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March 11, 2010; 1 note
posted today
Changes in
Medicare Tax on High-Income People Represent Sound Additions to Health Reform
3/11: The following is from an analysis of the
above title from a March 4th paper released by the Center on Budget &
Policy Priorities: The President's
health reform plan would raise the Medicare tax rate for single filers with
incomes over $200,000 and married filers with incomes over $250,000 -- a
provision that was included in the Senate-passed health bill -- and also would
extend this tax to the unearned income these affluent households receive such as
income from capital gains, dividends, and royalties. These proposals, which
would help finance the expansion of health coverage to more than 30 million
Americans, would affect only U.S. households at the very top of the income
scale while improving tax equity and economic efficiency. These
provisions would affect only the 2.6 percent of U.S. households with the
highest incomes, according to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax
Policy Center. The Medicare taxes that the other 97.4 percent of Americans pay
would remain unchanged. Among elderly households, only the top 2.2 percent
would be touched, with the other 97.8 percent remaining unaffected. These proposals would mainly affect people with
incomes exceeding $1 million a year. The Tax Policy Center reports that 74
percent of the increase in Medicare tax contributions would come from people
making over $1 million a year, and 91 percent would come from people with
incomes over $500,000. Among elderly households, 78 percent of the new tax
contributions would come from those with incomes exceeding $1 million, while 93
percent would come from seniors with incomes over $500,000. The proposals
also would improve both tax equity and economic efficiency. Under current law,
people with very high incomes generally pay a smaller share of their income in
Medicare taxes than middle-class and low-income working families do because
they derive much of their income from capital gains and dividends, which are
now exempt from the Medicare tax. The proposal would address this disparity.
Click above for the full analysis.
Senate Panel
to Investigate Deaths at Long-Term Care Facilities
3/10: The following is from a March 8th New
York Times report: The Senate
Finance Committee has opened an investigation into patient deaths and
allegations of substandard treatment at long-term care hospitals, small
specialty medical centers that treat chronically ill patients. The
investigation focuses on the Select Medical Corporation, a for-profit
corporation that runs 89 long-term care hospitals, more than any other company. In a letter sent on Monday to SelectÕs chief
executive, Robert Ortenzio, the committee's top two senators demanded that
Select provide records about staffing levels and quality at its hospitals.
The committee has substantial power over long-term care hospitals because
it oversees Medicare. The federal program spends almost $5 billion annually on
the hospitals, providing about 60 percent of their total revenue. An
article in The New York Times last month detailed poor treatment and patient
deaths at long-term care hospitals, which treat 200,000 seriously ill patients
a year nationwide, but rarely have full-time physicians on staff. In one incident at a Select hospital in Kansas, a
dying patient's heart alarm sounded for 77 minutes before nurses responded.
Select has said that it conducted an appropriate clinical review in the case
and terminated a clinician involved in the patientÕs care. The article
prompted the investigation, according to the letter, which was sent by Senator
Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, the committeeÕs chairman, and Senator Charles
E. Grassley of Iowa, the panelÕs senior Republican. The letter is not a subpoena, but companies usually
respond voluntarily to such requests for information. Select Medical said
that it would cooperate fully with the inquiry. Through a spokeswoman, Carolyn
Curnane, the company referred to the Times article as misleading and inaccurate
and said it looked forward to providing the committee with accurate facts about
the quality of care in its long-term care hospitals. Mr. Baucus and Mr.
Grassley asked Select to disclose its policies for patient monitoring,
emergency situations and staffing, including physician involvement at its
hospitals and staff turnover. Former employees of Select have said that the
companyÕs hospitals are understaffed and rely heavily on temporary nurses.
The letter also requests that Select disclose information about its
discharge policies. Former employees have also said that the company presses to
keep patients for 25 days and then discharge them almost immediately, because
patients are most profitable if they stay exactly 25 days under government
reimbursement rules. At some Select hospitals, the 25th day is called the
"magic day," ex-employees say. Click above for full article.
Obama
to target Medicare and Medicaid fraud
3/10: According to a report in the March 10th Washington
Post: Today President Obama
will embrace tougher new efforts to fight fraud in Medicare and Medicaid as
part of his drive to pass comprehensive changes to the nation's health care
system, the White House announced last night. Officials said the
president will sign a presidential memorandum today that directs all federal
departments and agencies to expand their use of audits that recapture improper
or erroneous payments. They said that
could save the government as much as $2 billion over the next three years.
In a health-care speech in St. Louis, Obama will also offer his explicit
support for bipartisan legislation aimed at expanding the use of so-called
"recapture audits" in government agencies, officials said.
Together, the announcements are intended to show the president's
seriousness on two fronts: the willingness to incorporate Republican ideas into
his overall plans for health reform, and his desire to confront fraud and waste
in government. Click above to access the full news report.
In a Polarized Court,
Getting the Last Word
3/8: The following is from a March 8th New
York Times column: A few times
a year, Supreme Court justices go out of their way to emphasize their
unhappiness by reading a dissent from the bench out loud, supplementing the dry
reason on the page with vivid tones of sarcasm, regret, anger and disdain. The
practice is on the rise, and it is suggestive of an increasingly polarized
court. "Dissenting from the bench," a new study to be published
in Justice System Journal
contends, is a sort of nuclear option that "may indicate that bargaining
and accommodation have broken down irreparably." Yes, a new study.
Academic scrutiny of almost every aspect of the Supreme Court is oppressively comprehensive,
and now three sets of researchers have identified the empirical analysis of
oral dissents as a new frontier. Over the 36 years Warren E. Burger
and William H. Rehnquist served as chief justices, there were on average three
dissents read from the bench each term. In the first four years of the court
under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the number rose by a quarter, to 3.75. So far this term, there has been only one oral
dissent, but it was a doozy. For the full column, click above.
Senate
rejects bonus Social Security payments
3/4: The following is from a March 4th Washington
Post report: The Senate has rejected
President Barack Obama's proposal to give a $250 bonus payment to people on
Social Security. The proposal failed by a 50-47 vote in which Republicans
and Democratic budget hawks opposed the idea for adding $14 billion to the
budget deficit. Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said the $250 payment
was needed to make up for the lack of a cost-of-living adjustment this year for
beneficiaries. Disabled people and veterans also would have been eligible for
the payments. Seniors received an identical $250 bonus last year as part of
the economic stimulus bill. But economists say the payments don't do much
to boost the economy since many seniors simply save the money rather than spend
it. Click above to access the news story.
U.S. Plans New
Measure for Poverty
3/3: According to a NY Times report: The federal government announced on
Tuesday [March 2nd] that it would begin producing an experimental measurement of
poverty next year, a step toward the first overhaul of the formula since it was
developed nearly a half-century ago by an obscure civil servant in the Social
Security Administration. While the original definition -- the cash income
collected by a family or individual -- will remain the official statistical
measure for eligibility and distribution of federal assistance for the time
being, "the new supplemental poverty measure will provide an
alternative lens to understand poverty and measure the effects of antipoverty
policies," said Rebecca Blank,
the under secretary of commerce for economic affairs. Advocates for the
poor and technical experts have argued for years that the original standard,
developed in conjunction with the Johnson administration's War on Poverty, was
anachronistic. The civil servant who created it, Mollie Orshansky, based it on
the Agriculture Department's cheapest meal plan, on the assumption that the
average family spent a third of its income on food at the time. Her formula has
largely remained the same except for inflation adjustments. ... The new
supplemental measure will be released for the first time in the fall of next
year. It adapts National Academy of
Sciences recommendations issued in 1995 and later embraced by, among others,
the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York to formulate
antipoverty policies. Federal officials describe the supplemental measure
as experimental and a work in progress. It establishes a poverty threshold that
depends on the cost of food, shelter, clothing and utilities "plus a
little more" for "a population that is not poor but is somewhat below
the median." Click above to access the article.
LSC Publishes Interim
Final Rule on Attorneys' Fees Regulation
3/2: The Legal Services Corporation published an
interim final rule and request for comments in the Federal Register on February
11 to repeal the Corporation's regulation that prohibits LSC grantees from
claiming, collecting and retaining attorneys fees. The rule, which
becomes effective on March 15, permits LSC grantees to make claims for
attorneys' fees in any case in which the award of fees is permitted by law. LSC
grant recipients also will be permitted to collect and retain attorneys' fees
whenever such fees are awarded to them. The rule notes that LSC has
adopted a policy under which it will exercise its enforcement discretion and
not take enforcement action against any recipient that filed a claim for or
collected and retained attorneys' fees between the period of December 16, 2009,
and March 15, 2010. LSC's action is in keeping with the intent of Congress,
which repealed the statutory prohibition on attorneys' fees in the bill
containing LSC's fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill. President Obama
signed the bill into law on December 16, 2009. To access the interim
final rule, click above. LSC has issued a program letter to LSC grantees
containing additional guidance on the matter; it can be accessed here.
We Keep
Hearing About "Reconciliation" in Congress, But What Is It?
2/26: In the Feb. 25th New York Times, there is a very good article which describes the
so-called "reconciliation" process that Congress can use to pass
legislation in such manner that the legislation can avoid being held captive by
a filibuster in the U.S. Senate in which 60 votes are required to gain passage,
not just a 51 vote majority. The article gives some history of the
"reconciliation" process, and it also describes how it is done.
As you'll see, it isn't a simple process, and it gives credence to the
old saying that "if you like sausage and the law, don't watch either
being made". To access the
article, click above.
Stimulus Funds
Support Smoke-Free Multi-Unit Housing Project in Michigan
2/19:
We're thrilled to announce that the Michigan Department of Community
Health's (MDCH) Tobacco Section has just been awarded a $1.5 million grant for
a 2 year project to greatly expand the smoke-free multi-unit dwellings (SF
MUDS) efforts we have been involved in since 2003. The funding is from the funds the Centers for Disease
Control & Prevention received under the American Recovery &
Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) aka "stimulus funding". 15 grants were awarded nationwide (to
13 states), and it appears that only 2 dealt with tobacco or secondhand smoke
issues, and Michigan's appears to be the only one that dealt with SF MUDS. The
other awards dealt with reducing obesity, increasing physical activity,
improving nutrition, and decreasing smoking. This project has as its goal to increase smoke-free public
and other affordable housing in Michigan by making 80% to 90% of all public and
other affordable housing smoke-free by the end of 2011, including tribal public
and other affordable housing. This
ambitious project is a partnership of the MDCH Tobacco Section, TCSG's
Smoke-Free Environments Law Project, two tribal organizations (the South
Eastern Michigan Indians, Inc., and the Sault Tribe), and about 10 local health
departments. The project will
involve working closely with local public housing commissions, tribal housing
authorities, other private affordable housing owners/operators, sovereign
tribal entities, and others. The
project starts almost immediately and will go on until February, 2012. You can
access the HHS press release on this by clicking above.
2/19:
TCSG's Smoke-Free Environments Law Project maintains an up-dated listing
of all the public housing authorities/commissions in the U.S. that we know of
which have adopted smoke-free policies for one or more of their apartment
buildings. The listing is done
largely in the order in which the policies have been adopted. As of January, 2010, at least 145 local
housing authorities had adopted smoke-free policies for some or all of their
apartment buildings, with about 130 being adopted since the beginning of
January, 2005; an average of over 2 per month. That constitutes an increase in
the number of housing authorities with smoke-free policies of over 866% in 60
months. The 22 states with such
policies include Michigan (33), Minnesota (29), Maine (19), Colorado (13),
California (7), Nebraska (6), Washington (6), Oregon (5), New Hampshire (4),
Alaska (4), Idaho (3), Utah (3), New Jersey (2), Wisconsin (2), Arkansas (2),
Florida, Montana, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Texas and Massachusetts. To access the listing, in pdf format,
click above.
County Health Rankings Include
Smoking and Obesity Rates, Social & Economic Factors
2/18: On Feb. 17th, the County Health Rankings
-- the first set of reports to rank the overall health of every county in all
50 states -- were released by the University of Wisconsin's Population Health
Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at a briefing in Washington,
D.C. The health rankings include the smoking rates, obesity rates, economic
data, and more in each county. To access the rankings web site, click
above.
AoA
Statement on the release of FY 2011 budget request
2/17: The Administration on Aging budget request
for FY 2011 was sent to Capital Hill on February 1st with the overall HHS
budget request. AoA has released a brief statement describing the AoA
budget request, which calls for an increase of $108.4 million above the FY 2010
enacted level. To access the statement, click above.
