HR 676 now has 77 congressional co-sponsors .

The legislation would cover every person in the United States for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care, chiropractic and long term care. HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments and would save billions of dollars annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs

S 2785 Bill Federal

S. 2785, The Save Medicare Act of 2008, has been introduced in the Senate. This bill would stop the Medicare physician payment cuts for 18 months, long enough to begin working on a long-term solution to the broken payment system. In addition, the bill will not increase the cost of permanently fixing the fatally flawed Medicare physician payment system. Urge your U.S. senators to co-sponsor this legislation and tell all your representatives in Congress to stop doctor payment cuts.
Posted by marine41 at 12:49 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Annual Medicare Part D enrollment


Annual enrollment for Medicare's medical and prescription drug plans—and officials are scrambling to stop deceptive and fraudulent tactics some salespeople have used to sell beneficiaries Medicare Advantage (MA) plans they don’t want or understand.
1. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that oversees the private insurers offering the plans, has issued new rules aimed at ensuring that salespeople give honest, accurate information so enrollees know what they're signing up for.
Many consumer advocates say, however, that while the rules will help reduce marketing abuse, they don't address underlying issues in the 2003 Medicare legislation that gave rise to it in the first place. An AARP Bulletin investigation, based on complaints from readers, bears out that conclusion. It also shows that many beneficiaries are baffled about the differences between the kinds of Medicare insurance and need a better grasp of how private Medicare Advantage plans work and how to avoid a hard sell. [see "How Do Medicare Plans Differ?"] and how to avoid a hard sell [see "Don't Get Tricked or Pressured"]
The scale of abuse came to light earlier this year when the insurance commissioners of 37 states reported that thousands of beneficiaries had fallen victim to illegal or unethical hard-sell tactics used to sign them up for Medicare Advantage plans, which cover everything the original Medicare plan covers and often cost less but have more restrictions on access to doctors and hospitals.
"In the most troubling of these cases, unscrupulous agents have enrolled beneficiaries with dementia into an inappropriate plan," Wisconsin insurance commissioner Sean Dilweg told Congress in May.
Some people said insurance agents told them original Medicare was "closing down," so they should join an MA plan to keep coverage. Others thought they were buying medigap supplementary insurance or a drug plan but found later they'd been enrolled in an MA plan covering all their medical care. That meant they were automatically moved out of original Medicare and, in some cases, lost their retiree health benefits.
About 7 million of Medicare's 43 million beneficiaries are in MA plans. Dilweg and other experts emphasize that most people are not tricked into buying such plans, and that enrollees pleased with their care need not be alarmed. But when abuse does occur, the consequences can be devastating.
Bobby Box, 76, a retired construction worker in Chickasha, Okla., was content with coverage from original Medicare and his veterans benefits. But last December a saleswoman sold him a plan for a Medicare HMO that he didn't want. "She said it was a supplementary insurance that paid what Medicare didn't," he says. "She lied to me."
Soon afterward, Box was rushed to the hospital in a coma, running up a $45,000 bill during a 10-day stay. Only when the plan refused to pay did Box realize he was in an HMO, which limits treatment to doctors and hospitals in its network. In fact, all MA plans are obliged to cover emergency care, and Box's plan eventually did so—but only after his state insurance office intervened.
In addition, while still believing he was in original Medicare and able to use any hospital, Box had begun radiation treatment for prostate cancer at a facility outside the HMO's network. "Now I'm still stuck with a $16,000 bill," he said in August, four months after disenrolling from the HMO.
Evan Edwards, of Ruby, Mich., has been dunned by a debt collection agency for over $800 in bills run up after being enrolled in an HMO by a saleswoman who told him it was a special MA plan for veterans that would cost him nothing. No such plan exists. The actual plan she enrolled him into had all the usual HMO charges.
CMS officials say that Box, Edwards and others who incur expenses after enrolling in an MA plan under false pretenses or because of confusion over its terms won't have to pay those bills. "They need to contact us and ask for a retroactive reenrollment into original Medicare," says Abby Block, director of CMS's Center for Beneficiary Choices. "Their bills will be paid by Medicare."
In July, in response to the crescendo of complaints, CMS also decreed that beneficiaries who believe they've been misled into joining an MA plan have the right to apply for a special enrollment period in which they can return to original Medicare (and their supplementary medigap policy if they had one) or switch to another MA plan.
