President and Congress act.
That's because the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation program (EUC) is scheduled to expire at the end of the year. And when it does, benefits to its recipients — the long-term jobless — will end abruptly.
The program provides additional weeks of UI to people who have exhausted their regular state benefits (typically after 26 weeks), helping to relieve hardship among those jobseekers and their families. (It's also widely recognized as one of the most cost-effective measures for increasing demand and stimulating job creation in a weak economy.)
To be sure, EUC has lasted longer, helped more unemployed workers, and paid out more in benefits than similar programs enacted in past recessions. But that's because the recession's blow to the economy was so much worse.
Ending unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless won't help them find jobs or boost the economy. In fact, it's likely to do just the opposite, reducing their spending power, thereby further slowing already weak job growth and increasing hardship for struggling American families.
many families are having a hard time meeting basic needs such as food and housing
Hardship in America, 2013: Getting By Has Gotten Tougher
As Thanksgiving approaches, we're taking a closer look at the hardships that many American families face in the weak economy, the programs that help them make ends meet and promote opportunity, and the threats that these programs are encountering. In this first post in the series, we look at the tough time families are having simply making ends meet.
Almost 1 in 5 American families struggled to meet one or more of nine basic needs in 2011, the Census Bureau reported earlier this year. These included difficulty meeting essential expenses, not paying rent or mortgage, getting evicted, not paying utilities, having utilities or phone service cut off, not seeing a doctor or dentist when needed, or not always having enough food. Several of these measures of financial difficulty worsened between 2005 and 2011, according to the Census data.
"The number of American households that could not meet basic expenses increased by 16 percent (from 16.4 million to 19.1 million) from 2005 to 2011. During that same period, the number unable to pay their rent or mortgage increased by 39 percent," Census writes. (The total number of U.S. households rose by 4 percent over the same period, Census data show.)
Many poor children live in households that struggle to meet basic needs. More than half (58 percent) of poor children lived in households that experienced at least one of four hardships — "low food security" (problems affording adequate food), overcrowded housing, falling behind on rent or mortgage, or having utilities cut off — and close to half of children in near-poor families faced such hardships, too (see chart). This is especially troubling in light of growing evidence that young children whose families struggle to afford the basics may be exposed to high levels of stress that can hinder healthy brain development and future academic achievement.
These findings show the importance of programs like SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly food stamps), unemployment insurance, and housing assistance in helping American families — and yet, those programs are facing funding threats that would lessen their reach and leave more families hurting, while the economy continues to struggle to recover.
We'll cover the important roles that those programs play for people facing hardship, and the threats they face, in future posts.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
House @SpeakerBoehner gets 75% of his premiums paid by taxpayers & Mrs. Boehner is on Medicare
"In fact, this is just another lie, perpetuating the madness of Obamacare. Mike Hiltzik from the LA Times reported:
"Boehner's premiums are partially covered by his employer, the federal government, which pays up to 75% of employee premiums, up to a cap of $426.14 a month (for 2014)."
The government pays 72% on average, and up to 75% of the premium. Given the numbers, it is shockingly clear how much the public funds Boehner's healthcare. Also, it should be noted that next year, Mrs. Boehner will be receiving Medicare, which is a program the Republicans have been opposing for years.
It is apparent that it is easy for Boehner to skew the facts and make it seem like his premiums are jumping, but there is a lot more to the story than just stating numbers for shock value. The true inconsistency in the midst of this outrageous claim is that the typical Obamacare customer is someone being removed from a decent employer plan to the individual market."
shitty @gop voting policies: Some Florida Election Supervisors Stunned By New Voter Restrictions
"Florida Gov. Rick Scott's (R) chief election official issued new rules Monday night that could hamper absentee voting, just months before Floridians in the state's 13th Congressional district take part in a special election to replace the late Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R). The seat was held by Republicans for decades, but is now considered a tossup.
The move surprised some election supervisors, who confirmed to ThinkProgress that Secretary of State Ken Detzner had not consulted them before announcing the change. Under the new rule, Floridians will be prohibited from dropping off their absentee ballots at "libraries, tax collectors' branch offices and other places" and will only be allowed to mail-in their selections or deposit them at local election offices.
Detzner claims that the rule change clarifies established statutory language and establishes "uniformity," but some supervisors fear that it could have the effect of suppressing voter turnout.
"I was surprised, to say the least," Ann McFall, Volusia's Supervisor of Elections told ThinkProgress. "I just have one office and no 'drop boxes." Under the new rules, "people who like to save postage and drop it off at an early voting site" could no longer do so. "Why create a problem when none currently exists?" she asked. "If the Secretary of State were to call me, I would ask why not wait until the winter conference in a few weeks to get ideas from the [Supervisors of Elections]?"
Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark had a similar reaction. She told The Tampa Bay Times, "I'm very worried about this. I'm just stunned." Pinellas county "has used dropoff sites since 2008 and used 14 in the 2012 general election," when 42 percent of the county's absentee ballot total were left at dropoff sites.
Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland added that the rule would not impact his county, as Duval is one of two that pays for a return postage on an absentee ballot, and disputed charges of voter suppression. "[V]oters will overcome any obstacle and vote, the ballot is designed to be mailed and the voter has not lost that option," he said.
Detzner has a history of limiting voters' access, however. In 2012, the state created a voter purge list full of suspected non-citizens, which was mainly comprised of Latino, African and Asian Americans. The list was full of mistakes, targeting U.S. citizens because of a misspelled name or outdated address. County election supervisors refused to go along with the purge, and the Justice Department sued over possible racial discrimination. Detzner eventually apologized for the effort."
Nearly 9 of 10 Low-Wage Workers Fear They Can’t Make Ends Meet
"The poll, by The Washington Post and the University of Virginia's Miller Center, casts into sharp relief the everyday anxieties of the working poor, and argues that the sense of unease has become something of a permanent condition among people struggling to make ends meet. From the Post:
Job insecurities have always been higher among low-income Americans, but they typically rose and fell across all levels of the income ladder. Today, workers at the bottom have drifted away, occupying their own island of insecurity.
