Scenes From An Auto Exhibition
Scenes From An Auto Exhibition
Going to the Los Angeles Auto Show, I felt something like I was entering an alien world, a planet where the native inhabitants are automobiles and all the humans just interlopers. The centrality of the automobile to Los Angeles is no secret, but only when you spend an hour journeying from the airport through the congested ribbons of the freeway system, the red streams of taillights pushing past the white streams of headlights in every direction you look, does it become a visceral truth. Even downtown, walking the sidewalks seems an odd pursuit. Every block is parking lots and parking garages. The dry, summery air carries the dusty odor of exhaust.
Inside the Los Angeles Convention Center, the press preview days of the Auto Show are intended to present the auto industry as it wishes to be seen. Executives read from teleprompters to unveil the Exciting New Car from under a silken shroud to the strange crush of industry officials, press, autobloggers, and PR reps that comprise the crowd. As I walk through the sparse, gleaming field of cars from one great unveil to the next, workers quietly buff every surface with static-resistant dust mops and photographers snap shots of dashboard layouts. It is surreal.
So far as I — no gearhead or racing fanatic or auto show habitué — could tell, the industry right now doesn’t know who it wants to be. Brash, adolescent machismo, from the Ferrari girls to the Tony Hawk Jeep Commander, is juxtaposed uncomfortably with so-earnest-it’s-painful celebrations of efficiency and eco-friendliness. Green autobloggers, like Gas 2.0, AutoblogGreen, and HybridCarBlog, had enough material for dozens of posts.
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| Automotive environmentalism, clockwise from top left: the “Unsurpassed Fuel Economy” of the F-150, “Drive @ earth” with Mitsubishi, Toyota’s “Regenerate Your Thinking” and “Green Technology Quiz” displays, Ford’s “EcoBoost” display. | ||
Only the bespoke high-end sports car manufacturers like Spyker — who turn out about one hundred handmade $250,000 cars that look vaguely like 1950s era jetplanes each year for billionaire car collectors — and the self-deprecatingly geeky Smart Car salespeople seemed to be having genuine fun. But I just may not be able to read the vibe. For example, I don’t really know how I’m supposed to respond to the introduction of a more efficient diesel midsize sedan or a hybrid midsize sedan or a fuel-cell midsize sedan.
That said, the somber circumstances of this year’s show were apparent and unavoidable, with global auto sales down about 20 percent, and GM, Ford, and Chrysler on the brink of collapse. Trinkets, goodies, and glitz were cut way back. The Ford executives were mobbed by the press with questions about the bailout hearings and the company’s future. As a Honda excutive acknowledged before unveiling a new high fuel-economy midsize sedan, “None of us is immune.”
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Major U.S. Companies Embrace Progressive Climate Action
Major U.S. Companies Embrace Progressive Climate Action
On Wednesday, five major U.S. corporations launched a new business coalition with the investors’ activist group Ceres to call for immediate, muscular, and progressive action to fight global warming. The founding members of Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) are Levi Strauss & Co., Nike, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems and The Timberland Company. As right-wing business organizations like the Chamber of Commerce pretend that limits on pollution will destroy the economy, the members of BICEP recognize that the true threat is failing to halt catastrophic climate change.
The eight principles embraced by BICEP for national action on global warming reflect recommendations from the Center for American Progress, Green For All, 1Sky, and other progressive organizations, including a moratorium on new coal plants, no subsidies for pollution permits, aggressive efficiency standards, and green-job creation in low-income communities.
In addition, BICEP calls for greenhouse gas emissions to be at least 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, in line with scientific recommendations — and more than double the target set by President-elect Barack Obama.
As Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres said in a press call, tackling global warming is integral to future economic strength:
Rather than ignore risk, address the risk and turn it into an opportunity. We need to send the right and honest market signal. Carbon pollution has a cost.
The full list of recommendations: More »
Insurance Industry Proposal Fails To Control Costs
Insurance Industry Proposal Fails To Control Costs
Earlier this week, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and the BlueCross BlueShield Association issued statements agreeing to offer every applicant health insurance if all Americans purchased coverage. Insurance profits aside, a universal mandate makes sense. If the young and healthy avoid preventive care and only enter the health care system at the onset of sickness, they will require more expensive treatments or develop costly chronic diseases. To contain costs, better manage chronic diseases and improve preventive care, everyone has to be part of the system.
But while the insurance industry has shrewdly co-opted the rhetoric of universal coverage, they have not adopted the necessary affordability measures that progressives typically advocate for. For instance, while most progressives support community rating — everyone pays the same prices for coverage, regardless of health status — and a new health care exchange in which private plans are forced to compete with a public option, the insurance industry would be happy to see the government subsidize coverage for those who can’t afford it.
Since insurance companies will likely conflate universal coverage with affordable coverage and resist cost-containment measures that could undermine industry profits, progressives need to clarify their goals for reform and delineate the differences:
Community Rating:
- Progressive argument: Replacing underwriting with a “community rating” system would set premiums based on age and location instead of the health status of the individual. This would bring down the cost of insurance for higher risk populations and guard against radical changes in premiums from year to year.