Beneficiaries who are aware of this new policy could be saved from the hassles others have had in trying to disengage from an offending plan. Elinor Hogan, a retired nurse in Sarasota, Fla., knew she didn't want the HMO plan that the "pushy" saleswoman was trying to sell her. "But I was recently widowed, grieving and stressed in the aftermath of caring for my husband, who died of cancer," she says. "I signed just to get her out of the house."
A few days later, after finding that none of her doctors or the local hospital accepted the plan, Hogan withdrew her enrollment, as the agent told her she could, thinking that was the end of it. It wasn't. It took six months of phone calls to finally disenroll and get back onto original Medicare.
"I should never have had to go through this nightmare," Hogan says, "all because of that insensitive, fraudulent agent." The vast majority of complaints about marketing abuses, according to CMS and state insurance commissioners, are directed at a new Medicare Advantage product, private fee-for-service (PFFS) plans, which now have 1.5 million enrollees. The main sales pitch for these plans is that enrollees can go to any doctor or hospital they choose, anywhere in the country. But in practice, many people have found that the providers they want won't accept PFFS plans.
The plans "are now required to have a disclaimer in all of their marketing materials saying that not all providers will accept a PFFS plan," says Block of CMS, and that enrollees will be covered only if the providers agree to the plan's terms and conditions.
Physician groups and consumer advocates say, however, that this requirement will not change a fundamental problem: that by law PFFS plans (unlike MA managed care plans) do not have to contract with any providers before policies are sold. Instead, a doctor or hospital that treats an enrollee is automatically "deemed" to have agreed to the plan's terms and payment conditions—without any negotiation between the provider and the plan having taken place.
Consequently, says Elizabeth McNeil, vice president of the California Medical Association, many doctors will have nothing to do with PFFS plans. "It isn’t a good arrangement," she says. "PFFS plans must have to adhere to the rules that other [MA] plans must adhere to or they should be eliminated."
It can be difficult if not impossible for beneficiaries to know in advance whether a doctor or hospital will accept a PFFS plan. Moreover, the law allows providers to decide if they will accept the plan each time the patient seeks treatment. People enrolled in a PFFS plan sponsored by employers or unions may be stuck with it, like an 80-year-old former teacher near Phoenix (who doesn't want her name used). A breast cancer survivor who needs an annual mammogram and has an ailing husband who can't be left alone, she was horrified to find that the nearest hospital that would accept her PFFS plan was 70 miles away.
Her retirement system switched its enrollees from supplementary insurance to a PFFS plan this year. "They've put me in a position where I'm paying my monthly dues for health insurance and I'm unable to use it," she says. Her only option, she adds, is to cancel the benefits she worked for and paid into for 35 years.
Only about 15 percent, or 225,000, of PFFS enrollees are in employer-sponsored plans, but this is a new market that could rapidly expand. The plans' sales pitch that enrollees can see any provider is attractive to employers or unions with retirees scattered all over the country.
Block of CMS acknowledges a lack of providers in some areas. But she says that educating providers and PFFS plans to become "more comfortable" with each other will change that. "If providers better understand the [PFFS] product and the payment mechanisms and get appropriate assurances that this is something they can work with…we will see very different attitudes in the provider community," she says. "So I think the situation will get a lot better."
David Lipschutz, staff attorney for California Health Advocates, who has studied PFFS plans, disagrees. "Unless there's a fundamental sea change in providers' attitudes toward these plans and the way the plans operate," he says, "they will continue to cause problems for people."
As for marketing abuses, the American Health Insurance Plans trade group has "zero tolerance" toward them, says spokesman Mohit Ghose. Earlier this year the major insurers that sell PFFS plans—BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, Coventry, Humana, Sterling, United HealthCare, Universal American Financial Corp. and Wellcare—voluntarily agreed to suspend marketing while drawing up a new code of conduct to curb abuse. CMS has since made these practices the rule.
But this doesn't satisfy state insurance commissioners who complain that federal law doesn't allow them to pursue Medicare Advantage plans for fraud or head off some abuses in advance, as they can in other insurance markets. "Our hands are tied," says commissioner Dilweg, who has 22 companies offering 92 Medicare plans in his state and received more than 700 complaints about them in a single year.
Nor does the insurers' new code of conduct change the fact that agents are paid much higher commissions for selling MA plans (especially PFFS plans) than for drug plans or medigap insurance—a practice that critics say only encourages hard-sell sign-ups.
By way of full disclosure, AARP is making available in 2008 a Medicare Advantage managed care plan underwritten by United HealthCare.