Fifty-four percent of workers making $35,000 or less now worry "a lot" about losing their jobs, compared with 37 percent of lower-income workers in 1992 and an identical number in 1975, according to surveys by Time magazine, CNN and Yankelovich, a market research firm. Intense worry is far lower, 29 percent, among workers with incomes between $35,000 and $75,000, and it drops to 17 percent among those with incomes above that level.
Lower-paid workers also worry far more about making ends meet. Fully 85 percent of them fear that their families' income will not be enough to meet expenses, up 25 points from a 1971 survey asking an identical question. Thirty-two percent say they worry all the time about meeting expenses, a number that has almost tripled since the 1970s.
The mood even transcends our fractious politics. The Post reports that "once you control for economic and demographic factors, there is no partisan divide. There's no racial divide, either, and no gender gap. It also doesn't matter where you live."
The Post framed the poll story around the daily life of John Stewart, 55, who makes $5.25 an hour plus occasional tips wheeling elderly passengers through a Philadelphia-area airport. Stewart has worked low-wage jobs since the 1970s, when the economy was strong and diverse enough to offer a place for a worker with a high school education and few skills. "In the years back then,'' Stewart told the Post, "if you left a job, you were able to find another job, within the next day or the same week.""
Pope Francis rips capitalism and trickle-down economics to shreds in new policy statement
"Pope Francis said that inequality was the root of social ills, and prayed for world leaders with more empathy and sense of social justice.
"I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor!" Pope Francis wrote. "It is vital that government leaders and financial leaders take heed and broaden their horizons, working to ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare."
The pope has already drawn the ire of some conservative Catholics, particularly in the U.S., for his open-minded comments on social issues such as homosexuality, abortion and contraception, and he's also previously criticized capitalism for promoting greed.
But his latest statements put those concerns into sharper focus – and puts him in sharp contrast to American conservative leaders who prize the unfettered free market and promote the Randian theory of objectivism, or rational self-interest.
"I am interested only in helping those who are in thrall to an individualistic, indifferent and self-centered mentality to be freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking which is more humane, noble and fruitful, and which will bring dignity to their presence on this earth," the pope wrote.
He also launched a broadside against former President Ronald Reagan's signature economic theory, which continues to serve as conservative Republican dogma.
"Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world," Pope Francis wrote. "This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system."
The pope lamented that people had "calmly accepted (the) dominion" of money over themselves and society, which he said was expressed in the recent financial crisis and the continuing promotion of consumer-based economies.
"We have created new idols," the pope wrote. "The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.""
Pope Francis attacks unfettered capitalism as “a new tyranny”
(Reuters) - Pope Francis called for renewal of the Roman Catholic Church and attacked unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny", urging global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality in the first major work he has authored alone as pontiff.
The 84-page document, known as an apostolic exhortation, amounted to an official platform for his papacy, building on views he has aired in sermons and remarks since he became the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years in March.
In it, Francis went further than previous comments criticizing the global economic system, attacking the "idolatry of money" and beseeching politicians to guarantee all citizens "dignified work, education and healthcare".
He also called on rich people to share their wealth. "Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills," Francis wrote in the document issued on Tuesday.
"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?"
The pope said renewal of the Church could not be put off and said the Vatican and its entrenched hierarchy "also need to hear the call to pastoral conversion".
"I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security," he wrote.
In July, Francis finished an encyclical begun by Pope Benedict but he made clear that it was largely the work of his predecessor, who resigned in February.
Called "Evangelii Gaudium" (The Joy of the Gospel), the exhortation is presented in Francis' simple and warm preaching style, distinct from the more academic writings of former popes, and stresses the Church's central mission of preaching "the beauty of the saving love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ".
In it, he reiterated earlier statements that the Church cannot ordain women or accept abortion. The male-only priesthood, he said, "is not a question open to discussion" but women must have more influence in Church leadership.
POVERTY
A meditation on how to revitalize a Church suffering from encroaching secularization in Western countries, the exhortation echoed the missionary zeal more often heard from the evangelical Protestants who have won over many disaffected Catholics in the pope's native Latin America.
In it, economic inequality features as one of the issues Francis is most concerned about, and the 76-year-old pontiff calls for an overhaul of the financial system and warns that unequal distribution of wealth inevitably leads to violence.
"As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems," he wrote.
Denying this was simple populism, he called for action "beyond a simple welfare mentality" and added: "I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor."
Since his election, Francis has set an example for austerity in the Church, living in a Vatican guest house rather than the ornate Apostolic Palace, travelling in a Ford Focus, and last month suspending a bishop who spent millions of euros on his luxurious residence.
He chose to be called "Francis" after the medieval Italian saint of the same name famed for choosing a life of poverty.
Stressing cooperation among religions, Francis quoted the late Pope John Paul II's idea that the papacy might be reshaped to promote closer ties with other Christian churches and noted lessons Rome could learn from the Orthodox such as "synodality" or decentralized leadership.
He praised cooperation with Jews and Muslims and urged Islamic countries to guarantee their Christian minorities the same religious freedom as Muslims enjoy in the West.
Darrell Issa's Traveling Obamacare Hearings Exclude ACA Supporters
"In his traveling road show of "hearings" on the Affordable Care Act rollout, Darrell Issa has hand-picked the people testifying, and has excluded those who want to speak in favor of the ACA. In Gaston County, North Carolina, two women who requested to speak at the hearings told a local TV station that that they had written to Issa, saying they wanted to testify, but neither received a reply from his office.