2/10: The following is from a news note from the
Brennan Center for Justice: On February 1, 2010 President Obama released
his federal budget for Fiscal Year 2011, which includes a proposed total
funding level of $435 million for the Legal Services Corporation, $15 million more
than LSC's current funding level, but the same amount the Administration
included in its FY 2010 budget for LSC. This flat funding recommendation
follows the Administration's announcement that it plans to freeze non-security
related, discretionary spending for the next three fiscal years. LSC
submitted its own budget request to Congress on January 29th, requesting $516.5
million in total funding, 95% of which, or $484.9 million, would be granted to
local programs for the provision of civil legal assistance. In its
request for increased funding, LSC cites the severe drop in IOLTA and other
non-federal funding for legal services and the growing number of requests for
representation by low-income Americans. The President's FY 2011 budget also
calls on Congress to repeal two of the onerous legal services funding
restrictions that have been attached to the Corporation's funding in every
appropriations cycle since 1996:
the restriction that extends federal control to LSC grantees' state,
local, private, and other funds, and the restriction prohibiting LSC grantees
from participating in class action lawsuits. The
Administration urged Congress to repeal these two restrictions in last year's
budget as well, but Congress failed to go that far. Instead, Congress
lifted a third restriction whose repeal the President also urged: the
restriction that had barred LSC grantees from seeking court awarded attorneys'
fees from those who have violated the law. Under no legal obligation to
enact the President's budget as recommended, the House and Senate will now
draft their own appropriations bills for FY 2011. For more info, go to
the LSC web site by clicking above.
LSC Sends FY 2011
Budget Request to Congress
2/3: The following is from a Jan. 29th announcement
from the Legal Services Corporation: The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) today
asked Congress to provide $516.5 million in Fiscal Year 2011 funding, with more
than 95 percent of the budget request going to fund 136 nonprofit legal aid
programs across the nation that provide civil legal assistance to the nation's
poor. The 2008 recession and the rise in unemployment during 2009 created
new stresses for legal aid programs, which are able to serve only half of those
seeking help with pressing civil legal problems. The Corporation's 2009 Justice
Gap Report showed that in one category – foreclosures -- LSC programs are
turning away two people for every client served. Many legal aid programs
are confronting a downturn in non-federal funding at a time when they report
increasing requests for help by low-income Americans. In particular, Interest
on Lawyers' Trust Accounts (IOLTA) -- a major source of funding for legal aid
programs -- has declined significantly because of the drop in short-term
interest rates. In addition to providing $484.9 million for the provision
of civil legal assistance, the Corporation's Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Request
proposes $6.8 million for technology grants that improve access to legal
assistance and self-help guides for the poor, $1 million for student loan
repayment assistance to legal aid lawyers, $19.5 million for management and
grants oversight and $4.35 million for the LSC Office of Inspector General.
The 2009 Justice Gap Report found that for every client served by LSC
programs, another person who seeks help is turned away due to a lack of program
resources. The conclusion reaffirmed the findings of the original report on the
justice gap published by LSC in 2005. LSC is the single-largest funder of
civil legal assistance for the poor in the nation. Established by Congress in
1974, LSC operates as a private, nonprofit organization to promote equal access
to justice and to ensure the provision of high-quality legal assistance to
low-income Americans. Download the full budget request by clicking above.
Download a summary of the document in pdf format by clicking here.
2/1: The following is from a January 31st Boston
Herald article: Mayor Thomas M.
Menino is opening a new front in his war against tobacco: the city's
cigarette-riden housing projects, which he vows to make smoke-free in the next
four years. "What we are
trying to do is make a healthier environment for people who work and live in
our city," Menino told the Herald. By this summer, smoking could
be banned in more than 100 new units in Boston Housing Authority public housing, which currently sees rates of smoking 50 percent
higher than the general population. According to a 2006 city survey, 15.5
percent of nonpublic housing residents smoke, compared to 23 percent of BHA
renters. ... The newly built smoke-free units include: 14 at Franklin Hill
in Dorchester that opened in October; up to 100 at Roslindale's
Washington-Beech that will open in August; and 100 at Old Colony by 2012. While those units represent less than 2
percent of the BHA's 12,000 units, it's a start, said Menino. "I
would think in the next three to four years every public housing unit will be a
smoke-free unit," he said.
The ban comes amid a perfect storm of factors, according to BHA
officials: Demand by parents. Children in public housing are more likely to
have asthma and to live with or around cigarette smoke, which triggers asthma
attacks. "People are trying to escape second-hand smoke and so we're
trying to create this option for folks," said BHA director of planning
Kate Bennett. Pressure from the feds. In July, the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development "strongly encouraged" public housing
authorities go smoke-free. Click above for the full article and two
related articles.
MEDICAID
PAYMENT FOR ASSISTED LIVING: CURRENT STATE PRACTICES, AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
IMPROVEMENT
1/29: The following is from the National Senior Citizens Law Center: State Medicaid programs increasingly are able to pay for assisted living services, but most consumers and advocates know little about how these programs work. In this case, what you don't know can hurt you, as policies differ widely from state to state, and many state Medicaid programs follow rules that disadvantage assisted living residents and their families. NSCLC has prepared an issue brief that examines many of the most important issues in Medicaid payment for assisted living, and makes recommendations for policy changes at the federal and state levels. Among other things, the issue brief recommends that Medicaid-certified facilities be required to accept Medicaid from Medicaid-eligible residents, and not be allowed to demand or solicit "supplemental payments" from residents' family members or friends. The federal government at a minimum should require that Medicaid-certified facilities not discriminate against Medicaid-eligible residents. To access the NSCLC issue brief in pdf format, please click above.
Foreclosure
Resources Available on Legal Services Corporation site
1/29: For those working with elders facing
foreclosure, there are a wealth of resources on the Legal Services Corporation
web site to assist you in working with clients. To access the site, click
above.
States Can Opt Out
of the Costly and Ineffective "Domestic Production Deduction"
Corporate Tax Break
1/20: The following is from a Center on Budget & Policy Priorities analysis: Over the past year, state revenue collections have dropped dramatically, creating large budget gaps for many states. A contributor to this fiscal crisis in many states is a relatively new and rapidly growing corporate tax break -- one that in most states never even received a vote in the state legislature but nonetheless is costing states hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The federal government created this tax break, known as the "domestic production deduction," in 2004. Since most states base their own tax codes on the federal tax code, the tax break was carried over into many states without specific legislative scrutiny or a vote. Now it is costing not only the federal government but also 25 states a large, and growing, amount of money. By 2011, it will cost these states over $500 million per year. The deduction -- enacted as Section 199 of the federal Internal Revenue Code -- allows companies to claim a tax deduction based on profits from "qualified production activities," a sweeping category that goes well beyond manufacturing to include such diverse activities as food production, filmmaking, and utilities -- a substantial share of states' corporate income tax base. The revenue loss to states that still allow the deduction will increase steeply this year because of how the federal credit is designed. Initially, the cost was relatively modest because the deduction was limited to 3 percent of qualifying income. As of January 1, 2007, the percentage rate rose to 6 percent. The final increase to 9 percent takes effect in the 2010 tax year. Federal estimates suggest that allowing this deduction will reduce the revenue yield of corporate taxes by roughly 3.1 percent in 2011 and also reduce individual income taxes somewhat. States are not required to allow this deduction. Since 2008, Connecticut, New York, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia have joined 18 other states in disallowing the deduction and thereby reducing their current budget shortfalls and benefitting their states' economies. But another 25 states continue to permit it. Click above for full analysis.
1/12: The Utah Tobacco Prevention and Control
Program is holding its annual statewide conference in Salt Lake City on January
12th. The keynote will be given by Greg Connelly of Massachusetts who
will discuss Federal, State & Local Tobacco Control in the 21st Century. Jim Bergman of TCSG will do two presentations
on Smoke-Free Multi-Unit Housing: Blazing Trails – Rapidly. One session will be for housing authority
directors and staff, and the second will be for health and tobacco control
professionals. To access the 57-slide PowerPoint that Bergman will use,
click above. To access a pdf copy of the ppt presentation, click here.
1/11: The following is from a Jan. 8th
Administration on Aging press release: Recognizing the challenges many
older Americans are facing in today's economic climate, HHS Assistant Secretary
for Aging Kathy Greenlee has launched a new Web site for the National Legal
Resource Center (NLRC). The NLRC was created in 2008 by the Administration
on Aging (AoA) to empower legal and aging services advocates with the resources
necessary to provide high quality legal help to seniors who are facing direct
threats to their ability to live independently in their homes and communities.
"It is important that legal and aging service providers have easy
access to the wide range of support resources the NLRC has to offer," said
Assistant Secretary Kathy Greenlee. "The new NLRC Web site creates a much
needed resource portal to critical support tools designed to help providers
serve older consumers facing difficult legal issues impacting their
independence and financial security." The NLRC is a collaborative
project involving five national non-profit organizations known for their work
in legal and aging services support who have teamed up to better help people in
need. The new NLRC Web site provides professionals and advocates in aging and
law with streamlined access to important resource support including case
consultation and training on the most difficult legal issues facing older
persons. State offices on aging
and local community-based aging organizations can also gain Web site access to
technical assistance for efficient, cost-effective and targeted provision of
legal services to older persons in the most social or economic need. AoA
funds over 1,000 legal services providers nationwide, which provide nearly one
million hours of legal assistance per year. Legal challenges faced by seniors
may include the loss of their homes through foreclosure, consumer scams that
destroy nest eggs and steal identities, and difficulties in accessing public
benefits essential to remaining financially secure, independent, and healthy.
The five national non-profit organizations of the NLRC are: National
Senior Citizens Law Center; National Consumer Law Center; The Center for Social
Gerontology; The Center for Elder Rights Advocacy; and the American Bar
Association-Commission on Law and Aging. The new Web site can be accessed
by clicking above.
1/11: The following is from a Dec. 22nd National
Lawyers Guild press release: The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls on
President Obama to withdraw the nomination of Sharon Browne to the board of
directors of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). On December 17, Obama
announced his intention to nominate Ms. Brown, a principal attorney and member
of the senior management at the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation and a
member of the Civil Rights Practice Group of the Federalist Society. The
Legal Services Corporation is the nation's principal funder of civil legal aid
for the poor. Established by Congress in 1974, it operates by providing grants
to -- and overseeing -- independent nonprofit legal aid programs throughout the
US. The LSC operates as a private, nonprofit corporation, with a board of
directors composed of 11 members appointed by the president and confirmed by
the Senate. By law, the board is bipartisan: no more than six members may be
of the same political party.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, in contrast, describes itself as a
"public interest legal organization that fights for limited government,
property rights, individual rights and a balanced approach to environmental
protection." At the PLF, Browne has authored briefs arguing against
race-based school district assignment policies. She and the PLF have also been
ardent supporters of Prop. 209, the 1996 ballot initiative that ended most
affirmative action programs in California. Not only does the PLF
oppose much of what Legal Services stands for, but it has also directly opposed
funding for Legal Services agencies.
The PLF filed an amicus brief seven years ago in support of litigation
challenging the legality of IOLTAs, or Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts,
which are an essential supplementary funding resource for Legal Services
agencies around the country. While this slot on the LSC Board cannot legally
go to a Democrat and while the minority members are traditionally selected by
the minority party's congressional leadership, there is no legal bar and ample
precedent for naming an independent rather than a member of the opposition
party. At the very least, the
president is obligated to nominate someone who believes in the importance of
ensuring that the poor be afforded the legal services they need. We note, for example, that the recently-deceased
former head of the Legal Services Corporation, William McAlpin, was a
Republican who fought vigorously to strengthen it. [Note: Ms.
Browne had been recommended by U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.]
Click above to access the full press release.
1/7: The following is from a Jan. 6th CNN
report: November 5, 2009. That's the day the AARP endorsed the House
health care bill. With nearly 40 million members, it's not surprising that the
president quickly came before cameras in the White House to thank the AARP for
its endorsement. That AARP endorsement wasn't universally applauded by
all of the organization's millions of members. The organization admits it has
lost 150,000 members since the endorsement but says that's been offset by more
than 2-million new or renewed memberships. Some, like Robert Tice, feel the AARP is out of touch with its
members by focusing so much on selling insurance. He says he will let his AARP
membership lapse without renewal because he doesn't like what they're up to.
"The letters don't mean American Association of Retired
Persons," he told CNN's Carol Costello. "It just means AARP. It's
just a name. ... The AARP is about insurance. People need to know that. AARP is
not out there to help you." In fact, the AARP brands several
types of insurance, including health policies with United Healthcare. By
endorsing so many insurance policies the organization brought in around $650
million dollars last year in premiums. That's almost three times what it took
in from membership dues.
Republicans say the AARP's endorsement of the House health bill is more
about supporting its insurance business than anything else. They point to the
organization's acquiescence to billions of dollars in cuts to the Medicare
Advantage Plans, which AARP and other insurers offer as private alternatives to
Medicare that often includes extra medical coverage like dental and vision
care. According to the Congressional Budget Office, some suggested cuts
in the program might make it so unattractive that millions of Americans could
be forced out because the plan's benefits would shrink. It is also possible
that some insurance companies would stop offering Medicare Advantage policies
altogether because it would be far less profitable. So, why would the
AARP support cuts to Medicare Advantage? Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) thinks he
knows what the AARP is up to. Gingrey says the organization hopes that millions
of seniors will move from Medicare Advantage to AARP's branded Medigap plan,
which has far higher profit margins. ... Carol Costello asked the AARP if any
of this is true. The AARP's director of legislative policy, David Certner, says
"it's not an issue we have lobbied on at all." Certner says
his organization supported cuts to Medicare Advantage to "trim the
fat" so Medicare itself survives. "We understand there are financial
issues with Medicare, and we need to save money for the Medicare program." Click above for the full report, plus a video.