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Posted by marine41 at 11:54 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Medicare and Low Income Seniors

Medicare

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: June 20, 2008
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration promised on Thursday to provide new protections for low-income Medicare beneficiaries to ensure they can get prescription drugs promptly, at minimal cost.

»
The promise came in the proposed settlement of a nationwide class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people who have had difficulty getting the medicines they need.

Under the 2003 Medicare law, more than six million people eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid are entitled to extra help with their drug costs. But in many cases, they could not get the assistance, so they did not receive the drugs they needed, or they experienced long delays.

In early 2006, low-income beneficiaries were often overcharged, and some were turned away from pharmacies without getting their medications. Several states declared public health emergencies, and many stepped in to pay for prescriptions that should have been covered by the federal Medicare program.

Under the proposed settlement, filed Thursday with the United States District Court in San Francisco, federal Medicare officials promised to speed up the process of providing extra help to low-income people, who now could qualify within days, rather than weeks or months.

Drug benefits are delivered by private insurers under contract to Medicare. Under the settlement, these insurers will have to provide medications at minimal cost for any Medicare recipients who prove they have low incomes and qualify for extra help.

For most people with incomes less than the poverty level ($10,400 a year for an individual), the maximum co-payment is $1.05 for a generic or preferred brand-name drug and $3.10 for other prescription drugs.

But many beneficiaries have been asked to pay much higher amounts, from $30 to $75 or more, because the evidence of their low-income status was not properly shared among federal and state agencies, insurance companies and pharmacies.

“This settlement agreement is a victory for many of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens, who have faced life-threatening delays in obtaining vital medications,” said Kevin Prindiville, a lawyer at the National Senior Citizens Law Center, which filed the lawsuit with another nonprofit group, the Center for Medicare Advocacy.

Gill Deford, a lawyer at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, said the settlement would “help hundreds of thousands of people a year get their prescription drugs more quickly, at nominal cost.”

Jeff Nelligan, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said federal officials had “worked tirelessly” to ensure that Medicare recipients could fill their prescriptions. He refused to comment on the substance of the settlement, noting that it was subject to approval by Judge Thelton E. Henderson of Federal District Court in California.

States administer the Medicaid program. They have crucial information showing whether Medicare beneficiaries are also enrolled in Medicaid and therefore eligible for extra help with their drug costs.

Under the settlement, if a beneficiary claims to be eligible for the low-income subsidy but does not have the documents to prove it, and if the person is about to run out of a medication, federal officials would immediately contact the state Medicaid agency to check whether the person had been on Medicaid.

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Labels: medicare.medicaid.low income
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Hard Sell to Medicare Insurance Buyers Would Get Softer Under New Rules

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By ROBERT PEAR
Published: May 9, 2008
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration proposed on Thursday to crack down on the aggressive marketing of private Medicare insurance plans by outlawing unsolicited visits and telephone calls to beneficiaries, regulating commissions paid to sales agents and increasing the fines that could be imposed on insurers.

Medicare “should not be undermined by the actions of a limited number of unscrupulous sales agents,” said Kerry N. Weems, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

In the last two years, Medicare beneficiaries and state officials have often complained that high-pressure sales tactics led some people to sign up for unsuitable policies.

After reviewing comments from the public, federal officials intend to issue final rules before the marketing of plans for 2009 begins this October.

The proposed rules respond to pleas by consumers, Congress and state officials, but do not go as far as they wanted. In particular, the proposal affirms the Bush administration’s view that “states do not have the authority to regulate the marketing” of private Medicare plans.

Paul Precht, policy director of the Medicare Rights Center, a group that counsels beneficiaries, said: “We need Congress to give the states a greater role in enforcement. The federal government does not have the manpower.”

Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Finance Committee, praised the Bush proposals as a good first step. But Mr. Baucus said, “These protections are so important that they need to be codified in law.” He promised to push for passage of a bill in the next few months.

The Bush proposal would prohibit door-to-door marketing of private Medicare plans. Agents could not accost beneficiaries in the parking lot of a center for the elderly, a clinic or an apartment building. Agents could respond to telephone inquiries, but they could not make “cold calls” to beneficiaries.

Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said she welcomed the proposals, though they go further than the industry had recommended in a few areas like cold calls.