The hearing got off to a contentious start on Friday, as people complained that they won't get a chance to be heard. They were also told they would be removed from the meeting if they spoke out of turn."
you @gop controlled House at work: will cost you $5,000 to protest drilling
"House Resolution 1965, known as the Federal Land Jobs and Energy Security Act, passed the House on Wednesday. The bill contains a benefits package for oil companies seeking to lease land from the federal government. Many of the provisions have come under fire for stifling free speech and being detrimental to the environment. The bill was sponsored by Representative Lamborn of Colorado and co-sponsored by Duncan of South Carolina and Cramer of North Dakota, all Republicans. The oil and gas industry was the number one campaign contributor to both of the co-sponsors. The industry was second in donations to the sponsor, trailing just behind defense aerospace, Representative Lamborn. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) introduced an amendment to clarify the bill's impact on the First Amendment, but it was defeated. The portion of the bill in question requires a $5,000 fee to be paid for a citizen to lodge a formal protest against actions occurring on publicly owned lands. Key Elements of the bill include: • A stipulation that if the Department of the Interior has not made a decision on an application within 60 days of receipt, the application will be considered approved. • Requires the Secretary of the Interior to collect a $5,000 documentation fee to accompany each protest for a lease, right of way, or application for permit to drill. • Requires a percentage of fees collected by the Bureau of Land Management to remain in the offices where they were collected to be used for "permit approval activities." • Requires a "Federal Permit Streamlining Project" in every Land Management office that permits energy projects on federal land. • States that the Secretary shall not require a finding of extraordinary circumstances related to a categorical exclusion in administering the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPA 2005) with respect to review under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). (A "categorical exclusion" under NEPA is a category of actions which do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment and which have been found to have no such effect in procedures adopted by a federal agency in implementing environmental regulations and for which, therefore, neither an environmental assessment nor an environmental impact statement is required.) • Forces the Secretary of the Interior to offer at least 25% of the annual nominated acreage not previously made available for lease. • Shields such acreage from protest and the test of extraordinary circumstances, but makes it eligible for certain categorical exclusions under EPA 2005 and NEPA. • Limits the Secretary's methods for denying permits • Prohibits additional lease stipulations (except certain emergency stipulations) after the parcel is sold without consultation and agreement of the lessee."
Monday, November 25, 2013
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
what a bunch of assholes: Christian Militia Group On Facebook Conspires To Kill President Obama
right-wing activists are attacking Obama for quoting Lincoln
"On Wednesday's edition of Washington Watch, Blackwell said that Obama's reading was all part of a plan to expand government. Perkins accused Obama of "editing historical texts to remove God" and even cited the bogus claim that Obama consistently removes "endowed by their Creator" out of the Declaration of Independence.
Later in the program, Perkins said, "It really reminds me of the Old Testament Israel. What really brought Judea down, they were the remaining portion of the Jewish people: their failure to acknowledge God. They forgot Him and that is what I think we see happening before our very eyes."
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/tony-perkins-attacks-obama-quoting-lincoln#sthash.o0W1BpNF.dpuf"Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Teen Thrown In Violent New York Prison For Years Without Ever Having Been Convicted
Bronx resident Kalief Browder was walking home from a party when he was abruptly arrested by New York City police officers on May 14, 2010. A complete stranger said Browder had robbed him a few weeks earlier and, consequently, changed the 16-year-old's life forever.
Browder was imprisoned for three years before the charges were dropped in June 2013, according to a WABC-TV Eyewitness News investigation.
At the time of the teen's arrest, Browder's family was unable to pay the $10,000 bail. He was placed in the infamously violent Rikers Island correctional facility, where he remained until earlier this year.
Now that he's free, the young man is speaking up about his experience.
"I spent three New Year's in there, three birthdays...," Browder, now 20, said in a recent interview with WABC, adding that he was released with "no apology."
In October, Browder filed a civil lawsuit against the Bronx District Attorney, City of New York, the New York City Police Department, the New York City Department of Corrections and a number of state-employed individuals.
The official complaint states Browder was "physically assaulted and beaten" by officers and other inmates during his time at Rikers Island. The document also maintains the accused was "placed in solitary confinement for more than 400 days" and was "deprived meals." In addition, officers allegedly prevented him from pursuing his education. Browder attempted suicide at least six times.
In an interview with The Huffington Post, Browder's current lawyer Paul Prestia summarized his client's experience as "inexplicable" and "unheard of." Based off one man's identification, Browder was charged with robbery in the second degree, he notes. It took three years to dismiss these charges, even though it was, in Prestia's words, a "straightforward case to try."
"The city needs to be held accountable for what happened," Prestia said. "[Browder] had a right to a fair and speedy trail, and he wasn't afforded any of that. He maintained his innocence the entire time, and essentially got a three year sentence for that."
Still, when Browder was offered a plea deal in January, he refused to take it, because he did not want to plead guilty to the crime, WABC-TV notes. (Had Browder been tried in a timely fashion and pled guilty to the crime, Prestia told HuffPost, he might have spent less time in prison.)
Prestia adds that his client has suffered lingering mental health problems, and though he's currently going to school for his GED, he's "clearly way behind from where he would have been."
"We need someone to be held accountable," Prestia said. "This can't just go unnoticed. To the extent that [Browder] can be financially compensated -- although it's not going to get those years back for him -- it may give him a chance to succeed."
The District Attorney's office said it was unable to comment, as Browder's allegations are currently the subject of ongoing litigation.
Incidentally, Browder's claims about his experience at Rikers Island are consistent with findings from a recent report commissioned by the New York City Board of Correction. The report, obtained by The Associated Press, notes that the use of force by prison staff has more than tripled from 2004 to 2013, from seven incidents of force per 100 inmates, to almost 25. Additionally, the number of self-mutilation and suicide attempts by Rikers inmates have increased by 75 percent from 2007 to 2012. According to the report, 40 percent of the city jail's 12,200 inmates are mentally ill, and many of these inmates are placed in solitary confinement "holes" as punishment.
media should stop comparing website that doesn't work all the time to a botched war that the media itself enabled
Not once but twice in recent days Meet The Press host David Gregory announced that the troubled launch of President Obama's new health care law is roughly the equivalent to President Bush's badly bungled war with Iraq. The NBC anchor was quick to point out that he didn't mean the two events were the same with regards to a death toll. (Nobody has died from health care reform.) But Gregory was sure that in terms of how the former president and the current president are viewed, in terms of damage done to their credibility, the men will be forever linked to a costly, bloody war and a poorly functioning website, respectively.
"Everybody looked at Bush through the prism of Iraq," Gregory explained. "Here, I think people are going to look at Obama through the implementation of Obamacare." It's Obama's defining event of their two-term presidency. It's a catastrophic failure that's tarnished Obama's second term, and will perhaps "wreck" his entire presidency, according to the media's "doom-mongering bubble," as Kevin Drum at Mother Jones described it.