1/6: The following is from a Dec. 18th Center on
Budget & Policy Priorities analysis: States face a serious fiscal problem
that could force them to institute additional deep budget cuts and tax
increases in 2010, weakening the fragile economic recovery and harming
vulnerable children, seniors, and people with disabilities, among others. The
federal assistance that states received for their Medicaid programs under this
year's economic recovery legislation is scheduled to end with a
"cliff" on December 31, 2010, and the assistance states received for
education and other services also will be largely exhausted by then. Although
that date is more than a year away, the problem is coming to a head now.
That's because states -- which continue to face huge budget shortfalls
that they must close -- are taking steps now to plan their budgets for state
fiscal year 2011, which starts on July 1, 2010 in most states. Governors will
send their budget proposals to their legislatures between next month and
February 2010 in almost all states. The legislatures will have to pass budgets
as early as March or April in some states and by the end of June in almost all
states. If states do not know they will receive additional federal fiscal
relief, they will begin implementing new budget cuts and tax increases by this
summer, at the latest. Presuming they
will get no more fiscal relief, states will have to take steps to eliminate
deficits for state fiscal year 2011 that will likely take nearly a full
percentage point off the Gross Domestic Product. That, in turn, could cost the
economy 900,000 jobs next year. Mark Zandi, Chief Economist of Moody's
Economy.com, recently warned that these state budgetary actions "will be a
serious drag on the economy at just the wrong time." Click above for the
full analysis.
State
budget pictures bleak as lawmakers head back; Aging programs likely to be hard
hit also
1/4/10: According to a January 4th Washington
Post report: If you thought
state budgets were in bad shape last year, just wait: 2010 promises to be
brutal for lawmakers - many facing re-election - as they scramble to find
enough money to keep their states running without raising taxes. Tax
collections continue to sputter. Federal stimulus dollars are about to dry up.
Rainy day funds have been tapped. And demand for services - like Medicaid, food
stamps and unemployment benefits - is soaring. As lawmakers head back to
state capitols this month, budget woes range "from bad to ridiculously
bad," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poors in New
York. "There are some states, those hit particularly hard by the
recession, that I don't think can cut spending enough. They're running out of
things to cut." Typically, the worst budget years for states are the
two years after a recession ends. Across the nation, budgets are already lean
after several rounds on the chopping block. And unless lawmakers increase taxes
or fees - unpopular moves in an election year - most will need to cut even more
as they grapple with the steepest decline of tax receipts on record. Services
ranging from higher education to programs for the elderly could be in jeopardy. The crunch could also mean new tolls to fund
road projects, more prisoners being released early to trim corrections budgets,
and the end of welfare programs that don't bring federal matching dollars.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities offers a bleak forecast: State
budget shortfalls are likely to reach a whopping $180 billion for the coming
fiscal year, double the size of Texas' annual budget. "It's going to
be the toughest year yet," said Raymond Scheppach, director of the
National Governors Association, who predicts funding could evaporate for higher
education, the arts and economic development. "The states haven't hit
bottom." Mary Ann Neureiter, who runs an adult day care center in
suburban Atlanta, saw her state aid cut in half in 2009. The Cambridge House
Enrichment Center once offered state-subsidized care to 10 low-income clients
with disabilities such as Alzheimer's. It's now down to three, and Neureiter
fears the funding could dry up altogether this year. "It's
heartbreaking because I foresee, in the coming year, it's going to get even
worse for services for the elderly," she said. Eckl predicted that
after several years of across-the-board cuts and short-term fixes designed to
ride out the sour economy, states this year will look to make deeper, more,
sustained cuts that could fundamentally change what services government
provides. Whole programs could be eliminated. Layoffs will take the place of
furloughs. Click above for full
article.
Aging
adults in suburbs lose appetite for driving
12/30/09: The following is from a Dec. 29th Washington
Post article: For 60 years,
Mary Schaaf has had a driver's license, and now, at the age of 86, she finds
she's driving more than ever. That's because her friends are not. One by
one they have surrendered their car keys, their independence overtaken by
fading eye sight, slowing reflexes and physical infirmities that make
navigating the fast-paced roads of Montgomery County on their own too risky.
They turn to Schaaf, who drives on undaunted by the years or the
"erratic" younger drivers who share her roads. ... The generation
that gave birth to suburbia and the two-car garage is reaching the age where
for many driving no longer seems like such a swell option. As Americans grow
older -- one in five will be over the age of 65 by 2030 -- many are finding
that the world that lured them away from city life is losing some of its
appeal. "The concern is
that when they no longer can drive they will find themselves trapped in their
homes in suburban neighborhoods where there are no sidewalks or, if there are
sidewalks, there's no place to walk to," said Stewart Schwartz, executive
director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. ... Suburbia is where the
population is aging fastest. At the dawn of the 21st century, 69 percent of
people 65 and older lived in the suburbs. ... And the aging baby boomers want
to remain in the suburbs where they were raised. Eighty-five percent of
people over the age of 50 told the American Association of Retired Persons
(AARP) that they plan to live in their current communities for as long as they
can. But for many older people,
the AARP said, driving has lost its attraction. More than half of drivers
over the age of 75 say they avoid driving at night or in bad weather, and
almost 40 percent of them stay home when traffic is at its worst, according to
recent research. The AARP also
found that older adults prefer to travel by car, either as drivers or
passengers, rather than take public transportation. Click above to access
the full article.
Health-Care
Reform 2009: The not-so-sweet side of closing 'doughnut hole'
12/29: The following is from a Dec. 28th Washington
Post article: Six years after
Congress added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, Democrats in the House
and Senate are poised to make a central change that they and most older
Americans have wanted all along: getting rid of a quirk that forces millions of
elderly patients with especially high expenses for medicine to pay for much of
it on their own. The closing of an unusual gap in Medicare drug coverage -- a
gap that Republicans had, when they controlled Capitol Hill and the White
House, insisted was needed for the government to be able to afford the program
-- would "forever end this indefensible injustice for American's
seniors," Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in announcing
that the Senate would join the House in supporting the change. But
details of the change underscore that, for patients and the federal budget
alike, the implications of the sprawling health-care bills pushed through by
congressional Democrats are more nuanced than lawmakers' talking points. The
Democrats and President Obama have been clear that the "doughnut
hole," as the gap is known, would disappear gradually over the next 10
years. They have not mentioned that Medicare patients would, according to House
figures, face a slightly larger hole in coverage during two of the next three
years than they do today. Proponents
say the government can afford to eliminate the gap because the pharmaceutical
industry would pay for the phaseout. But less than half of the $80 billion that
drugmakers agreed to provide, under a health-care reform agreement over the
summer with Senate Democrats and the White House, would be used to help fill
the gap, according to Senate Democratic aides. Moreover, there are no budget
forecasts far enough into the future to show how much the expanded drug benefit
would cost the government once the gap is fully closed. Despite such
uncertainties, the prospect of filling the hole in drug coverage responds to a
strong desire among older Americans -- a significant constituency that tends to
be wary of changes to the health-care system. The 2003 law that added the drug benefit to Medicare was the largest
expansion since the creation of the federal health insurance system for the
elderly four decades ago. The new coverage became available in 2006. As of last
year, about 32 million people, nearly three-fourths of everyone on Medicare,
had it. Click above for full article.
Smoke-Free Multi-Unit
Housing in Michigan & the Nation: A Decade of Enormous Growth
12/29: The following is from an end-of-the-year
TCSG/SFELP press release: "As the first decade of the 21st century ends,
we find that the growth in Michigan and nationally in smoke-free multi-unit
housing has been enormous -- going from virtually no smoke-free housing in 2000
to many hundreds of thousands of units today," according to Jim Bergman,
Co-Director of The Center for Social Gerontology, Inc. in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
which operates the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project (SFELP). "In
2000, it was virtually impossible to find apartment or condominium buildings
that were smoke-free in all the living units, as well as the common areas. This was true in Michigan and in almost every
state in the nation. By 2005, a number of states, including Michigan,
Maine, Minnesota, and California had begun to develop a growing supply of
smoke-free apartments. By the end of the decade, virtually every state
has smoke-free multi-unit housing available, and many states have thousands, if
not hundreds of thousands, of smoke-free units," said Bergman. ... In public housing, funded by the
federal Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and other federal
and state entities, the growth in smoke-free housing has been equally as great,
if not greater. In 2000, there were only two public housing
authorities in the nation that had smoke-free policies for some or all their
buildings (Kearney, NE and Fort
Pierce, FL). By the end of 2003, just eleven housing authorities had
smoke-free policies. By January, 2005, that number had only risen to
fifteen. But, then the growth sky-rocketed. As of December,
2009, at least 136 public housing authorities in 19 states had adopted
smoke-free policies for some or all their buildings. The growth in the
entire decade was 6700%; since December, 2003, the growth was 1136%; and the
growth in the past 5 years has been over 800%. In Michigan, the Cadillac Housing Commission
was the first public housing authority to adopt a smoke-free policy, doing so
in July, 2005. Today, thirty-two local Michigan housing commissions have
adopted smoke-free policies, covering about 56 apartment buildings/developments
and over 60 townhouses/scattered site units, with about 4,158 apartment units.
That is a 3100% increase in the 48 months since January, 2006. To
access the full press release, click above.
Months to Live;
Hard Choice for a Comfortable Death: Sedation
12/29: The following is from a Dec. 27th New
York Times article: In almost every room people were sleeping, but not
like babies. This was not the carefree sleep that would restore them to rise
and shine for another day. It was the sleep before -- and sometimes until --
death. In some of the rooms in the hospice unit at Franklin Hospital, in
Valley Stream on Long Island, the patients were sleeping because their organs
were shutting down, the natural process of death by disease. But at least one
patient had been rendered unconscious by strong drugs. The patient, Leo
Oltzik, an 88-year-old man with dementia, congestive heart failure and kidney
problems, was brought from home by his wife and son, who were distressed to see
him agitated, jumping out of bed and ripping off his clothes. Now he was
sleeping soundly with his mouth wide open. ... Mr. Oltzik received what some
doctors call palliative sedation and others less euphemistically call terminal
sedation. While the national health
coverage debate has been roiled by questions of whether the government should
be paying for end-of-life counseling, physicians like Dr. Halbridge, in
consultations with patients or their families, are routinely making tough
decisions about the best way to die. Among those choices is terminal
sedation, a treatment that is already widely used, even as it vexes families
and a profession whose paramount rule is to do no harm. Doctors who perform it say it is based on carefully
thought-out ethical principles in which the goal is never to end someone's
life, but only to make the patient more comfortable. But the possibility
that the process might speed death has some experts contending that the
practice is, in the words of one much-debated paper, a form of "slow
euthanasia," and that doctors who say otherwise are fooling themselves and
their patients. There is little information about how many patients are
terminally sedated, and under what circumstances -- estimates have ranged from
2 percent of terminal patients to more than 50 percent. (Doctors are often
reluctant to discuss particular cases out of fear that their intentions will be
misunderstood.) While there are universally accepted protocols for
treating conditions like flu and diabetes, this is not as true for the
management of people's last weeks, days and hours. Indeed, a review of a
decade of medical literature on terminal sedation and interviews with
palliative care doctors suggest that there is less than unanimity on which
drugs are appropriate to use or even on the precise definition of terminal
sedation. To access the full
article, click above.
Senior-home
hell; Brooklyn facility hit for $19M in neglect suit
12/28: The following is from a Dec. 28th New
York Post article: A Brooklyn nursing
home will have to fork over nearly $19 million in damages to the family of a
76-year-old patient neglected so badly that he left with more than 20 bedsores.
The massive award, handed down by a Brooklyn jury earlier this month,
is the first in the state against a nursing home that includes punitive
damages, lawyers said. "It was
horrible," said Margaret Whitehurst, 55, who pulled her father, John
Danzy, from the Brooklyn Queens Nursing Home after just nine months. "He
walked in on two legs and a cane. He was 237 pounds. When we got him back, he
was 148 pounds and he had holes all over his body." She and her
siblings moved Danzy, a retired truck driver and butcher, to another nursing
home. Six months later, in November 2003, he succumbed to an infection caused
by the bedsores, according to testimony. A Brooklyn jury deliberated two
full days following the four-week trial before finding the Cypress Hills
facility delivered substandard care. The panel awarded $3.75 million
for Danzy's pain and suffering, but tacked on $15 million in punitive damages,
based in part on the allegation that the home had doctored records to try to
cover up the neglect. Lawyer Dennis
Kelly said the first-ever imposition of punitive damages against a nursing home
in New York state was due in part to evidence that the home tried to cover up
the lack of care Danzy was getting. An FBI expert testified that about
100 different skin-check notes showing "G" for "good" had
been penned over to show "B" for "broken" -- an effort by
the home to claim it hadn't missed the horrific sores, Kelly said.