The rules would set a $15 limit on the value of gifts and promotional items offered to potential customers. Insurance companies could offer coffee, soft drinks, snacks, pill dispensers and water bottles worth less than $15. But insurers could not offer free meals, whatever their value.

This proposal would end a common practice. Insurers like Humana have signed up many beneficiaries at family restaurants where the companies provide sales presentations and meals.

“Have Lunch on Us!” said fliers and advertisements inviting Medicare beneficiaries to Humana events last fall.

The proposed rules would also prohibit agents from offering annuities, life insurance and other “non-health care related products” while selling private Medicare plans.

Under current rules, the government can impose a civil fine up to $25,000 for each serious violation. The proposed rule would allow larger fines, up to $25,000 for each beneficiary who was “directly adversely affected.”

The Bush administration also wants to regulate sales commissions, to discourage agents from switching people inappropriately from one Medicare plan to another. Under the proposal, the commission paid for the initial sale and first year of coverage could not exceed the commission paid for renewal of coverage in a subsequent year.

Many carriers now pay higher commissions in the first year. Some pay only for the first year, with no commission in later years. This creates a “financial incentive for agents to encourage beneficiaries to change plans each year,” the administration said.

Of the 44 million Medicare beneficiaries, at least 25 million are in some type of private plan — either a Medicare Advantage plan, which provides a wide range of health services, or a free-standing prescription drug plan, which covers just medicines.

Under the proposal, an insurer would have to pay the same commission for all its Medicare Advantage plans and a uniform amount for all its drug plans. An insurer could still encourage sales of the more profitable products by paying higher commissions — $200 a year for sale of a Medicare Advantage plan and $50 a year for a drug plan, for example.

Jessica F. Waltman, a vice president of the National Association of Health Underwriters, which represents agents and brokers, said, “We agree that insurers should eliminate financial incentives for agents to make quick sales and shift beneficiaries from one plan to another without regard to their health care needs.”

But, Ms. Waltman added, small differences in commissions in the first and subsequent years may be justified.
Posted by marine41 at 8:36 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Thursday, April 24, 2008
KEEP MEDICARE FAIR

We must assure everyone whho wishes to remain on Medicare are give a FAIR OPPORTUNITY TO remain on Traditional Medicare and not forced into HMO's
Posted by marine41 at 9:46 AM 0 comments Links to this post
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Medicare Doctor Payment Cuts
Annual Medicare Part D enrollment
► June (1)
Medicare and Low Income Seniors
► May (1)
Hard Sell to Medicare Insurance Buyers Would Get S...
► April (1)
KEEP MEDICARE FAIR

long term care bill

1. Sen. Boxer Introduces Health and Long-Term Care Workforce Bill
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced S. 2708, the Caring for an Aging America Act, on March 5. The bill would address the emerging gap between the increasing number of older Americans and the serious lack of providers trained in caring for their medical, health, and social support needs. NCOA supports the proposal.
The bill would provide $130 million over five years to recruit and retain trained healthcare professionals and direct-care workers by providing them with loan forgiveness and career advancement opportunities. Specifically, the legislation would:
• Establish a Geriatric and Gerontology Loan Repayment Program for health professionals who complete specialty training in geriatrics or gerontology and agree to provide full-time clinical practice and service to older adults for a minimum of two years.
• Expand eligibility for the Nursing Education Loan Repayment Program to include registered nurses who complete specialty training and provide nursing services to older adults in long-term care settings.
• Offer specialty training in long-term care services through the existing Career Ladders Grants Program.
• Create a Health and Long-Term Care Workforce Advisory Panel for an Aging America to identify incentives for recruitment and retention of new populations of clinicians and providers to serve vulnerable older adults

Boxer Bill S 2798

CARING FOR AN AGING AMERICA
Caring for an aging america act

1. Sen. Boxer Introduces Health and Long-Term Care Workforce Bill
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced S. 2708, the Caring for an Aging America Act, on March 5. The bill would address the emerging gap between the increasing number of older Americans and the serious lack of providers trained in caring for their medical, health, and social support needs. NCOA supports the proposal.
The bill would provide $130 million over five years to recruit and retain trained healthcare professionals and direct-care workers by providing them with loan forgiveness and career advancement opportunities. Specifically, the legislation would:
• Establish a Geriatric and Gerontology Loan Repayment Program for health professionals who complete specialty training in geriatrics or gerontology and agree to provide full-time clinical practice and service to older adults for a minimum of two years.
• Expand eligibility for the Nursing Education Loan Repayment Program to include registered nurses who complete specialty training and provide nursing services to older adults in long-term care settings.
• Offer specialty training in long-term care services through the existing Career Ladders Grants Program.
• Create a Health and Long-Term Care Workforce Advisory Panel for an Aging America to identify incentives for recruitment and retention of new populations of clinicians and providers to serve vulnerable older adults
Posted by Malden Senior

