Tag: iab-government support and welfare

Penn State Scandal Fast Facts | CNN

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Here’s a look at the Penn State sexual abuse scandal. On November 4, 2011, a grand jury report was released containing testimony that former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually abused eight young boys over a period of at least 15 years. Officials at Penn State purportedly failed to notify law enforcement after learning about some of these incidents. On December 7, 2011, the number of victims increased to 10. Sandusky was found guilty in 2012.

Included is a timeline of accusations, lists of the charges against Sandusky, a list of involved parties, a post grand jury report timeline, information about The Second Mile charity and Sandusky with links to the grand jury investigation.

Jerry Sandusky

Birth date: January 26, 1944

Birth place: Washington, Pennsylvania

Birth name: Gerald Arthur Sandusky

Marriage: Dorothy “Dottie” (Gross) Sandusky (1966-present)

Children: (all adopted) E.J., Kara, Jon, Jeff, Ray and Matt. The Sanduskys also fostered several children.

Occupation: Assistant football coach at Penn State for 32 years before his retirement, including 23 years as defensive coordinator.

Initially founded by Sandusky in 1977 as a group foster home for troubled boys, but grew into a non-profit organization that “helps young people to achieve their potential as individuals and community members.”

May 25, 2012 – The Second Mile requests court approval in Centre County, Pennsylvania, to transfer its programs to Arrow Child & Family Ministries and shut down.

August 27, 2012 – The Second Mile requests a stay in their petition to transfer its programs to Arrow Child & Family Ministries saying, “this action will allow any pending or future claims filed by Sandusky’s victims to be resolved before key programs or assets are considered for transfer.”

March 2016 – After years of dismantling and distributing assets to Arrow Child & Family Ministries and any remaining funds to the Pennsylvania Attorney General to hold in escrow, the organization is dissolved.

Source: Grand Jury Report

1994-1997 – Sandusky engages in inappropriate conduct with different boys he met separately through The Second Mile program.

1998 – Penn State police and the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare investigate an incident in which the mother of an 11-year-old boy reported that Sandusky showered with her son.

1998 – Psychologist Alycia Chambers tells Penn State police that Sandusky acted the way a pedophile might in her assessment of a case in which the mother of a young boy reported that Sandusky showered with her son and may have had inappropriate contact with him. A second psychologist, John Seasock, reported he found no indication of child abuse.

June 1, 1998 – In an interview, Sandusky admits to showering naked with the boy, saying it was wrong and promising not to do it again. The district attorney advises investigators that no charges will be filed, and the university police chief instructs that the case be closed.

June 1999 – Sandusky retires from Penn State after coaching there for 32 years, but receives emeritus status, with full access to the campus and football facilities.

2000 – James Calhoun, a janitor at Penn State, tells his supervisor and another janitor that he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the Lasch Building showers. No one reports the incident to university officials or law enforcement.

March 2, 2002 – Graduate Assistant Mike McQueary tells Coach Joe Paterno that on March 1, he witnessed Sandusky sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy in the Lasch Building showers. On May 7, 2012, prosecutors file court documents to change the date of the assault to on or around February 9, 2001.

March 3, 2002 – Paterno reports the incident to Athletic Director Tim Curley. Later, McQueary meets with Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz. McQueary testifies that he told Curley and Schultz that he saw Sandusky and the boy engage in anal sex; Curley and Schultz testify they were not told of any such allegation. No law enforcement investigation is launched.

2005 or 2006 – Sandusky befriends another Second Mile participant whose allegations would form the foundation of the multi-year grand jury investigation.

2006 or 2007 – Sandusky begins to spend more time with the boy, taking him to sporting events and giving him gifts. During this period, Sandusky performs oral sex on the boy more than 20 times and the boy performs oral sex on him once.

2008 – The boy breaks off contact with Sandusky. Later, his mother calls the boy’s high school to report her son had been sexually assaulted and the principal bans Sandusky from campus and reports the incident to police. The ensuing investigation reveals 118 calls from Sandusky’s home and cell phone numbers to the boy’s home.

November 2008 – Sandusky informs The Second Mile that he is under investigation. He is removed from all program activities involving children, according to the group.

November 4, 2011 – The grand jury report is released.

November 5, 2011 – Sandusky is arraigned on 40 criminal counts. He is released on $100,000 bail. Curley and Schultz are each charged with one count of felony perjury and one count of failure to report abuse allegations.

November 7, 2011 – Curley and Schultz are both arraigned and resign from their positions.

November 9, 2011 – Paterno announces that he intends to retire at the end of the 2011 football season. Hours later, university trustees announce that President Graham Spanier and Coach Paterno are fired, effective immediately.

November 11, 2011 – McQueary, now a Penn State receivers’ coach, is placed on indefinite administrative leave.

November 14, 2011 – In a phone interview with NBC’s Bob Costas, Sandusky states that he is “innocent” of the charges and claims that the only thing he did wrong was “showering with those kids.”

November 15, 2011 – The Morning Call reports that in a November 8, 2011, email to a former classmate, McQueary says he did stop the 2002 assault he witnessed and talked with police about it.

November 16, 2011 – Representatives of Penn State’s campus police and State College police say they have no record of having received any report from McQueary about his having witnessed the rape of a boy by Sandusky.

November 16, 2011 – A new judge is assigned to the Sandusky case after it is discovered that Leslie Dutchcot, the judge who freed Sandusky on $100,000 bail, volunteered at The Second Mile charity.

November 21, 2011 – It is announced that former FBI Director Louis Freeh will lead an independent inquiry for Penn State into the school’s response to allegations of child sex abuse.

November 22, 2011 – The Patriot-News reports that Children and Youth Services in Pennsylvania has two open cases of child sex abuse against Sandusky. The cases were reported less than two months ago and are in the initial stages of investigation.

November 22, 2011 – The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts announces that all Centre County Common Pleas Court judges have recused themselves from the Sandusky case. This is to avoid any conflicts of interest due to connections with Sandusky, The Second Mile charity, or Penn State.

November 30, 2011 – The first lawsuit is filed on behalf of a person listed in the complaint as “John Doe,” who says he was 10 years-old when he met Sandusky through The Second Mile charity. His attorneys say Sandusky sexually abused the victim “over one hundred times” and threatened to harm the victim and his family if he alerted anyone to the abuse.

December 2, 2011 – A victim’s attorneys say they have reached a settlement with The Second Mile that allows it to stay in operation but requires it to obtain court approval before transferring assets or closing.

December 3, 2011 – In an interview with The New York Times, Sandusky says, “If I say, ‘No, I’m not attracted to young boys,’ that’s not the truth. Because I’m attracted to young people – boys, girls – I …” His lawyer speaks up at that point to note that Sandusky is not “sexually” attracted to them.

December 7, 2011 – Sandusky is arrested on additional child rape charges, which raises the number of victims from eight to 10 people. He is charged with four counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and two counts of unlawful contact with a minor. He also faces one new count of indecent assault and two counts of endangering a child’s welfare, in addition to a single new count of indecent assault and two counts of corruption of minors.

December 8, 2011 – Sandusky is released on $250,000 bail. He is placed under house arrest and is required to wear an electronic monitoring device. He is also restricted from contacting the victims and possible witnesses, and he must be supervised during any interactions with minors.

December 13, 2011 – Sandusky enters a plea of not guilty and waives his right to a preliminary hearing.

December 16, 2011 – A hearing is held for Curley and Schultz. McQueary testifies he told university officials that he saw Sandusky possibly sexually assaulting a boy in 2002. Following the testimony, the judge rules that the perjury case against Curley and Schultz will go to trial. The incident is later said to have happened in 2001.

January 13, 2012 – Curley and Schultz enter pleas of not guilty for their failure to report child sex abuse.

January 22, 2012 – Paterno dies at the age of 85.

February 14, 2012 – Penn State says that the Sandusky case has cost the university $3.2 million thus far in combined legal, consultant and public relations fees.

June 11, 2012 – The Sandusky trial begins. On June 22, Sandusky is found guilty on 45 counts after jurors deliberate for almost 21 hours. His bail is immediately revoked, and he is taken to jail.

June 30, 2012 – McQueary’s contract as assistant football coach ends.

July 12, 2012 – Freeh announces the findings of the investigation into Penn State’s actions concerning Sandusky. The report accuses the former leaders at Penn State of showing “total and consistent disregard” for child sex abuse victims, while covering up the attacks of a longtime sexual predator.

July 23, 2012 – The NCAA announces a $60 million fine against Penn State and bans the team from the postseason for four years. Additionally, the school must vacate all wins from 1998-2011 and will lose 20 football scholarships a year for four seasons.
– The Big Ten Conference rules that Penn State’s share of bowl revenues for the next four seasons – roughly $13 million will be donated to charities working to prevent child abuse.

August 24, 2012 – “Victim 1” files a lawsuit against Penn State.

September 20, 2012 – Penn State hires Feinberg Rozen LLP (headed by Kenneth Feinberg who oversaw the 9/11 and BP oil spill victim funds).

October 2, 2012 – McQueary files a whistleblower lawsuit against Penn State.

October 8, 2012 – An audio statement from Sandusky airs in which he protests his innocence and says he is falsely accused.

October 9, 2012 – Sandusky is sentenced to no less than 30 years and no more than 60 years in prison. During the hearing, Sandusky is designated a violent sexual offender.

October 15, 2012 – Plaintiff “John Doe,” a 21-year-old male, files a lawsuit against Sandusky, Penn State, The Second Mile, Spanier, Curley and Schultz. Doe alleges that he would not have been assaulted by Sandusky if officials, who were aware he was molesting boys, had not covered up his misconduct.

November 1, 2012 – The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania files eight charges against former Penn State President Spanier. The charges include perjury and endangering the welfare of a child. Former university Vice President Schultz and former Athletic Director Curley face the same charges, according to Attorney General Linda Kelly.

November 15, 2012 – The Middle States Commission on Higher Education lifts its warning and reaffirms Penn State’s accreditation.

January 30, 2013 – Judge John M. Cleland denies Sandusky’s appeal for a new trial.

July 30, 2013 – A judge rules that Spanier, Curley and Schultz will face trial on obstruction of justice and other charges.

August 26, 2013 – Attorneys announce Sandusky’s adopted son and six other victims have finalized settlement agreements.

October 2, 2013 – The Superior Court of Pennsylvania denies Sandusky’s appeal.

October 28, 2013 – Penn State announces it has reached settlements with 26 victims of Sandusky. The amount paid by the university totals $59.7 million.

April 2, 2014 – The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania also denies Sandusky’s appeal.

September 8, 2014 – NCAA ends Penn State’s postseason ban and scholarship limits. The $60 million fine and the 13 years of vacated wins for Paterno remain in place.

January 16, 2015 – The NCAA agrees to restore 111 of Paterno’s wins as part of a settlement of the lawsuit brought by State Senator Jake Corman and Treasurer Rob McCord. Also, as part of the settlement, Penn State agrees to commit $60 million to the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse.

December 23, 2015 – A spokeswoman for the State of Pennsylvania employee retirement system says Sandusky will receive $211,000 in back payments and his regular pension payments will resume. This is the result of a November 13 court ruling that reversed a 2012 decision to terminate Sandusky’s pension under a state law that allows the termination of pensions of public employees convicted of a “disqualifying crime.” The judge said in his ruling that Sandusky was not employed at the time of the crimes he was convicted of committing.

January 22, 2016 – A three-judge panel reverses the obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges against Spanier, Curley and Schultz, and the perjury charges against Spanier and Curley.

May 4, 2016 – A new allegation purports Paterno knew that his assistant coach Sandusky was sexually abusing a child as early as 1976, according to a new court filing. The ongoing lawsuit, filed in 2013, seeks to determine whether Penn State or its insurance policy is liable for paying Sandusky’s victims. At least 30 men were involved in a civil settlement with Penn State, and the number of victims could be higher.

May 6, 2016 – CNN reports the story of another alleged victim who explains how he was a troubled young kid in 1971 when Sandusky raped him in a Penn State bathroom. He says his complaint about it was ignored by Paterno.

July 12, 2016 – Newly unsealed court documents allege that Paterno knew about Sandusky’s abuse and that he dismissed a victim’s complaint.

August 12, 2016 – In a bid for a new trial, Sandusky testifies at a post-conviction hearing claiming his lawyers bungled his 2012 trial. On the stand, Sandusky describes what he said as bad media and legal advice given to him by his former lawyer, Joseph Amendola.

November 3, 2016 – The Department of Education fines Penn State $2.4 million for violating the Clery Act, a law that requires universities to report crime on campuses. It’s the largest fine in the history of the act.

March 13, 2017 – Curley and Schultz plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of children in exchange for the dismissal of felony charges.

March 24, 2017 – Spanier is found guilty on one misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child. Spanier was acquitted of more serious allegations, including conspiracy charges and a felony count of child endangerment.

June 2, 2017 – Spanier and two other former administrators are sentenced to jail terms for failing to report a 2001 allegation that Sandusky was molesting young boys. Spanier whose total sentence is four to 12 months incarceration, will be on probation for two years and must pay a $7,500 fine, according to Joe Grace, a spokesman for Pennsylvania’s attorney general’s office.

– Curley is sentenced to seven to 23 months’ incarceration and two years’ probation, Grace said. He will serve three months in jail followed by house arrest and pay a $5,000 fine.

– Schultz is sentenced to six to 23 months’ incarceration and two years’ probation. He will serve two months in jail, followed by house arrest and pay a $5,000 fine, according to Grace.

January 9, 2018 – Penn State reports that the total amount of settlement awards paid to Sandusky’s victims is now over $109 million.

February 5, 2019 – In response to an appeal for a new trial that also questions the validity of mandatory minimum sentencing, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania orders Sandusky to be re-sentenced. The request for a new trial is denied.