- Industry argument: Looking at the experience that states have had who have done guarantee issue, who have done community rating…they’ve had some prices increase, individuals have actually had a reduction in coverage in their market.
- Industry debunk: The problem with community rating is that if all health plans in an area don’t stick with it, it falls apart. If insurance companies to underwrite healthy applicants, the plans that are still community rating will be left with sicker populations and higher premiums. Community rating only works if underwriting is restricted and universal coverage is extended.
Competing Public Plan:
- Progressive argument: A competing public plan would use the administrative efficiencies of government-run health insurance plans, as well as the purchasing power of government to control costs. Insurers do not have (or are unwilling to use) the market power to counter the pricing power of many hospital systems or physician specialties.
- Industry argument: Where there’s a public option where they got to set the rules when competing with private companies, that would not achieve the type of goals on improving coverage and improving access, and making healthcare coverage more affordable.
- Industry debunk: Allowing private insurers to compete with a new public plan will lower costs and force companies to compete on quality and value instead of risk.
Education: A Good Investment in a Bear Market
Education: A Good Investment in a Bear Market
Skeptics argue that the United States’ mounting budget deficits are a reason to put off public investments and reign in ambitious reforms. They’re wrong.
It is more imperative than ever to make targeted public investments that will yield high returns and lay the foundation for 21st century growth.
One set of savvy investments is in education, which recent research suggests would grow the economy and earn the government significant positive returns.
With investors around the world scrambling for a safe haven for their money, U.S. treasury bills are in high demand, meaning low yields for investors, but cheap money for the U.S. government.
At the same time, too many of America’s students are stuck in failing schools without quality teachers, test scores in key subject areas are woefully behind the rest of the world, huge gaps persist between students of different races and incomes, and more and more high schoolers are finding college out of reach.
This isn’t just a tragedy for young people and their families, it represents a huge missed opportunity.
High quality universal pre-school, improved efficiency, accountability and funding for grades K-12, and broader access to college, would address these festering educational problems and earn dividends on the taxpayer’s dime.
The fiscal benefits of these reforms aren’t abstract or aspirational. Conservative projections on the real fiscal rate of return on public educational investments are high: 10% for high quality preschool programs, 15% for innovative K-12 reforms like First Things First, and 10.3% for investments to encourage college access and graduation.
By contrast, the CBO’s projected real 10-year treasury bond yield (the cost of borrowing by the United States government) over the next decade is just 3.2% (after inflation).
The source of these potential returns isn’t complicated: better educated people are more productive, get sick less often, are less likely to require public assistance, commit fewer crimes, make more money, and pay more in taxes. Creating more of them is a good idea.
Of course, as a group of researchers at Columbia Teachers College write, “a society that provides fairer access to opportunities, that is more productive and with higher employment, and that has better health and less crime is a better society in itself. It is simply an added incentive that the attainment of such a society is also profoundly good economics.”
Read CAP’s education plans here.
Paulson Says The Banking System Is ‘Stabilized,’ Then Citigroup Loses Half Its Value In Four Days
Paulson Says The Banking System Is ‘Stabilized,’ Then Citigroup Loses Half Its Value In Four Days
As the Wonk Room has documented, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has repeatedly called the the banking system “safe and sound,” only to see those statements followed by the collapse of the banking system. Now, Paulson has added one more instance to the list.
In an appearance on NPR last week, Paulson announced that, due to the effects of the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), the banking system “has been stabilized“:
I believe the banking system has been stabilized. No one is asking themselves anymore, is there some major institution that might fail and that we would not be able to do anything about it.
As the LA Times noted, “So, after Bear Stearns, IndyMac Bank, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Bros., Washington Mutual and American International Group — no more major surprises. Write it down, folks.”
Paulson must be stunned, then, to see the news that the major bank Citigroup is not stable at all. As the New York Times reported, Citigroup’s “precipitous stock-market plunge accelerated on Thursday, sending shock waves through the financial world.” In the last four days, Citigroup has lost half of its value.
Throughout the implementation of the TARP program, Paulson has been content to throw money at the banking system, provide assurances that everything is going as planned, and refuse to use TARP funds for addressing anything outside of the financial sector. On NPR today, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) called Paulson’s refusal to help homeowners facing foreclosure the “most frustrating” aspect of the bailout process:
Here was a condition we actually wrote in…to provide at least the option of providing a guarantee in the area of foreclosure mitigation. And I say this respectfully, but the Treasury’s refusal to move on this is maybe the most frustrating piece of all, Steve. And yet we’re still dragging our feet on whether or not the government ought to be more aggressive.
Just yesterday, Paulson said that Treasury has been “proactively addressing the problems we saw coming.” But he is not proactively addressing the housing crisis, instead choosing to offer false assurances that the bailout has effectively muted the country’s economic woes.
When Insurance Companies Echo Progressives
When Insurance Companies Echo Progressives
You know the time has come for health insurance reform when the President of American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the lobbying arm of the insurance companies, is taking her talking points from progressive proponents of comprehensive reform.
