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April 22, 2009
- Obama Addresses Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security in Economic Speech
- Health Reform Director Cites Ways To Construct Public Plan
- Senate Committees To Combine Health Reform Bills in Early Summer
- Senate Rejects Entitlement Task Force
- FDA Warns 14 Drug Companies about Misleading Internet Ads
- Insurance Association Fakes Letters Backing Medicare Advantage
- Union Members v. Pirates
- AFT Retiree Is New Oregon Alliance President
- Save on Hotels with AFT + Benefits
- Quote of Note
- Web site of the Week
OBAMA ADDRESSES MEDICARE, MEDICAID, SOCIAL SECURITY IN ECONOMIC SPEECH
In a speech at Georgetown University on April 14, President Barack Obama assessed economic recovery efforts, linking healthcare costs to broader economic problems and speaking of the need for healthcare reform to reduce the growing costs of Medicare and Medicaid. He called on Congress to "get serious" and stop postponing difficult decisions in order to accomplish healthcare reform this year. Laying out his vision for America's economic future, the president restated the role of Social Security as part of a secure retirement, speaking of a need to focus on the program's long-term stability after healthcare reform is achieved. Obama pledged comprehensive measures to eliminate wasteful spending like overpayments to private insurance companies for Medicare Advantage plans and stepped-up efforts to eliminate fraud and abuse. He added that the rising cost of healthcare is strangling our economy, but said the recently enacted economic stimulus law begins to reform healthcare by providing funding for information technology and preventive care. Without healthcare reform and other changes, such as making investments in renewable energy, "this economy simply won't grow at the pace it needs to in two or five or 10 years down the road," the president noted. House and Senate lawmakers have committed to passing healthcare reform legislation by the August congressional recess.
HEALTH REFORM DIRECTOR CITES WAYS TO CONSTRUCT PUBLIC PLAN
White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle on April 15 said she believes that lawmakers will be able to work together this year on a healthcare overhaul bill that includes a public insurance option. She said that reform legislation could be constructed by basing its payment rates on those of private payers and not on Medicare rates. She added that even if the public plan reimbursed providers at the same rate as private plans, it could achieve savings on administrative costs because it would not have to turn a profit. DeParle told reporters that opposition to a public plan stems in part from misunderstanding among lawmakers about what a public plan is and how it would operate. She said President Obama believes a public plan would help lower healthcare costs by increasing competition in the health insurance industry. DeParle said a public plan would have almost nonexistent administrative costs and would not need a sales force, helping to keep its costs low. The health reform director added that a public plan option could be modeled on those contained in some state employee benefit plans, in which a public plan is sponsored by the government but operated by private insurers. Most Americans agree with President's Obama's goals for a public plan of lowering costs and keeping the private sector honest. Creation of a public plan in health reform legislation has emerged as a hot-button issue in the reform debate, with Democrats favoring the idea and Republicans opposed to it. Opponents of a government-run plan say it would leverage its size to pay less for care and offer discounted premiums. Advocates of a public plan have increasingly talked about including safeguards to make sure such a plan would not compete with private insurers unfairly or simply dictate prices and take over the market. The AFT and AFL-CIO strongly support creation of a public plan to increase competitiveness and reduce healthcare costs.
SENATE COMMITTEES TO COMBINE HEALTH REFORM BILLS IN EARLY SUMMER
On April 15, aides to the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmed that they intend to work on different healthcare reform bills that will be combined on the Senate floor, likely after mark ups take place in early summer. Anthony Coley, a spokesperson for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), said Kennedy and Finance Committee chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) are working very closely and have established a joint process that will culminate in complementary legislation on the floor by early summer. According to CQ Today, aides to the committees meet every other Friday to discuss their efforts, and the chairs of each committee have established working groups that meet regularly with industry and lobby organizations. CQ Today reports that the Finance Committee is expected to mark up a bill in June, with the intention to send it to the floor soon after, while the HELP Committee also is expected to have a mark up around that time.
SENATE REJECTS ENTITLEMENT TASK FORCE
On April 1, the U.S. Senate voted against an amendment to the fiscal 2010 budget resolution that would have created an Entitlements Task Force to address the long-term funding shortfalls faced by Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and require Congress to vote on its recommendations. Proposed by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), amendment 835 failed by a vote of 55-44. The vote fell generally along party lines, with Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) joining Democrats in voting against it, and Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) joining Republicans who voted for it.