April 30, 2019 – US Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick vacates Spanier’s 2017 conviction for endangering the welfare of a child. Spanier was set to be sentenced on the one count conviction, instead, the court ordered the conviction be vacated because it was based on a criminal statute that did not go into effect until after the conduct in question. The state has 90 days to retry him, according to court documents. The following month, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro appeals the judge’s decision to throw out the conviction.

November 22, 2019 – Sandusky is resentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison, the same penalty that was previously overturned. The initial sentence of at least 30 years in prison was overturned by the Pennsylvania Superior Court, which found that mandatory minimum sentences were illegally imposed.

March 26, 2020 – The US Office for Civil Rights finds that Penn State failed to protect students who filed sexual harassment complaints. OCR completed the compliance review after it was initially launched in 2014, and found that the University violated Title IX for several years, in various ways. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announces that the US Department of Education and the university have entered into a resolution agreement that compels Penn State to address deficiencies in their complaint process, reporting policy requirements, record keeping, and training of staff, university police and other persons who work with students.

December 1, 2020 – Spanier’s conviction is restored by a federal appeals court.

May 26, 2021 – A judge rules that Spanier will start his two month prison sentence on July 9. Spanier reports to jail early and is released on August 4 after serving 58 days.

Sandusky Verdict

Victim 1
Count 1 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 2 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 3 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Felony 3)
Count 4 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 5 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 6 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

Victim 2
Count 7 – not guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 8 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
Count 9 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 10 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 11 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

Victim 3
Count 12 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
Count 13 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 3)
Count 14 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 15 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

Victim 4
Count 16 – ****DROPPED****: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 17 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 18 – ****DROPPED*****: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 19 – ****DROPPED*****: Aggravated Indecent Assault (Felony 2)
Count 20 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
Count 21 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 22 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 23 – guilty” Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

Victim 5
Count 24 – not guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 25 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 3)
Count 26 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 27 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

Victim 6
Count 28 – not guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 29 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 3)
Count 30 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 31 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

Victim 7
Count 32 – guilty: Criminal Attempt to Commit Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
Count 33 – ****DROPPED****: WITHDRAWN BY PROSECUTORS (unlawful contact with minors)
Count 34 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 35 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

Victim 8
Count 36 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 37 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
Count 38 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 39 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 40 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

(Due to 2nd indictment, counts start over with Victims 9 and 10)

Victim 9
Count 1 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 2 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 3 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Felony 3)
Count 4 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 5 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 6 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

Victim 10
Count 7 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 8 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 9 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 10 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 11 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 12 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

[ad_2]

Source link

April 24, 2024
Andrew Yang Fast Facts | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Here is a look at the life of Andrew Yang, entrepreneur and former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

Birth date: January 13, 1975

Birth place: Schenectady, New York

Birth name: Andrew M. Yang

Father: Kei-Hsiung Yang, researcher at IBM and GE

Mother: Nancy L. Yang, systems administrator

Marriage: Evelyn (Lu) Yang (2011-present)

Children: Two sons

Education: Brown University, B.A. in Economics, 1996; J.D. Columbia University School of Law, 1999

Religion: Protestant

His parents are originally from Taiwan.

The primary proposal for his political platform was the idea of universal basic income (UBI). This “Freedom Dividend” would have provided every citizen with $1,000 a month, or $12,000 a year.

Yang established Freedom Dividend, a pilot program to push for universal basic income, in which he personally funds monthly cash payments.

Is featured in the 2016 documentary, “Generation Startup.”

His campaign slogan was “MATH,” or “Make America Think Harder.”

In 1992, he traveled to London as a member of the US National Debate Team.

After graduating from Columbia, Yang practiced law for a short time before changing his career focus to start-ups and entrepreneurship.

2002-2005 – Vice president of a healthcare start-up.

2006-2011 – Managing director, then CEO, of Manhattan Prep, a test-prep company.

2009 – Kaplan buys Manhattan Prep for more than $10 million.

September 2011 – Founds Venture for America, a non-profit which connects recent college graduates with start-ups. Leaves the company in 2017.

2012 – Is recognized by President Barack Obama as a “Champion of Change.”

April 2012 – Ranks No. 27 on Fast Company’s list of 100 Most Creative People in Business.

February 4, 2014 – His book, “Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America,” is published.

May 11, 2015 – Obama names Yang an ambassador for global entrepreneurship.

November 6, 2017 – Files FEC paperwork for a 2020 presidential run.

February 2, 2018 – Announces his run for president via YouTube and Twitter.

April 3, 2018 – His book, “The War on Normal People,” is published.

March 2019 – Yang explores the possibility of using a 3D hologram to be able to campaign remotely in two or three places at once.

January 4, 2020 – Launches a write-in campaign for the Ohio Democratic primary in March of 2020 after failing to fully comply with the state’s ballot access laws.

February 11, 2020 – In New Hampshire, Yang suspends his presidential campaign.

February 19, 2020 – CNN announces that Yang will be joining the network as a political commentator.

March 5, 2020 – Launches Humanity Forward, a nonprofit group that will “endorse and provide resources to political candidates who embrace Universal Basic Income, human-centered capitalism and other aligned policies at every level,” according to its website. Yang also announces that he will launch a podcast.

December 23, 2020 – Files paperwork to participate in New York’s 2021 mayoral race, according to city records.

January 13, 2021 – Yang announces his candidacy for New York City mayor.

June 22, 2021 – Yang concedes the New York City mayoral race.

October 4, 2021 – Yang announces in a blog post that he is “breaking up” with the Democratic Party and has registered as an independent

July 27, 2022 – Yang, along with former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, and a group of former Republican and Democratic officials form a new political party called Forward.

September 12, 2023 – Yang’s political thriller “The Last Election,” co-written with Stephen Marche, is published.

2020 hopeful wants holograms to campaign in multiple cities

[ad_2]

Source link

December 28, 2023
Autoworkers strike deadline nears as negotiators rush to avoid historic walkout | CNN Business

[ad_1]

Detroit
CNN
—

With just hours to go before labor contracts expire at America’s three unionized automakers, thousands of autoworkers could walk off the job.

Those limited, targeted strikes could be enough to grind production to a halt at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, which builds vehicles under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands for North America.

But the uncertainty and confusion underscore the high stakes, with a possible historic strike at all three major automakers, disruptions to the local and national economies, and, perhaps more than anything, a hint at the future of manufacturing jobs in America.

The union and the automakers continued to negotiate down to the wire on Thursday. GM made a new offer on Thursday afternoon, including a 20% raise, matching Ford’s offer.

“We don’t want there to be a strike. We’re ready to work until the deadline,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told CNN. “We’d like to make history by making a historic deal, not having a historic strike,” he said.

And President Joe Biden himself spoke to leaders of the union and the automakers, as a strike could be politically costly for him, as well.

UAW President Shawn Fain on Wednesday evening announced plans for those targeted strikes at any company that fails to reach a labor deal with the union before contracts expire at 11:59 pm Thursday. Fain suggested the strategy, including the possibility of ramping up strikes as negotiating continues, would give the UAW more leverage. “We have the power to keep escalating and keep taking plants out,” he said.

But Farley said on CNN Thursday that striking plants that make critical parts could affect workers at downstream assembly plants.

“We can’t make a vehicle without an engine or transmission or stamping. So those people will, you know, basically be furloughed,” Farley said.

Slowing or stopping the production of a few engine or transmission plants at each company could be as effective at stopping operations as a full strike at all plants, according to industry experts.

One engine or transmission location per company might be enough to shut down nearly three-quarters of the US assembly plants, said Jeff Schuster, global head of automotive for GlobalData, an industry consultant.

“Two plants per company, you can pretty much idle North America,” he said.

Halting the companies’ assembly lines would likely happen in less than a week that way, Schuster said.

One advantage for the union of a targeted strike is the potential to save resources and extend a possible walkout. Striking union members are eligible for $500 a week from the union’s strike fund.

If all 145,000 UAW members among the three automakers were to strike at the same time, it could cost the fund more than $70 million a week, draining the $825 million fund.

If the companies shut down operations and lay off members who are not technically on strike, those workers could be eligible to receive state unemployment benefits rather than strike benefits, which could preserve the union’s resources.

Strikers are not eligible for unemployment benefits, but workers on temporary layoff can receive the benefits, which differ by state but would be less than the union’s $500 strike pay. There also are legal questions in different states about qualifying for unemployment.

An official with Ford told reporters Thursday that under state law, workers in Michigan and Ohio were not eligible to receive unemployment benefits if they were laid off due to lack of parts at their plant caused by a strike. There are some other states, such as Kentucky and Tennessee, where they would be able to receive unemployment benefits, according to the officials.

But they said none of the Ford UAW members would be eligible for so-called “sub-pay,” which they typically receive during temporary layoffs. Sub pay is far more lucrative, covering most of the gap between unemployment benefits, typically less than $300 a week, and normal company pay, which can be close to $1,300 a week.

GM CEO Mary Barra sent a letter to employees Thursday saying the company’s latest offer now includes a 20% raise, with an immediate 10% pay hike. The lower paid temporary employees would get $20 an hour, which represents a 20% raise from the current $16.67 an hour they receive. She called the offer “historic.”

“We are working with urgency and have proposed yet another increasingly strong offer with the goal of reaching an agreement tonight. Remember: we had a strike in 2019 and nobody won,” she said in the letter.

Farley told CNN the offer from Ford of a 20% raise over the life of the contract is the most lucrative offer the company has made to the union in the 80 years it has been there. But he said meeting the union’s demands of close to a 40% raise, along with a four-day work week and other benefit improvements, would have been unaffordable.

Farley blamed the union for the lack of progress in negotiations. But the union has blamed the companies for waiting until the end of August or early September to make their first counteroffers.

The union came up with the 40% raise request based on the increase in the pay of CEOs at the three automakers over the last four years. Ford CEO pay rose 21%, from $17 million for Farley’s predecessor Jim Hackett in 2019, to $21 million for Farley last year. (Farley is the lowest compensated of the three CEOs.)

Asked why the union workers shouldn’t get the same increases, Farley responded, “We’re really open to huge increases.” As to the 40% increases for CEOs, Farley responded, “I wasn’t CEO four years ago, but we have put on the table huge increases, double digit increases.”

Ford has not had a strike since 1978; it has more UAW workers than the other two automakers.

President Joe Biden spoke with Fain and leaders of the major auto companies “to discuss the status of ongoing negotiations,” the White House said Thursday.

The White House declined to say Wednesday that Biden would support UAW workers if they chose to strike.

“I’m gonna leave it at, [Biden] believes the auto workers deserve a contract that sustains middle class jobs and wants the parties to stay at the table, to work round the clock to get a win-win agreement,” Council of Economic Advisors Chair Jared Bernstein told reporters during Wednesday’s White House press briefing.

Biden became directly involved in 11th hour negotiations a year ago to stop engineers and conductors at the nation’s major freight railroad from going on strike and was credited by both sides with a deal being reached at that time. But Biden and Congress had power under a different labor law to keep workers on the job by imposing a contract, a power he used later in the year when rank-and-file rail workers rejected the deal he brokered and again threatened to strike

The autoworkers fall under a different labor law, one that leaves Biden with no power to stop a walkout. And he has limited influence with the UAW, which has been critical of his push to have the industry convert to electric vehicles, a move that could cost members jobs in the long run.

In a statement midday Thursday, GM said it remains in “good faith negotiations” with the UAW but cautioned that a strike would be disruptive to its business.

“Any disruption would negatively impact our employees and customers, and would have an immediate ripple effect across our communities,” a company spokesperson said.

One sticking point in negotiations is that wages are only part of the gap between the two sides. In some ways it might be the least difficult problem to solve, said Patrick Anderson, CEO of Anderson Economic Group, a Michigan research firm.

“The difference between the automakers and the unions on wages is a gap that could be closed,” said Anderson. “The differences involving non-wage demands are a gulf, not a gap.”

The union is attempting to reverse deep concessions that go back as far as 2007. At the time, years of losses had left Ford nearly out of cash, and GM and Chrysler were on their way to bankruptcy and federal bailouts.

The number one concession the union wants to end is a lower tier of wages and benefits for workers hired since 2007. While top pay for those newer hires, who today make up a majority of membership, is the same as the $32.32 paid to more senior members, it takes many more years to reach that level.

The union also wants to restore traditional pension plans for those hired since 2007, as the more senior workers now receive, as well as the same retiree health care coverage. And to protect members from rising prices, it wants a return of the cost-of-living adjustments to pay that all employees lost in 2007.

Even Fain calls those demands “ambitious,” but he said they’re driven by record or near record profits at the automakers.

Pandemic supply chain disruptions and shortages of some parts, particularly computer chips, have led to record car prices. The average purchase price of a new car in August was nearly $48,000, according to Edmunds. That’s up 30% from August of 2019.

Automakers have used their limited supply of parts to build vehicles loaded with options to maximize profits. That’s produced a strong bottom line. General Motors reported record profits in 2022, and Ford posted near-record profits as well. Stellantis, a European-based automaker formed in 2021 by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group, had 2022 profits up 26% compared to its first year of combined operations.

A strike that halts production nationwide could also be costly for the automakers at a time of strong demand by car buyers and strong competition from nonunion automakers such as Tesla and foreign brands. GM said it lost $2.9 billion during its 2019 strike.

While the automakers have done their best to build up inventory at dealerships, car buyers could have trouble finding some of the models they want and could have to wait longer for their choice of colors and options. And limited supplies could put upward pressure on some vehicle prices.

– CNN’s DJ Judd contributed to this report

[ad_2]

Source link

September 14, 2023
More remote workers are willing to move in order to find affordable housing | CNN Business

[ad_1]

Washington, DC
CNN
—

Housing is less affordable than it has been in about four decades. But buying or renting a home might be even less affordable now if it weren’t for the continuing impact of remote and hybrid workers that resulted from the pandemic, according to a recent study by Fannie Mae.