Here is AHIP President Karen Ignagni on PBS’s NewHour with Jim Lehrer, linking the economic crisis to the health care crisis:
There’s an economic reason to move forward on health care reform, which is why I think it makes sense right now to talk about it. It’s the most expensive thing to do nothing at all, because people don’t have prevention, they don’t have early intervention, and they’re entering the system through the doors of the emergency room.
As former Clinton adviser Chris Jennings points out, things have changed since the 1990s. This time around, “what’s really exciting about the stakeholders is no longer are they saying that the second-best choice is to do nothing.”
It’s Time To Restore Rules For America
It’s Time To Restore Rules For America
Our guest blogger is Todd Darling, a documentary filmmaker whose film, “A Snow Mobile For George,” is a cross country look at how deregulation affects individuals and the environment.
For eight years the Bush Administration’s chief domestic priority was to deregulate everything they could get their hands on. In the Bush view, the free market, left unregulated, would solve anything that needed solving; the rich would get richer, and, as Grover Norquist put it, the federal government would shrink down to be “small enough to drown in a bath tub.” So they worked to remove regulations that safeguarded the public’s control over the myriad resources and concerns from the airwaves and energy, to land, water, wildlife, drugs, pesticides, and toxic waste, all the way to the public’s money in the banking and financial system.
Watch one rancher’s story of the effects of the Bush rampage, taken from my documentary, A Snow Mobile For George: More »
Stimulus Watch: Lame Duck Congress ‘Unlikely’ To Approve Extra Medicaid Funding
Stimulus Watch: Lame Duck Congress ‘Unlikely’ To Approve Extra Medicaid Funding
Last week, Congressional Quarterly reported that a “broad-based stimulus favored by Democrats” that includes additional federal Medicaid funds for states “seems highly unlikely” to pass this week during a lame-duck session of Congress” and would have to wait until next year.
According to Roll Call, Republicans would likely object to Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) request for unanimous consent on a stimulus package. In the House, “any stimulus package that reaches the floor would include additional federal Medicaid funds for states, although the increase would remain small in an effort to prevent a veto by President Bush.”
This blog has pointed out, however, that growing unemployment has translated into an increase in Medicaid enrollment, straining state budgets across the country.
In fact, according to a new Government Accountability Organization report, absent policy changes, “state and local governments would face an increasing gap between receipts and expenditures in the coming years“:
Growing health costs are “the primary driver of the fiscal challenges facing the state and local sector over the long term”:
GM’s Britta Gross Talks The Volt, Smart Grids, And The Future Of Detroit
GM’s Britta Gross Talks The Volt, Smart Grids, And The Future Of Detroit
Editor’s note: The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson is attending the Los Angeles Auto Show this week. Here is his first dispatch.
In an interview earlier today, Britta Gross, General Motors’ manager of Hydrogen and Electrical Infrastructure Development talks about working with electric utilities to prepare for the widescale deployment of the plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt. As she and the other managers of the Volt project discuss the next-generation vehicle they plan to put into production in 2010, GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner flew down to Washington, D.C. to plead for a bailout for his teetering company.
Watch it:
The mood at the auto show is subdued and uncertain, with mixed messages of machismo, affordability, and environmental responsibility. How the industry handles the great challenges of today will determine its future. As Gross said, “These are tough times for automakers, but a very exciting time.”
Pakistan’s Growing Insurgency
Pakistan’s Growing Insurgency
Our guest bloggers are Caroline Wadhams, National Security Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and Jenny Shin.
In more disturbing news for Pakistan’s security situation and the U.S.-NATO mission in Afghanistan, yesterday, the Washington Post reported that U.S. officials are now looking to find safer alternative routes into Afghanistan for strategic supply lines that pass through Pakistan. The Taliban have been attacking these supply lines, which deliver about 75 percent of NATO and U.S. supplies, at unprecedented levels, stealing military equipment, ammunition and arms, and food, valued around $13 million. New routes through Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan are being considered by the Department of Defense to protect these convoys and secure the flow of supplies for NATO and U.S. forces.
The Taliban have also begun to target Western aid workers and journalists with increasing ferocity in Pakistan, as well as in Afghanistan. This past week, in Pakistan, two journalists were attacked; a USAID contractor was assassinated, and an Iranian diplomat was abducted.
The backdrop for these incidents is a steady stream of violent clashes, bombings and assassinations by insurgents in Pakistan against Pakistanis themselves. On Wednesday, General Amir Faisal Alvi, the former chief of Pakistan’s elite commando unit, was shot dead. On Tuesday, Taliban and tribal elders clashed in the Bajaur Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan; ten members of the Taliban and four elders were killed. And on Monday, at least four paramilitary soldiers of the Pakistani Frontier Corps were killed when a suicide bomber drove a car into a security checkpoint.