"Someone went back and wrote B's over the G's to cover their tracks,
so they falsified the records, he said. "We believe that once they found
out they were being sued, they went back and said, 'How could we have G's here
when they guy has 20 sores?' " Click above for full article.
Woman,
62, dies in Quincy fire; Blaze sparked by cigarette; oxygen devices fuel flames
12/28: The following is from a Dec. 27th Boston
Globe report: A woman died yesterday
morning in a two-alarm fire sparked by a cigarette, according to fire
officials. Residents of the city-owned high-rise at 95 Martensen St.,
which houses elderly, low-income, and disabled residents, said they had warned
62-year-old Donna Marani not to smoke in her apartment - especially because she
regularly used home oxygen devices. "She was a smoker," said
Jenn Fell, 31, who lives in the building with her two young sons. "Several
people in the building have warned her about smoking while on oxygen. Smoking
can be very dangerous, and unfortunately everybody lost a really good friend
out of this tragedy." State, local, and Norfolk County officials determined
yesterday afternoon that a cigarette ignited the fire. "The
investigation revealed the cause to be consistent with a smoking-related
fire," State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan told the Globe yesterday.
"And there was home oxygen in the apartment." ... While firefighters
managed to contain the fire to Marani's apartment, significant water and smoke
damage could be seen throughout the building yesterday. Cleanup crews were on
hand all afternoon. Most residents were allowed to return home, but more than
a dozen from units near Marani's apartment were being sheltered at a Salvation
Army facility, fire officials said.
... Since 1997, 18 people have died and more than 30 others have been
severely burned or suffered serious smoke inhalation in fires across the state
involving people who smoked while using a home oxygen system, Coan said. Air is about 21 percent oxygen, but medical
tanks are filled with 100 percent oxygen, which can fuel intense flames.
"Fires related to smoking and use of home oxygen have been a great
concern of mine for a long time," Coan said. "We have a group made up
of fire service personnel, members of the medical community, oxygen
manufacturers, the Red Cross, and others focused on a public education campaign
to highlight the dangers." [It should be noted that a no-smoking
policy could have prevented this tragedy.] Click above to access the full
report.
Leadership
Change at Legal Services Corporation
12/22: The following is from a Dec. 18th news
note from the Brennan Center for Justice: The new Administration is bringing
with it new leadership for LSC. On December 17th, LSC president, Helaine
M. Barnett, announced that she will be stepping down as president at year's
end. She has served as LSC chief executive for six years. Barnett's
successor will be chosen by the new sitting LSC Board of Directors once it is
in place. Until then, an interim president will likely lead the Corporation.
The LSC Board of Directors is comprised of 11 individuals who
are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. By law, no
more than six board members can be of the same political party. President
Obama has nominated nine members to the board: Lauri I. Mikva was nominated in April and confirmed by the
Senate on June 19th. On August 9th, President Obama nominated five members to
the board: Robert J. Grey, John G. Levi, Martha L. Minow, Julie A.
Reiskin and Gloria Valencia-Weber. December 17th, President Obama
expressed his intent to nominate three more members to the Board: Sharon L.
Browne, Charles Norman Wiltse Keckler, and Victor B. Maddox. Mikva is the
only nominee to have been confirmed by the Senate thus far. Of the nine
nominees, six are Democrats, including Mikva, and 3 are Republicans. The
President has the authority to nominate two additional members. He is
free to choose among Republicans and Independents, since six Democrats have
already been nominated. For more news from the Brennan Center, click
above.
HHS Announces
$27 Million from Recovery Act to Help Older Americans Fight Chronic Disease
12/18: The following is from a Dec. 16th HHS
press release: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced the
availability of $27 million to help older individuals with chronic conditions
to improve their health and reduce their use of costly medical care. These
funds are made possible through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,
which has provided up to $650 million to HHS for the Communities Putting
Prevention to Work initiative launched earlier this fall to promote
evidence-based prevention strategies in communities and states across the
country. "This program is about getting money to communities to
help seniors manage chronic conditions that threaten their ability to remain in
their own homes. Through HHS' national aging-services network which reaches
into nearly every community in America, we are helping people living with
chronic conditions and others better manage their own health," Secretary
Sebelius said. Research has
shown that prevention programs can improve the quality of life for older
individuals, including frail seniors with multiple chronic conditions, and also
reduce health care costs. The Recovery Act funds will put the results of HHS'
research investments into practice at more than 1,200 community-based sites
across the country -- reaching tens of thousands of older Americans and their
families. "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been about
helping families in need during challenging economic times," said
Assistant Secretary for Aging Kathy Greenlee. "This innovative program
will give at-risk older people and their caregivers the tools they need to make
their own decisions so they can live longer, healthier and more independent
lives." This competitive initiative gives every state Aging and
Health Department and U.S. territory the opportunity to implement rigorously
tested Chronic Disease Self-Management Programs (CDSMP), one of the most
prominent being the Stanford University model. The CDSMP is a six-week peer-led training program
that covers topics such as healthy eating, exercise, managing fatigue and
depression, and communicating effectively with health care professionals.
While further research is underway, rigorous evaluations have suggested
that the program improves participants' overall health and energy levels and
results in savings to Medicare through fewer hospital stays. CDSMP are
specifically designed to be delivered by non-health professionals in community
settings, such as senior centers, congregate meal programs, faith-based
organizations and senior housing projects. To access the full press
release, click above.
12/17: The following is from a Dec. 16th
analysis by the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities: Some critics charge that the new policies pursued by
President Obama and the 111th Congress generated the huge federal budget
deficits that the nation now faces. In fact, the tax cuts enacted under
President George W. Bush, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the economic
downturn together explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years.
The deficit for fiscal 2009 was $1.4 trillion and, at an estimated 10
percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was the largest deficit relative to
the size of the economy since the end of World War II. Under current policies,
deficits will likely exceed $1 trillion in 2010 and 2011 and remain near that
figure thereafter. The events and policies that have pushed deficits to
astronomical levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new
Administration's control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the Presidency
of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan that began during that period, and the effects of the worst
economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps
necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near
term. For the full analysis, click above.
The
First Lady on Health Insurance Reform & Older Women
12/16: On November 13th, the White House hosted
a meeting on health insurance reform and older women. Among the speakers was
First Lady Michelle Obama. You can view this meeting in a 37 minute video
by clicking above.
For Elderly in Rural
Areas, Times Are Distinctly Harder
12/11: The following is from a Dec. 10th New
York Times article: Growing old has
never been easy. But in isolated, rural spots like this, it is harder still,
especially as the battering ram of recession and budget cuts to programs for
the elderly sweep through many local and state governments. Ms. Clark has
been able to get help since her fall two winters ago because Wyoming, thanks to
its energy boom, continues to finance programs for the elderly. But at least
24 states have cut back on such programs, according to a recent report by the Center
on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington research group, and hundreds of
millions of dollars in further cuts are on the table next year. The difficulties are especially pronounced in rural
America because, census data shows, the country's most rapidly aging places are
not the ones that people flock to in retirement, but rather the withering,
remote places many of them flee. Young people, for decades now, have been an
export commodity in towns like Lingle, shipped out for education and jobs, most
never to return. The elderly who remain -- increasingly isolated and stranded
-- face an existence that is distinctively harder by virtue, or curse, of
geography than life in cities and suburbs. Public transportation is almost
unheard of. Medical care is accessible in some places, absent in others, and
cellphone service can be unreliable. Even religion and the Internet are
different here. Churches have consolidated or closed -- a particular hardship
for older people, who tend to be avid churchgoers. And a lack of high-speed
broadband service in many rural areas compounds the sense of separation from
children and grandchildren, as well as the broader world. The distance
between friends is what gnaws most fiercely at George Burgess. Click above for
the full article.
Congressional
Negotiators Back 8% Funding Increase for LSC
12/10: According to a Dec. 9th note from the
Legal Services Corporation: House and Senate negotiators have approved a
consolidated appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2010 that includes $420
million for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) to promote equal access to
justice and to provide for civil legal assistance to low-income Americans. The
vast majority of the funding -- $394.4 million -- will be distributed in grants
to 137 independent nonprofit programs across the nation to help low-income
individuals and families who are trying to avert foreclosure or eviction,
trying to escape from domestic violence or who have a pressing civil legal
problem that places their security and safety at risk. Overall, the
appropriations bill increases LSC funding by $30 million from the current
level. It also lifts a restriction on the ability of LSC-funded programs to
pursue the recovery of attorneys' fees when it is permitted or required under
federal or state law. In addition to providing grants for the provision
of civil legal assistance, the appropriations bill provides $17 million for
management and grants oversight, $3.4 million for technology grants that improve
access to legal assistance and self-help guides for the poor, $1 million for
student loan repayment assistance to legal aid lawyers, and $4.2 million for
the LSC Office of Inspector General. The consolidated appropriations
bill, which combines six annual appropriations bills for the fiscal year that
began October 1, will go to the House and Senate for final approval and then to
the president for his signature. An interim funding measure expires December
18.
U.S. Will Settle
Indian Lawsuit for $3.4 Billion; Many elders will receive cash payments
12/9: The following is from a Dec. 9th New york
Times story: The federal government announced on Tuesday that it intends
to pay $3.4 billion to settle claims that it has mismanaged the revenue in
American Indian trust funds, potentially ending one of the largest and most
complicated class-action lawsuits ever brought against the United States.
The tentative agreement, reached late Monday, would resolve a 13-year-old
lawsuit over hundreds of thousands of land trust accounts that date to the 19th
century. Specialists in federal tribal law described the lawsuit as one of
the most important in the history of legal disputes involving the government's treatment
of American Indians. President Obama
hailed the agreement as an "important step towards a sincere
reconciliation" between the federal government and American Indians, many
of whom, he said, considered the protracted lawsuit a "stain" on the
nation. As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama said, "I pledged my
commitment to resolving this issue, and I am proud that my administration has
taken this step today." For the agreement to become final,
Congress must enact legislation and the federal courts must then sign off on
it. Administration officials said they hoped those two steps would be completed
in the next few months. The
dispute arises from a system dating to 1887, when Congress divided many tribal
lands into parcels -- most from 40 to 160 acres -- and assigned them to
individual Indians while selling off remaining lands. The Interior
Department now manages about 56 million acres of Indian trust land scattered
across the country, with the heaviest concentration in Western states. The government
handles leases on the land for mining, livestock grazing, timber harvesting and
drilling for oil and gas. It then distributes the revenue raised by those
leases to the American Indians. In the 2009 fiscal year, it collected about
$298 million for more than 384,000 individual Indian accounts. The
lawsuit accuses the federal government of mismanaging that money. As a result,
the value of the trusts has been unclear, and the Indians contend that they are
owed far more than what they have been paid. Under the settlement, the government would pay $1.4 billion to
compensate the Indians for their claims of historical accounting irregularities
and any accusation that federal officials mismanaged the administration of the
land itself over the years. Each member of the class would receive a
check for $1,000, and the rest of the money would be distributed according to
the land owned. In addition, legal
fees, to be determined by a judge, would be paid from that fund. Philip
Frickey, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who
specializes in federal Indian law, said that of all the Indian land claims and
other lawsuits over the past generation, the trust case had been a
"blockbuster" because it is national in scope, involves a large amount
of money, and has been long-running. Click above to accesss the full
Times article. To access a related Washington Post article, click here.
12/8: The following is from Dec. 4th Center
on Budget & Policy Priorities
analysis: Health reform legislation that has passed the House in one form and is
before the Senate in another is facing a series of attacks that, taken
together, suggest the legislation would do little to control health care costs
and would increase budget deficits. Many of these charges are exaggerated or
simply incorrect, based on the Center's careful analysis of the legislation. In
particular, a number of criticisms rest on a mistaken belief that, in recent
years, Congress has repeatedly enacted provisions to achieve savings in
Medicare and then generally blocked these provisions before they could take
effect. Thus, critics say, no one should take seriously the provisions of the
current bills that would produce Medicare savings. In fact, the Center's
analysis of major legislation affecting Medicare that Congress has enacted over
the last two decades shows that Congress has permitted the vast majority of
Medicare savings to take effect. To access the full analysis, click above.
Home Care
Patients Worry Over Possible Cuts
12/7: The following is from a Dec. 4th New
York Times article: As they are
across the nation, Medicare patients and nurses in this town in northern Maine
are anxiously following the Congressional debate because its outcome could
affect Medicare's popular home health benefit in a big way. The legislation
would reduce Medicare spending on home health services, a lifeline for
homebound Medicare beneficiaries, which keeps them out of hospitals and nursing
homes. Under the bills, more
than 30 million Americans would gain health coverage. The cost would be offset
by new taxes and fees and by cutbacks in Medicare payments to health care
providers. Home care shows, in microcosm, a conundrum at the heart of the
health care debate. Lawmakers have decided that most of the money to cover the
uninsured should come from the health care system itself. This raises the
question: Can health care providers reduce costs without slashing services?