But like the painfully inappropriate comparisons to Hurricane Katrina that have populated the press, Gregory's attempt to draw a Bush/Obama parallel is equally senseless. Bush's war morass stretched over five years, so of course it defined his presidency. Obama's health care woes are in week number six and could be fixed within the next month.
There's something else in play here though, as the Beltway press corps strains to anoint Obama as the new Bush, as it tries to convince news consumers that Obama's failures simply show how presidents are so alike, as are the crises they face and sometimes create. An American city drowned in slow motion following Hurricane Katrina? The United States launched a senseless, pre-emptive war that will drain the U.S. Treasury for decades to come? Well, Obama's Healthcare.gov website doesn't work very well!
This is the mother lode of false equivalency.
But note that the casual attempt to connect the current health care setbacks with the war in Iraq represents a particularly disingenuous attempt to downgrade Bush's historical failures, and to cover the media's tracks of deception.
Fact: You can't talk about the Iraq War as a political event without addressing the central role the U.S. media played in the botched run-up to the war, and the fevered and futile hunt for weapons of mass destruction. By suggesting that Obama's six-week health care crisis puts him in the same position of Bush following the Iraq invasion softens not only the magnitude of Bush's failures, but the media's as well. It's an effort to downplay the massive missteps that led to the war and to trivialize the staggering costs still being paid by Americans. (The Bush and media failures surrounding Iraq are forever linked.)
"No pundit should be allowed to use Iraq as a measuring tool until they are willing to have an honest discussion about their role in selling the country on Iraq," wrote PoliticsUSA's Sarah Jones this week. And she's right.
And as Ana Marie Cox at the Guardian noted, the media's early conclusion on the Iraq War was that it represented a stunning victory for Bush. "Just as we were quick to declare the Iraq War a success based on a shiny beginning and short-term successes, so has the mainstream press decided that the ACA is a failure based on a set of stubbornly dysfunctional websites." So not only did the press willingly trumpet White House spin about the need for war, but the press then swallowed White House spin about how it had all gone according to plan. (Here's Ron Fournier, now with the National Journal, reporting in 2003 for the Associated Press that Bush would soon announce that the war in Iraq was over.)
David Gregory has hardly been alone with his Obamacare-is-like-the-Iraq-War rhetoric. Of course, the right-wing media has been pushing the same in an obvious attempt to tarnish Bush and to minimize Bush's signature failure. (See Geraldo Rivera, S.E. Cupp, the Washington Examiner.) They are simply echoing Republican Party spin. "This is an unfolding disaster politically, in a way that's something like the Iraq war was for the Republican Party," Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said this week. "If they don't get this fixed they're going to pay a horrific political price."
But the Baghdad talking point clearly crossed over into the mainstream. Aside from Meet The Press, Fournier appeared on MSNBC and insisted Bush's handling of the Iraq War was the best "analogy" for the health care problems dogging the White House, while the Associated Press warned that Obama could face a similar fate like the one Bush suffered in the wake of Iraq.
Keep in mind that to date, the Iraq War (once described by retired General Anthony Zinni as "brain fart") has claimed the lives of nearly 8,000 U.S. service members and contractors and more than 130,000 Iraqi citizens, and is projected to cost the U.S. Treasury more than two trillion dollars. If the costs of medical care of wounded veterans are factored in, the final Iraq War tab could reach between $4 and $6 trillion, according to a Harvard University study.
Why the media interest in connecting Obama's current setback to the monumental failure of the Iraq War? Whatever the motivation, the effect is that the false equivalency creates bogus presidential backdrop where Bush and Obama stand as equals; where the generation-defining war is similar to a flawed health care rollout.
But again, Bush isn't the only one who benefits from that flawed comparison. So does the press, which under a Republican president in 2002 and 2003 abdicated its most important role, that of independent watchdog.
As Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler wrote in 2005, the mainstream media's performance during the run-up to the war -- its inability and refusal to demand sharp answers to difficult questions about prewar intelligence --represented their most crucial newsroom failing in nearly half a century. "How did a country on the leading edge of the information age get this so wrong and express so little skepticism and challenge?" asked Getler.
Similarly, The New York Times' public editor labeled its paper's prewar coverage, "flawed journalism."
The media's malpractice during the crucial period of the run-up to the Bush-led invasion remains one of the worst journalistic failures in modern American history. That so many pundits, reporters and producers got the war story that wrong not only defied common sense, it helped lead the nation into a disastrous and costly war.
By suggesting the temporary health care woes are like Iraq, the press is doing its best to wash away the Iraq War stain.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
@RepAaronSchock voted against sandy relief, is a climate denier and represents IL district hit hard by tornado. Step up pretty boy.
As many of you have probably already seen, the Midwest is facing severe weather, with the town of Washington, Illinois, already hit very badly:
"A confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado" was spotted near Washington, Illinois, located about 145 miles (233 kilometers) southwest of Chicago, the National Weather Service said.Photos taken at the scene showed structures were reduced to rubble and houses ripped open in Washington, Illinois.
"There is a lot of debris," Sara Sparkman, a spokeswoman for the health department of Tazewell County, Illinois, where Washington is located, told The Weather Channel. "We do know that shelters are being set up in some of the communities because people are being displaced out of their homes because of the storms that hit."
Sparkman added that the storm had caused damage in Washington and Pekin, south of Peoria.
It came out of a fast-moving storm system that was headed toward Chicago and threatened a large swath of the Midwest with dangerous winds, thunderstorms and hail, U.S. weather officials said.
Tornadoes don't normally occur in the Midwest in November. Peak-tornado season there occurs in June and July. And, as we know, climate change increases the frequency and severity of such storms.
When I saw the tragic destruction of Washington and the ties to the broader issue of climate action, I wondered, "Who represents those towns in Congress?"
Republican Aaron Schock:
What do we know about Schock's record on climate issues?
He voted to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
Congressional Summary: Amends the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from promulgating any regulation of the emission of a greenhouse gas (GHG) to address climate change.He's signed the "No Climate Tax Pledge" put forth by the Koch Bros' Americans for Prosperity:----Excludes GHGs from the definition of "air pollutant" for purposes of addressing climate change.