As security deteriorates in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the United States finds itself increasingly drawn into military action in both countries. Yesterday, for the first time, the United States conducted an attack with a Predator drone outside of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan– deeper inside Pakistan territory than ever before. More »
Insurance Industry Pushes For Health Insurance Mandate
Insurance Industry Pushes For Health Insurance Mandate
The insurance industry recently reiterated its support for a health insurance mandate. Since healthy folks could no longer wait until they’re sick to buy health insurance, the insurance industry has agreed to end its practice of cherry-picking the healthiest applicants and denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions.
Affordability, of course, is a different issue altogether. The New York Times writeup notes, “while insurers would be required to sell insurance to any applicant, nothing would guarantee that consumers could afford it. Rate regulation promises to be a highly contentious issue, since it pits the financial interests of insurers against those of consumers.”
Most progressive proposals guarantee affordability by forcing private insurers to compete with a new government plan, limiting premium discrimination of sex and age, and ensuring that nobody spends more than a certain percentage of income (for example, 5–7.5 percent) on health insurance premiums.
As Tom Daschle, the incoming Health and Human Services Secretary, writes in his book, “the government would provide financial help on a sliding scale so nobody has to pay more than a certain percentage of their income for health insurance. Administered as a refundable tax credit, this protection would apply to employer-based health insurance as well as private insurance obtained through the pool.”
Still, the industry’s concession is significant, since some insurers remain profitable by excluding sick people from coverage. One of the biggest opponents to the individual mandate in California, for instance, was the for-profit Blue Cross plan, which found the underwriting process particularly profitable and played a major role in defeating reform efforts.
But now, the industry that brought you the infamous Harry and Louise ads of the 1990s — warning Americans that they would be forced to purchase health insurance they could not afford — may force President-elect Barack Obama (who proposed requiring insurers to cover pre-existing conditions but not creating a mandate for adults to buy insurance) to adopt a health insurance mandate! It will be up to progressives to push hard for affordability guarantees and comprehensive benefits.
As Jobless Claims Hit 16-Year High, Congress Mulls Extending Unemployment Benefits
As Jobless Claims Hit 16-Year High, Congress Mulls Extending Unemployment Benefits
The Labor Department reported today that new claims for unemployment jumped to a 16-year high last week, with 542,000 new claims for jobless benefits filed. Unemployment is currently at a 14-year high of 6.5 percent.
The Senate will vote this week — “and very likely today,” according to Bob Geiger — on “legislation already passed by the House that would extend unemployment insurance for those whose benefits have run out.” In an about-face, the White House announced today that it would support the extension.
“Because of the tight job market, the President believes it would be appropriate to further extend unemployment benefits, and he would sign the legislation now pending in Congress,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. Previously, the White House’s position was that the “the best way to help” the economy and unemployed people is for the unemployed to simply “get back to work.”
Extending unemployment benefits is a crucial step that Congress must take. The National Employment Law Project estimates that more than 800,000 people have already exhausted their benefits, and that “more than one million will do so by the end of the year.” Without benefits, “the Congressional Budget Office finds that about 50% of the long-term unemployed fall under the poverty line.”
As the Wonk Room has noted before, extending unemployment benefits is also a vital first step towards getting the economy back on track. The Center for American Progress Action Fund has found that extending benefits “would significantly boost the economy in those communities hardest hit by layoffs while also investing in a 21st-century economic security system“:
[A] major study of several recent recessions found that unemployment benefits contribute $2.15 in economic growth for every dollar of benefits circulating in the economy. With the health of the U.S. economy so dependent on consumer spending, unemployment benefits are especially important to maintain purchasing power and to boost spending in those communities hit hard by unemployment.
Longer-term reform to the unemployment system is also necessary, as eligibility laws are unfair and outdated. Currently, “only an average of 37 percent of unemployed workers actually collect benefits at all, with low-wage, part-time, and female workers particularly harmed by outdated state eligibility rules.”
Thus, Congress and the administration should work to enact the Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act. The Act “would provide $7 billion in incentive funding for states to cover more than 500,000 workers who now fall through the cracks of the unemployment program and to support those states already doing a better job with coverage.”
There are both immediate and long-term advantages to altering unemployment insurance benefits. There is a lot of hoopla being generated about auto industry bailouts and TARP reversals, but something aimed at helping Americans weather the current economic storm is also in order.
Kagan: What I Previously Defined As Failure Now Equals Success
Kagan: What I Previously Defined As Failure Now Equals Success
Speaking to Hugh Hewitt on Monday, surge architect Fred Kagan — who just last year wrote that “setting hard-and-fast timelines for the withdrawal of U.S. forces… is equivalent to accepting failure in Iraq” — explained how the new security agreement setting a hard-and-fast timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces is equivalent to a huge U.S. victory over Iran.
Kagan said “the Iranian leadership has been pulling out all the stops to get the Iraqis not to” sign the status of forces agreement.
The Iranians are desperate for Iraq not to align itself strategically with the United States, and they have been literally trying to bribe everybody they can bribe in Iraq, and running a fantastic information operations campaign in Iraq to make this an unpopular and hard thing to do. And the Iraqi government has done it anyway. And that is actually a great accomplishment for us, and it tells us a lot about where this Shia Iraqi government actually stands on whether it wants to be aligned with the United States, or whether it wants to be aligned with Iran.