Under the legislation, home care would absorb a disproportionate share
of the cuts. It currently accounts for 3.7 percent of the Medicare budget, but
would absorb 10.2 percent of the savings squeezed from Medicare by the House
bill and 9.4 percent of savings in the Senate bill, the Congressional Budget
Office says. The House bill would
slice $55 billion over 10 years from projected Medicare spending on home health
services, while the Senate bill would take $43 billion. Democratic
leaders in the Senate and the House justify the proposed cuts in almost
identical terms. "These payment reductions will not adversely affect
access to care," but will bring payments in line with costs, the House
Ways and Means Committee said. The Senate Finance Committee said the changes
would encourage home care workers to become more productive. Click above for
the full article.
11/12: On Nov. 12th the Washington Post did an interview with AARP's Director of Policy, John
Rother, concerning AARP's endorsement of health care reform legislation.
Seniors have been the least supportive of health care reform legislation
and AARP has taken some heat over their endorsement. In the interview,
Mr. Rother discusses why and how AARP feels such legislation will be a very
positive thing for seniors. To read a transcript of the interview, click above.
AARP
endorses House health-care bill
11/6: According to a Nov. 5th Washington Post report: The AARP, the nation's largest and most
influential association of older Americans, endorsed the House health-care bill
Thursday morning and vowed to lobby House members in advance of Saturday's
historic vote. AARP vice president Nancy A. LeaMond said the House
package, which would spend more than $1 trillion over the next decade to expand
insurance coverage to millions of Americans who lack it, meets the group's
chief goals for reform, including strengthening Medicare, the federal health
program for people over 65. "We can say with confidence that it
meets our priorities for protecting Medicare, providing more affordable health
insurance for 50- to 64-year-olds and reforming our health care system,"
LeaMond said in a briefing for reporters. LeaMond praised House leaders for including a plan to close the
coverage gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage known as the donut hole.
Key Democrats said the endorsement, one of several expected today, could prove
critical to pushing their vote count over the top. To access the full
story, click above.
10/30: The following is from the Center for
Medicare Advocacy web site: The Center for Medicare Advocacy is launching a new
advocacy and education initiative to eliminate the Medicare "Improvement
Standard," which requires that Medicare beneficiaries be able to improve
in order to qualify for coverage. The insistence that people must be able to
get better unfairly restricts access to Medicare coverage and necessary health
care. Although the Improvement Standard conflicts with the law, it has
become deeply ingrained in the system and ardently followed by those who
provide care and those who make coverage determinations throughout the health
care continuum. Beneficiaries are told Medicare coverage is not available if
their underlying condition will not improve, if they have
"plateaued," are not likely to improve, or if they need
"maintenance care only". As
a result it keeps people with debilitating, chronic conditions from receiving
the care they need. This practice persists although the Medicare Act does not
require improvement as a precondition to coverage for illness or injury.
Further, the federal regulations state that "restoration is not to be the
deciding factor" in making Medicare coverage determinations. Everyday
the Improvement Standard blocks access to Medicare and health care for real
people. The people most affected by
this barrier include people with Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, ALS
(Lou Gehrig's disease), spinal cord injuries, diabetes, Parkinson's disease,
hypertension, arthritis, heart disease, and stroke. Further, the erroneous
standard disproportionately affects people who have low-incomes, as well as
African-Americans and Hispanics. With support from The Atlantic
Philanthropies, the Center for Medicare Advocacy will begin a focused,
collaborative effort to eliminate the Improvement Standard in Medicare policy
and practice. This effort will include advocacy with the administration,
litigation if needed, and a multi-faceted education campaign. The Center
for Medicare Advocacy, founded in 1986, is staffed by attorneys, other
professional advocates, and a nurse. The Center's staff assists thousands of
individuals in obtaining Medicare coverage and necessary health care each year.
Armed with this experience, the Center works to obtain systemic change to
eliminate unfair barriers to coverage and care. For decades, the Improvement
Standard has been among the most significant obstacles facing the Center's
clients, as well as the millions of other people with Medicare who have no
legal representation. By removing this obstacle, we will open doors to needed medical
and rehabilitative care for people with long term conditions and injuries.
This is the goal of the proposed project. To learn more, click
above.
Critics:
DEA crackdown denies some patients pain medication
10/29: The following is from a Washington
Post article: Heightened
efforts by the Drug Enforcement Administration to crack down on narcotics abuse
are producing a troubling side effect by denying some hospice and elderly
patients needed pain medication, according to two Senate Democrats and a
coalition of pharmacists and geriatric experts. Tougher enforcement of
the Controlled Substances Act, which tightly restricts the distribution of pain
medicines such as morphine and Percocet, is causing pharmacies to balk and is
leading to delays in pain relief for those patients and seniors in long-term
care facilities, wrote Sens. Herb Kohl (Wis.) and Sheldon
Whitehouse (R.I.). The
lawmakers wrote to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. this month urging that
the Obama administration issue new directives to the DEA and support a possible
legislative fix for the problem, which has bothered nursing home administrators
and geriatric experts for years. The DEA has sought to prevent drug theft and
abuse by staff members in nursing homes, requiring written signatures from
doctors and an extra layer of approvals when drugs such as morphine and
Percocet are ordered for sick patients. The law, however, "fails to recognize
how prescribing practitioners and the nurses who work for long-term care
facilities and hospice programs actually order prescription medications,"
Kohl and Whitehouse wrote. They concluded that delays can lead to "adverse
health outcomes and unnecessary rehospitalizations, not to mention needless
suffering." Click above for the full article.
10/28: The following is from an Oct. 27th Washington
Post report: As congressional leaders
haggle over the shape of a proposed government-run "public option" in
health-care reform legislation, a quiet revolt is brewing against a different
public insurance program -- a plan to create government insurance for
long-term care. The proposal is known as the CLASS Act, short for
Community Living Services and Support. The
idea has been around for years, and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
(D-Mass.) pushed to have the measure included in the health-care overhaul
package that passed the Senate health committee in July. A similar measure was
also adopted by voice vote in one of the three House committees handling health
care. The idea is to create long-term care insurance that would be
available to anyone, including those who are already disabled. People would be automatically enrolled, unless they
chose to opt out, and would pay a premium in exchange for the opportunity to
receive cash benefits to cover the cost of home care, adult day programs,
assisted living or nursing homes after they had been enrolled for at least five
years. Premiums and benefit levels would be set by federal health officials,
but advocates predict that the program would provide beneficiaries with a
minimal sum, around $75 a day. The proposal has gained momentum in
recent days as Democrats in both the House and Senate cast about for cash to help
finance a final health package.
Because the program would begin taking in premiums immediately but would not
start paying benefits until 2016, congressional budget analysts have forecast
that it would generate a nearly $60 billion surplus over the next 10 years,
cash that would help the larger measure's balance on paper. To access the
full article, click above.
10/27: The following is from an Oct. 27th Washington
Post report: The nation's preeminent
seniors group, AARP, has put the weight of its 40 million members behind
health-care reform, saying many of the proposals will lower costs and increase
the quality of care for older Americans. But not advertised in this
lobbying campaign have been the group's substantial earnings from insurance
royalties and the potential benefits that could come its way from many of the
reform proposals. The group and its subsidiaries collected more than
$650 million in royalties and other fees last year from the sale of insurance
policies, credit cards and other products that carry the AARP name, accounting
for the majority of its $1.14 billion in revenue, according to federal tax
records. It does not directly sell
insurance policies but lends its name to plans in exchange for a tax-exempt cut
of the premiums. The organization, formerly known as the American
Association of Retired Persons, also heavily markets the policies on its Web
site, in mailings to its members and through ubiquitous advertising targeted at
seniors. The group's dual role as an insurance reformer and a broker
has come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks from congressional
Republicans, who accuse it of having a conflict of interest in taking sides in
the fierce debate over health insurance.
Three House Republicans sent a letter to AARP on Monday complaining that the
group was putting its "political self-interests" ahead of seniors.
GOP lawmakers point to AARP's thriving business in marketing branded
Medigap policies, which provide supplemental coverage for standard Medicare
plans available to the elderly. Democratic proposals to slash reimbursements
for another program, called Medicare Advantage, are widely expected to drive up
demand for private Medigap policies like the ones offered by AARP, according to
health-care experts, legislative aides and documents. Republicans also question
the high salaries and other perks given to some top AARP executives, who would
not be subject to limits on insurance executives' pay included in the Senate
Finance Committee's health reform package. Former AARP chief executive William
Novelli received more than $1 million in compensation last year. ... Several
top AARP officials also said they have no idea whether the group might gain
insurance business as a result of the proposed reforms. "We wouldn't know
it, and we wouldn't really care," Certner said. "The advocacy is what
drives what we do here, and not the other way around." Click above for the full article.
10/23: On October 20th, the Charlevoix Housing
Commission adopted a smoke-free policy for its 62-unit Pine River Place
apartments for the elderly and disabled. The policy went into effect
immediately for all new residents and current residents who are not smokers, as
well as guests and staff. Current residents who are smokers are exempted
from the policy for as long as they live in their current unit. Under
this new policy, secondhand smoke and other damage caused by smoking or tobacco
products will not be considered ordinary wear and tear, and some or all of the
resident's security deposit may be retained by the housing commission to cover
costs of damage caused by smoking or tobacco products; damage above and beyond
the amount of the security deposit may be billed to the resident.
Further, it is the resident's responsibility to take steps to keep
smoking residue from building up in units, including more frequent cleaning and
wall washing, etc. Annual inspections of units will be utilized to ensure
that apartment residents are following this part of the policy. Charlevoix
becomes the 32nd public housing commission in Michigan to adopt a smoke-free
policy. It has been our
pleasure working with Rob Harrison, the Executive Director of the Charlevoix
Housing Commission on this policy. Charlevoix is a located in northern
Michigan on Lake Michigan, and is known as "Charlevoix the
beautiful". The 32 Michigan housing commissions with smoke-free
policies have about 56 apartment buildings/developments and over 60
townhouses/scattered site units. A total of at least 4,158 apartment
units are covered by the local Michigan housing authority smoke-free policies.
More are in the pipeline. There are now at least 129 housing authorities
in the U.S. with smoke-free policies for some or all their buildings. To
access a copy of the list of 129 housing authorities in the U.S. that have
adopted smoke-free policies for some or all their buildings, click above.
Hidden
Costs of Medicare Advantage; Plans' Free Perks Are Subsidized By Government
10/19: The following is from an Oct. 15th Washington
Post article: Seniors in this Sun
Belt retirement haven and across the country revel in the free perks that
private insurance companies bundle with legally mandated benefits to entice
people 65 and older to forgo traditional Medicare and sign up for private
Medicare Advantage policies. The trouble is, the extra benefits are not
exactly free; they are subsidized by the government. And some of the plans pass
their costs on to seniors, who pay higher co-pays and additional fees to get
care. "It's a wasteful, inefficient program and always has
been," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said at a recent hearing. At
its core, Rockefeller added, Medicare Advantage is "stuffing money into
the pockets of private insurers, and it doesn't provide any better benefits to
anybody." President Obama
has proposed cutting more than $100 billion in subsidies over 10 years, a
contentious component of health-care reform that will be fought in earnest as
the bills move through Congress. But unlike some issues that touch off partisan
sparring, Medicare Advantage has an unlikely band of bipartisan defenders who
have already battled to restore $10 billion of the proposed reductions.
In a health-care debate defined by big numbers and confusing details, the
prospect of losing benefits such as a free gym membership through the Silver
Sneakers program is tangible, and it has spooked some seniors, who are the
nation's most reliable voters and have been most skeptical about reform.
Medicare Advantage was established in the 1970s (under a different name)
when private insurers convinced Congress that they could deliver care at lower
costs than Medicare. The program blossomed in the late 1990s when Congress
bolstered it with millions in additional federal subsidies to for-profit HMOs.
It has proven popular among younger, active seniors who had managed-care plans
as workers, and about a quarter of Medicare's 45 million beneficiaries are
enrolled. Many private plans require no additional monthly premiums,
yet the government pays an average of $849.90 in monthly subsidies to insurance
companies for a person on Medicare Advantage, according to the Kaiser Family
Foundation. That is about 14 percent more than the government spends on people
with standard Medicare, according to the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory
Commission. "The promise
of Medicare Advantage and Medicare HMOs was to save the government money, to
save consumers money, all the while providing additional benefits and
coordinating care," said Joseph Baker, president of the Medicare Rights
Center. "That promise has been unfulfilled overall because the plans are
overpaid by the federal government at this point." Click above for
the full article.