The study, which was an analysis of Fannie Mae’s monthly National Housing Survey, with questions asked among more than 3,000 mortgage holders, owners, and renters between January and March this year, looked at how remote and hybrid work has changed over the past few years and its impact on housing.

More people are willing to move to less expensive areas further away from offices in city centers than a few years ago, according to the report. Continuing remote and hybrid work, at levels remarkably unchanged from two years ago, is enabling people to move toward housing affordability, the study found.

The report also revealed that “affordability” is the most important factor in finding a place to live, both for renters and homeowners.

At the beginning of the year, 22% of remote and hybrid workers said they would be willing to relocate to a different region or increase their commute. Only 14% such workers were willing to do so in the third quarter of 2021, which is used as a comparison throughout the study and was when many workplaces attempted a “return to work” until the Omicron variant of Covid-19 pushed many employers’ plans back that winter.

Workers who are able to break their ties to living in an area because of its proximity to work are able to spread out, reducing the competition for a historically low number of homes for sale that could push prices even higher.

The research showed that among remote workers, all age and income groups have grown more willing to relocate or live farther away from their workplace since 2021. But younger workers — those between 18 and 34 — are significantly more willing than those older than them to live or commute a further distance from their work, with the share willing to do so jumping from 18% in 2021, to 30% in 2023.

“We believe this greater willingness to live farther from the … workplace may be an indication that some workers are feeling more secure about their remote work situation … or their ability to find another job if their current employer were to change its policies,” wrote the researchers, in a summary.

This is good news for remote workers during a time of crushingly low levels of home affordability.

Remote and hybrid work may be here to stay. Or, it’s here long enough for people to buy or rent a new home because of it, the researchers found.

Despite the demands by leaders of some prominent companies that workers need to head into the office or head out the door, the share of fully remote and hybrid workers has remained surprisingly constant in the post-pandemic era, according to the study.

In the first part of the year, 35% of respondents worked fully remote or worked a hybrid mix of some time at a workplace and some time at home. That was only slightly down from 36% in 2021.

While the share of workers going to a work site or office every day was unchanged at 49% in both 2021 and in 2023, the share of people working fully remote ticked up to 14% this year from 13% in 2021.

Homeowners continue to be slightly more likely to work from home than renters. And those with more education and higher incomes are also more likely to have a work-from-home situation, which is consistent with 2021, the study found.

Only 30% of lower-income people, earning 80% of the area median income, could work remotely or hybrid in 2021, and that dropped to 27% by this year. Meanwhile 42% of upper-income people, those making 120% of the area median income, were able to work from home in 2021 and that number did not change in 2023.

Lower-income people — who are in most need of access to lower-cost housing, found further away from a city’s core — are also those least likely to work remotely, according to the survey.

With housing affordability taking a hit over the past few years as rents rose, home prices stayed elevated and mortgage rates soared to a 22-year high, it is not surprising that “affordability” was the top factor for people when picking a new home, at 36%. This was a big jump from 2014, the last time the question was asked, when the top consideration was “neighborhood” at 49%.

Homeowners and renters both showed growth in prioritizing “affordability,” but the increase was greatest among renters, shooting up from 21% in 2014 to 46% in 2023.

“The change in preference for renters is truly remarkable, since not only did it more than double, but it represented a complete reversal of the relative importance of neighborhood cited by consumers as the top consideration in 2014,” wrote the researchers.

In addition, despite the talk about moving for more space, “home size” as a factor for picking a next home was unchanged and still outweighed by “affordability.”

“The striking shift toward affordability as the top consideration among overall survey respondents for their next move substantiates the need of households to find ways to manage around the significant rise in mortgage rates, home prices, and rents of the past few years,” the researchers wrote.

And this is impacting where people look for a home and what they prioritize when they are searching.

“Home affordability may also be a reason why we saw an increase in remote workers’ willingness to relocate or live farther away from their workplace, particularly given that, historically, a shorter commute to denser job markets was considered a premium amenity,” the researchers wrote.

The suburbs are increasingly where people want to be, the report found, which is part of an ongoing trend since 2010. And that share has grown between 2021 and 2023.

The researchers say the change to the housing market brought about by remote workers holds broader implications for the link between housing and the labor market.

The growing share of remote-working renters and homeowners willing to live farther from their work location gives employers access to a wider labor market, which could be useful if a downturn in economic activity led to greater rates of job loss.

“Having access to a larger labor market may also reduce the adverse effect on local home prices when a major employer or industry contracts,” the researchers wrote.

[ad_2]

Source link

September 3, 2023
Georgia is now the only state with work requirements in Medicaid | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Georgia is now the only state in the US to implement work requirements in its Medicaid program – a feat many Republican lawmakers nationwide will be closely monitoring.

But unlike GOP-led states’ prior attempts to impose work mandates in Medicaid, Georgia’s effort is expected to increase the number of people with health insurance, rather than strip coverage away from an untold number of low-income residents. That allowed it to pass muster in court, though critics still deride the program as complicated, ineffective and expensive.

Pathways to Coverage, which began July 1, comes as House Republicans in Congress are pushing to expand work requirements in the nation’s safety net programs, particularly Medicaid and food stamps.

There is no federal work mandate in Medicaid, but 13 states received permission during the Trump administration to require existing enrollees to work, volunteer or meet other criteria to retain their health insurance. In Arkansas, the only state that implemented work requirements and terminated coverage, more than 18,000 people were disenrolled in 2018 before its waiver was voided by a federal court.

States paused their initiatives because of litigation or the Covid-19 pandemic, and then the Biden administration withdrew the waiver approvals. But Georgia challenged the withdrawal, and a federal judge ruled in the state’s favor in August 2022, allowing it to implement Pathways to Coverage.

Georgia has among the nation’s strictest eligibility requirements for Medicaid. It is one of 10 states that has not expanded the program to all low-income adults under the Affordable Care Act. Parents only qualify if they make less than 31% of the federal poverty level for a family of three – or about $7,700 this year, according to KFF, a health policy research organization.

Under Pathways to Coverage, adults making up to 100% of the federal poverty level – about $14,600 for an individual – can enroll if they work, participate in job training or community service, take higher education classes or meet other criteria for at least 80 hours a month.

“In our state, we want more people to be covered at a lower cost with more options for patients,” Gov. Brian Kemp said in his State of the State address in January.

Just how many people are expected to gain coverage varies. In his speech, Kemp said up to 345,000 Georgians are potentially eligible for the program, while the state Department of Community Health said the state has budgeted for an estimated enrollment of 100,000 residents in the first year.

Interest in the program is continuing to grow, said the department, which is working with insurers, community groups and others to get the word out.

Others, however, estimate far fewer people will gain coverage. The state funds allotted for the program in the current fiscal year will allow about 47,500 to enroll, according to the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, a left-leaning advocacy group.

Fully expanding Medicaid would cover far more people and at a lower cost to the state, said Leah Chan, the institute’s director of health justice. Some 482,000 Georgians earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level – or about $20,100 for an individual – could gain coverage.

Also, the federal government covers a larger share of the costs of the full expansion enrollees and would temporarily provide a boost in federal funding for existing traditional Medicaid participants under a provision of the American Rescue Plan Act aimed at enticing holdout states to expand.

If Georgia fully expanded Medicaid, each newly eligible enrollee would cost the state about $496, Chan said. But under Pathways to Coverage, each will cost $2,490 because the program does not qualify for the enhanced federal match.

“It doesn’t make sense for us to implement a program that’s going to cover fewer people at a higher cost when we have an option that could close the coverage gap and draw down millions and millions – some estimates say billions – in federal dollars,” Chan said.

Plus, it could be tough for low-income residents, particularly those in rural areas of the state where many of the uninsured live, to work enough hours consistently to qualify, she said. And those who do may get tripped up in submitting the necessary monthly documentation.

Another issue: There are no exemptions for parents of dependent children or other caregivers, said Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University. Other states that sought to implement work requirements during the Trump administration had such exemptions.

“A small number of people may get coverage, but the likelihood of them retaining that coverage for a while is not very high,” Alker said. “And this is an especially problematic structure for parents.”

Georgia officials, however, say Pathways to Coverage is the right program for the state.

“This approach is Georgia-centric and ensures we can expand Medicaid coverage to those who were previously ineligible without forcing others off their preferred private insurance,” the state Department of Community Health said in a statement to CNN. “Unlike the top-down approach of traditional Medicaid expansion, Georgia Pathways was developed by Georgians and is run by Georgians to address our state’s specific needs.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 9, 2023
Lawsuit seeks to halt Medicaid terminations in Florida | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Two consumer advocacy groups filed a lawsuit in a Florida federal court Tuesday seeking to halt the state’s termination of residents’ Medicaid benefits.

The suit is the first in the nation to challenge states’ resumption of reviewing Medicaid enrollees’ eligibility and dropping those deemed no longer qualified. The process, which Congress had suspended for three years during the Covid-19 pandemic, restarted as early as April, depending on the state.

The Florida Health Justice Project and the National Health Law Program filed the lawsuit on behalf of three Floridians in US District Court in Jacksonville against the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration and the Department of Children and Families. The residents are a 25-year-old woman and her 2-year-old daughter, who has cystic fibrosis, as well as a 1-year-old girl.

The plaintiffs argue that the notices the agencies are sending to inform enrollees that they are no longer eligible are confusing and don’t provide sufficient explanation as to why they are losing coverage.

“As a result, Plaintiffs and class members are losing Medicaid coverage without meaningful and adequate notice, leaving them unable to understand the agency’s decision, properly decide whether and how to contest their loss of Medicaid coverage, or plan for a smooth transition of coverage that minimizes disruptions in necessary care,” the complaint reads. “Without Medicaid coverage, Plaintiffs are unable to obtain care they need, including prescription drugs, children’s vaccinations, and post-partum care.”

The advocates are asking the court to require the state to stop terminating enrollees until the agencies provide adequate notice and an opportunity for a pre-termination fair hearing.

Mallory McManus, deputy chief of staff for the Department of Children and Families, called the lawsuit “baseless.” While she said the state cannot comment on pending litigation, she said the letters to recipients are “legally sufficient.”

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services “approved the Department’s redetermination plan based on their regulations. There are multiple steps in the eligibility determination process and the final letter is just one of multiple communications from the Department,” said McManus, adding that the agency “continues to lead on Medicaid determinations and being fiscally responsible.”

The Agency for Health Care Administration did not immediately return a request for comment.

Nearly 183,000 Floridians have been issued notices saying they no longer qualify for Medicaid, according to the lawsuit. Hundreds of thousands more will have their coverage reviewed in the coming year.

In addition to those determined ineligible, nearly 226,000 were dropped for so-called procedural reasons, typically because enrollees did not complete the renewal application, according to KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation. This often happens because it may have been sent to an old address, it was difficult to understand or it wasn’t returned by the deadline.

Nearly 898,000 Florida residents have had their coverage renewed, according to KFF.

Nationwide, more than 5.2 million people have been disenrolled since the so-called Medicaid unwinding began in the spring, according to KFF. Nearly three-quarters of those who have lost coverage were dropped for procedural reasons.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 2, 2023
Watchdog agency increases its pandemic unemployment benefits fraud estimate to as much as $135 billion | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

Washington
CNN
—

As much as $135 billion in fraudulent Covid-19 pandemic unemployment insurance claims were likely paid out, according to a report released Tuesday by the US Government Accountability Office.

The whopping figure, which equates to as much as 15% of total unemployment benefits distributed during the pandemic, is a notable bump up from the $60 billion the watchdog agency had previously estimated in January.

In comments on a draft of the GAO report, the Department of Labor said the office is likely overestimating the actual amount of fraud. However, the department’s Office of Inspector General in February said in testimony before a House committee that at least $191 billion in pandemic unemployment benefits payments could have been improper, with “a significant portion attributable to fraud.”

The GAO pushed back on the department’s assertions in its report and stood by the methodology used.

“Given that not all potential fraud will be investigated and adjudicated through judicial or other systems, the full extent of UI fraud during the pandemic will likely never be known with certainty,” the GAO report said. “Therefore, it is appropriate to rely on estimates, such as ours, to make more comprehensive conclusions about the extent of fraud in the UI programs during the pandemic.”

The findings released on Tuesday shed light on the numerous schemes to steal money from a range of hastily implemented pandemic relief programs, which have drawn the attention of congressional lawmakers and prompted legislative action. Last year, President Joe Biden signed two bipartisan bills into law aimed at holding individuals who commit fraud under pandemic relief programs accountable.

“My message to those cheats out there is this: You can’t hide. We’re going to find you. We’re going to make you pay back what you stole and hold you accountable under the law,” the president said at the time.

The House of Representatives also passed a bill in May that would help recover fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits paid out during the pandemic. The bill, however, has not been brought to a vote in the Senate.

Fraud within the nation’s unemployment system skyrocketed after Congress enacted a historic expansion of the program in March 2020. State unemployment agencies were overwhelmed with record numbers of claims and relaxed some requirements in an effort to get the money out the door quickly to those who had lost their jobs.

But the enhanced payments and lax controls quickly attracted criminals from around the world. States and Congress subsequently tightened their verification requirements in an attempt to combat the fraud, particularly in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which allowed freelancers, gig workers and others to collect benefits for the first time.

More than $888 billion in federal and state unemployment benefits were paid from the end of March 2020 through early September 2021, when all the pandemic enhancements ended nationwide, according to the Labor Department Office of Inspector General.

The GAO report said the “unprecedented demand for benefits and need to quickly implement the new programs increased the risk of fraud.”