As we’ve written before, the new Iraqi government is dominated by Shia parties which either have a longstanding supportive relationship with Iran (the Da’wa), or were drawn into an alliance of convenience with Iran (Muqtada al-Sadr), or were themselves founded in Iran, under Iranian auspices (ISCI, whose leader, Abdul Aziz la-Hakim, actually okayed the security agreement from Tehran). It’s patently ridiculous to claim, as Kagan does, that an agreement concluded with such a government represents a “defeat” for Iran, especially when that agreement happens to contain provisions that Kagan himself previously warned would represent American failure.
Home Depot Founder: Retailers Who Are Not Fighting The Free Choice Act ‘Should Be Shot’
Home Depot Founder: Retailers Who Are Not Fighting The Free Choice Act ‘Should Be Shot’
In the Wall Street Journal today, Thomas Frank wrote that — in light of the new progressive mandate — “it is likely that we really do want universal health care and some measure of wealth-spreading, and even would like to see it become easier to organize a union in the workplace.”
To this end, Frank makes the case for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would enable workers to form a union by signing cards of consent, instead of having to undergo a full unionization campaign and vote, which often ends in employer intimidation or a simple denial of the right to vote.
The Wonk Room has noted before the widespread public support for the Free Choice Act, and the conservative fearmongering about the results the bill would have. In his piece, Frank lays out one of the more virulent reactions, courtesy of Home Depot founder and former CEO Bernie Marcus:
“This is the demise of a civilization,” moaned Bernie Marcus, cofounder and former CEO of The Home Depot, during an Oct. 17 conference call about card check. “This is how a civilization disappears. I’m sitting here as an elder statesman, and I’m watching this happen, and I don’t believe it.” Mr. Marcus sketched out the doomsday scenario for his listeners, with unions going after what he called the “low hanging fruit” and proceeding to organize workers in industry after industry.
Marcus allegedly added that “If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys,” who oppose the Free Choice Act, then the retailers “should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs.”
But easing the path toward unionization is hardly the end of civilization, unless Marcus deems increased wages along with better health and pension benefits for America’s workers to be civilization’s death knell.
As Michael Whitney explained on the SEIU blog:
CEO-types like Home Depot’s Bernie Marcus and Wal-Mart’s Lee Scott have their hands on the steering well, and anyone who fails to heed their battle cry to block attempts by workers to take control of the wheel ’should be shot.’ It’s too bad that for the last several decades, this cavalier attitude has led these greedy CEOs to drive the car off the economic cliff.
Indeed, as corporate profits have been going up in recent years, workers wages have stagnated. Shared prosperity through increased unionization, not the end of civilization, is what backers of the Employee Free Choice Act are looking to create.
Daschle’s Views On Health Reform: ‘Incremental Change In Our System Is No Longer A Viable Option’
Daschle’s Views On Health Reform: ‘Incremental Change In Our System Is No Longer A Viable Option’
In a sign that he may adopt a comprehensive approach to solving the health care crisis, President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
Ezra Klein points out, “you don’t tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That’s not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress.” Earlier this year, during an address at the Families USA Action Conference, Daschle concurred with the need to ‘think big’ on reform:
Incremental change in our system is no longer a viable option. Instead we need comprehensive reform. In growing numbers the American people are demanding that we do something. Our goal should be to build what current and retired members of Congress have today, and make that available for all Americans.
Daschle is a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Center for American Progress and is the author of Critical: What We Can Do About the American Health-Care Crisis.
The book lays out Daschle’s vision of achieving reforms through a framework shared responsibility, in which “every player in the health-care arena — the government, employers, doctors and hospitals, insurers, and individuals — should help support a rational, sustainable system.” Some of Daschle’s proposals:
- Expand the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), or create a group purchasing pool like it: Participants could choose their own provider and would have the security of knowing they could never lose their coverage. Employers could let their employees get coverage through a FEHBP plan only if they enrolled all of their workers, not just ones with health problems. The FEHP pool would also include a government-run insurance program modeled after Medicare and would have tremendous clout to bargain for the lowest prices from providers and push them to improve quality of care.
- Subsidize coverage for those who need it: The government would provide financial help on a sliding scale so nobody has to pay more than a certain percentage of their income for health insurance. Administered as a refundable tax credit, this protection would apply to employer-based health insurance as well as private insurance obtained through the pool.
- Strengthen Medicaid: Simplify and extend Medicaid to cover everyone below a certain income level. The federal government should pick up the tab for this expansion, and ensure that states don’t’ cut off people when the budget gets tight.
- Concentrate on the value of care: Strive to get more for our health care money by promoting research that compares drugs and treatments to determine which ones deliver the best bang for the buck. Daschle also proposes promoting prevention that would reduce the number of chronic conditions.
- Improve health care infrastructure Adopt health information technology to lower expenses and allows rural residents to connect electronically with medical providers. Increase the number of community health cetners and government-funded clinics that provide basic care for the poor and uninsured.