FDA WARNS 14 DRUG COMPANIES ABOUT MISLEADING INTERNET
The federal Food and Drug Administration has warned 14 major pharmaceutical firms about brief Internet advertisements that could mislead patients because they did not include information about health risks related to the drugs. The ads cited in the letters typically appeared as sponsored links when a user typed the name of a disease or drug into a search engine. The violations were identified during routine monitoring of Internet advertising conducted by the agency. FDA spokesperson Rita Chappelle said that 19 of the 48 drugs cited by her agency carry "black box" warnings, the strongest warning for side effects. In addition, some of the ads included information on uses beyond those approved by the agency. FDA letters to the companies said they should remove any ads that include no mention of related health risks. The warnings marked one of the first major actions by the FDA to crack down on Internet promotion, which is taking a bigger share of pharmaceutical marketing budgets as more people use search engines to seek out information on health problems. Companies receiving letters include Biogen, Sanofi-Aventis, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Forest Laboratories, Cephalon, Bayer, Novartis, Merck, Eli Lilly, Roche Holding, Genentech and Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, which recently was acquired by Roche.
INSURANCE ASSOCIATION FAKES LETTERS BACKING MEDICARE ADVANTAGE
A political consulting firm used the names of real people, without their knowledge or permission, for a letter-writing campaign supporting Medicare Advantage. Three such letters were recently received at The Eagle-Tribune, a newspaper based in the suburbs of Boston. Following normal protocol, staffers called the authors of the letters to confirm authenticity before printing. None of the seniors whose names were signed on the letters had written them; one did not even know what Medicare Advantage was. The real source of the letters was discovered when a man called the paper from the Boston office of the Dewey Square Group, a marketing and public relations firm hired by America's Health Insurance Plans, a health industry front group, to defend Medicare Advantage plans. The caller pretended to be the grandson of one of the letter writers and asked if his grandmother's letter had been published. A spokeswoman for Dewey Square claimed that the letters were legitimate and suggested that the seniors were suffering from forgetfulness and simply did not remember signing the letters.
UNION MEMBERS V. PIRATES
NBC Nightly News interviewed the crew members of the Maersk Alabama, who all survived a recent attack by Somali pirates. Third engineer John Cronan directly attributed their ability to prevail in the situation to their union training, "We're American seamen. We're union members. We stuck together, and we did our jobs. And that's how we did it." The crew members belong to the Seafarers International Union, the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association and the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots. Crew members noted that the seamen received anti-piracy training from the unions. Watch the video of the Cronan interview at http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/17/maersk-union/.
AFT RETIREE IS NEW OREGON ALLIANCE PRESIDENT
Gerald "Jerry" Morris, a member of AFT-Oregon Retirees and former AFT legislation director, has been elected president of the Oregon Alliance for Retired Americans. Morris, who holds a doctorate in sociology from Harvard, began his AFT career in 1975 in the economic research department and also served in education issues. He joined the legislation department in 1983, rising to director in 1994. Morris retired from the AFT in 2001. A native Californian, he returned to the West Coast shortly after his retirement and remains active in politics.
SAVE ON HOTELS WITH AFT + BENEFITS
Save 10 percent off the best available rate at thousands of participating hotel locations throughout the world! You can locate participating hotels at your destination and make your reservations online or use the toll-free number for the hotel you want. Go to www.aft.org/aftplus/travel/hotel.htm, to make reservations online. To make reservations by phone, call 877/670-7088.
"Now, nothing will be more important to [entitlement reform] than passing healthcare reform that brings down costs across the system, including in Medicare and Medicaid... So make no mistake: healthcare reform is entitlement reform."
President Barack Obama
April 14, 2009
WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: www.healthcaresurvey.aflcio.org/health
As the Obama administration prepares to push for healthcare reform, the AFL-CIO and its community affiliate, Working America, have launched a massive online survey to gauge the healthcare experiences of America's working families. Share your family's experience and your hopes for health reform. The results and participant stories will be distributed to healthcare decision-makers around the country.
Contributors and sources: Bill Cunningham, Steve Muscarella, Ann Mitchell, Greg Humphrey, Nancy Chaney, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, CQ Today, CQ HealthBeat, BNA Healthcare Daily Report, Alliance for Retired Americans Friday Alert, Kaiser Health Policy Report. Frank Stella, editor; Mary Boyd, copy editor; Janelle Bowe, design.