Other pandemic relief programs were also the target of criminals. The GAO in May flagged 3.7 million recipients of Small Business Administration funds as having “warning signs consistent with potential fraud.” The SBA doled out $1 trillion to help small businesses during the pandemic through measures including the Paycheck Protection Program and Covid-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. More than 10 million small businesses were assisted.

Some of the fraudulent claims have been recouped. States identified $5.3 billion in fraudulent unemployment benefits overpayments and has recovered $1.2 billion, according to the GAO.

A Justice Department spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday that as of August 30, the department has charged more than 3,000 people for pandemic related fraud.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 2, 2023
Gen Z and Millennials are scrimping. Boomers? Living it up | CNN Business

[ad_1]

New York
CNN Business
—

Baby Boomers are living it up, splurging on cruises and restaurants. Younger Americans are struggling just to keep up.

Bank of America internal data shows a “significant gap” in spending has opened recently between older and younger generations.

While Baby Boomers and even Traditionalists (born 1928-1945) are ramping up spending, Gen X, Gen Z and Millennials are cutting back as they grapple with high housing costs and looming student debt payments.

“It’s fairly unusual,” David Tinsley, senior economist at the Bank of America Institute, told CNN in a phone interview.

Overall, household spending dipped 0.2% year-over-year in May, according to the bank’s card data — but the generational breakdown showed a more varied picture.

Spending increased by 5.3% for Traditionalists and 2.2% for Baby Boomers. In contrast, spending fell by about 1.5% for younger generations.

If not for the aggressive spending by Boomers, Tinsley said, overall consumer spending would have been even more negative.

So, what is going on?

Older Americans are ramping up spending as they benefit from a spike in Social Security payments.

Starting in January, Social Security recipients received an 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment, the biggest increase since 1981. That increase — caused directly by high inflation — is boosting the average retirees’ monthly payments by an estimated $146.

Bank of America spending data shows a noticeable bump in spending by households that received the cost-of-living boost.

However, the bank noticed the spending surge by older Americans is happening among high-income households too. And those consumers are less likely to be impacted by the spike in Social Security payments.

“That can’t be the whole story,” Tinsley said of the cost-of-living adjustments.

To explain the drop in spending by younger Americans, Bank of America pointed to high housing costs. In recent years, rental rates spiked, home prices soared and mortgage rates surged.

Younger Americans are also much more likely to move than older ones.

“The people who do move are really facing quite significant cost increases,” said Tinsley.

Bank of America has noted that older consumers are spending on travel, including hotels, airfare and cruises, now that the Covid emergency is over.

Due to Covid fears, older generations held back on travel during the pandemic, but now they are “splurging,” Tinsley said.

Beyond the high cost of living, Bank of America said many younger Americans are also likely bracing for the return of a significant monthly expense: student debt.

The bipartisan debt ceiling deal included a provision that specifically prevented the Biden administration from extending the pause on federal student loan payments.

The student debt freeze, in effect since March 2020 when the Covid pandemic erupted, is expected to conclude by the end of August.

That is particularly painful to younger consumers. Americans are sitting on $1.6 trillion of student debt, according to the New York Federal Reserve, and the vast majority of that student debt is held by those under the age of 49.

For millions of Gen Z and Millennials, the return of student debt payments will mean less money for spending on restaurants and vacations.

Some consumers may be starting to pull back on spending ahead of that change, Tinsley said: “It’s coming down the tracks pretty fast now.”

[ad_2]

Source link

June 12, 2023
Why is it difficult for children to get a bed at pediatric hospitals? It’s more complicated than you think | CNN
[ad_1]
CNN
—

Effie Schnacky was wheezy and lethargic instead of being her normal, rambunctious self one February afternoon. When her parents checked her blood oxygen level, it was hovering around 80% – dangerously low for the 7-year-old.

Her mother, Jaimie, rushed Effie, who has asthma, to a local emergency room in Hudson, Wisconsin. She was quickly diagnosed with pneumonia. After a couple of hours on oxygen, steroids and nebulizer treatments with little improvement, a physician told Schnacky that her daughter needed to be transferred to a children’s hospital to receive a higher level of care.

What they didn’t expect was that it would take hours to find a bed for her.

Even though the respiratory surge that overwhelmed doctor’s offices and hospitals last fall is over, some parents like Schnacky are still having trouble getting their children beds in a pediatric hospital or a pediatric unit.

The physical and mental burnout that occurred during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic has not gone away for overworked health care workers. Shortages of doctors and technicians are growing, experts say, but especially in skilled nursing. That, plus a shortage of people to train new nurses and the rising costs of hiring are leaving hospitals with unstaffed pediatric beds.

But a host of reasons building since well before the pandemic are also contributing. Children may be the future, but we aren’t investing in their health care in that way. With Medicaid reimbursing doctors at a lower rate for children, hospitals in tough situations sometimes put adults in those pediatric beds for financial reasons. And since 2019, children with mental health crises are increasingly staying in emergency departments for sometimes weeks to months, filling beds that children with other illnesses may need.

“There might or might not be a bed open right when you need one. I so naively just thought there was plenty,” Schnacky told CNN.

The number of pediatric beds decreasing has been an issue for at least a decade, said Dr. Daniel Rauch, chair of the Committee on Hospital Care for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

By 2018, almost a quarter of children in America had to travel farther for pediatric beds as compared to 2009, according to a 2021 paper in the journal Pediatrics by lead author Dr. Anna Cushing, co-authored by Rauch.

“This was predictable,” said Rauch, who has studied the issue for more than 10 years. “This isn’t shocking to people who’ve been looking at the data of the loss in bed capacity.”

The number of children needing care was shrinking before the Covid-19 pandemic – a credit to improvements in pediatric care. There were about 200,000 fewer pediatric discharges in 2019 than there were in 2017, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

“In pediatrics, we have been improving the ability we have to take care of kids with chronic conditions, like sickle cell and cystic fibrosis, and we’ve also been preventing previously very common problems like pneumonia and meningitis with vaccination programs,” said Dr. Matthew Davis, the pediatrics department chair at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

Pediatrics is also seasonal, with a typical drop in patients in the summer and a sharp uptick in the winter during respiratory virus season. When the pandemic hit, schools and day cares closed, which slowed the transmission of Covid and other infectious diseases in children, Davis said. Less demand meant there was less need for beds. Hospitals overwhelmed with Covid cases in adults switched pediatric beds to beds for grownups.

Only 37% of hospitals in the US now offer pediatric services, down from 42% about a decade ago, according to the American Hospital Association.

While pediatric hospital beds exist at local facilities, the only pediatric emergency department in Baltimore County is Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson, Maryland, according to Dr. Theresa Nguyen, the center’s chair of pediatrics. All the others in the county, which has almost 850,000 residents, closed in recent years, she said.

The nearby MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center consolidated its pediatric ER with the main ER in 2018, citing a 40% drop in pediatric ER visits in five years, MedStar Health told CNN affiliate WBAL.

In the six months leading up to Franklin Square’s pediatric ER closing, GBMC admitted an average of 889 pediatric emergency department patients each month. By the next year, that monthly average jumped by 21 additional patients.

“Now we’re seeing the majority of any pediatric ED patients that would normally go to one of the surrounding community hospitals,” Nguyen said.

In July, Tufts Medical Center in Boston converted its 41 pediatric beds to treat adult ICU and medical/surgical patients, citing the need to care for critically ill adults, the health system said.

In other cases, it’s the hospitals that have only 10 or so pediatric beds that started asking the tough questions, Davis said.

“Those hospitals have said, ‘You know what? We have an average of one patient a day or two patients a day. This doesn’t make sense anymore. We can’t sustain that nursing staff with specialized pediatric training for that. We’re going to close it down,’” Davis said.

Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise closed its pediatric inpatient unit in July because of financial reasons, the center told CNN affiliate KBOI. That closure means patients are now overwhelming nearby St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital, which is the only children’s hospital in the state of Idaho, administrator for St. Luke’s Children’s Katie Schimmelpfennig told CNN. Idaho ranks last for the number of pediatricians per 100,000 children, according to the American Board of Pediatrics in 2023.

The Saint Alphonsus closure came just months before the fall, when RSV, influenza and a cadre of respiratory viruses caused a surge of pediatric patients needing hospital care, with the season starting earlier than normal.

The changing tide of demand engulfed the already dwindling supply of pediatric beds, leaving fewer beds available for children coming in for all the common reasons, like asthma, pneumonia and other ailments. Additional challenges have made it particularly tough to recover.

Another factor chipping away at bed capacity over time: Caring for children pays less than caring for adults. Lower insurance reimbursement rates mean some hospitals can’t afford to keep these beds – especially when care for adults is in demand.

Medicaid, which provides health care coverage to people with limited income, is a big part of the story, according to Joshua Gottlieb, an associate professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.

“Medicaid is an extremely important payer for pediatrics, and it is the least generous payer,” he said. “Medicaid is responsible for insuring a large share of pediatric patients. And then on top of its low payment rates, it is often very cumbersome to deal with.”

Medicaid reimburses children’s hospitals an average of 80% of the cost of the care, including supplemental payments, according to the Children’s Hospital Association, a national organization which represents 220 children’s hospitals. The rate is far below what private insurers reimburse.

More than 41 million children are enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data from October. That’s more than half the children in the US, according to Census data.

At Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, about 55% of patients use Medicaid, according to Dr. David Wessel, the hospital’s executive vice president.

“Children’s National is higher Medicaid than most other children’s hospitals, but that’s because there’s no safety net hospital other than Children’s National in this town,” said Wessel, who is also the chief medical officer and physician-in-chief.

And it just costs more to care for a child than an adult, Wessel said. Specialty equipment sized for smaller people is often necessary. And a routine test or exam for an adult is approached differently for a child. An adult can lie still for a CT scan or an MRI, but a child may need to be sedated for the same thing. A child life specialist is often there to explain what’s going on and calm the child.

“There’s a whole cadre of services that come into play, most of which are not reimbursed,” he said. “There’s no child life expert that ever sent a bill for seeing a patient.”

Low insurance reimbursement rates also factor into how hospital administrations make financial decisions.

“When insurance pays more, people build more health care facilities, hire more workers and treat more patients,” Gottlieb said.

“Everyone might be squeezed, but it’s not surprising that pediatric hospitals, which face [a] lower, more difficult payment environment in general, are going to find it especially hard.”

Dr. Benson Hsu is a pediatric critical care provider who has served rural South Dakota for more than 10 years. Rural communities face distinct challenges in health care, something he has seen firsthand.

A lot of rural communities don’t have pediatricians, according to the American Board of Pediatrics. It’s family practice doctors who treat children in their own communities, with the goal of keeping them out of the hospital, Hsu said. Getting hospital care often means traveling outside the community.

Hsu’s patients come from parts of Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota, as well as across South Dakota, he said. It’s a predominantly rural patient base, which also covers those on Native American reservations.

“These kids are traveling 100, 200 miles within their own state to see a subspecialist,” Hsu said, referring to patients coming to hospitals in Sioux Falls. “If we are transferring them out, which we do, they’re looking at travels of 200 to 400 miles to hit Omaha, Minneapolis, Denver.”

Inpatient pediatric beds in rural areas decreased by 26% between 2008 and 2018, while the number of rural pediatric units decreased by 24% during the same time, according to the 2021 paper in Pediatrics.

“It’s bad, and it’s getting worse. Those safety net hospitals are the ones that are most at risk for closure,” Rauch said.

In major cities, the idea is that a critically ill child would get the care they need within an hour, something clinicians call the golden hour, said Hsu, who is the critical care section chair at the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“That golden hour doesn’t exist in the rural population,” he said. “It’s the golden five hours because I have to dispatch a plane to land, to drive, to pick up, stabilize, to drive back, to fly back.”

When his patients come from far away, it uproots the whole family, he said. He described families who camp out at a child’s bedside for weeks at a time. Sometimes they are hundreds of miles from home, unlike when a patient is in their own community and parents can take turns at the hospital.

“I have farmers who miss harvest season and that as you can imagine is devastating,” Hsu said. “These aren’t office workers who are taking their computer with them. … These are individuals who have to live and work in their communities.”

Back at GBMC in Maryland, an adolescent patient with depression, suicidal ideation and an eating disorder was in the pediatric emergency department for 79 days, according to Nguyen. For months, no facility had a pediatric psychiatric bed or said it could take someone who needed that level of care, as the patient had a feeding tube.

“My team of physicians, social workers and nurses spend a significant amount of time every day trying to reach out across the state of Maryland, as well as across the country now to find placements for this adolescent,” Nguyen said before the patient was transferred in mid-March. “I need help.”

Nguyen’s patient is just one of the many examples of children and teens with mental health issues who are staying in emergency rooms and sometimes inpatient beds across the country because they need help, but there isn’t immediately a psychiatric bed or a facility that can care for them.

It’s a problem that began before 2020 and grew worse during the pandemic, when the rate of children coming to emergency rooms with mental health issues soared, studies show.

“If we don’t address the surging pediatric mental health crisis, it will directly impact how we can care for other pediatric illnesses in the community.”

Now, a nationwide shortage of beds exists for children who need mental health help. A 2020 federal survey revealed that the number of residential treatment facilities for children fell 30% from 2012.

“There are children on average waiting for two weeks for placement, sometimes longer,” Nguyen said of the patients at GBMC. The pediatric emergency department there had an average of 42 behavioral health patients each month from July 2021 through December 2022, up 13.5% from the same period in 2017 to 2018, before the pandemic, according to hospital data.

When there are mental health patients staying in the emergency department, that can back up the beds in other parts of the hospital, creating a downstream effect, Hsu said.

“For example, if a child can’t be transferred from a general pediatric bed to a specialized mental health center, this prevents a pediatric ICU patient from transferring to the general bed, which prevents an [emergency department] from admitting a child to the ICU. Health care is often interconnected in this fashion,” Hsu said.