Aside from supporting the basic principles of progressive reform, however, Daschle also proposes a Federal Health Board that “would resemble our current Federal Reserve Board for the banking industry.”
The Board would ensure harmonization across public programs of “health-care protocols, benefits, and transparency” and would set “evidence-based standards for benefits and quality for federal programs” in the hopes of lowering the complexity of different insurance regulations and ultimately lowering costs. “These standards would apply to federal health programs and contractors and serve as a model for private insurers,” Daschle writes.
Cross-posted at ThinkProgress.
When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, 'We're OK with minor reform.' I'm challenging you today, we're going to have to do big, serious things."
The Three Nos From CNAS: Sloganeering Is No Substitute For Actual Policy
The Three Nos From CNAS: Sloganeering Is No Substitute For Actual Policy
Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
In a recent post, our good friend Ilan Goldenberg over at the National Security Network recommended the “three nos” on Iraq advanced by the Center for a New American Security as a guide to U.S. policy: no regional war, no al Qaeda safe havens, and no genocide. This of course has a lot of rhetorical appeal – who can be in favor of those three things? The problem is that the three no’s really aren’t very helpful when it comes to addressing the challenges posed by Iraq and examining ways to advance U.S. national security interests globally.
The overall problem is that the three nos framework constitutes mostly a wish list not unlike the Bush administration’s early fantasies of a secular, pro-Israel democracy on the Tigris. As the old saying goes, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Beyond this basic conceptual problem, there are three main problems with the three nos.
First, it ignores the fact that large scale sectarian cleansing, if not outright genocide, has already occurred in Iraq and is even occurring TODAY, with the U.S. troop presence at its likely maximum. Most people are aware of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian cleansing that happened at the height Iraq’s civil war in 2006-2007, which led to the murders of tens of thousand and displacement of millions — even while the surge was being implemented. But less visible is the plight of Iraqi minority groups, particularly Christians. Just last month sectarian violence forced large numbers of Iraqi Christians from Mosul, their last major safe haven. Canon Andrew White, the vicar of St. George’s church in Baghdad, estimates only 200,000 Iraqi Christians of a population of 800,000 remain in the country. All of this has occurred despite the presence of 140,000-plus U.S. troops in Iraq; the three nos ignore the fact that massive sectarian cleansing has already occurred despite the presence of hundreds of thousands of American troops in Iraq –- and this of course raises the question of how useful the three no’s framework is beyond a rhetorical device and mantra Americans can repeat to make themselves feel better. The tough work is actually in crafting a policy that simultaneously advances U.S. interests and actually improves the situation for Iraqis. More »
Rep. Burgess’ Straw-Man Arguments Against Comprehensive Health Care Reform
Rep. Burgess’ Straw-Man Arguments Against Comprehensive Health Care Reform
Fresh from campaigning for Sen. John McCain’s health care proposal, self-appointed conservative health care spokesperson Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) is making straw-man arguments against progressive health care proposals.
After reading Burgess’ editorial in today’s Washington Times, for instance, one would falsely conclude that comprehensive reform efforts would force patients into government-run programs that ration care and limit coverage:
The idea of government-run health care sounds appealing to many Americans. Really what that means is limiting freedom - the freedom to choose a doctor, to take your health care with you when you switch jobs, to make personal medical decisions…As a Republican and a physician, it is critical for us to offer a clear and credible alternative to a one-size-fits-all system that puts bureaucrats in charge of health care decision-making.
Burgess has either ignored most comprehensive health reform legislation or misunderstood it, because nothing could be further from the truth. Consider Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-MT) proposal: the patient has the choice of staying with employer-based coverage or buying comprehensive insurance from a new Health Insurance Exchange.
The Exchange offers more options, not less. Individuals and small businesses will be able to “compare private coverage options and a public plan and to purchase the policy that would work best for them.” Plans purchased through the Exchange would be portable, allowing Americans to, as Burgess requires, “take your health care with you when you switch jobs.”
New Thinking for the Next Science Adviser
New Thinking for the Next Science Adviser
Our guest blogger is Rick Weiss, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Fund.
Here’s a wild proposition for the transition: Choose a life scientist or a climatologist for the presidential science advisor.
Maybe that doesn’t seem like a radical move to you, but in fact it would be a major break with tradition. The presidential science advisor (who doubles as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy) has traditionally been a physicist or nuclear scientist. After all, the biggest science-based threat to the nation has long been the threat of nuclear war. So of course the president needed someone at his side who knew about bombs and fallout and such.
But while atomic physics is still a field with great national security import (think dirty bombs and the suitcase-sized nuclear devices that terrorists are purported to be trying to get their hands on) there is a good case to be made that molecular biology (which has so simplified the tools for making bioterror weapons, for example) or even ordinary earth science (the specialty that best understands global climate change) are the fields that are today most relevant to our national and economic security concerns.