Home Articles Social Security Trust Fund Sits In Government Filing Cabinet
Social Security Trust Fund Sits In Government Filing Cabinet | Print | E-mail
TSCL Calls On Congress to Enact Lock Box Legislation
There actually is a Social Security Trust Fund — of sorts. It lays nestled in the bottom drawer of an unremarkable filing cabinet in a government office building in West Virginia. It’s kept in a pair of loose-leaf notebooks holding plastic page covers, and each page resents a bond worth billions, according to a 2005 story from The Associated Press. Today, the total “assets” in the Social Security Trust Fund are worth more than $2.2 trillion.

The paper is “symbolic,” a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Public Debt says. According to The Associated Press, in 1994 Congress anticipated the current debate about Social Security’s solvency and whether the Trust Funds held anything more than I.O.U.s. Congress passed legislation requiring the Treasury to create a physical document “rather than an accounting entry.” Andy Jacobs, the former Indiana Congressman responsible for the law, said he wanted to rebut the “disingenuous assertions” that there was no trust fund, even though there was, in fact, no vault stuffed with cash to pay benefits.

Earlier this year the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the Social Security Trust Fund ended 2007 with a rip roarin’ surplus of $187 billion, and this year the Trust Fund is projected to end with $197 billion. But almost all of that is “interest” earned on the IOUs. Just how much?
If the interest earned by the Social Security Trust Fund is excluded, and only real cash revenues counted, 2007 ended with a surplus of only $80 billion instead of $187 billion, and the Trust Fund is projected to end 2008 with a surplus of $79 billion instead of $197 billion, according to the 2008 Social Security Trustees Report. The Social Security Trustees further estimate that the program costs will begin to exceed cash revenues in 2017, or about nine years from now.

The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) believes that the first step to “saving” Social Security and Medicare is to stop the government from borrowing excess program revenues and to protect the extra funds for paying benefits. “If Congress is going to ‘save’ Medicare and Social Security, then lawmakers must stop using Medicare and Social Security Trust Fund monies as a piggybank for other government spending, ” states Daniel O’Connell, Chairman of TSCL. TSCL supports “The Social Security and Medicare Lock-Box Act” (H.R. 4338), introduced in the House by Representative Timothy Walberg (MI), and (S. 302), introduced in the Senate by Senator David Vitter (LA). The bill would establish a procedure to safeguard the surpluses of the Social Security and Medicare hospital insurance trust funds, and already has bi-partisan support.

Sources: “Social Security Trust Fund Sits In Drawer,” The Associated Press, February 28, 2005. “The Budget And Economic Outlook,” CBO, January 2008. 2008 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports, March 25, 2008.

Health and Long Term Care Workforce Bill

Sen. Boxer Introduces Health and Long-Term Care Workforce Bill
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced S. 2708, the Caring for an Aging America Act, on March 5. The bill would address the emerging gap between the increasing number of older Americans and the serious lack of providers trained in caring for their medical, health, and social support needs. NCOA supports the proposal.
The bill would provide $130 million over five years to recruit and retain trained healthcare professionals and direct-care workers by providing them with loan forgiveness and career advancement opportunities. Specifically, the legislation would:
• Establish a Geriatric and Gerontology Loan Repayment Program for health professionals who complete specialty training in geriatrics or gerontology and agree to provide full-time clinical practice and service to older adults for a minimum of two years.
• Expand eligibility for the Nursing Education Loan Repayment Program to include registered nurses who complete specialty training and provide nursing services to older adults in long-term care settings.
• Offer specialty training in long-term care services through the existing Career Ladders Grants Program.
• Create a Health and Long-Term Care Workforce Advisory Panel for an Aging America to identify incentives for recruitment and retention of new populations of clinicians and providers to serve vulnerable older adults

Bill HR 676 Health Care for all

The North Shore Labor Council is the one hundredthCentral Labor Council to endorse HR 676, single payer healthcarelegislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).Jeff Crosby, Council President, said: “We in Massachusetts have ampleexperience with the fraud of health-care ‘reform’ that claims to provideuniversal coverage without containing costs. The Massachusetts bill iscollapsing as we speak. And the only way to contain costs is to go afterthe drug companies and the insurance companies with a chain-saw. HR 676does that best.”