10/19: According to an Oct. 14th Washington
Post article: Now they have an enemy.
For months, President Obama and his administration waged their fight for
a health-care overhaul without a clear opponent, even courting the industry
executives and interest groups that helped kill reform efforts 15 years ago.
But attacks on the leading Democratic reform plan this week by the
insurance lobby left little doubt that two of the most powerful institutions
involved in the debate -- the White House and the nation's insurance companies
-- have abandoned any real hope of forging a compromise. What was a tenuous
truce has turned quickly into an all-out battle, with both sides ratcheting up
the hostilities. As the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday approved a
10-year, $829 billion bill to remake the health-care system, Obama's top
advisers and the insurers moved into a more intense stage of conflict.
"The insurance industry has decided to lead the charge against
health reform, and everyone recognizes their motives: profits," said White
House deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer. "We are going to make
sure they can't sink this effort at the last minute." ... The insurers,
however, showed no sign of being chastened. America's Health Insurance
Plans, an industry trade group, opened a fresh line of attack with a multistate
advertising campaign warning that senior citizens enrolled in private Medicare
plans could lose benefits under the legislation. "Is it right to ask 10 million seniors on
Medicare Advantage for more than their fair share?" the television spot
asks. "Congress is proposing $100 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says many seniors will see cuts in
benefits." The Finance Committee's bill would reduce spending on the
plans AHIP cites by $113 billion over the next decade, which could mean reduced
insurer profits, higher co-payments by beneficiaries or fewer extra benefits
such as eyeglasses and gym memberships. "We want to begin to build
an awareness of the potential implications to seniors," said AHIP
President Karen Ignagni. She declined to say how much money would be
spent on the commercials airing in six states, but one advertising analyst said
the industry has enough cash to pose a serious threat. "They can spend
whatever they feel they need to influence this," said Evan Tracey,
president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group. "Seniors are a very
important group politically." The insurance sector and health
maintenance organizations spent more than $116 million on lobbying in the first
six months of this year, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for
Responsive Politics. "It's
pretty clear now, they intend at the eleventh hour to launch a very expensive
and misleading campaign against reform," Pfeiffer said. Click above for
the full article.
Elder Financial
Abuse Case: Brooke Astor's Son Guilty in Scheme to Defraud Her
10/9: The following is from an Oct. 8th New
York Times report: The son of Brooke
Astor, the legendary New York society matriarch, was convicted on Thursday of
stealing from her as she suffered from Alzheimer's disease in the twilight of
her life. Barring an appeal, the jury's verdict means that Mrs. Astor's
son, Anthony D. Marshall, an 85-year-old war veteran who fought at Iwo Jima,
can be sentenced to anywhere from 1 to 25 years behind bars. Mr.
Marshall was found guilty of 14 of the 16 counts against him, including one of
two first-degree grand larceny charges, the most serious he faced. Jurors
convicted him of giving himself an unauthorized raise of about $1 million for
managing his mother's finances. Prosecutors
contended that Mrs. Astor's Alzheimer's had advanced so far that there was no
way she could have consented to this raise and other financial decisions that
benefited Mr. Marshall. A second defendant in the case, Francis X.
Morrissey Jr., a lawyer who did estate planning for Mrs. Astor, was convicted
of forgery charges. Mr.
Marshall was found not guilty on two counts: the other grand larceny charge,
which stemmed from the sale his mother's Childe Hassam painting, and falsifying
business records. Mrs. Astor, whose fortune was estimated at more than
$180 million when she died two years ago at 105, may have been best known for
channeling large sums toward New York charities and cultural institutions like the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Bronx Zoo. The verdict drew the
curtain on a trial that lasted longer than had been expected. The jury of eight
women and four men sat through more than 19 weeks of testimony and arguments in
State Supreme Court in Manhattan, hearing detailed accounts of Mrs. Astor's
luxurious life of summers on an estate in Maine and dinners with diplomats.
They heard testimony from Henry Kissinger, Barbara Walters and Annette de la
Renta, among others. ... The prosecutor, Elizabeth Loewy, asked that bail be
increased to $5 million from $100,000 but the judge, Justice A. Kirke Bartley
Jr., refused. He set sentencing for Dec. 8. Click above to access the
full article.
Waterloo
Region, Ontario adopts smoke-free policy for affordable housing
10/9: Historic news from the Waterloo Region of
Ontario. On October 6th, the Community Services Committee of the Regional
Municipality of Waterloo (which includes the cities/townships of Waterloo,
Kitchener, Cambridge, Wellesley, North Dumfries, Wilmot, and Woolwich) voted to
approve a smoke-free policy for all buildings and property of "regionally
owned community housing" in the Waterloo Region. The policy covers
about 2,700 units of "social housing", also known as "affordable
or low and moderate income housing". The Waterloo Region Housing
manages 2,591 community housing units owned by the Region of Waterloo, many of
which are elderly and disabled housing. These units are located in
Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo, Woolwich and Wellesley. The new policy
will receive final approval at the October 14th Regional Council meeting, and
the approval is certain since the Community Services Committee that voted on
October 6th is a committee of the whole of the Regional Council. The
new policy is historic because it is the first such public housing policy in
Ontario and only the second in all of Canada. With over 2,700 units, it
is also constitutes one of the largest impact policies in the country. The policy says that all new leases signed by
residents after April 1, 2010 will include a provision saying that no smoking
will be allowed inside their units or in common areas, and outdoor smoking by
the resident will be restricted to at least 5 meters away from any windows,
entrances or exits to the building. Ontario provincial laws prevent
the smoke-free policy from applying to current residents. Therefore, the
buildings covered will have to transition to being fully smoke-free over time,
as current smokers move out. Notwithstanding the
"grandfathering" of current smokers, this is a very important victory
and will, undoubtedly, serve as a catalyst for other governmental units across
Canada to also adopt smoke-free policies. The push for this policy began
with resident complaints of secondhand smoke intrusions into apartment units.
In the spring of this year,
representatives of the Waterloo Region Housing Division and the Tobacco Program
of the Region of Waterloo Public Health, together with tenants and the legal
department, conducted a detailed study of the matter, met with residents,
conducted resident surveys, and produced a report which was presented to the Community
Services Committee. Among the key players in this process were:
Mary Sehl, Manager of Tobacco Programs for the Region of Waterloo Public
Health; Irwin Peters, Manager of Waterloo Region Housing; and Laurie Nagge,
Public Health Nurse in the Tobacco Program. Many others were also deeply
involved in this victory, including Pippa Beck of the Non-Smokers Rights
Association, and other tobacco control leaders across Ontario and Canada.
Jim Bergman of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project of The Center for
Social Gerontology, Inc. had the pleasure to have also worked with the Waterloo
Region folks, and he was invited to speak at the October 6th hearing, together
with Brian King of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY. The
agenda for the meeting, with a link to the smoke-free housing report, can be
accessed by clicking above.
Legal
Aid Programs Turn Away One Person for Every Client Served
10/1: The following is from a Sept. 30th Legal
Services Corporation note:
Nearly a million poor people who seek help for civil legal problems, such
as foreclosures and domestic violence, will be turned away this year by the
nation's largest nonprofit legal aid network because of insufficient resources,
the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) projects in a report released today.
The report is the Corporation's second analysis of the "justice
gap" in America -- the difference between the level of civil legal assistance
available and the level that is necessary to meet the legal needs of low-income
individuals and families. For every client served by LSC programs,
another person who seeks help is turned away, the report concludes. The
conclusion reaffirms a 2005 report by LSC that also found 50 percent of
potential clients seeking help from LSC-funded programs were not served because
of a lack of resources. "This nation is built on the promise of
equal justice under law, but there is a justice gap in America. We must do more
to close the justice gap and provide equal access to justice for all Americans,
regardless of their economic status," LSC President Helaine M. Barnett
said. "Many of these Americans in need of legal assistance are the
most vulnerable among us -- they are trying to escape from domestic violence,
trying to avert foreclosure and homelessness, trying to qualify for disability
benefits, trying to recover from natural disasters. Legal aid saves lives and
makes communities stronger," LSC President Barnett said. The
report projects that LSC programs will not be able to meet the legal needs of
about 944,000 poor people seeking assistance in 2009, slightly more than the
programs served in 2008. In one category -- foreclosures -- LSC-funded
programs are projected to turn away two for every person served. Programs also
will take up fewer than half of the requests for help with employment and
family law matters, the report shows. Despite increased appropriations
from the Congress in recent years, state and local government funding and
contributions from charitable donors and foundations declined during the
recession. Funding from Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts (IOLTA), in
particular, has dropped significantly in many states. LSC is the single
largest funder of civil legal assistance to low-income individuals and families
across the nation, operating as a federally-funded nonprofit organization that
promotes equal access to justice. The Corporation funds 137 nonprofit civil
legal aid programs with 918 offices to ensure the provision of high-quality
legal assistance to the poor. Click above to download the full report in
pdf format.
When
Medicare is the piggy bank
9/30: The following is from a Sept. 28th Associated
Press report: Medicare is
looking like a big fat piggy bank for health care overhaul. President
Barack Obama and the Democrats want to pay for much of their plan to cover the
uninsured by cutting hundreds of billions from the Medicare budget over the
next 10 years. From its inception, the health plan for seniors has been
kept afloat by taxes out of workers' paychecks. Now, Medicare savings would
count toward helping uninsured working-age children and grandchildren afford their
own coverage. Most seniors are willing to help younger generations. But
having reached that point in life when you have to spend more time in the
doctor's office than you'd prefer to, older Americans worry the cuts will mean
lower quality care. The proposed cuts to hospitals, nursing homes and
other providers are bigger than any Congress has imposed since the late 1990s.
However, in percentage terms, they're far from the largest ever. And Democrats
are also proposing to spend tens of billions to improve Medicare prescription
coverage and preventive care. "Seniors should definitely be paying
attention," said Mark McClellan, who ran Medicare under President George
W. Bush. "There's some redesign, some improvements, but unquestionably
there would be some adverse impacts. It's a mixed bag, but it's not like the
sky is falling." Click above for full article.
HUD's Non-Smoking Policy
Notice for Public Housing Could Stamp Out Tobacco for Good
9/30: The following is from a news note on the
web site of the American Association of Homes & Services for the Aging (AAHSA): Public and Indian housing authorities
are permitted and "strongly" encouraged to implement non-smoking policies
-- including smoking cessation at lease renewal -- the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced July 17, 2009, signaling that an
agencywide shift toward smoke-free federally assisted housing may be in the
offing. AAHSA views this as an encouraging development given that, as
HUD noted, elderly populations -- which make up 15 percent of the residents
living in public housing -- are especially vulnerable to the adverse effects of
smoking. Even though HUD's notice
only applies to public and Indian housing, it's possible that HUD's multifamily
office could follow suit with similar guidance. Until that time, the PIH
notice provides guidance that can be helpful for providers interested in having
smoke free environments in senior housing. Environmental Tobacco Smoke,
officials said, can migrate between multifamily housing units, causing
respiratory illness, heart disease, cancer and other ill effects. Fire is
another concern. Federal data show that in multifamily buildings, 26 percent of
fire deaths in 2005 were smoking-related -- the leading cause of fire deaths.
"By reducing the public health risks associated with tobacco use,
this notice will enhance the effectiveness of the Department's efforts to
provide increased public health protection for residents of public
housing," HUD said. PHAs have wide latitude to stamp out smoking, as
long as they stay within state and local laws, HUD said. More than 114 PHAs and
housing commissions around the country have gone non-smoking in one or more
apartment buildings so far, according to the Smoke-Free Environments Law
Project at The Center for Social Gerontology, a Michigan-based organization
that keeps a running tally of smoke-free policies in public housing. With
this new notice, there could be a broad proliferation of non-smoking public
housing policies around the country.
Click above to access the AAHSA note.
Editorial: Medicare Scare-Mongering
9/29: The following is from a Sept. 27th New
York Times editorial: It has
been frustrating to watch Republican leaders posture as the vigilant protectors
of Medicare against health care reforms designed to make the system better and
more equitable. This is the same party that in the past tried to pare back
Medicare and has repeatedly denounced the kind of single-payer system that is
at the heart of Medicare and its popularity. For all of the cynicism and
hypocrisy, it seems to be working. The Republicans have scared many older
Americans into believing that their medical treatment will suffer under pending
reform bills. The general
public believes that, too. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll of 1,042
adults found that only 15 percent believe changes under consideration would
make the Medicare program better, while 30 percent think they would make it
worse. That does not mean that Medicare will be untouched under the
Democrats' plans. The Obama administration and Congressional leaders are hoping
to save hundreds of billions of dollars by slowing the growth of spending in
the vast and inefficient Medicare system that serves 45 million older and
disabled Americans. The savings would be used to help offset the costs of
covering tens of millions of uninsured people. But far from harming
elderly Americans, the various reform bills now pending should actually make
Medicare better for most beneficiaries -- by enhancing their drug coverage,
reducing the premiums they pay for drugs and medical care, eliminating
co-payments for preventive services and helping keep Medicare solvent, among
other benefits. The main exception, a
fully justified one, is that some of the 10 million people enrolled in private
plans that participate in Medicare -- the Medicare Advantage program -- might
suffer a dilution or elimination of the extra benefits they get that other
beneficiaries do not. ... We have long championed Medicare. And we believe
elderly Americans, and all Americans, should closely examine the proposed
health care reforms. But the Republicans have done far too good a job at
obscuring and twisting the facts and spreading unwarranted fear. It is time to
call them to account. President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have to
make the case forcefully that health care reform will overwhelmingly benefit
Americans -- including the millions of older Americans who participate in
Medicare. Click above for full editorial.