----Exempts from such prohibition existing regulations on fuel efficiency, research, or CO2 monitoring.
----Repeals and makes ineffective other rules and actions concerning GHGs.
"I pledge to the taxpayers of my state, and to the American people, that I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue."He also co-sponsored the Free Industry Act:
Amends the Clean Air Act to:Aaron Schock also voted against the Hurricane Sandy relief bill earlier this year.(1) exclude from the definition of the term "air pollutant" carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, or sulfur hexafluoride; and
(2) declare that nothing in the Act shall be treated as authorizing or requiring the regulation of climate change or global warming.
I will be curious to see his response.
In the meantime, stay safe, Midwesterners!Republican Aaron Schock represents IL district hit hard by tornado, voted against sandy relief & is a climate denier
As many of you have probably already seen, the Midwest is facing severe weather, with the town of Washington, Illinois, already hit very badly:
"A confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado" was spotted near Washington, Illinois, located about 145 miles (233 kilometers) southwest of Chicago, the National Weather Service said.Photos taken at the scene showed structures were reduced to rubble and houses ripped open in Washington, Illinois.
"There is a lot of debris," Sara Sparkman, a spokeswoman for the health department of Tazewell County, Illinois, where Washington is located, told The Weather Channel. "We do know that shelters are being set up in some of the communities because people are being displaced out of their homes because of the storms that hit."
Sparkman added that the storm had caused damage in Washington and Pekin, south of Peoria.
It came out of a fast-moving storm system that was headed toward Chicago and threatened a large swath of the Midwest with dangerous winds, thunderstorms and hail, U.S. weather officials said.
Tornadoes don't normally occur in the Midwest in November. Peak-tornado season there occurs in June and July. And, as we know, climate change increases the frequency and severity of such storms.
When I saw the tragic destruction of Washington and the ties to the broader issue of climate action, I wondered, "Who represents those towns in Congress?"
Republican Aaron Schock:
What do we know about Schock's record on climate issues?
He voted to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
Congressional Summary: Amends the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from promulgating any regulation of the emission of a greenhouse gas (GHG) to address climate change.He's signed the "No Climate Tax Pledge" put forth by the Koch Bros' Americans for Prosperity:----Excludes GHGs from the definition of "air pollutant" for purposes of addressing climate change.
----Exempts from such prohibition existing regulations on fuel efficiency, research, or CO2 monitoring.
----Repeals and makes ineffective other rules and actions concerning GHGs.
"I pledge to the taxpayers of my state, and to the American people, that I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue."He also co-sponsored the Free Industry Act:
Amends the Clean Air Act to:Aaron Schock also voted against the Hurricane Sandy relief bill earlier this year.(1) exclude from the definition of the term "air pollutant" carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, or sulfur hexafluoride; and
(2) declare that nothing in the Act shall be treated as authorizing or requiring the regulation of climate change or global warming.
I will be curious to see his response.
In the meantime, stay safe, Midwesterners!Proof that Wal Mart needs to pay their employees more
The photo above comes from the Walmart on Atlantic Boulevard in Canton, Ohio.
The bins aren't to collect cans for a food pantry somewhere else in the city. They are meant to collect food for Walmart associates themselves.
Here's some context. The average Walmart sale associate makes $8.81 per hour, according to the independent market research group IBISWorld. That translates into $15,576 a year if the associate works a full-time schedule of 34 hours a week. But that's actually pegging it quite high, as many associates have highly erratic or meager work schedules that don't allow them anywhere close to full-time status.
For a three-person household (two parents and a child, for instance), the 2013 federal poverty level is $19,530.
When their paychecks don't cut it, many associates turn to public assistance to make up the difference. Walmart's low wages and insufficient scheduling are behind the enormous costs to the taxpayer incurred by each store. One Walmart Supercenter costs taxpayers $900,000 in Medicaid, SNAP, housing assistance, and other forms of public assistance.
But beyond the numbers are the associates themselves, juggling unpredictable schedules and light paychecks, who see the food bins as a sign that the company sees their struggle as the rule, not the exception:
An employee at the Canton store wasn't feeling that Walmart was looking out for her when she went to her locker more than two weeks ago and discovered the food drive containers. To her, the gesture was proof the company acknowledged many of its employees were struggling, but also proof it was not willing to substantively address their plight.An analysis by Fortune shows that Walmart can afford to give its employees a 50 percent raise without hurting its bottom line. But low wages are only one part of the widespread culture of disrespect, retaliation, and indifference Walmart shows its employees.The employee said she didn't want to use her name for fear of being fired. In a dozen years working at the company, she had never seen a food drive for employees, which she described as "demoralizing" and "kind of depressing".
More than ever before, associates are standing up to this culture, and we're standing with them. On November 29, 2013, protests are planned at Walmart stores across the country, and all are welcome to stand in solidarity with associates.
Walmart is the nation's largest private employer. They have set the standard for an entire generation of business practices. Whether or not we shop there, what they do at their company affects all of us.
Lorenzo Garcia's “Catch an Illegal Immigrant” contest at the University of Texas canceled
A conservative group at the University of Texas has canceled its planned "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" contest this week, saying the effort "was misguided and that the idea for the event was intentionally over-the-top in order to get attention for the subject."
In a statement, Young Conservatives of Texas Chairman Lorenzo Garcia said members of his group feared they would have been punished or expelled if they went forward with the game on Wednesday. And he said the event might have put volunteers in physical danger.
Young Conservatives Chairman Lorenzo Garcia, former field director for Greg Abbott campaign. Garcia says his group canceled "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" contest on UT contest (Facebook posting on Young Conservatives of Texas site)
"After the University President and the Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement released statements denouncing the event we planned as violating the university's honor code, I spoke with our chapter's members, and they are both concerned that the university will retaliate against them and that the protest against the event could create a safety issue for our volunteers."
Garcia is a former field director of Greg Abbott's gubernatorial campaign. The Abbott campaign distanced itself from the event, saying Garcia left his paid job as a field representative a few weeks ago. Garcia's organization has held controversial events in the past — including an affirmative-action bake sale in which students were charged different amounts for baked goods depending on their race. In his statement, Garcia acknowledged that giving $25 gift cards to students who "caught" fellow students wearing "Illegal Immigrant" signs was a bad idea.
