February 8, 2010

Obama Administration Action on Anthem Blue Cross Insurance Increases

As reported earlier, Anthem Blue Cross of California is raising insurance rates as much as 39% for California consumers.  Today it is reported, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius,  wrote a letter to the company asking to “provide a detailed justification for these rate increases to the public.”

Sebelius also addressed an issue important to the Senate health care reform bill, Medical Loss Ratios- or the amount an insurer spends on care in comparison to profits, administration and advertising.  “Additionally, you should make public information on the percent of your individual market premiums that is used for medical care versus the percent that is used for administrative costs.” As Jake Tapper reports, Anthem earned $2.7 billion and sales rose 26% in just the last quarter of 2009.  Under reform if a company were to see large profits without significant increases in health care costs, consumers would be reimbursed for their premium payments rather than see premiums skyrocket.

The Obama administration has been criticized in recent weeks about the slow response to addressing health care reform since the election of Scott Brown. This move is perhaps a signal from the administration that they are readying to become aggressive about health care reform.  Coupled with President Obama’s announcement yesterday of a February 25th summit with GOP leaders about health proposals, the White House appears to be going on the offensive to speeding the health care reform process.

By Emma Sandoe

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February 7, 2010

India: Education Deficit Hinders Climate Mitigation

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Pollution is undeniable problem in many of India’s metropolitan centers. In the capital of New Delhi, smog has been known to reduce visibility to less than 600 yards. But the connection to between air pollution and climate change is not on the minds of most Indians.

One of the greatest challenges to global climate change action may be a lack of education about greenhouse gasses and their affect on the environment. According to a 2007-2008 Gallup survey, awareness of climate change is strikingly low in China and India – two of the world’s top greenhouse emitters.

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India is an especially egregious case; only 5% of poll respondents considered climate change to be a ‘major threat.’ Awareness is especially low in rural areas, where education is infamously poor.

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The Indian government will likely continue to snub the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat in the absence of any widespread civil society push toward climate mitigation. This, however, would require a massive educational campaign, one that would be especially challenging problem in a country with such high poverty and low literacy rates.

By Mary Tharin

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February 7, 2010

Graph of the Day: Local News

With the current snowpocalypse reaching it’s 3rd day, we here at DC Progressive have been watching a good deal of local news. We thought it would be interesting to illustrate what local news covers.   The good people over at Asylum thought of it first.  Here is a chart they put together of the local news coverage in Washington, DC on an normal week (Jan 4-8).  We suspect the weather portion has increased from 17% of the coverage to about 95% with the recent 17-32″ of snowfall the region has seen this weekend.

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February 6, 2010

Why the Insurance Market Needs Health Care Reform

Yesterday the LA Times reported some individual insurance policies in the state are rising premium rate increases of over 39%.  With the health care reform bill stalled in Congress, this story illustrates one of the many reasons for reform.

Anthem Blue Cross is telling many of its approximately 800,000 customers who buy individual coverage — people not covered by group rates — that its prices will go up March 1 and may be adjusted “more frequently” than its typical yearly increases.

The individual insurance market is the main culprit of many of the egregious practices health care reform would correct.  Preventing pre-existing condition exclusions, lifetime and annual limits, and other abuses are the core hallmarks of the legislation.  The bills before Congress would greatly reduce the number of people enrolling in individual market plans.  Instead of signing up for these high cost, low benefit plans, individuals can join together in a broader pool within the health insurance exchange to lower costs.  There would also be a minimum standard of benefits that would be required to ensure all plans provide quality coverage.

As the numbers of uninsured continue to grow, obstructing needed health insurance reform will only make more individuals subject to these inane practices. The Republican party and Scott Brown’s (R-MA) election has allowed these practices to continue.

Thus far, the President has not yet put urgancy on Congressional leaders to find the procedural avenues to pass health care reform.  Telling the Democratic National Committee “Just in case there is any confusion out there, I’m not going to walk away from health insurance reform.” is different than actually finding the specific path to do it, or sitting down Congressional leaders until a solution is reached.

By Emma Sandoe

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February 5, 2010

Graph of the Day: Economic Recovery

From the Office of the Speaker, this graph reflect the new Department of Labor January jobs report and shows how the economy is recovering using the monthly numbers of jobs lost.

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February 3, 2010

An Open Letter To Health Care Reform Supporters and Advocates

I get it.  You’re deflated, feel as though health reform is out of your control, like everything you’ve done could mean little, and you don’t need a young idealist telling you what to think.  Well as that young idealist– now is not the time to give up.

One of the highlights of the presidential campaign was the youth involvement and excitement over the political process.  If health care reform is not given a full, need I say comprehensive, final push, Democrats are at risk disillusioning this generation. Whatever the result may be, young people need political heroes now more than ever.

Today, President Obama told Senate Democrats to ignore what they hear on the blogs, cable television or other media.  However, this is the time when what is reported in the media, through advocacy organizations, and supporters in the public matters the most.  If leaders begin to feel a lack of support, they will drop like flies.  You, as supporters of health care reform, should be beating the drum louder than ever before.  And you should be paying attention to what is written too.  Believe it or not, there is good news out there.

The White House finally seems to be getting behind a strategy. It was reported today that the administration privately supports the House passing the Senate bill and nearly simultaneously the Senate passing improvements through the reconciliation process.  Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are meeting with the president to discuss strategy – and actually communicate – tomorrow.