9/23: According to a Sept. 22nd Reuters article: Health insurers accused the U.S. Medicare
agency on Tuesday of political interference in a battle over whether the
industry can lobby its customers directly over healthcare legislation.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which oversees
the Medicare program for the elderly and disabled as well as privately run
Medicare alternatives, said on Monday it was investigating a letter Humana Inc
sent enrollees about efforts to overhaul the nation's healthcare system. Humana's
letter, sent in an envelope citing important plan information, told customers
the Democrats' bills could hurt "millions of seniors and disabled
individuals <who> could lose many of the important benefits and services
that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable," according to CMS. The agency also warned other insurers against
sending potentially misleading health reform mailings to customers. America's
Health Insurance Plans, the industry lobby group, called the CMS action a
"gag order." ... CMS dismissed the criticism, saying it wanted to
ensure companies do not violate marketing rules or improperly use protected
Medicare mailing lists. "Our goal is to safeguard beneficiaries'
personal information," agency spokesman Peter Ashkenaz told Reuters.
Democratic Senator Max Baucus had urged CMS to get involved and later
welcomed the investigation of what he called "scare tactics" by
Humana. Click above for the full Reuters article. A Washington Post article stated: The big insurer
Humana triggered the HHS crackdown with a letter to Medicare enrollees claiming
that health reform proposals could hurt "millions of seniors and disabled
individuals" who "could lose many of the important benefits and
services that make Medicare Advantage plans so valuable." The letter was
sent in envelopes marked "important information about your Medicare
Advantage plan -- open today!" HHS wrote to Humana last week
instructing it to stop the mailings, and it wrote to all Medicare Advantage
plans Monday, saying "such communications are potentially contrary to . .
. federal law." The government regulates communications between the health
plans and their members. To access the Post article, click here.
9/16: According to a Sept. 15th The Hill article: Congress has only been back in session for a
week, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is already warning he may cancel
the next break because of a lack of GOP cooperation. Reid (D-Nev.) has
warned Republicans that they need to pick up the legislative pace or he will
cancel the weeklong Columbus Day recess next month. Reid told Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that the Senate will stay in session
straight through October if Republicans slow the floor debate on appropriations
bills and other issues. ... Reid has repeatedly voiced frustration over
Republican efforts to slow floor proceedings. He asked Republicans to cooperate
in passing spending bills funding the departments of Transportation and Housing
and Urban Development. "This will be only our fifth appropriations
bill we will have done," Reid said. "We have many more to do. I
have trouble comprehending people not letting us finish these bills and then
complaining that we have to do a continuing resolution to fund
government." Democratic leaders have hoped to avoid combining
unfinished appropriations bills into a massive omnibus package. It appears
certain, however, that lawmakers will not be able to pass all the bills needed
to fund the federal government by Sept. 30, when the fiscal year ends. Click above for full article.
Boise
City/Ada County Housing Authority becomes 3rd Idaho housing authority to go
smoke-free
9/15: The Boise City/Ada County Housing
Authority (BCACHA) has adopted a smoke-free policy for all of its 3 buildings,
with 214 units of elderly, disabled and family housing. The policy will
be effective on November 1, 2009. Idaho is taking a real lead on smoke-free
multi-unit housing for low-income people. Together with the Nampa Housing
Authority and the Caldwell Housing Authority, I believe they now have their
three biggest housing authorities in Idaho all with smoke-free policies for all
their housing. Nampa was first in the fall of 2007, and Caldwell followed
on January 1, 2009. Congratulations to all the Idaho folks who worked on this.
We're pleased to have been able to play a small part in this. To
access the BCACHA web site click above. To access our listing of
smoke-free housing authorities, click here.
9/15: According to a Sept. 10th analysis by the Center
on Budget & Policy Priorities:
Median household income declined 3.6 percent in 2008 after adjusting for
inflation, the largest single-year decline on record, and reached its lowest
point since 1997. The poverty rate rose to 13.2 percent, its highest
level since 1997. The number of people in poverty hit 39.8 million, the
highest level since 1960. The number of people who are uninsured jumped
by 682,000...and reached 46.3 million. The figures for 2009, a year in
which the economy has weakened further and unemployment has climbed
substantially, will look considerably worse, and the figures will likely worsen
again in 2010 if, as many economic forecasters expect, unemployment continues
to rise in that year. To access the full analysis, click above.
9/14: The following is from a Sept. 13th New
York Times analysis: American politics has been defined by gender gaps, racial
gaps, geographic gaps and the gap between the religious and the secular. Now
comes the geriatric gap. As the population ages and the nation faces intense
battles over rapidly rising health care and retirement costs, American politics
seems increasingly divided along generational lines. The question is how real and defining this gap is
going to be -- whether in 10 or 20 years it will prove as consequential or
intense as, say, the gender divide, particularly as it was played out last year
with the presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton. As distasteful
as the notion of intergenerational conflict may seem, the fight over health
care -- not to mention the election of health care reform's current chief
proponent, President Obama -- suggests that something is going on. Older
Americans are more likely to oppose Mr. Obama's initiative than any other age
group. The White House views this dynamic as one of the biggest obstacles to
tamping down public concerns about its approach and assembling a legislative
coalition to get a bill passed in Congress. Older voters were one of the few
groups Mr. Obama did not win in the presidential election last year, leaving
him and his party particularly reliant on younger voters, who do not show up at
the polls as reliably as older people do. They have a dimmer view of his presidency
than the rest of the nation. And there is no reason to think that
whatever tensions have been unearthed with this fight are going to end once it
is resolved. Mr. Obama has signaled
his intention to tackle the long-term financial problems of Social Security,
another issue the elderly play an outsize role in, and they tend to be
resistant to change there, too. Click above for full article.
9/11: On September 8th, the Monroe Housing
Commission voted unanimously (5 to 0) to adopt a smoke-free policy for all
their buildings. The policy is to go into effect November 1, 2009 for all
residents, including current residents who are smokers. The housing
commission has a 7-story, 148 unit, high-rise for elderly and disabled (River
Park Plaza), and a 115-unit family housing building (Greenwood), plus 30 single
family houses; a total of 293 units. The policy will allow smoking
outdoors, but only in designated areas, if any. It was a great pleasure
working with Nancy Wain, the Executive Director of the Monroe Housing Authority
on this. Adoption of this policy makes Monroe the 31st housing commission
in Michigan to adopt a smoke-free policy and the 125th in the nation. To
access a copy of the list of 125 housing authorities in the U.S. that have
adopted smoke-free policies for some or all their buildings, click above.
Data Fuel
Regional Fight on Medicare Spending
9/8: The following is from a Sept. 8th New
York Times article: For years,
health policy experts have said health care spending is much higher in New York
City and Boston because doctors and hospitals there provide more services,
practicing medicine in a more intensive way. But new government data show
that Medicare costs per patient in those cities are slightly below the national
average when the numbers are adjusted for the cost of living and other factors.
The new numbers add fuel to a raging debate over what Congress should do
to reduce geographic disparities in Medicare spending. The debate involves a
combustible mix of health policy and money. As part of any bill to revamp
health care, President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress say they want
to reward doctors and hospitals for providing higher-quality, lower-cost care.
But their efforts have touched off a fight within the Democratic Party, pitting
urban lawmakers against rural lawmakers and creating a major new hurdle for
health legislation. Click above for full article.
IN
WISCONSIN, A PIONEERING PROGRAM:
The Unwitting Birthplace of the 'Death Panel' Myth
9/8: The following is from a Sept. 4th Washington
Post article: This city often shows
up on "best places to live" lists, but residents say it is also a good
place to die -- which is how it landed in the center of a controversy that
almost derailed health-care reform this summer. The town's biggest hospital,
Gundersen Lutheran, has long been a pioneer in ensuring that the care provided
to patients in their final months complies with their wishes. More recently, it
has taken the lead in seeking to have Medicare compensate physicians for
advising patients on end-of-life planning. The hospital got its wish this
spring when House Democrats inserted that provision into their health-care
reform bill -- only to see former Alaska governor Sarah Palin seize on it as
she warned about "death panels" that would deny care to the elderly
and the disabled. Despite widespread debunking, those warnings have led lawmakers
to say they will drop the provision. "It's really distressing,"
hospital official Bud Hammes said. "These things need to be
addressed." President Obama's health-care initiative was nearly
consumed by the furor over that provision, and Republicans continue to argue
that the legislation would ration care for the elderly. The debate has
underscored how fraught the discussion is on end-of-life care in a country
where an optimistic ethos places great faith in technology and often precludes
frank contemplations of mortality.
That tendency has a price tag: A quarter of Medicare costs -- totaling $100
billion a year -- are incurred in the final year of patients' lives, and 40
percent of that in the last month. But the controversy has had most
resonance where it arguably took root, in this town of 52,000 where nearly
everyone of a certain age has an advance-care directive. To access the
full article, click above.
Senator Ted
Kennedy was long-time supporter of legal services for elderly
9/4: The Board of Directors and the Co-Directors
and staff of The Center for Social Gerontology, Inc. mourn the loss of
Senator Ted Kennedy as a great leader, especially in support of the elderly and
of legal services for the elderly. Since the early 1970s, Senator Kennedy
held U.S. Senate hearings on the delivery of legal services for the elderly and
strongly supported increased legal services for the elderly. He was a
champion on these issues long before most of his colleagues in Congress, and he
never stopped working on these issues. In the reauthorization of the Older
Americans Act in 2000, it was Senator Kennedy who saved Title IV's section
dealing with legal services for the elderly, when House members tried to
eliminate it. As in so many other areas of public policy, his leadership
will be extremely difficult to replace. For a NY Times obituary, click
above.
LSC on
the Passing of Senator Edward M. Kennedy
9/4: The following is from an Aug. 26th Legal
Services Corporation press release: Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) will
be remembered at the Legal Services Corporation and at civil legal aid
organizations throughout the nation as a champion for equal access to justice,
LSC President Helaine M. Barnett said today. "Senator Kennedy's
longtime support for LSC was invaluable and consequential for the clients and
communities that are served by LSC-funded legal aid attorneys every day,"
LSC President Barnett said. "In addition to civil legal assistance, his
extraordinary career in public service focused on legislation and issues of
utmost importance to the poor -- employment, health care and education." For
the full LSC press release, click above.
Montana Court to
Rule on Assisted Suicide Case
9/2: According to a September 1st New York
Times story: Robert Baxter was
by all accounts a tough man. Even in the end, last year, as lymphocytic
leukemia was killing him, Mr. Baxter, a 76-year-old retired truck driver from
Billings, Mont., fought on. But by then he was struggling not for life, but
for the right to die with help from his doctor. "He yearned for death," his daughter,
Roberta King, said in a court affidavit describing her father's final agonized
months. Now, in death, Mr. Baxter is at the center of a right-to-die
debate that could make Montana the first state in the country to declare that
medical aid in dying is a protected right under a state constitution. The state's highest court on Wednesday will
take up Mr. Baxter's claim that a doctor's refusal to help him die violated his
rights under Montana's Constitution -- and lawyers on both sides say the chances
are good that he will prevail. Washington and Oregon allow physicians to
help terminally ill people hasten their deaths, but in those states the laws
were approved by voters in statewide referendums, and neither state's highest
court has examined the issue of a constitutional right to die. In
Montana, the question will be decided by the seven-member State Supreme Court.
A lower-court judge ruled in Mr. Baxter's favor last December -- on the
very day Mr. Baxter died -- and the State of Montana appealed the ruling.
The legal foundation for both sides is a free-spirited,
libertarian-tinctured State Constitution written in 1972 at the height of a
privacy-rights movement that swept through this part of the West in the
aftermath of the 1960s. Echoes of a righteous era are reflected in language
about keeping government at bay and maintaining individual autonomy and
dignity. "The dignity of the human being is inviolable," the drafters
declared. Lawyers on both sides say the Montana Supreme Court has a tradition
of interpreting the State Constitution with that sentiment in mind, with
privacy rights and personal liberty often outweighing other concerns. The court
ruled in 1997, for example, that Montana's anti-sodomy laws were
unconstitutional invasions of privacy. Click above to access the full
story.