Announcement of the planned "Immigrant Hunt" prompted university officials, including President Bill Powers, to denounce the idea and to call on the student group to call off its contest. Garcia denied that the game was aimed at diminishing Mexican-Americans and said the Young Conservatives of Texas just wanted to create a debate on the issue of illegal immigration.
"The reactions of some who claim that YCT is creating a demeaning or degrading environment on campus have been truly disgraceful," he said. "I have always viewed The University of Texas as a place where students could express their opinions—whether or not they were popular. Even though our event will not go forward, UT students, our state, and our nation need to have a serious discussion and debate about the issue of illegal immigration. I believed that our event would spark this discussion on campus, and though we will no longer be holding the event, I hope that the publicity surrounding the event will create debate among students." In a statement, the university said it supports free speech rights of students but is happy the group canceled the event.
Everything @RepPaulRyan has done boils down to: reduce taxes on the rich and reduce spending on the poor
From Paul Ryan, who's apparently hard at work on a conservative plan to fight poverty:
You cure poverty eye to eye, soul to soul. Spiritual redemption: That's what saves people.
Well, maybe so. But here on Earth, money helps out too. The quote above is from a Washington Post story about Ryan's newfound focus on poverty, and Jared Bernstein reads through the rest looking for some more worldly policy recommendations. He doesn't come up with much:
Then you read page after page, trying to figure out what the dude is actually saying he'd do to lower poverty, and here's what you're left with: vouchers, tax credits, and volunteerism.
All sizzle, no steak.
And is that not the story of Rep. Ryan? His is the classic example of the adage that if you've got a reputation for being an early riser, you can sleep til noon....His proposals to block grant major safety net programs (freeze their spending levels and hand them over to states), like SNAP and Medicaid, would gut their critical countercyclical function (as was the case with TANF). He
used the Heritage Foundation's economic wizards to predict the his budget would reduce unemployment to less than 3% (don't look for this forecast, though–his team pulled it once they actually, you know, looked at it).
For the life of me, I can't figure out the media's love affair with Ryan. Sure, he's young, fit, good looking, and he's not a screamer. He's also a smart guy who understands the details of the federal budget. But everything he's ever done—everything—boils down to a single sentence: reduce taxes on the rich and reduce spending on the poor. That's it. There's literally nothing else he's ever seriously proposed.
It doesn't even take much digging to figure out that this is what he's saying. You only have to be barely numerate, just enough to draw the obvious conclusions from his budget proposals (conclusions that he's very careful not to draw himself). When you do that, you find that his budgets always propose lower taxes and lower domestic spending. Much lower. How is it that so many people seem so willing to pretend otherwise?
Monday, November 18, 2013
WTF: WAL MART IS CONDUCTING A FOOD DRIVE FOR ITS OWN EMPLOYEES
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The storage containers are attractively displayed at the Walmart on Atlantic Boulevard in Canton. The bins are lined up in alternating colors of purple and orange. Some sit on tables covered with golden yellow tablecloths. Others peer out from under the tables.
This isn't a merchandise display. It's a food drive - not for the community, but for needy workers.
"Please Donate Food Items Here, so Associates in Need Can Enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner," read signs affixed to the tablecloths.
The food drive tables are tucked away in an employees-only area. They are another element in the backdrop of the public debate about salaries for cashiers, stock clerks and other low-wage positions at Walmart, as workers in Cincinnati and Dayton are scheduled to go on strike Monday.
Chat wrap: OUR Walmart rep answers your questions about this story
Is the food drive proof the retailer pays so little that many employees can't afford Thanksgiving dinner?
Norma Mills of Canton, who lives near the store, saw the photo circulating showing the food drive bins, and felt both "outrage" and "anger."
"Then I went through the emotion of compassion for the employees, working for the largest food chain in America, making low wages, and who can't afford to provide their families with a good Thanksgiving holiday," said Mills, an organizer with Stand Up for Ohio, which is active in foreclosure issues in Canton. "That Walmart would have the audacity to ask low-wage workers to donate food to other low-wage workers -- to me, it is a moral outrage."
Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesman, said the food drive is proof that employees care about each other.
"It is for associates who have had some hardships come up," he said. "Maybe their spouse lost a job.
"This is part of the company's culture to rally around associates and take care of them when they face extreme hardships," he said.
Lundberg said holding the food drive at the Canton Walmart was decided at the store level. However, the effort could be considered in line with what happens company-wide. The Associates in Critical Need Trust is funded by Walmart employee contributions that can be given through payroll deduction. He said employees can receive grants up to $1,500 to address hardships they may encounter, including homelessness, serious medical illnesses and major repairs to primary vehicles. Since 2001, grants totaling $80 million have been made.
But an employee at the Canton store wasn't feeling that Walmart was looking out for her when she went to her locker more than two weeks ago and discovered the food drive containers. To her, the gesture was proof the company acknowledged many of its employees were struggling, but also proof it was not willing to substantively address their plight.
The employee said she didn't want to use her name for fear of being fired. In a dozen years working at the company, she had never seen a food drive for employees, which she described as "demoralizing" and "kind of depressing". The employee took photos of the bins, and sent them to the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, or OUR Walmart, the group of associates holding the strikes in Cincinnati and Dayton.
Vanessa Ferreira, an OUR Walmart organizer, said she "flipped out" when she first saw the photos taken by the Canton worker.
"Why would a company do that?" she said. "The company needs to stand up and give them their 40 hours and a living wage, so they don't have to worry about whether they can afford Thanksgiving."
The strikes against Walmart, which have been staged in the last several weeks across the country, including at stores in California, Florida and Illinois, are focusing on three issues: ensuring that no associate makes less than $25,000 a year, offering employees more full-time work and "ending illegal retaliation" against employees who speak out against pay and working conditions.