Hundreds of reformers have been working on this effort for over a year, we are all tired.  Health reform has been the professional goal of so many policy gurus.  It is easy to say we are closer than ever before and that we’ve worked hard.  It is easy to say the story is old and that there is nothing left to write about. But it’s not right. We are far from the end of what can be written on health care reform.  Although no health care reform bill would be a professional loss and personal defeat, must we be reminded why we are here?

The millions of Americans without access to health insurance, the small businesses that are crushed by increasing costs, the horror stories, and the daily accounts of frustration– we are fighting to improve the country.  We are fighting to make the lives of others better.

Mistakes have been made along the way.  Politicians make mistakes. But they are not acting alone.  It is the job of advocates to ensure these mistakes don’t put reform on “life support.”

No one wants to live with regrets.  At these crucial stages, one action can make a significant difference.  It is time to dig in your heels, push that extra mile, and become that hero that is needed by all generations.

By Emma Sandoe

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January 31, 2010

California Senate Approves Single Payer

With a measure that will undoubtedly be overturned by a Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger veto, this week California State Senate approved a single payer health care system in the state.  This is the second move in recent weeks by the California State Legislature to overhaul the existing state system in absence of national reform. While the reforms are without question needed for the state, the timing could have been better.

California lawmakers have not acted prior to this point because they hoped national health care reform would address the health insurance problems facing California.  This was evidenced by remarks from leading Democrat Senator, Christine Kehoe (San Diego), “If it’s not to be done at the national level, let us take the lead.”

Progressive blogger Brian Leubitz at Calitics points out:

As we water down health care reform in DC, somebody has to carry the torch forward for real reform.  This is the point of SB 810, to show that there is another choice, another system that we could build.  If we completely drop single payer from our platform of ideas, we’ll simply see the Republicans calling some more centrist idea crazy and unamerican.

While it is true that demanding more progressive solutions may shift the legislative spectrum to the left, demanding more in the same breath as conceding political defeat is simply scoring political points.  It is highly doubtful this bill would be approved by Jerry Brown, the leading Democratic Candidate for Governor.  In politics timing is everything.  By passing this bill now, California lawmakers have accepted defeat at a national level and have given future California governors precedent to logically vetoing future single payer legislation.

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January 26, 2010

So Far, DC Bag Tax is Working

This month, the District instituted a 5 cent tax for each paper or plastic bag used. The Washington Post looked into the impact of the tax.

The tax revenue will be used to clean up litter around the Anacostia river, which experts say is polluted largely by plastic bags.  Like the cigarette tax which funds children’s health insurance programs, decreased usage and paying the tax are both beneficial to the larger goal.  If fewer individuals use bags, the river will not become as polluted, and if people buy the 5 cent bags, the river will be cleaned.

According to the Post, the tax is already having a major impact.  ”Managers at stores that sell food or beverages say the switchover has cut the use of plastic bags by half or more.”

However, psychological experts agree that the District should not be celebrating too soon. “Outrage over tax increases usually fades over time because the increase is buried within an item’s cost,”  said Dan Ariely a Duke University professor, noting this might be different since one is reminded at each purchase.  As Dr. Lisa Catapano with George Washington University told WAMU 88.5 FM at the beginning of the year, this fee is too small to change behavior. “Positive incentives tend to work better. They create more lasting changes in behavior.”

City officials will get the first tally of the bag tax at the end of the month, but more accurate figures and proof the tax is achieving its goals won’t be seen for months.

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January 26, 2010

Map of the Day: Congressional Districts

Neil Freeman at fakeisthenewreal.org has this interesting map of what the United States would look like if states were divided equally by population.  He has all populations equal populations of 5,617,000.   He lists his advantages below:

Ends overrepresentation of small states and underrepresention of large states in presidental voting and in the US Senate.
Preserves the historical structure of the electoral college and the United States unique federal system, balancing power between levels of government.
States could be redistricted after each census – just like house seats are distributed now.

Sounds logical enough. Unfortunately, as we have seen this last week, the U.S. is slightly resistant to change.

In case you were as worried as I was about Alaska and Hawaii, Freeman accounted for them as part of Olympia and Coronado respectively.

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January 25, 2010

Monsanto: Genetically Modified Food and the Need for Reforming Food Safety Laws

A recent study has found that genetically modified food is linked to organ damage in rats.  The study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences found that genetically modified corn produced by Monsanto “induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity.”

Monsanto is a seed producing and chemical company with a rich history of controversy.  There have been allegations of intimidating farmers, using hostile tactics to monopolize the market, false advertising, producing large-scale international pollution.  In addition, they manufactured Agent Orange for the U.S. military during the Vietnam war.

This month, Monsanto also was dealt a legal blow as the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take up a patent case on their alfalfa seed.  In short, the company manufactured an alfalfa resistant to the Monsanto produced Roundup herbicide.  Bees will pollinate the genetically modified alfalfa and then cross pollinate it with organic crops adding the genetic modification to the organic alfalfa.  Organic farmers will then lose their USDA organic certifications.  Since Monsanto also has a patent on the genetic modification, the company can sue any farmer for stealing their property, and they do.

Although the study last week only indicated that genetically modified corn was linked to organ damage, this is the first study to link genetically modified food to toxic reactions.  Further studies may indicate other genetic modified food may have an impact on human health.  Considering alfalfa is a main source of cattle feed and the genetic modification has a potential to spread quickly and dominate the alfalfa market, if the genetically modified alfalfa is hazardous to human health, the Supreme Court decision may be crucial to public health.

Reforming the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the regulatory roles they have over our food is crucial to both public health and the farming industry.  Allowing monopolistic corporations to put small farmers out of business over plant genetics and potentially causing us all harm with these modifications should not be tolerated.

By Emma Sandoe

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