“If we don’t address the surging pediatric mental health crisis, it will directly impact how we can care for other pediatric illnesses in the community.”

So, what can be done to improve access to pediatric care? Much like the reasons behind the difficulties parents and caregivers are experiencing, the solutions are complex:
A lot of it comes down to money
Funding for children’s hospitals is already tight, Rauch said, and more money is needed not only to make up for low insurance reimbursement rates but to competitively hire and train new staff and to keep hospitals running.

“People are going to have to decide it’s worth investing in kids,” Rauch said. “We’re going to have to pay so that hospitals don’t lose money on it and we’re going to have to pay to have staff.”

Virtual visits, used in the right situations, could ease some of the problems straining the pediatric system, Rauch said. Extending the reach of providers would prevent transferring a child outside of their community when there isn’t the provider with the right expertise locally.
Increased access to children’s mental health services
With the ongoing mental health crisis, there’s more work to be done upstream, said Amy Wimpey Knight, the president of CHA.

“How do we work with our school partners in the community to make sure that we’re not creating this crisis and that we’re heading it off up there?” she said.

There’s also a greater need for services within children’s hospitals, which are seeing an increase in children being admitted with behavioral health needs.

“If you take a look at the reasons why kids are hospitalized, meaning infections, diabetes, seizures and mental health concerns, over the last decade or so, only one of those categories has been increasing – and that is mental health,” Davis said. “At the same time, we haven’t seen an increase in the number of mental health hospital resources dedicated to children and adolescents in a way that meets the increasing need.”

Most experts CNN spoke to agreed: Seek care for your child early.

“Whoever is in your community is doing everything possible to get the care that your child needs,” Hsu said. “Reach out to us. We will figure out a way around the constraints around the system. Our number one concern is taking care of your kids, and we will do everything possible.”

Nguyen from GBMC and Schimmelpfennig from St. Luke’s agreed with contacting your primary care doctor and trying to keep your child out of the emergency room.

“Anything they can do to stay out of the hospital or the emergency room is both financially better for them and better for their family,” Schimmelpfennig said.

Knowing which emergency room or urgent care center is staffed by pediatricians is also imperative, Rauch said. Most children visit a non-pediatric ER due to availability.

“A parent with a child should know where they’re going to take their kid in an emergency. That’s not something you decide when your child has the emergency,” he said.

After Effie’s first ambulance ride and hospitalization last month, the Schnacky family received an asthma action plan from the pulmonologist in the ER.

It breaks down the symptoms into green, yellow and red zones with ways Effie can describe how she’s feeling and the next steps for adults. The family added more supplies to their toolkit, like a daily steroid inhaler and a rescue inhaler.

“We have everything an ER can give her, besides for an oxygen tank, at home,” Schnacky said. “The hope is that we are preventing even needing medical care.”
[ad_2]

Source link
March 16, 2023
Biden and Trump agree on one big thing | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Joe Biden and Donald Trump are bizarrely on the same page on the top issue so far in the 2024 White House race, as they aim huge, possibly campaign-defining swings at Republicans who they claim will shred retirement benefits.

The current and former presidents – bitter rivals who agree on little else – are both forcing their foes into political retreats and attempts to whitewash past support for changes that could cut Medicare and Social Security payouts.

Their strategy is reinforcing a truism of presidential election campaigns that candidates who even entertain the notion of “reforming” these cherished entitlement programs for seniors are playing with fire.

With typical bluntness, Trump has blasted his potential top rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as a “wheelchair over the cliff kind of guy” after he voted, as a member of the US House, for non-binding resolutions that would have raised the age at which most seniors can collect their benefits to 70. As a 2012 congressional candidate, he supported privatizing Social Security, CNN’s KFile has reported. But trying to ease his vulnerability on the issue, DeSantis insisted in a Fox News interview last week: “We’re not going to mess with Social Security.”

Despite his own proposed cuts to these programs as president, Trump has kept up the attacks. “We’re not going back to people that want to destroy our great Social Security system – even some in our own party; I wonder who that might be – who want to raise the minimum age of Social Security to 70, 75 or even 80 in some cases, and who are out to cut Medicare to a level that will be unrecognizable,” he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference last Saturday.

A few days later, another Republican hopeful gave both Biden and Trump a new opening to exploit.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was forced to make clear Thursday that her striking and unspecific call the day before for raising the retirement age was only supposed to refer to Americans currently in their 20s, who are in effect a half century away from drawing their pensions. But her clarification won’t protect the former ambassador to the United Nations from Trump, who is splitting his party down the middle, yet again, by pouncing on competitors who have voiced traditional conservative orthodoxy on cutting or changing the programs. Biden is sure to also highlight Haley’s remarks as he claims only he can thwart a secret GOP agenda to kill off the vital programs.

“I guarantee you, I will protect Social Security and Medicare without any change. Guaranteed,” the president vowed in Philadelphia on Thursday. “I won’t allow it to be gutted or eliminated as MAGA Republicans have threatened to do.”

Biden browbeat Republicans during his “State of the Union” address last month to confirm on camera that they support shoring up Social Security and Medicare. And he’s anchoring his likely reelection bid on the most forceful campaign by a Democratic candidate in years on the issue. Some of his attacks are fair; others take statements by GOP leaders out of context. But they’re still potent – since both he and Trump know that when conservatives are explaining that they don’t plan to cut Medicare or retirement benefits, they are usually trying to dig out of a losing position.

And Biden has public opinion on his side. A Fox News poll last month, for instance, showed that Democrats are preferred over Republicans to better handle Medicare (by 23 points) and Social Security (by 16 points). No wonder Biden seems to relish this particular political battlefield.

The odd confluence of approaches – from a former president who sought to overturn an election and a successor who sees his administration as vital to saving democracy – says so much about each man’s political instincts, backgrounds and campaign strategy. It is also reflects the shifting character of the Republican Party, which Trump has torn from its corporate, ideologically pure conservative roots to build a new coalition that includes working class voters, often in the Midwest, that Biden is battling hard to win back.

In one sense, possibly the most thorny domestic issue of the years to come should, of course, have a place in a presidential campaign. But when candidates use it to inflame their political bases, it only makes it harder to address in government. This is especially the case with entitlements since they cut into the DNA of each party and have defined the dividing lines between them for decades – at least until Trump came along and took over the GOP.

Ever since the New Deal reforms of Franklin Roosevelt, who was president from 1933 to 1945, Democrats – through presidents Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama and Biden, especially – have sought to use government power to secure the living standards and health care of less well-off and elderly Americans. Republicans, from 1980s President Ronald Reagan onwards, have increasingly sought to find ways to shift the burden of some of this care to the private sector and to reduce or eliminate government’s role in an attempt to whittle away the New Deal reforms of FDR and the Great Society program of LBJ, who was president in the 1960s. They have often paid a heavy price. Republican President George W. Bush’s failed attempt to partially privatize Social Security contributed to a disastrous second term. And Trump still rails against former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who promoted a similar plan.

While raising the alarm about threats to social programs for seniors might be a shrewd political tactic – especially in mobilizing older voters more likely to show up at the polls – it usually does nothing to address the program’s increasingly dire solvency challenges.

The latest Congressional Budget Office projection found that Social Security’s retirement trust fund could be exhausted by 2032. At that point, with fewer workers paying into the program and with a rapidly aging population, benefits could be cut by at least 20%, CNN’s Tami Luhby reported. Medicare is even more precarious since its hospital insurance trust fund, known as Part A, will only be able to fully pay scheduled benefits until 2028, its trustees said in their most recent forecast.

Biden, who released a new budget on Thursday that will help shape the message of his likely reelection bid, has proposed a plan to raise taxes on people earning more than $400,000 a year to shore up the program and would expand the range of drugs for which its managers can negotiate prices. He says the move would keep Medicare solvent until 2050 and would involve no cuts in benefits. The president also wants to target those who earn more than $400,000 with increasing payroll taxes to secure Social Security for the future. There is an infinitesimal chance, however, that the Republican-led House will agree to tax increases, so Biden’s plan represents more a device to deliver a political message than a viable plan.

Despite warning his fellow Republicans to avoid cutting these programs, it’s unclear how Trump would save them if he wins back the White House – and doing nothing isn’t an option. And while other Republicans insist they don’t want to cut benefits or raise taxes, it’s unclear how they can square the circle.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott has now excluded Social Security and Medicare from his proposal for all spending programs to be reviewed every five years. His original plan, released when he was leading the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, sparked the ire of his Republican Senate colleagues, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who quickly identified it as a political liability. That hasn’t stopped Biden from repeatedly claiming that it represents Republican policy.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has, meanwhile, said that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are “completely off the table” in what he insists must be negotiations with Biden over raising the government’s borrowing limit later this year. But that position has put him in a bind because it means that in order for the GOP to honor their pledge to slash spending, they will probably have to take aim at other social programs that could also prove unpopular with voters.

America is not the only country staring down a crisis.

French President Emmanuel Macron sparked nationwide strikes and protests with his plan to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62. Even China’s Communist Party is struggling as a falling birthrate threatens to inflict severe costs on the world’s most dynamic emerging economy.

Back in the US, whoever wins the 2024 elections for the White House and Congress, there seems no easily identifiable solution to safeguard these vital programs on which millions of Americans depend. And time is running out.

[ad_2]

Source link

March 10, 2023
Not touching Social Security could lead to 20% benefit cut within a decade | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

President Joe Biden and House Republicans have promised not to touch Social Security in their battle over cutting spending to address the nation’s debt ceiling crisis.

While that vow is intended to indicate support of the popular entitlement program, it could actually lead to financial disaster.

Tens of millions of senior citizens and other recipients could see their benefits slashed by at least 20% within a decade. The latest Congressional Budget Office projection found that Social Security’s retirement trust fund would be exhausted by 2032.

“There’s a sense in which doing nothing does not preserve Social Security but affects the benefits that are not able to be paid out,” CBO Director Phillip Swagel said at a Bipartisan Policy Center event last month.

Social Security has long been on shaky financial ground. As the US population ages, there are fewer workers paying into the program and supporting the ballooning number of beneficiaries, who are also living longer. In all, nearly 66 million retired workers, their dependents and survivors, disabled workers and their dependents receive monthly payments.

Forecasts on when Social Security’s retirement and disability trust funds may be depleted differ by a few years. Social Security’s trustees last year pegged the date at 2035 if Congress doesn’t act.

However, the entitlement program is also one of the third rails of American politics, so elected officials are hesitant to suggest any changes that could lead to benefit cuts.

“Pretending this isn’t a problem, that this isn’t current law, is dishonest,” said Gordon Gray, the director of fiscal policy at the right-leaning American Action Forum. “And it is a choice – a number of policymakers are making this choice. And it is a major financial risk to the retirement benefits of tens of millions of Americans.”

The last time Congress enacted a major overhaul, in 1983, Social Security was only months away from being able to pay full benefits. At that time, Democratic lawmakers who controlled the House agreed with Senate Republicans and GOP President Ronald Reagan to increase payroll taxes and gradually raise the normal retirement age from 65 to 67, among other reforms.

While Biden has promised to strengthen Social Security and defend it from any cuts by Republicans, he has yet to lay out his vision for protecting the program. Ahead of his full budget release this week, the president on Tuesday unveiled a plan to bolster a key Medicare trust fund – which could be depleted as soon as 2028 – by raising taxes on higher-income earners and allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for even more drugs.

There are several ways to put Social Security on more solid financial footing, though each has its opponents on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Lawmakers could raise the early retirement age, currently 62, or increase the normal retirement age again. They could hike the payroll tax rate, now 12.4% split between the employer and worker, or lift the cap on income subject to the levy, currently $160,200. Congress could also change the formula of the annual cost-of-living adjustment so it ramps up more slowly.

However, it’s unlikely anything will be done in the near term, in part because of the current lack of bipartisanship in Washington, said Gary Engelhardt, economics professor at Syracuse University.

“It’s only going to be more expensive, the longer you wait,” he said. “But Americans have a penchant for waiting to do things politically. So I just feel like nothing’s going to happen in the short run.”

[ad_2]

Source link

March 8, 2023
How an old debate previews Biden’s new strategy for winning senior voters | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

In pressing Republicans on Social Security and Medicare, President Joe Biden is reprising one of the most dramatic moments of his long career.

During the 2012 vice-presidential debate, Biden engaged in a nearly 11-minute exchange with GOP nominee Paul Ryan over Republican plans to reconfigure the two massive programs for the elderly, several of which Ryan had authored himself.

Biden and many Democrats felt he had won the argument on stage. Yet on Election Day, Ryan and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney routed Biden and President Barack Obama among White seniors, and beat them soundly among seniors overall, exit polls found.

That outcome underscores the obstacles facing Biden now as he tries to recapture older voters by portraying Republicans as threats to the two towers of America’s safety net for the elderly. While polls consistently show that voters trust Democrats more than Republicans to safeguard the programs, GOP presidential nominees have carried all seniors in every presidential election back to 2004 and have reached at least 58% support among White seniors in each of the past four contests, exit polls have found. Democrats have likewise consistently struggled among those nearing retirement, older working adults aged 45-64.

Those results suggest that for most older voters, affinity for the GOP messages on other issues – particularly its resistance, in the Donald Trump era, to cultural and racial change – has outweighed their views about Social Security and Medicare. Those grooves are now cut so deeply, over so many elections, that Biden may struggle to change them much no matter how hard he rails against a range of GOP proposals that could retrench or restructure the programs.

Biden’s charge that Republicans are threatening the two giant entitlement programs for the elderly – which triggered his striking back and forth exchanges with GOP legislators during the State of the Union – fits squarely in his broader political positioning as he turns toward his expected reelection campaign.