The first strike occurred last Black Friday at Walmart stores throughout the country. Though most associates remained on the job, many credit the event with being the public launch of the low-wage workers' movement. Efforts to raise the minimum wage would follow, including a bill pending before Congress to raise the federal hourly minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. (The minimum wage in Ohio is $7.85.) In the time since, fast-food workers also have staged strikes, demanding the minimum wage be raised.
OUR Walmart won't say what is planned for this Black Friday, but the group has a news conference scheduled Monday afternoon in Washington, D.C. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Joseph Hansen, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, are scheduled to announce organized labor's commitment to Black Friday efforts.
Lundberg said taken in this context, OUR Walmart had incentive to first misinterpret and then blow out of proportion the food drive at the Canton store as fodder for the campaign.
Erica Reed, an associate at the Canton store, agrees. She said food drives have been going on at the store for a few years, so she questions why they are becoming an issue now. Reed said past food drives helped her cope with her own problems, not caused by low wages but because of losing $500 a month in child support when the father of her four children went to jail. She declined to give her salary.
"It took a burden off me. I didn't have to worry about how I was getting my turkey to feed them Thanksgiving dinner," she said.
Reed said it was "ignorant" to question efforts to help people in need or blame Walmart for the economic realities of the labor force nationally.
"You can't find a decent job anywhere," she said.
Scott Stringer, a Dayton associate who said he intends to go on strike, said Walmart bears blame because of its dominance. He makes $9.30 an hour after five years with the company.
"Walmart sets the precedent for everybody, so if they make changes, everyone would follow suit," he said. "The economy and the United States, in general, would be a better place."
A question of salaries
Lundberg said nationally that associates make $12.87 an hour. The company considers those working at least 34 hours to be full time. He said the average full-time employee works 37 to 38 hours a week. That comes to an annual salary of about $25,000.
OUR Walmart places the average salary at between $8 and $10 an hour, based on glassdoor.com and other websites that compile salaries, often without company participation. Based on that range, the average associate's salary is roughly between $15,000 and $20,000 a year.
For example, after about a dozen years on the job, the Canton employee who took the photos makes nearly $12 any hour. But the hourly rate is misleading, she said. Though officially a full-time worker, the associate said she only made about $17,000 last year because the company has had a common practice in recent years of cutting hours.
Lundberg said this isn't true and that the company is committed to having full-time employees. For example, he said company-wide, 35,000 associates are scheduled to be promoted from part time to full time between September and January.
Ricki Hahn, a Dayton associate who intends to strike Monday, said poor working conditions -- and not money -- motivated her to speak out. She said supervisors consistently berating employees -- often in public -- is part of Walmart's culture. So is failing to address unsafe working conditions, such as unsecured shelving in a stock room that could fall on employees, she said.
The company says it has good working conditions, in terms of safety and employee relations.
Hahn, who makes $11.70 an hour after 7½ years, describes her salary as "pretty good'' since she knows it is hard for her to get credit for experience in her industry, and she would be back earning near minimum wage should she take a similar job at another retailer. Hahn said she is realistic about the salaries low-skilled workers should make. For example, she supports the federal bill to raise the minimum wage to $10.10, but believes the fast-food workers demand of $15 is too high.
While the Walmart strike isn't just about wages, it always seems to come back to money. Hahn is constantly reminded of this during the work day.
"Personally, it is difficult for me to stock groceries that I can't afford at the end of the day," she said.
Symbols both in food drive and strike
While Walmart officials and many employees see the food drive bins as a symbol of generosity, others see it differently.
"That captures Walmart right there," said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University's labor school. "Walmart is setting up bins because its employees don't make enough to feed themselves and their families."
Mills, the Canton community activist, said the issue of the food drive drew her in because for her it represented another case of corporations behaving irresponsibly and then leaving the less fortunate to "clean up the mess." She said if employees can't afford Thanksgiving, then Walmart should pay for turkey dinners "with all the fixings and all the sides."
Mills successfully worked toward getting Canton to pass a law requiring banks and other financial institutions to put up bonds so the city wouldn't be left paying to maintain the homes on which these institutions foreclosed. Many of these foreclosures were the result of subprime and predatory loans, she said.
"I call it the reverse Robin Hood effect," she said.
Walmart sees the strikes as a symbol without substance. For example, during the highly publicized strikes in Los Angeles earlier this month, the company said no more than 20 associates participated, though there were about 275 demonstrators.
Bronfenbrenner said the company is misinterpreting the low numbers of workers on strike.
"There were many work places, that when the striking workers returned, many workers inside stood up and clapped," she said.
Both Dayton strikers Hahn and Stringer say they have strong support, even if fellow workers won't join them on the picket line.
"A lot of friends of mine at work want to go out on strike, but they fear that they won't be able to support their families if something happens," Hahn said.
That something could mean losing a job, said Ferreira, the OUR Walmart organizer. She said she got fired after participating in the 2012 Black Friday strikes. Ferreira was terminated some time after the strike on trumped up charges of staying on break too long, she said.
Lundberg said Walmart has a very strong anti-retaliation policy.
Hahn and Stringer see themselves at the beginning of a movement that they believe will mushroom.
"We'll be speaking out for other areas, like Cleveland, that aren't striking," Hahn said. "Just because they aren't striking Monday, doesn't mean it can't happen there soon."
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Enrollment figures underscore Obamacare debacle
"Less than 50,000 people had successfully enrolled for insurance coverage through the problem-plagued HealthCare.gov web site as of last week. The figure is less than 10 percent of the Obama administration's target for October of 500,000 enrollees in private insurance plans via the federal insurance exchange set up under what is commonly known as Obamacare.
The failure of the government web site is a reflection of the irrational and reactionary character of the entire health care scheme, whose architecture and structure are dictated by the profit interests of insurance companies and hospital chains, not the medical needs of the American people.
The Wall Street Journal, which spoke to two people familiar with the matter on condition of anonymity, reported the unofficial figures on Monday. The White House has said it will release its own figures sometime this week, but White House spokesman Jay Carney cautioned on Tuesday that the numbers "will be lower than we hoped and we anticipated."
In an October 24 disclosure, the administration said that only 700,000 people had thus far completed applications in all 50 states, including on the federal web site covering 36 states and the 14 web sites in states that have set up their own exchanges. This figure provides no indication of how many of these people have actually succeeded in enrolling in a plan.