New Stimulus Package Legislation

In recent decades, signs of a slowdown are generally accompanied by calls for the Fed to cut rates and for Congress to pass what's usually called a stimulus package -- a special package of spending and tax measures meant to increase economic activity. The Congressional Budget Office defines the goal this way: "Fiscal stimulus aims to boost economic activity during periods of economic weakness by increasing short-term aggregate demand." The theory is that if more goods and services are being bought, whether it is cement for new highway projects or groceries paid for with a tax rebate, there would be less chance that falling demand will lead companies to lay off workers, which would lead to greater falls in demand and a deeper downturn.
Every time a stimulus package is proposed, the same sorts of issues are debated: Should there be one at all? How much should be done with added spending and how much with tax cuts or rebates, and for whom? After an economic downturn has passed, there is often a debate over how well-aimed or how timely the measures turned out to be. Many economists think the time lags involved in enacting a package can dilute the impact both of tax cuts and of fiscal stimulus; many others point to specific elements, like the tax rebates of 2001, that they think had a demonstrable positive effect.
Read More...
The fears over a possible recession that deveoped in late 2007 led to calls for a stimulus package from politicians of both parties. While Democrats and Republicans initially favored different approaches, the stock market's wild gyrations in January 2008 raised pressure for quick agreement. Democrats favored extended unemployment and food-stamp benefits and aid to states and municipalities, while Republicans pushed for tax breaks for businesses and for making President Bush's income-tax cuts permanent. Both sides agreed that there should be tax rebates or their equivalent for individuals and families, but Democrats sought to provide them for all workers, even those who earn too little to pay any income tax, while Republicans wanted them restricted to those who earned enough to pay the tax.
On Jan. 24, House leaders and the White House announced a preliminary deal that included stipends for all workers and breaks for business, but no money for extended unemployment or food-stamp assistance and no mention of permanent tax changes. -- Jan. 24, 2008
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Senate Bill S2433

Here's what Phyllis Schlafly, conservative activist and founder of Eagle Forum, recently wrote:
"Obama's costly, dangerous and altogether bad bill (S. 2433), which could come up in the Senate any day, is called the Global Poverty Act. It would commit U.S. taxpayers to spend 0.7 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on foreign handouts..." [Emphasis Mine