As I’ve written, the 80-year-old Biden, at his core, “remains something like a pre-1970s Democrat, who is most comfortable with a party focused less on cultural crusades than on delivering kitchen-table benefits to people who work with their hands.” As president he’s expressed that inclination primarily through what he calls his “blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America” – the planks in his economic plans, such as generous incentives to revive domestic manufacturing, aimed at creating more opportunity for workers without a college degree. Politically, Biden’s staunch defense of Social Security and Medicare, programs critical to the economic security of financially vulnerable retirees, represents a logical bookend to that emphasis.

“We all know that whose side you are on is a critical debate point for every election and this debate over Social Security and Medicare really helps crystallize whose side Biden is on versus whose side Republicans are on in a very effective way for him,” said Democratic pollster Matt Hogan, who helped conduct an extensive series of bipartisan polls during the 2022 campaign measuring attitudes among seniors for the AARP, the giant lobby for the elderly.

From Franklin Roosevelt through Hubert Humphrey and Tip O’Neill, generations of Democrats have framed themselves as the defenders of the social safety net for seniors against Republicans who they say would unravel it. Biden showed how comfortable he was stepping into those shoes during his 2012 vice-presidential debate with Ryan, then a young representative from Wisconsin who Romney had selected as his running mate.

Nearly 30 years Biden’s junior, Ryan was an unflinching advocate of restructuring Social Security and Medicare to reduce costs over time. In particular, Ryan was the principal supporter of a conservative plan to convert Medicare, the giant federal health insurance program for the elderly, into a system called “premium support.” Under that proposal, Medicare would be transformed from its current structure, in which the government directly pays doctors and hospitals who provide care for beneficiaries, into a voucher (or “premium support”) system, in which the government would provide recipients a fixed sum to purchase private insurance. Ryan had also drafted proposals to partially privatize Social Security by allowing workers to divert part of their payroll taxes into private investment accounts, a change that would have reduced the tax dollars flowing into the system and eventually required substantial cuts in guaranteed benefits.

For nearly 11 minutes during the debate in October 2012, moderator Martha Raddatz of ABC skillfully guided Biden and Ryan through a heated, but civil and substantive, discussion of Social Security and Medicare’s future. Ryan insisted that changes were needed to preserve the programs’ long-term viability and that current seniors and those near retirement would not see their benefits reduced.

Biden appealed openly to the Democrats’ historic image as the programs’ protectors and condemned Ryan and the GOP for wanting to partially privatize them. At one point in the debate, Biden declared: “we will be no part of a [Medicare] voucher program or the privatization of Social Security.” A few moments later, he insisted: “These guys haven’t been big on Medicare from the beginning. And they’ve always been about Social Security as little as you can do. Look, folks, use your common sense. Who do you trust on this?”

At the time, Democrats felt Biden had at least held his own, restoring the party’s momentum after Obama’s surprisingly listless performance eight days earlier in his first debate against Romney. And Democrats through the rest of the campaign railed against the Republican ticket as a threat to Social Security and Medicare.

But on election day, those arguments did not translate into gains for Obama and Biden among seniors or the older working adults (aged 45-64) nearing retirement. As Hogan noted, the newly passed Affordable Care Act, which generated some of its funding through savings in Medicare, was extremely unpopular at the time among older voters. Obama and Biden not only lost seniors and the older working age adults, but actually ran slightly more poorly among both groups in 2012 than they did in 2008.

In fact, no Democratic presidential nominee since Al Gore in 2000 has carried most seniors in a presidential campaign; Obama in 2008 was the only one since Gore to carry most of the older working age adults. Among older Whites, the Democratic deficit is even more pronounced: the Republican presidential nominee has carried around three-fifths of both White seniors and those nearing retirement in each of the past four elections. Biden in 2020 slightly improved on Hillary Clinton’s anemic 2016 performance with both groups, but still lost to Trump by 15 percentage points among White seniors and by 23 points among the Whites nearing retirement, according to the exit polls conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of media organizations including CNN. Biden performed especially poorly among older Whites without a college degree – an economically stressed group heavily reliant on the federal retirement programs.

Estimates by Catalist, a Democratic targeting firm, and the Pew Research Center likewise found that Trump in both 2016 and 2020 beat his Democratic opponents among both seniors and the older working adults. Like the exit polls, the Catalist data show the Republican nominees carrying about three-fifths of White seniors and older working adults in each of the past three presidential elections.

The story is similar in congressional contests. In House elections, the exit polls found Republicans winning all seniors and older working adults comfortably in the 2014 and 2022 midterm campaigns and narrowly carrying them even in 2018 when Democrats romped overall. In all three of those midterm congressional elections, Republicans carried about three-fifths of the near retirement White adults, while they also reached that elevated threshold among White seniors in both the 2014 and 2022 campaigns.

Republicans have maintained these advantages with older voters despite polls showing that most Americans trust Democrats more than the GOP to protect Social Security and Medicare, and that most Americans, especially seniors, oppose the intermittently surfacing GOP proposals to partially privatize both programs.

Politically, “Democrats have used Social Security and Medicare really a lot over the past two or three decades, maybe four decades,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group. “The payoff has been a lot less than Democrats have generally thought it would be.”

Could this time be different for Biden and the Democrats? Congressional Republicans have certainly provided plenty of evidence for his claim that they still hope to restructure the programs. The proposed 2023 budget by the Republican Study Committee, the members of which include about three-fourths of House Republicans, reprises the ideas of converting Medicare into a premium support system and establishing private investment accounts under Social Security, while also raising the retirement age for both programs and reducing Social Security benefits over time. And although Florida Sen. Rick Scott renounced the idea late last week, his “Rescue America” agenda did include a proposal to require Congress to reauthorize all federal programs, including Social Security and Medicare, every five years.

These ideas have precipitated an unusual degree of open Republican dissension. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell repeatedly, and unreservedly, denounced the Scott plan until the Florida senator backed off. Trump recently released a video in which he declared the GOP should not cut “a single penny” of Social Security or Medicare benefits – which put him directly at odds with the three-fourths of House Republicans in the Republican Study Committee. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, bending more toward Trump’s position, seems unlikely to incorporate into the GOP budget plans the RSC’s most sweeping changes in Social Security and Medicare.

Kessler believes Biden may succeed where other Democrats have failed at hurting the GOP with the issue, and he argued that the conspicuous Republican infighting demonstrates they share that concern. “We are watching a high-profile battle that I’ve never really seen before on these issues in the Republican Party,” Kessler said. “And part of it is clearly they think it’s a problem when they didn’t years ago. If they think it’s a problem, maybe it’s a problem.”

Stuart Stevens, who served as Romney’s chief strategist in the 2012 campaign but has since become a fierce critic of the Trump-era GOP, also believes the party could face more risk over its entitlement agenda than it did back then. The reason is that he thinks the idea of sunsetting Social Security and Medicare every five years, even if Scott is trying to jettison it, may prove more immediately tangible and understandable to voters than Ryan’s complex ideas of partially privatizing both programs.

“The question I always ask myself in campaigns is ‘are you talking about something the other side doesn’t want to talk about?’” Stevens said. “That’s probably a good sign that they are losing on the issue.”

Whether Biden proves more effective than other recent Democrats at attracting older voters around Social Security and Medicare will likely pivot on whether seniors believe the GOP genuinely would cut the programs if given the power to do so, argued Robert Blendon, a professor emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health, who specializes in public attitudes about the social safety net. “If the senior community actually believes that it’s being threatened it really would affect their votes,” he predicted. But, he added, “as long as they are not threatened, the other values of seniors on top issues more and more correspond with Republicans.”

There’s no doubt about the second half of that equation. Polling has consistently found that older Whites, in particular, are more receptive than their younger counterparts to hardline Trump-era GOP messages around crime, immigration and the broader currents of racial and cultural change: for instance, about half of Whites older than 50 agree that discrimination against Whites is now as big a problem as bias against minorities, a far higher percentage than among younger Whites, according to a new national survey by the Public Religion Research Institute. Older Whites are also more likely than younger generations to lack a college degree or to identify as Christians, attributes that generally predict sympathy for GOP cultural and racial arguments.

Through the 21st century, those cultural and racial attitudes among older White voters have consistently trumped any concerns they may hold about the Republican commitment to Social Security and Medicare. Despite Biden’s impassioned articulation of the case against the GOP, that didn’t change even in 2012 when Republicans placed on their national ticket a vice presidential nominee who directly embodied the GOP aspirations to reconfigure and retrench those programs.

Even small changes in seniors’ preferences could have a big impact in closely balanced states with a large retiree population like Arizona and Pennsylvania. But the entrenched GOP advantage among older voters over the past two decades suggests Biden’s hopes in 2024 may pivot less on improving with the “gray” than maximizing his vote among the “brown”: the diverse, younger generations that recoil from the same Republican messages on culture and race that electrify so many older Whites.

[ad_2]

Source link

February 21, 2023
Millions of children are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage starting in April | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

The majority of American children now receive their health insurance through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to a new report published Wednesday by the Georgetown Center for Children and Families.

But that could change starting this spring. As many as 6.7 million children are at risk of losing that coverage once states restart their reviews of recipients’ eligibility, according to Georgetown.

Medicaid enrollment ballooned during the pandemic thanks to an early Covid-19 pandemic relief provision passed by Congress that barred states from involuntarily disenrolling beneficiaries in exchange for higher federal matching funds. But lawmakers voted late last year to end that continuous enrollment provision on April 1, freeing states to start winnowing ineligible recipients.

More than 42 million children were covered by Medicaid and CHIP as of August, up 17.5% from February 2020, just before the pandemic started.

Ten states plus the District of Columbia have more than 60% of their children insured through the public programs, according to Georgetown. New Mexico leads the nation with more than three-quarters of its kids covered by Medicaid and CHIP.

By contrast, fewer than a quarter of children in Utah are enrolled in the programs.

The number of children who gained Medicaid and CHIP coverage during the pandemic varied by state. Indiana had the largest surge, with a nearly 45% increase. Wyoming, North Dakota, Missouri and Georgia saw their child enrollment grow by roughly a third.

On the flip side, Vermont experienced less than an 8% growth in child enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP.

More than 83 million people, including more than 34 million children, were covered by Medicaid as of August. And another 4 million children were enrolled in Medicaid financed by CHIP. All will have their eligibility reviewed, and in some cases, the children will continue to qualify even if their parents do not.

“If they’re getting the message that they’re losing their own coverage, a lot of times a parent understandably thinks that their child is also losing coverage,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown Center for Children and Families.

A total of roughly 15 million people could be dropped from Medicaid when the continuous enrollment requirement ends, according to an analysis the Department of Health and Human Services released in August. About 8.2 million folks would no longer qualify, but 6.8 million people would be terminated even though they are still eligible, the department estimated.

When states reevaluate families’ eligibility, they need to look separately at adults and children, Alker said. Officials should work with pediatricians, schools, child care centers and others to explain the situation to parents and make sure the children retain coverage if they continue to qualify.

Nearly three-quarters of the children projected to be dropped will remain eligible for Medicaid but will likely lose coverage because of administrative issues, such as their parents not submitting the necessary paperwork or procedural errors, according to Georgetown.

Although states have 14 months to complete the unwinding process, some will look to do so more quickly.

“My concern is that a large number of children could become uninsured in states that do not take their time and pay particular attention to the unique needs of children,” Alker said.

[ad_2]

Source link

February 15, 2023
Republican senator warns Congress must take action now to protect Medicare and Social Security | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota offered Sunday a stark warning about the future of Social Security and Medicare if Congress fails to take action now.

“In the next 11 years, we have to have a better plan in place than what we do today. Or we’re going to see – under existing circumstances – some reductions of as much as 24% in some sort of a benefit. So, let’s start talking now because it’s easier to fix it now that it would be five years or six years from now,” Rounds told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

In recent days, President Joe Biden has made a forceful argument against Republicans by highlighting his support for Social Security and Medicare. The president has specifically seized on a proposal from GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida to sunset federal legislation – including Social Security and Medicare – every five years and require Congress to pass them again.

Referencing his “spirited debate” with Republicans at the State of the Union, Biden called Scott’s proposal “outrageous” and vowed he would veto such a plan during a speech in Florida last week.

“The very idea the senator from Florida wants to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every five years I find to be somewhat outrageous. So outrageous that you might not even believe it,” he said, pulling out a pamphlet detailing Scott’s plan.

Scott told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins last week that his proposal is intended to eliminate wasteful spending and help ensure the government can “figure out how to start living within our means.”

“I want to make sure we balance our budget and preserve Medicare and Social Security, and I’ve been clear all along,” he said.

Rounds also stressed Sunday that Republicans want to better manage Medicare and Social Security in order to improve the programs – not strip them from the American people.

“We think that there are possibilities out there of long-term success without scaring people and without tearing apart the system and without reducing benefits. But it requires management. And it requires actually looking at and making things better,” he said.

[ad_2]

Source link

February 12, 2023
Fact check: Breaking down Biden’s exchanges with Republican senators over Social Security and Medicare | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

Washington
CNN
—

President Joe Biden has gone on the attack over Social Security and Medicare.

In speeches and tweets this week, Biden and his White House have singled out particular Republican senators – notably including Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin – over proposals from those senators that could affect the retirement and health care programs.

The Republican senators have responded forcefully, accusing Biden of deceiving the public about where they stand. Here is a fact-check of the exchanges.

Biden and his White House targeted Lee on Wednesday over a video clip of Lee saying, “I’m here right now to tell you one thing that you probably have never heard from a politician. It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it.” The clip has gone viral on Twitter this week; a second viral clip features Lee saying moments later, “Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort and need to be pulled up.”

The videos are authentic, though Biden didn’t tell his Wednesday speech audience in Wisconsin they are from more than 12 years ago – an event in 2010, when Lee was running for the Senate but before he was first elected. And as Lee noted in Wednesday tweets responding to Biden, Biden didn’t mention that Lee added at the same 2010 event that current Medicare beneficiaries should have their benefits “left untouched” and that “the next layer beneath them, those who will retire in the next few years, also probably have to be held harmless.”