The debacle at HealthCare.gov, where technical problems have blocked many users from completing insurance applications or even creating accounts, has prompted growing disaffection among congressional Democrats, many of whom have been strong backers of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but are up for reelection in 2014. So far, 11 Senate Democrats have indicated they support extending the enrollment deadline, currently set at March 31, 2014.
Delaying the deadline is strongly opposed by the insurance industry, which fears that an extension will shrink the pool of new customers purchasing plans, particularly younger, more healthy people who are less costly to insure. Under the ACA "individual mandate," individuals and families who are not insured through their employer or a government program such as Medicare or Medicaid must obtain insurance or pay a penalty. If enough people do not enroll, the entire health care overhaul is threatened, as it is based on the private insurers' ability to turn what they consider a reasonable profit.
Washington-based consultant Avalere Health reported Monday that about 49,100 people have enrolled at the state-run sites, excluding the states of Oregon, California and Massachusetts. New York's exchange reported 13,300 enrollments through November 10, the highest among the states, while Washington state had the second highest, at 7,300.
Earlier figures from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that 7 million people would enroll via the ACA exchanges through 2014. The exchanges would have to be signing up about 100,000 people a day to get anywhere near this number. Bob Laszewski, an insurance industry consultant based in Virginia, told Bloomberg News, "We're talking about 20 to 30 transactions a day, per state, leaking through the system, it's so bad."
The White House has initiated a "tech surge" in an effort to resolve the problems at HealthCare.gov. Chris Jennings, deputy assistant to the president for health policy, told reporters, "We are working 24-7 to ensure that the site is working smoothly for the vast majority of users by the end of November."
The White House has brought in Jeffrey Zients, who is set to become President Obama's top economic adviser in January, to oversee the effort to fix the site. The selection of Zients, a multimillionaire investor and management consultant, is indicative of the intimate connections between the Affordable Care Act and the health care industry.
Zients once worked at Bain Consulting, formerly headed by 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He founded Portfolio Logic, a small private equity firm with a stake in PSA Healthcare, a pediatric home health business. The White House contends that Zient's health care investment does not constitute a conflict of interest with his work at HealthCare.gov.
The Obama administration is also increasingly relying on private insurers for technical help to repair the problem-ridden web site. Last week, Chris Jennings and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough attended the board meeting of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the insurance industry's main trade group, to discuss the crisis.
Skeptical that the administration will get the web site up and running by the end of the month, insurance companies are pushing the White House to allow them to enroll people eligible for subsidies directly through their own web sites.
Insurers have been initiating enrollments through the exchange since the launch, but at one stage in enrollment they have to connect to HealthCare.gov to determine whether customers' incomes qualify them for government subsidies. This part of the system is malfunctioning, so insurers are seeking a bypass that would give them direct access to the federal platform that determines a consumer's eligibility for subsidies.
Under this, the insurers are demanding that they be compensated for any underestimation of subsidies that might occur, and that they be allowed to keep any extra subsidy money they might accidentally be paid. The insurers would also have direct access to potential customers' personal data, including tax records and immigration and other records from the Department of Homeland Security
Although a decision has yet to be made allowing this direct access, in a recent statement, White House aide Jennings said that the administration was "continuing to pursue additional avenues by which people can enroll, such as direct enrollment through insurance companies, that will help meet pent-up demand." Under direct enrollment, the individual insurers would have no obligation to tell customers about competing plans available to them.
The very fact that the government is considering allowing insurance companies to bypass the government exchanges and directly enroll individuals required under the new law to buy health coverage underscores the Potemkin Village character of the entire health care overhaul. It is a scheme for further enriching the health care conglomerates and slashing corporate and government costs by reducing coverage for tens of millions of working people, while leaving more than 30 million people without any health insurance."
Cronyism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband will make millions from sale of 60 USPS buildings
"In charge of selling the facilities for the Postal Service is CB Richard Ellis Group, one of the world's largest real estate companies, chaired by San Francisco financier Dick Blum. CBRE, which has worked with the post office since 1997, was awarded the exclusive contract to market Postal Service facilities in 2011. Blum is married to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a relationship some critics of the post office have duly noted.
"Historically, USPS has worked with multiple real estate service providers. The new contract enables USPS to consolidate these activities with one service provider," CBRE said in a statement at the time.
On its website, CBRE shows 57 post offices nationwide listed for sale or in the process of being sold. [...]
As for accusations of a conflict of interest and suspicions that Feinstein may have influenced the awarding of the contract to her husband's firm, Feinstein's office strongly denies the charges.
"Sen. Feinstein is not involved with and does not discuss any of her husband's business decisions with him. Her husband's holdings are his separate personal property. Sen. Feinstein's assets are held in a blind trust. That arrangement has been in place since before she came to the Senate in 1992," said Brian Weiss, Feinstein's communications director. In 2012, Feinstein voted for an amendment to a postal reform bill that would have temporarily halted post office closings. The amendment was defeated in the House.
Both the Postal Service and CBRE insisted the 2011 contract was competitively bid. The Postal Service is an independent agency that reports to Congress, but there is no indication Congress plays any role in the awarding of contracts.
This is not the first time Blum's business dealings have led to accusations of cronyism. From Wikipedia:
Blum's wife, Senator Dianne Feinstein, has received scrutiny due to her husband's government contracts and extensive business dealings with China and her past votes on trade issues with the country. Blum has denied any wrongdoing, however.[3] Critics have argued that business contracts with the US government awarded to a company (Perini) controlled by Blum may raise a potential conflict-of-interest issue with the voting and policy activities of his wife.[4] URS Corp, which Blum had a substantial stake in, bought EG&G, a leading provider of technical services and management to the U.S. military, from The Carlyle Group in 2002; EG&G subsequently won a $600m defense contract.[1]
In 2009 it was reported that Blum's wife Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to provide $25 billion in taxpayer money to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, a government agency that had recently awarded her husband's real estate firm, CB Richard Ellis, what the Washington Timescalled "a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms."[5]
Dianne Feinstein, ranked in August 2012 as the 14th richest U.S. politician, has a net worth estimated to be $70 million."