Legislative oversight

March 12, 2008
House Creates a Panel to Watch Over Lawmakers’ Behavior
By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON — In the wake of a string of Congressional misconduct and corruption cases, the House on Tuesday created an independent panel to investigate suspected wrongdoing by lawmakers, despite deep reservations from rank-and-file lawmakers from both parties.
The new Office of Congressional Ethics was promoted by Democratic leaders as a way to restore credibility to an internal policing process that had been seen as largely ineffective in recent years, even as individual lawmakers were indicted, rebuked and jailed for various offenses. The vote to establish the office was 229 to 182.
By creating a panel of six people of “exceptional public standing,” the House, for the first time, delegated the authority for regulating behavior in the House to nonlawmakers. Current members of the House, federal employees and anyone who has been a registered lobbyist in the past year would be ineligible.
“The public does not trust us on ethics issues at this point,” said Representative Michael E. Capuano, Democrat of Massachusetts and head of a task force that recommended the new panel. “They think we are all here protecting each other.”
Opponents said the panel added an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, represented an abdication of Constitutional responsibility, could lead to purely partisan inquiries and would impair the ability of the existing House ethics committee to conduct its own inquiries.
“If you have a single ounce of self preservation, you will vote ‘no,’ ” said Representative Todd Tiahrt, Republican of Kansas, who warned that lawmakers could be bankrupted by legal fees defending themselves against frivolous accusations.
Some Democrats were equally deadset against it. “With this proposal, we are indicting ourselves, we are retreating before those who would tear this House down.” said Representative Neil Abercrombie, Democrat of Hawaii.
The Democratic leadership had twice backed off on forcing a vote on the measure, allowing time to revise the plan and try to ease criticism. Even on Tuesday, Democratic officials were not certain they had enough support. Republicans nearly derailed the proposal, falling just one vote short of killing it procedurally and later complaining that Democrats had extended the voting period to twist arms.
On the final vote, 196 Democrats and 33 Republicans backed the new approach, while 159 Republicans and 23 Democrats opposed it. The result validated the leadership view that even lawmakers uneasy about the new ethics panel would be reluctant to oppose it after the 2006 elections turned, at least partly, on a voter backlash to misbehavior by lawmakers.
Democrats gave freshmen lawmakers who were elected last year on a reform platform a leading role in the debate, and they urged their more senior colleagues to back the plan.
“The cat’s out of the bag,” said Representative Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut. “The people figured out long ago that there are too many members violating the public trust, and they watched too many members sit idly by.”
Backers of the proposal, which had the support of leading Washington watchdog groups, said it was essential to ensure proper enforcement of new lobbying restrictions and other rule changes approved when Democrats took control last year.
And they disputed the contention that the House had proved incapable of enforcing its own rules of behavior, noting a series of prominent incidents that included the conviction of two House Republicans on corruption charges, a sex scandal involving teenage House pages and several indictments, including one last month.
“Unless you were sound asleep prior to the last election, unless you were living in another country, another land in another time, you know what the people thought about this, the people’s House that we love,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, the majority leader.
Democrats said they had made changes to reduce the potential for inquiries inspired by partisan motives, including requiring that an investigation can only be instigated when one panel member appointed by the speaker and another by the minority leader agree. All six members must also be appointed jointly by the speaker of the House and the leader of the minority party. Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader and an opponent of the plan, said Tuesday that he was unsure how he and Speaker Nancy Pelosi would find agreement on the panel membership.
Ms. Pelosi, Democrat of California, said she expected to be the top target of those who want the new panel to begin inquiries.
“I am willing to take that risk because I also trust this group will rid itself of frivolous, baseless complaints,” she said
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Medicare Senate

Listing of bills containing the phrase medicare
Items 1 through 20 of 20
1.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to assist low-income Medicare beneficiaries by improving eligibility and services under the Medicare Savings Program, and for other purposes. ' (S.2101)
2.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to establish a prospective payment system instead of the reasonable cost-based reimbursement method for Medicare-covered services provided by Federally qualified health centers and to expand the scope of such covered services to account for expansions in the scope of services provided by Federally qualified health centers since the inclusion of such services for coverage under the Medicare Program. ' (S.2188)
3.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to extend for 6 months the eligibility period for the "Welcome to Medicare" physical examination and to provide for the coverage and waiver of cost-sharing for preventive services under the Medicare program. ' (S.2115)
4.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide continued entitlement to coverage for immunosuppressive drugs furnished to beneficiaries under the Medicare Program that have received a kidney transplant and whose entitlement to coverage would otherwise expire, and for other purposes. ' (S.2320)
5.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to eliminate the in the home restriction for Medicare coverage of mobility devices for individuals with expected long-term needs. ' (S.2103)
6.
Senate: 'To require the Secretary of Health and Human Services, acting through the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, to submit a report to the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate on workers'' compensation set-asides under the Medicare secondary payer set-aside provisions under title XVIII of the Social Security Act.' (S.AMDT.3397)
7.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to protect Medicare beneficiaries'' access to home health services under the Medicare program. ' (S.2181)
8.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to repeal the Medicare competitive bidding project for clinical laboratory services. ' (S.2099)
9.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title II of the Social Security Act to phase out the 24-month waiting period for disabled individuals to become eligible for Medicare benefits, to eliminate the waiting period for individuals with life-threatening conditions, and for other purposes. ' (S.2102)
10.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to permit Medicare beneficiaries to continue to rent certain items of complex durable medical equipment. ' (S.2158)
11.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to modernize payments for ambulatory surgical centers under the Medicare Program. ' (S.2250)
12.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for the inclusion of barbiturates and bezodiazepines as covered part D drugs beginning in 2008. ' (S.2190)
13.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title XI of the Social Security Act to modernize the quality improvement organization (QIO) program. ' (S.2396)
14.
Senate: 'To express the sense of the Senate that the Secretary of Health and Human Services should maintain "deemed status" coverage under the Medicare program for clinical trials that are federally funded or reviewed as provided for by the Executive Memorandum of June 2000.' (S.AMDT.3401)
15.
Senate: 'A bill to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of community and healthcare-associated infections (CHAI), with a focus on antibiotic-resistant bacteria. ' (S.2278)
16.
Senate: 'A bill to ensure and foster continued patient safety and quality of care by making the antitrust laws apply to negotiations between groups of independent pharmacies and health plans and health insurance issuers (including health plans under parts C and D of the Medicare Program) in the same manner as such laws apply to protected activities under the National Labor Relations Act. ' (S.2161)
17.
Senate: 'A bill to prohibit the implementation of policies to prohibit States from providing quality health coverage to children in need under the State Children''s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). ' (S.2049)
18.
Senate: 'A bill to establish a Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action, to assure the economic security of the United States, and to expand future prosperity and growth for all Americans. ' (S.2063)
19.
Senate: 'A bill to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to carry out demonstration projects and outreach programs for the identification and abatement of lead hazards, to establish the Joint Task Force on Lead-Based Hazards and the Task Force on Children''s Environmental Health and Safety, to strengthen the authority of the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and for other purposes. ' (S.2244)
20.
Senate: 'A bill to establish a grant program to provide screenings for glaucoma to individuals determined to be at a high risk for glaucoma, and for other purposes. ' (S.2350)
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Veterans-Health care