Still, while Biden could have included more context, he was accurate in saying Lee had called for Social Security to be phased out.

And while Lee said in a tweeted statement on Wednesday that, during his 12 years as a senator, he has not called for “abolishing” Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits, only for “solutions to improve those programs and move them toward solvency,” he has supported benefit cuts. For example, he has endorsed various proposals over the years to raise the Social Security retirement age.

Since last year, Biden has criticized Scott over particular components of what Scott calls his “12 Point Plan to Rescue America.”

In the State of the Union address on Tuesday and in speeches on Wednesday and Thursday, the president referred to a part of Scott’s plan that says, “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” Biden correctly asserted that “all federal legislation” would include Social Security and Medicare, which do not currently require congressional re-approval.

Scott responded by accusing Biden of being dishonest and confused. Scott argued on Twitter on Wednesday that while his plan does say that “all” federal legislation should sunset in five years and become subject to a new vote by Congress, “This is clearly & obviously an idea aimed at dealing with ALL the crazy new laws our Congress has been passing of late.”

But the plan itself doesn’t say that.

The plan’s official text, which remains online on a dedicated website, says “all federal legislation,” period, should be sunset in five years – not all recent legislation, all crazy legislation or all legislation except for the laws that created Social Security and Medicare. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected Scott’s plan last year, McConnell too said that the plan “sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”

Last year, Biden sometimes overstated the support for Scott’s sunset proposal among congressional Republicans, which appears very limited. Biden has been more precise in his speeches this week, attributing the proposal to Scott himself or accurately saying in the State of the Union that “some” Republicans – “I’m not saying it’s a majority” – support it.

Biden may have created an inaccurate impression, however, by mentioning the sunset proposal during the section of the State of the Union in which he discussed the battle over the debt ceiling. There is no indication that House Republicans are pushing this proposal as part of the current debt ceiling negotiations with the Biden administration, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has, more generally, said cuts to Social Security and Medicare are “off the table” in these negotiations.

Scott, in turn, has tossed a false claim into the debate with Biden this week by repeatedly accusing the president of having cut billions from Medicare in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. The Inflation Reduction Act did not cut Medicare benefits; rather, it allowed the government and seniors to spend less money to buy prescription drugs – and, in fact, simultaneously made Medicare benefits more generous to seniors. The claim of a Medicare cut was repeatedly debunked last year, when Scott and a Republican campaign organization he chaired used it during the midterm elections.

On Friday afternoon, the day after McConnell told a Kentucky radio station that Scott’s proposal will be a “challenge” for Scott’s own 2024 re-election campaign in a state with a large population of seniors, Scott announced he is introducing a new bill that would make it more difficult for Congress to make any cuts to Social Security and Medicare and that would send the Inflation Reduction Act’s $80 billion in Internal Revenue Service funding to Social Security and Medicare instead.

This week and in numerous previous speeches, Biden has castigated Johnson for saying last year that Medicare and Social Security should be treated as discretionary spending, which Congress has to approve every year, rather than as permanent entitlements.

Biden has accurately cited Johnson’s remarks this week. Here’s what Johnson told a Green Bay radio show in August: “We’ve got to turn everything into discretionary spending, so it’s all evaluated, so that we can fix problems or fix programs that are broken, that are going to be going bankrupt. Because, again, as long as things are on automatic pilot, we just continue to pile up debt.” When Johnson faced criticism for those remarks at the time, he stood by them and said that was his consistent longtime position.

Johnson, however, claimed Wednesday that Biden was “lying” when the president discussed Johnson’s comments shortly after saying that some Republicans want to “cut” Social Security. Johnson has repeatedly said that his proposal to require annual approval for Social Security spending, and to “fix” and “save” Social Security in light of its poor fiscal shape at present, does not mean that he wants to put the programs on the “chopping block” or even to “cut” it.

“The Democrats have been accusing me, since the first time I ran for office, of wanting to end Social Security, wanting to cut it, wanting to gut it, wanting to – I’ve never said that. I’ve always been consistent: I want to save it,” he said in a radio interview this week.

It’s impossible to definitively fact-check this particular dispute without Johnson specifying how he wants to “fix” and “save” the program. His office did not respond to a CNN request for comment.

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates noted in an email to reporters on Thursday that, though Johnson accused Biden this week of lying about his stance on Social Security, Johnson also said in interviews this week that Social Security is a “legal Ponzi scheme” and that “Social Security might be in a more stable position for younger workers” if the government had proceeded with Republican President George W. Bush’s controversial and eventually abandoned proposal in the mid-2000s to allow workers born after 1949 to divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts in which they could buy into the stock market and make other investments.

[ad_2]

Source link

February 11, 2023
Rick Scott: From embattled health care executive to Biden’s top foil | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Florida Sen. Rick Scott has emerged as Joe Biden’s top Republican foil in the days since the president’s State of the Union address, with the White House seizing on a year-old Scott proposal that even GOP leaders recognized at the time as politically toxic.

As a spending fight looms in Washington and Biden moves toward his 2024 reelection bid, the White House is attempting to make Scott the poster child for the president’s accusations that Republicans are seeking to cut entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare.

Scott has responded by accusing Biden of lying, airing a misleading ad that alleges Biden cut Medicare and lambasting the president in a barrage of television interviews.

Biden traveled Thursday to Florida – where Scott was a health care executive and two-term governor – on the latest leg of his post-State of the Union tour.

The trip was designed in part to stoke a fight with Scott after Biden in his speech Tuesday night seized on the first-term senator’s proposal to sunset all federal programs – including Social Security and Medicare – every five years unless Congress extends those programs.

Biden’s assertion that some Republicans are seeking to change entitlement programs was met with jeers from Republican lawmakers, who have said spending cuts should be part of any proposal to raise the debt ceiling.

The president continued pressing that message Wednesday in Wisconsin, telling union workers, “A lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare.” He waved a pamphlet with Scott’s proposal as he spoke.

Ahead of Biden’s speech Thursday in Tampa, White House aides placed copies of Scott’s proposal on every seat.

In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday, Scott said Biden has misrepresented the proposal he put forward ahead of the 2022 midterm elections while serving as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of the Senate GOP.

“Nobody believes that I want to cut Medicare or Social Security. I’ve never said it,” Scott said.

Scott said his proposal is intended to eliminate wasteful spending and help ensure the government can “figure out how to start living within our means.”

“I want to make sure we balance our budget and preserve Medicare and Social Security, and I’ve been clear all along. So what I want to do is get rid of wasteful programs that we never review up here,” he said.

But Scott’s proposal would sunset all federal legislation – including the two entitlement programs – every five years and require Congress to pass them again.

Long before he was a US senator, Scott had first-hand experience dealing with America’s federal health care programs – and it became the source of much criticism as he entered the political arena.

In the 1980s, Scott founded Columbia Hospital Corporation by purchasing a pair of distressed Texas hospitals. He later merged his company with Hospital Corporation of America to create Columbia/HCA, becoming the largest for-profit hospital chain at the time and gaining notoriety on Wall Street for what appeared like cost-cutting in an industry with ballooning expenses.

In 1997, federal agents unveiled a sweeping investigation into Columbia/HCA that would roil the company for years. On the day the FBI swooped in to seize records from 35 of its hospitals across six states, Scott shrugged off the probe. “It’s not a fun day, but … government investigations are a matter of fact today in health care,” he said on CNN.

The investigation would unearth what the US Department of Justice later called the “largest health care fraud case in U.S. history.” According to a press release, Columbia/HCA schemed to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE, the military’s health care program, of hundreds of millions of dollars. The company pleaded guilty to criminal conduct, including charges related to fraudulent Medicare billing and paying kickbacks to doctors, and it ultimately agreed to pay $1.7 billion in fines, damages and penalties.

Scott was pushed out as CEO amid the turmoil. He was never charged with a crime, though much of the alleged financial abuses took place during his watch. His time in the corporate world made Scott a wealthy individual, which he would lean on in 2010 when he decided to kickstart a political career by entering the race for Florida governor.

Scott’s time at the helm of Columbia/HCA was the subject of negative ads from both Republicans and Democrats, but he fended them off with a self-funded campaign that flooded the airwaves with a jobs-focused message. He told the St. Petersburg Times that “mistakes were made” at his former company and that he had “learned hard lessons,” but he also said during a debate that he was “proud of the company I built.” Regardless of the controversy, the little-known Scott defeated a GOP favorite for his party’s nomination, and Floridians narrowly elected him governor that fall.

During his eight years leading Florida, Scott fought off attempts to extend safety net benefits to Floridians. He frequently challenged the Obama administration over the Affordable Care Act and blocked expansion of Medicaid in Florida. In his first year as governor, he signed a bill to cut unemployment payments and tied benefits to the state’s unemployment rate.

Democrats continued to make Scott’s time at Columbia/HCA an issue, to no avail. Scott eked out a reelection victory in 2014. He then narrowly unseated longtime Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in 2018 after spending more than $70 million of his own money on his campaign.

Marching to the beat of his own drum, Scott declined to be sworn in with his class in January 2019. Instead, he waited until his term as governor had ended and flew to Washington for a separate ceremony. For a time, it made him the country’s most junior senator, but he nevertheless soon found himself in party leadership.

Scott and other Republicans are aggressively pushing back against Biden’s assertions that the GOP is seeking to cut spending on entitlement programs.

However, Republican leaders have long recognized Scott’s proposal to sunset all federal programs after five years as rocky political terrain.

The tense relationship between Scott and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell burst into public view during the 2022 election cycle as Republicans sought to retake the Senate.

Scott, as NRSC chairman, released a platform called “Rescue America,” which would have subjected all federally elected officials to a term limit of 12 years and closed the Department of Education, amid a slew of other initiatives. It would also have required millions of low-income and middle-class Americans to pay income taxes, which was later dropped in a revised version of the plan.

And, in what Democrats immediately recognized as an opening to accuse Republicans of attempting to undercut popular programs, Scott’s plan proposed sunsetting all federal legislation in five years – unless Congress extended it.

McConnell quickly disavowed Scott’s plan, seeking to make clear that the Florida senator did not speak for Senate Republicans.

“Let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda,” McConnell said at a news conference last March. “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”

Their frosty relationship did not improve as the 2022 election cycle continued, as the two battled over which candidates to support in primaries and in the general election, and Republicans ultimately fell short of winning a majority.

After the election, Scott challenged McConnell for the top Senate Republican post but lost.

The Florida senator said last week that he saw McConnell’s decision to remove him from the Senate Commerce Committee as retribution.

“He didn’t like that I opposed him because I believe we have to have ideas – fight over ideas,” Scott said on “CNN This Morning.”

When pressed Thursday by CNN’s Collins about why his proposal left open the opportunity for the government to cut funding for Social Security and Medicare, Scott repeatedly referenced a policy proposal from then-Sen. Biden in 1975 to sunset federal legislation periodically.

Scott said Biden’s old proposal does less to protect entitlements for seniors than the senator’s plan from last year because “he proposed it year after year after year to reduce Medicare and Social Security. Year after year. I’ve never done that. I don’t believe in that.”

Asked Thursday about the 1975 proposal mentioned by Scott, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “A bill from the 1970s is not part of the president’s agenda.”

“The president ran on protecting Medicare and Social Security from cuts. And he reiterated that in the State of the Union,” she said.

A new ad from Scott released this week in advance of the president’s visit to Florida says that “Joe Biden just cut $280 billion from Medicare” – a claim that was previously debunked when Scott and the NRSC made it in 2022.

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is expected to reduce Medicare prescription drug spending by the federal government by $237 billion, according to the most recent Congressional Budget Office estimate, because the law allows the government to spend less money to buy drugs from pharmaceutical companies and not because it cuts benefits to seniors enrolled in Medicare. The law makes Medicare’s prescription drug program substantially more generous to seniors while also saving them money.

Scott, in his interview with Collins, also defended his recent call for Biden to resign, labeling him “a complete failure.” He said his resignation calls did not specifically stem from Biden’s use of his proposal as an avenue to attack Republicans but expressed his displeasure with the president’s repeated references to his plan.

“He lies about what I want to get done, and I don’t appreciate it,” Scott said.

[ad_2]

Source link

February 9, 2023
Biden intends to end Covid-19 and public health emergencies on May 11 | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

President Joe Biden intends to end the Covid-19 national and public health emergencies on May 11, the White House said Monday.

The White House, in a statement of administration policy announcing opposition to two Republican measures to end the emergencies, said the national emergency and public health emergency authorities declared in response to the pandemic would each be extended one final time to May 11.

“This wind down would align with the Administration’s previous commitments to give at least 60 days’ notice prior to termination of the (public health emergency),” the statement said.

The statement added, “To be clear, continuation of these emergency declarations until May 11 does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct with regard to COVID-19. They do not impose mask mandates or vaccine mandates. They do not restrict school or business operations. They do not require the use of any medicines or tests in response to cases of COVID-19.”

The statement came in response to a pair of measures before the House that would end the public health emergency and the Covid-19 national emergency.

The White House weighed in because House Democrats were concerned about voting against the Republican legislation to end the public health emergency that is coming to the floor this week without a plan from the Biden administration, a senior Democratic aide told CNN.

“Democrats were concerned about the optics of voting against Republicans winding down the public health emergency, absent an understanding of whether and how we intended to do so from the White House,” the aide said. “As soon as we saw this bill, it obviously concerns the White House. So, it was important for them to weigh in.”

The administration argues that the bills are unnecessary because it intends to end the emergencies anyway. The White House also noted the passage of the measures ahead of May 11 would have unintended consequences, such as disrupting the administration’s plans for ending certain policies that are authorized by the emergencies.