Smoke-Free Public Housing:
It's Legal, Profitable & HUD Supports It
9/2: On August 26, 2009 at the Texas Housing
Association Annual Conference in Fort Worth, TCSG Co-Director Jim Bergman gave
a presentation of the above title. The presentation focused on smoke-free
policies in public housing, with special attention to the HUD notice issued on
July 17, 2009 in which HUD strongly encouraged public housing authorities
(PHAs) to adopt smoke-free policies for some or all their buildings. Included
in the 56-slide PowerPoint presentation was additional information on ways in
which HUD was now encouraging PHAs to adopt smoke-free policies, including in
their 2009 Healthy Homes Strategic Plan and in their scoring for the award of
HUD stimulus funds to PHAs. Also included in the presentation was
information on the cost savings and fire prevention reasons for adopting
smoke-free policies, as well as demographic and marketing reasons for doing so.
Examples were provided of public housing and other affordable housing
entities that have adopted smoke-free policies, as well as housing industry
trends. To access the 56-slide PowerPoint presentation, click above.
To access a pdf copy of the presentation, with 6-slides per page, click here. To access a copy
of the HUD July 17, 2009 Notice click here.
HUD issues notice strongly
encouraging public housing agencies to adopt smoke-free policies
8/6: On July 17th, the federal Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a Notice (PIH-2009-21 (HA)) titled
"Non-Smoking Policies in Public Housing". The notice stated
that HUD "strongly encourages Public housing Authorities (PHAs) to
implement non-smoking policies in some or all of their public housing
units." The notice goes on to encourage PHAs to adopt smoke-free policies
in their buildings, including in common areas and in individual units.
The HUD notice describes the health problems associated with secondhand
smoke and also points out the additional costs to PHAs of rehabbing units in
which smokers have lived. This is an extremely important statement by HUD
and is likely to encourage many more PHAs to adopt smoke-free policies.
Already about 120 PHAs have adopted smoke-free policies for some or all
their buildings. To access the HUD notice on TCSG's SFELP site, click
above.
7/13: The following is from a July 5th NY
Times article in the Week in Review:
Should the government get in the health insurance business? The question
will be debated fiercely in coming months as President Obama and some
Democratic lawmakers push for the creation of a government-run plan to compete
with private insurance companies for the business of nearly 50 million people
who are without insurance. ... It won't be the first time. The federal
government is already in the health insurance business in a big way, providing
coverage to more than 45 million elderly and disabled people through Medicare.
(Another government plan, Medicaid, is run and financed in combination with the
states to provide health care to about 60 million poor people.) How closely
a new public plan would resemble Medicare is unclear. Still, Medicare's record
offers insights into the benefits and pitfalls of public health care. While it
has driven down costs though its sheer market dominance, Medicare has also been
extremely slow in using its power to encourage or compel more effective health
care. And, of course, providing health care for older Americans has been
expensive. Medicare is expected to represent an estimated 13 percent of next
year's federal budget. Medicare has evolved into the bedrock of health
insurance for America's elderly population since it was created in 1965.
For the full article, click above.
7/13: TCSG's Smoke-Free Environments Law Project
maintains an up-dated listing of all the public housing authorities/commissions
in the U.S. that we know of which have adopted smoke-free policies for one or
more of their apartment buildings. The listing is done largely in the
order in which the policies have been adopted. As of May, 2009, at least
114 local housing authorities had adopted smoke-free policies for some or all
of their apartment buildings, with about 96 being adopted since the beginning
of January, 2005; an average of over 1.8 per month. That constitutes an
increase in the number of housing authorities with smoke-free policies of about
660% in 53 months. The 17 states with such policies include Michigan
(29), Minnesota (19), Maine (18), Colorado (11), California (7), Nebraska (6),
Washington (5), New Hampshire (3), Oregon (3), Alaska (3) New Jersey (2),
Wisconsin (2), Idaho (2), Florida, Montana, Indiana, and Kentucky. To access
the listing, in pdf format, click above.
7/2: The following is from a July 1st NY Times analysis: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
emerged as a canny strategist at the Supreme Court this term, laying the
groundwork for bold changes that could take the court to the right even as the
recent elections moved the nation to the left. The court took mainly
incremental steps in major cases concerning voting rights, employment
discrimination, criminal procedure and campaign finance. But the chief
justice's fingerprints were on all of them, and he left clues that the court is
only one decision away from fundamental change in many areas of the law. Whether he will succeed depends on Justice Anthony M.
Kennedy, the court's swing vote. And there is reason to think that the chief
justice has found a reliable ally when it counts. "In the important cases,
Kennedy ends up on the right," said Thomas C. Goldstein, a student of the
court and the founder of Scotusblog, which has compiled comprehensive
statistics on the current term. The two justices agreed 86 percent of the time.
... Chief Justice Roberts has certainly been planting seeds in this term's
decisions. If his reasoning takes root in future cases, the law will move in a
conservative direction on questions as varied as what kinds of evidence may be
used against criminal defendants and the role the government may play in
combating race discrimination. The
two newest justices, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.,
both appointed by President George W. Bush, agreed 92 percent of time, the
highest rate for any pair of justices. But Justice Alito often wrote concurring
opinions to underscore or try to extend conservative rulings, especially in
criminal cases. He may well now be the court's most conservative member.
"Alito is staking out some room to the right of the chief justice,"
said Pamela Harris, the executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at
Georgetown University Law Center, "and you would have thought there is no
such room." ... The court was remarkably polarized in the 74 signed
decisions it issued this term, dividing 5-to-4 or 6-to-3 in almost half of
them, up from roughly a third in the three previous years. The court reversed
lower courts about three-quarters of the time, up from two-thirds in the last
term. Justice Kennedy was in the majority 92 percent of the time and in
all but 5 of the 23 decisions in which the justices split 5-to-4. Those
decisions were, moreover, often divided in the expected way: in 16, all four
members of the court's liberal wing were on one side and all four of its
conservatives were on the other. And in between them was Justice
Kennedy, the most powerful jurist in America. He joined the liberals 5 times and the conservatives 11. That was a
significant shift to the right: in the previous term, Justice Kennedy voted
four times each with the liberals and the conservatives in cases divided along
the traditional ideological fault line. Justice Kennedy swung right in
the cases that really mattered. To access the NY Times article, click above. To access a Washington
Post analysis, click here.
7/1: The following is from a June 27th Columbian article: In 1988, they banned it in airplanes. In
1994, in offices. In 2006, the bars. And this month, they finally banned
smoking in Teri Richard's apartment building. "When I grew up, there
was a big ashtray on everybody's table," said Richard, 53, sitting under a
small corner of awning that stretches 25 feet from the nearest door.
Though Richard and a handful of her neighbors are only the latest of
millions of tenants across the country to choose such indignities for the sake
of an addiction, these tenants have an unusual landlord: the Vancouver Housing
Authority. The new decision by Clark County's subsidized housing agency
to ban smoking in some of its properties reflects Washington's successful
crusade to drive down cigarette use. ... After years of debate, the VHA
banned smoking indoors and on the balconies of Richard's building at the start
of June. The company that manages the
property has left notes on apartments but is still working out how the new
rules would be enforced. On Wednesday, Columbia House in the Hough
neighborhood will become the VHA's second smoke-free property. The agency might
roll the ban out to others of its dozens of buildings across the county , VHA
deputy director LaVon Holden said in May. Most public housing agencies
are doing the same, she said. "It
is just a standard of the business," said Holden, a former smoker.
"We are becoming a culture that is less tolerant of secondhand smoke,
because we now know the downside." The decision will save the agency
about $1,900 for every two-bedroom apartment that doesn't have to be scrubbed
and repainted every time a smoker moves out, Holden said. Smokers' habits
had been making life less nice for some of the Esther Short building's
nonsmokers, who are a majority of the tenants. Click above for full article.
6/12:
According to a June 12th note from the Brennan Center for Justice: On
June 4, 2009, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice,
Science and Related Agencies (CJS), which has jurisdiction over funding for
LSC, considered its annual appropriations bill. The bill, which was passed out of the Subcommittee the same
day, raised LSC's total funding level to $440 million, up from $390 million in
FY 2009, a 12.8% increase. Authored by the Chair of the CJS Subcommittee,
Representative Alan Mollohan (WV), the bill also removes the restriction that
currently prohibits LSC grantees from using LSC funds to seek attorneys' fee
awards -- a limitation that had been included as a rider to the LSC
appropriation every year since 1996. The bill does not lift any of the other LSC funding
restrictions. The full bill passed the full House Appropriations Committee on
June 9, 2009, with no changes to the LSC provisions, and now awaits passage b y
the full House. The bill's call
for increased funding is a greatly welcomed boost, especially because the
economic downturn has substantially increased legal need while reducing the availability
of other legal services funding. However, the bill does not lift other LSC
restrictions, specifically, it does not lift the restriction on non-LSC funds,
and it does not lift the restriction on class actions. Pres. Obama's detailed budget had called
for removal of these two additional restrictions. In the Senate, the CJS Appropriations Subcommittee has yet
to produce an FY 2010 appropriation bill, but is expected to turn to this now. The CJS Subcommittee is free to draft
its own bill, and could do so along the lines of the President's budget. Senator Barbara Mikulski (MD) chairs
the Senate's CJS Subcommittee.
Once both the House and Senate have passed their respective CJS bills,
differences between the two versions will likely be addressed and reconciled by
a conference committee. For
further info from the Brennan Center, click above.
6/2:
TCSG's Smoke-Free Environments Law Project maintains this up-dated
listing of all the public housing authorities/commissions in the U.S. that we
know of which have adopted smoke-free policies for one or more of their
apartment buildings. The listing
is done largely in the order in which the policies have been adopted. As of May, 2009, at least 112 local
housing authorities had adopted smoke-free policies for some or all of their
apartment buildings, with about 94 being adopted since the beginning of
January, 2005; an average of about 1.8 per month. That constitutes an increase
in the number of housing authorities with smoke-free policies of about 660% in
53 months. The 17 states with such
policies include Michigan (28), Minnesota (19), Maine (18), Colorado (11),
California (7), Nebraska (6), Washington (4), New Hampshire (3), Oregon (3),
Alaska (3) New Jersey (2), Wisconsin (2), Idaho (2), Florida, Montana, Indiana,
and Kentucky. To access the
listing, in pdf format, click above.
Bipartisan
Group of Senators Support $45 Million Increase for LSC
6/1:
According to a May 22nd Legal Services Corporation press release: Fifty-three Senators have signed on to
a letter asking key appropriators to provide at least $435 million for the
Legal Services Corporation in fiscal year 2010-a $45 million increase over
current funding levels and the amount requested by President Obama. Forty-five
Democrats, six Republicans and two Independents signed the letter. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) was the
lead sponsor of the letter and has sent similar letters requesting increases
for LSC for at least the last eight years. Senator Kennedy is Chairman of the
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is responsible for
conducting oversight of the Corporation.
The letter notes that the increase for LSC is necessary to meet
"the greater need that exists today because of the economic crisis, which
has increased the number of foreclosures, the numbers of the unemployed, and
the number of individuals and families who now qualify for federally funded
legal aid." The letter also points out that current funding levels are
still far less, in real dollars, than what LSC received nearly 15 years and 30
years ago. "Without continued
increases in federal funding," concludes the letter, "many more of
our most vulnerable citizens will be denied assistance in the future. We urge
you, therefore, to fund the Legal Services Corporation at no less than $435
million for the coming fiscal year to help meet this critical need." Click
above to access the full press release.
President
announces intent to nominate Kathy Greenlee as Assistant Secretary for Aging
5/5: According to a May 4th Administration on Aging
press release: President Obama announces intention to nominate Kathy Greenlee
as U.S. Assistant Secretary for Aging. The Administration on Aging is pleased
to report that on Friday, May 1, 2009, President Obama announced his intent to
nominate Kathy Greenlee, Kansas Secretary of Aging, for Assistant Secretary for
Aging, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Kathy Greenlee has served
as Secretary of Aging for the state of Kansas since January 2006. In that
capacity, she has led a cabinet-level agency with 192 full-time staff members
and a total budget of $495 million. Her department oversees the state's Older
Americans Act programs, the distribution of Medicaid long-term care payments
and regulation of nursing home licensure and survey processes. Ms. Greenlee has
served on the board of the National Association of State Units on Aging since
2008. From 2004-2006, Greenlee served as State Long-Term Care Ombudsman in
Kansas, and prior to that, was the state's Assistant Secretary of Aging. From
1999-2002, Greenlee served as general counsel at the Kansas Insurance
Department. During her tenure there, she led the team of regulators who
evaluated the proposed sale of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Kansas, and oversaw
the Senior Health Insurance Counseling for Kansas program. Greenlee also served
as Chief of Staff and Chief of Operations for then Governor Kathleen Sebelius.
She is a graduate of the University of Kansas with degrees in business
administration and law. Once nominated, Ms. Greenlee must be confirmed by the
U.S. Senate. To access the press release, click above.