Listing of bills containing the phrase Home%20Care
Items 1 through 7 of 7
1.
Senate: 'A bill to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish a program for the provision of readjustment and mental health services to veterans who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and for other purposes. ' (S.38)
2.
Senate: 'A bill to amend titles 10 and 38, United States Code, to improve benefits and services for members of the Armed Forces, veterans of the Global War on Terrorism, and other veterans, to require reports on the effects of the Global War on Terrorism, and for other purposes. ' (S.117)
3.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to extend the period of eligibility for health care for combat service in the Persian Gulf War or future hostilities from two years to five years after discharge or release. ' (S.383)
4.
Senate: 'A bill to establish demonstration projects to provide at-home infant care benefits. ' (S.820)
5.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to increase burial benefits for veterans, and for other purposes. ' (S.1454)
6.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to increase burial benefits for veterans, and for other purposes. ' (S.1468)
7.
Senate: 'A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to extend or make permanent certain authorities for veterans'' benefits, and for other purposes. ' (S.1757)

Public Housing

Public Housing Asset Management Improvement Act of 2007Bill # H.R.3521Original Sponsor:Albio Sires (D-NJ 13th)Cosponsor Total: 7(last sponsor added 10/10/2007) 7 Democrats
About This Legislation:Prohibits the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from imposing restrictions or limitations on the amount of management and related fees for a public housing project which the public housing agency (PHA) determines reasonable.
Detailed, up-to-date bill status information on H.R.3521.

Economic Stimulus

Recovery Rebates and Economic Stimulus for the American People Act of 2008Bill # H.R.5140Original Sponsor:Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 8th)Cosponsor Total: 16(last sponsor added 01/28/2008) 11 Democrats 5 Republicans
About This Legislation:Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) grant tax rebates of the lesser of net income tax liability or $600 to individual taxpayers in 2008 ($1,200 to married couples filing joint returns, plus $300 for each dependent child); (2) provide for a minimum tax rebate of $300 ($600 for joint returns) for taxpayers with earned income of at last $3,000; (3) increase to $250,000 in 2008 the expensing allowance for depreciable business assets; and (4) allow business taxpayers a 50% bonus depreciation allowance for equipment placed in service in 2008. Reduces taxpayer rebates by 5% of the amount that exceeds an adjusted gross income of $75,000 ($150,000 for joint returns). Raises the statutory ceiling on the maximum original principal obligation of a mortgage, originated between July 1, 2007, and December 31, 2008, that may be purchased by either the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) or the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). Expresses the sense of Congress that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should securitize mortgages acquired pursuant to the increased conforming loan limits of this Act, if the manner of securitization does not: (1) impose additional costs for mortgages originated, purchased, or securitized under existing limits; or (2) interfere with the goal of adding liquidity to the market. Establishes a temporary loan limit increase for mortgages in specified high-cost areas if the borrower receives credit approval by December 31, 2008. Grants the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) discretionary authority to increase loan limits for a specified period.
Detailed, up-to-date bill status information on H.R.5140.

Mental Health Issues

The House passed H.R. 1424, to amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act, and section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans, by a yea-and-nay vote of 268 yeas to 148 nays, Roll No. 101.