The presidential science advisor (which used to be a cabinet level position until Bush demoted it, but is likely to get elevated again under Obama) is just one of hundreds of science policy-related openings that the new president and his appointees will soon be filling and that officials in the new administration need to think about in new, out-of-the-box ways.
Imagine a surgeon general selected from one of the nation’s gang-busting food activist groups, ready to take on obesity the way C. Everett Koop took on smoking. Or a Food and Drug Commissioner who’s maybe not a medical doctor (as is usual) but has great expertise in international trade law (trillions of dollars-worth of food and drugs are today imported from abroad with precious little inspection or oversight). Or a Secretary of Energy who has real business experience and expertise in cap-and-trade economics or in solar or wind technology or low-loss transmission lines—the keys to an energy-independent America.
Now multiply that times all the science-based openings in Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, Interior and even Defense. To learn more about what the Obama administration has to think about when filling out its technical ranks, see below, drawn from my recent column on Science Progress, “A Taxonomy of Scientific Appointments:” More »
Treat It Here, Treat It Now
Treat It Here, Treat It Now
Over at Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review, Bob Laszewski argues that Barack Obama should hold-off on comprehensive health care reform until Congress reaches some broader consensus and more money is available:
I would argue that if Democrats do go for the whole deal they are likely to run into a political buzz saw and possibly squander the ability to do a more modest bipartisan list of health reform accomplishments that could be the first important steps in a longer-term strategy.
But Laszewki’s argument that a comprehensive reform bill will be too long and divisive can apply to any major piece of legislation. Congress had a difficult time garnering support for the financial industry bail out, but pressed against conservative opposition to adopt what was largely seen as a necessary measure.
Given the burden of growing health care costs on businesses and individuals, health care reform is no less important. In fact, a new report from the New America Foundation underlines the consequences of inaction:
- $207.3 billion: amount our economy lost because of the poor health and shorter lifespan of the uninsured.
- $24,000: the cost of the average employer-sponsored health insurance plan in 2016.
- 73: percentage of increase in the average deductible nationwide by 2016.
Moving health care reform to the back-burner will only exacerbate the current economic downturn. As Ezekiel Emanuel points out, “health care costs are the long-term driving force in federal and state budgets. To control the deficit and keep the country solvent, health care must be solved…The new administration must remember that health care is so big — $1 out of every $6 in the economy, dwarfing automobiles and all other economic segments. Everything is affected by health policy, and every decision should be examined for its impact on health care reform.”
But first reform must happen and the in-coming administration won an electoral mandate to transform the health care system.
Sign the petition for affordable health reform NOW, here.
Pakistan’s Economic Crisis
Pakistan’s Economic Crisis
Our guest blogger is Caroline Wadhams, National Security Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
While much of the recent attention on Pakistan has been focused on the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Pakistan’s economic crisis has largely been under the radar screen. This crisis has the potential to be even more destabilizing to Pakistan’s democratically elected government and the population than the terrorist threat.
Pakistan’s economy is in free-fall. Inflation is at 25 percent, causing dramatic food price spikes and hitting Pakistan’s poor the hardest. Pakistan’s government faces mounting fiscal and trade deficits, and Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen to $6.9 billion, enough to pay for only an estimated nine weeks of imports. The repercussions of bankruptcy could be devastating for Pakistan’s efforts to combat the militant groups, to provide for its people, and to move forward in its democratic transition.
On Monday, the Center for American Progress released a report (pdf), Partnership for Progress: Advancing a New Strategy for Prosperity and Stability in Pakistan and Region. We argue that the United States has failed to focus on the other drivers of Pakistan’s instability apart from the militant threat, such as its economic problems. Nor has the US leveraged the resources, influence and expertise of other countries, including China and Saudi Arabia in tackling Pakistan’s challenges. We propose that the U.S. assist Pakistan through an integrated, international effort rather than trying to impose U.S. solutions. Not only do we have our own economic crisis to deal with, Pakistanis perceptions of Americans are so dismal as to often discredit any American efforts in Pakistan.
Fortunately, it appears that the United States and the international community are beginning to recognize that Pakistan’s problems affect us all, and that they need urgent assistance. Yesterday, the Friends of Pakistan group, which includes the U.S., Saudi Arabia, China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, the United Nations, the European Union and others, met for the second time in Abu Dhabi to discuss ways to assist Pakistan economically. While no aid was pledged at the meeting, officials at the session drafted a framework to promote economic development and financial stability in Pakistan, and agreed to follow-up sessions in January and February. On Saturday, the International Monetary Fund agreed to provide a $7.6 billion emergency loan to Pakistan, contingent on Pakistani economic reforms that will hopefully restore some measure of investor and donor confidence.
Our report contains a series of recommendations to assist Pakistan in addressing its economic problems, such as creating a comprehensive inter-agency development strategy that focuses on Pakistan’s education and vocational skills training, health care quality and access, the energy sector, and water shortages. We propose convening an economic donors’ summit with key regional investors to facilitate increased trade between Pakistan, its neighbors and other key countries. While no Pakistani or American administration can afford to ignore the immediate short-term threats posed by militants based in safe havens on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, addressing Pakistan’s long-term economic challenges will be a crucial task for the incoming administration and new Congress.
The U.S. Chamber of Chicken Littles
The U.S. Chamber of Chicken Littles
Our guest blogger is Peter Altman, Climate Campaign Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Over the last several months, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been holding “State Climate Dialogues” around the country, ostensibly to “stimulate a national discussion on key climate change issues.” These are much more monologue than dialogue though, and the punchline is pretty consistently a prediction of economic disaster if the Congress creates a serious climate policy.
If the Chamber’s Chicken Littles stay on message, anyone attending today’s event in Detroit, Michigan is likely to hear the same old message. But many experts disagree with this view of gloom and doom.
For instance, Dr. Martin Kushler, director of the Utilities Program at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, says:
The claim that taking steps to address climate change would be bad for the economy is simply not true. We know from proven experience that we can save electricity through energy efficiency programs at one-third the cost of a new power plant. With a strong energy efficiency policy we can save money and reduce carbon emissions at the same time.
Dr. Andrew Hoffman, associate professor of management & organizations, associate professor of natural resources and associate director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, University of Michigan, said:
Think of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as a market shift, one driven by regulations at the city, state, national and international levels. But one also driven by consumer, investor, insurance and energy markets. Any company executive who ignores these shifts does so at their peril.
This week’s event in Detroit is just the latest stop in the Chamber of Commerce’s Chicken Little Roadshow to gin up worries about efforts to solve our energy and climate problems. Speakers at these events rely on questionable assumptions and even more questionable results to make their case. More »
Congress Dismayed By The Direction Of Paulson’s ‘$700 Billion Plane’
Congress Dismayed By The Direction Of Paulson’s ‘$700 Billion Plane’
Today, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson appeared before the House Financial Services Committee — alongside Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair — to explain his implementation of the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).
During the hearing, Congress voiced its displeasure with Paulson. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) told Paulson, “you seem to be flying a $700 billion plane by the seat of your pants.” Both Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) chastised Paulson for not providing aid to homeowners, even though he could under the TARP legislation. Watch a compilation:
Paulson defended himself by saying, “The purpose of the financial rescue legislation was to stabilize our financial system and to strengthen it. It is not a panacea for all our economic difficulties.” But the TARP legislation does have clear language allowing the Treasury to facilitate home loan modification; Paulson has just shown no inclination to do so.
Underscoring the extent of the housing crisis, currently “one in 11 mortgages is delinquent or in foreclosure”:
In the second quarter of 2008, the share of mortgages that were delinquent reached 6.4%, and the share of mortgages that were in foreclosure hit 2.7%. The share of new mortgages going into foreclosure continues to new record highs, with 1.1% in the second quarter.
In her testimony, Bair said that “more than 4.4 million non-GSE mortgages are estimated to become delinquent” by the end of 2009. Paulson, though, has proposed buying up just about everything but mortgages, including credit card debt. But as Andrew Jakabovics explained, “it is certainly questionable to promote increased lending for credit cards. Outstanding revolving consumer debt is approaching a trillion dollars. Encouraging further household indebtedness is hardly responsible.”
Bair has put forth a plan that — for $24.4. billion — could prevent 1.5 million foreclosures, which Bernanke called a “very promising approach.” If Paulson would come around as well, then some of the bailout funds might actually be directed at the root cause of the financial crisis.
Bobby Jindal: The Maverick Of Health Care Reform
Bobby Jindal: The Maverick Of Health Care Reform
New details about Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R-LA) proposed overhaul of Louisiana’s Medicaid system suggest that the ‘new leader’ of the conservative movement is moving away from McCain-like principles of one-size-fits-all health care coverage.
Under Jindal’s proposal, patients currently receiving Medicaid benefits will have three choices: 1) the current Medicaid fee-for-service benefits package, 2) state-designed benchmark benefits package 3) or, if they live in one of the four pilot areas, a coordinated care network of medical homes (CCN).
The third choice is crucial. Jindal is looking to design a network of medical homes — a model of care that allows a patient to receive all medical treatment in one location and encourages the primary care physician to take responsibility for providing for all the patient’s health care needs by arranging care with other qualified professionals — that could lower costs and increase care quality.
While regulatory details are still sketchy, Jindal recognizes what McCain never did: sick people require more care than healthy people and can find more affordable coverage within coordinated managed care networks that operate under a pay-for-performance model.
The CCNS would be required to ensure all beneficiaries have a medical home within the coordinated system and Jindal would prefer to reimburse the network at a risk-adjusted prepaid premium that will reflect the enrollee’s health status and anticipated utilization. The plan’s network of hospitals, physicians, and specialists could then spend that amount of money on treatment. This prioritizes efficiency, and promotes evidence-based practices and improved coordination between providers
For patients with serious health needs, Jindal is proposing up to three special needs statewide case management networks that would provide intense specialty services and case management services for families with special needs.
In addition to injecting coordinated care networks into the Medicaid system, Jindal is simultaneously expanding Medicaid (government) coverage. The plan calls for