The White House said it would extend the Covid-19 emergencies one final time in order to ensure an orderly wind-down of key authorities that states, health care providers and patients have relied on throughout the pandemic.

A White House official pointed to a successful vaccination campaign and reductions in Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths as a rationale for lifting the emergency declarations. The official said a final extension will allow for a smooth transition for health care providers and patients and noted that health care facilities have already begun preparing for that transition.

The administration is actively reviewing flexible policies that were authorized under the public health emergency to determine which can remain in place after it is lifted on May 11.

The aide told CNN that it will be up to every member to decide what is best for their district and how they will vote on the legislation this week. Declaring an end to the public health emergency will also end the border restriction known as Title 42, which will also likely set up a showdown on Capitol Hill.

The public health emergency has enabled the government to provide many Americans with Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines at no charge, as well as offer enhanced social safety net benefits, to help the nation cope with the pandemic and minimize its impact.

“People will have to start paying some money for things they didn’t have to pay for during the emergency,” said Jen Kates, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “That’s the main thing people will start to notice.”

Most Americans covered by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance plans have been able to obtain Covid-19 tests and vaccines at no cost during the pandemic. Those covered by Medicare and private insurance have been able to get up to eight at-home tests per month from retailers at no charge. Medicaid also picks up the cost of at-home tests, though coverage can vary by state.

Those covered by Medicare and Medicaid have also had certain therapeutic treatments, such as monoclonal antibodies, fully covered.

Once the emergency ends, Medicare beneficiaries generally will face out-of-pocket costs for at-home testing and all treatment. However, vaccines will continue to be covered at no cost, as will testing ordered by a health care provider.

State Medicaid programs will have to continue covering Covid-19 tests ordered by a physician and vaccines at no charge. But enrollees may face out-of-pocket costs for treatments.

Those with private insurance could face charges for lab tests, even if they are ordered by a provider. Vaccinations will continue to be free for those with private insurance who go to in-network providers, but going to an out-of-network providers could incur charges.

Covid-19 vaccinations will be free for those with insurance even when the public health emergency ends because of various federal laws, including the Affordable Care Act and pandemic-era measures, the Inflation Reduction Act and a 2020 relief package.

Americans with private insurance have not been charged for monoclonal antibody treatment since they were prepaid by the federal government, though patients may be charged for the office visit or administration of the treatment. But that is not tied to the public health emergency, and the free treatments will be available until the federal supply is exhausted. The government has already run out of some of the treatments so those with private insurance may already be picking up some of the cost.

The uninsured had been able to access no-cost testing, treatments and vaccines through a different pandemic relief program. However, the federal funding ran out in the spring of 2022, making it more difficult for those without coverage to obtain free services.

The federal government has been preparing to shift Covid-19 care to the commercial market since last year, in part because Congress has not authorized additional funding to purchase additional vaccines, treatments and tests.

Pfizer and Moderna have already announced that the commercial prices of their Covid-19 vaccines will likely be between $82 and $130 per dose – about three to four times what the federal government has paid, according to Kaiser.

The public health emergency has also meant additional funds for hospitals, which have been receiving a 20% increase in Medicare’s payment rate for treating Covid-19 patients.

Also, Medicare Advantage plans have been required to bill enrollees affected by the emergency and receiving care at out-of-network facilities the same as if they were at in-network facilities.

This will end once the public health emergency expires.

But several of the most meaningful enhancements to public assistance programs are no longer tied to the public health emergency. Congress severed the connection in December as part of its fiscal year 2023 government funding package.

Most notably, states will now be able to start processing Medicaid redeterminations and disenrolling residents who no longer qualify, starting April 1. They have 14 months to review the eligibility of their beneficiaries.

As part of a Covid-19 relief package passed in March 2020, states were barred from kicking people off Medicaid during the public health emergency in exchange for additional federal matching funds. Medicaid enrollment has skyrocketed to a record 90 million people since then, and millions are expected to lose coverage once states began culling the rolls.

A total of roughly 15 million people could be dropped from Medicaid when the continuous enrollment requirement ends, according to an analysis the Department of Health and Human Services released in August. About 8.2 million folks would no longer qualify, but 6.8 million people would be terminated even though they are still eligible, the department estimated.

Many who are disenrolled from Medicaid, however could qualify for other coverage.

Food stamp recipients had been receiving a boost during the public health emergency. Congress increased food stamp benefits to the maximum for their family size in a 2020 pandemic relief package.

The Biden administration expanded the boost in the spring of 2021 so that households already receiving the maximum amount and those who received only a small monthly benefit get a supplement of at least $95 a month.

This extra assistance will end as of March, though several states have already stopped providing it.

Congress, however, extended one set of pandemic flexibilities as part of the government funding package.

More Medicare enrollees are able to get care via telehealth during the public health emergency. The service is no longer limited just to those living in rural areas. They can conduct the telehealth visit at home, rather than having to travel to a health care facility. Plus, beneficiaries can use smartphones and receive a wider array of services via telehealth.

These will now continue through 2024.

This story has been updated with additional details.

[ad_2]

Source link

January 30, 2023
First on CNN: Biden administration to strengthen Obamacare contraceptive mandate in proposed rule | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

The Biden administration wants to make it easier for women to access birth control at no cost under the Affordable Care Act, reversing Trump-era rules that weakened the law’s contraceptive mandate for employer-provided health insurance plans.

The proposed rule, unveiled Monday by the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury, would remove an exemption to the mandate that allows employers to opt out for moral convictions. It would also create an independent pathway for individuals enrolled in plans offered by employers with religious exemptions to access contraceptive services through a willing provider without charge.

The proposed rule would leave in place the existing religious exemption for employers with objections, as well as the optional accommodation for contraceptive coverage.

The administration crafted the proposed rule keeping in mind the concerns of employers with religious objections and the contraceptive needs of their workers, a senior HHS official told CNN.

“We had to really think through how to do this in the right way to satisfy both sides, but we think we found that way,” the official said, stressing that there should be no effect on religiously affiliated employers.

Students at religiously affiliated colleges would have access to the expanded accommodation, just like workers in group health plans where the employer has claimed the exemption.

Now that the proposed rule has been announced, the public will have the opportunity to comment during the next few months. Officials expect there to be many thousands of public comments, and it will be “many months” before the rule could be finalized.

HHS expects the proposal would affect more than 100 employers and 125,000 workers, mainly through providing the proposed independent pathway for employees to receive no-cost contraception.

Women using that pathway would obtain their birth control from a participating provider, who would be reimbursed by an insurer on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. The insurer, in turn, would receive a credit on the user fee it pays the government.

“If this rule is finalized, individuals who have health plans that would otherwise be subject to the ACA preventive services requirements but have not covered contraceptive services because of a moral or religious objection, and for which the sponsoring employer or college or university has not elected the optional accommodation, would now have access,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a news release.

How many people benefit, however, would depend on whether women and their health care providers know the independent pathway exists and whether providers and insurers are willing to set it up.

“We’ll just have to see how widely that information is spread and in what way to providers and individuals,” said Laurie Sobel, associate director for Women’s Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, noting that the proposed rule would not require data collection to show the pathway’s takeup.

But the Planned Parenthood Federation of America cheered the initiative.

“Employers and universities should not be able to dictate personal health care decisions and impose their views on their employees or students,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, the group’s CEO. “The ACA mandates that health insurance plans cover all forms of birth control without out-of-pocket costs. Now, more than ever, we must protect this fundamental freedom.”

The requirement to provide no-cost contraception is not in the Affordable Care Act itself. Instead, HHS under former President Barack Obama included it as one of the women’s preventive services that all private insurance plans must offer without charge.

The mandate was controversial from the start, sparking lawsuits from religiously affiliated employers and closely held companies that said it violated their beliefs. Exemptions and accommodations have been available for such employers.

The Trump administration, however, weakened the mandate. Under the rules issued in 2018, entities that have “sincerely held religious beliefs” against providing contraceptives are not required to do so. That provision also extends to organizations and small businesses that have objections “on the basis of moral conviction which is not based in any particular religious belief.”

The rules also include an optional accommodation that lets objecting employers and private universities remove themselves from providing birth control coverage while still allowing their workers and dependents access to contraception. But the employer or university has to voluntarily elect the accommodation, which risks leaving many without access.

The Trump administration changes were temporarily blocked after a Pennsylvania district court judge issued a nationwide injunction in 2019. But the following year, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration could expand exemptions for employers who have religious or moral objections to covering contraception.

At the time, the National Women’s Law Center estimated that the ruling would impact about 64.3 million women in the United States with insurance coverage that included birth control and other preventive services without out-of-pocket costs.

Employers are not required to notify HHS if they have a moral objection. The agency estimates about 18 employers have claimed that exemption and around 15 employees are affected.

Still, if the rule is finalized, senior HHS officials say it is “plausible” there could be potential lawsuits brought by religiously affiliated employers – similar to what has been seen in the past.

“There’s no new obligation on them to participate in any sort of process. This is simply an additional channel for employees in those employer health plans to receive access to contraceptive services,” another senior HHS official said.

The contraceptive mandate has taken on increased importance now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing many states to impose severe restrictions on abortion access.

The Biden administration in turn has focused on continuing access to birth control at no cost. The Health, Labor and Treasury department secretaries last year met with health insurers and issued guidance underscoring Obamacare’s contraceptive coverage requirements for private insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

“Now more than ever, access to and coverage of birth control is critical as the Biden-Harris Administration works to help ensure women everywhere can get the contraception they need, when they need it, and – thanks to the ACA – with no out-of-pocket cost,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a news release.

This story has been updated with additional information.

[ad_2]

Source link

January 30, 2023
New Year’s pay boost: These states are raising their minimum wage | CNN Business
[ad_1]
Minneapolis
CNN
—

The current period of high inflation that has significantly impacted the US economy will also influence a New Year’s tradition: The annual state minimum wage increases.

By January 1, hourly minimum wages in 23 states will rise as part of previously scheduled efforts to reach $15 an hour or to account for cost-of-living changes. The increases account for more than $5 billion in pay boosts for an estimated 8.4 million workers, the Economic Policy Institute estimates.

Additionally, nearly 30 cities and counties across the US will increase their minimum wage, according to the EPI, a left-leaning think tank.

The larger-than-typical increases for a dozen states come after inflation hit a 40-year high this summer, leaving families struggling to keep up with the rising costs.

“The fact that there’s high inflation really just underscores how necessary these minimum wage increases are for workers,” said Sebastian Martinez Hickey, a research assistant at the EPI. “Even before the pandemic, there was no county in the United States where you could affordably live as a single adult at $15 an hour.”

The pandemic and the subsequent period of economic recovery has further revealed the growing chasm in America’s wealth gap. During the past two years, working conditions and low pay contributed to a swelling of labor movement activity and actions by many large corporations to raise their wage floor.

The pandemic also led to a structural upheaval in the nation’s labor market, creating an imbalance of worker supply and demand that still persists. Employers have found themselves short of workers for most of the year, which has pushed up average annual hourly wages in the battle to recruit and retain staff. While some workers in competitive industries such as retail and dining have found their new salary outpaces inflation, most pay has been outpaced by rising prices.

“The story is different because wages have been increasing at the low-end, much faster than inflation and much faster than in middle- or high-wage jobs,” said Michael Reich, economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “And that means that many workers, even in the $7.25 states, are already getting paid above the minimum wage.”

In other words, he said, the minimum wage “has become less and less binding.”

“Even though minimum wages might go up by 7%, in many states and cities, labor costs aren’t going to go up anywhere as much as they have in the past, because they already have gone up,” he said. “That also means that prices aren’t going to go up at [places like] restaurants.”

The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour hasn’t budged since 2009, and 20 states have a minimum wage either equal to or below the federal level, making $7.25 their default baseline. The value of the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968 when it was $1.60, which would be worth about $13.46 in 2022, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator.
Delaware: $10.50 to $11.75

Illinois: $12 to $13

Maryland: $12.50 to $13.25

Massachusetts: $14.25 to $15

Michigan: $9.87 to $10.10

Missouri: $11.15 to $12

Nebraska: $9 to $10.50

New Jersey: $13 to $14.13* (scheduled increase also includes inflation adjustment)

New Mexico: $11.50 to $12

New York: $13.20 to $14.20 (Upstate New York); $15 (in and around NYC)

Rhode Island: $12.25 to $13

Virginia: $11 to $12
Alaska: $10.34 to $10.85

Arizona: $12.80 to $13.85

California: $14.50 (firms with 25 or fewer employees) /$15 (firms with 26+ employees) to $15.50

Colorado: $12.56 to $13.65

Maine: $12.75 to $13.80

Minnesota: $8.42 to $8.63 (small employer); $10.33 to $10.59 (large employer)

Montana: $9.20 to $9.95

Ohio: $9.30 to $10.10

South Dakota: $9.95 to $10.80

Vermont: $12.55 to $13.18

Washington: $14.49 to $15.74
Connecticut (effective July 1): $14 to $15

Florida (September 2023): $11 to $12

Nevada (effective July 1): $9.50 to $10.25 (firms that offer benefits); $10.50 to $11.25 (no benefits offered)

Oregon: $13.50 (effective July 1, indexed annual increase to be based on the CPI)
Sources: State websites, National Conference of State Legislatures, Economic Policy Institute
[ad_2]

Source link
December 31, 2022
Senior citizens will soon get that big hike in their Social Security benefits | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Senior citizens and other Social Security recipients will start getting a heftier monthly benefit next month due to an 8.7% annual cost-of-living adjustment aimed at helping them cope with high inflation.

The increase, the largest in more than 40 years, will boost retirees’ monthly payments by more than $140 to an estimated average of $1,827 for 2023.

The adjustment is the highest that most current beneficiaries have ever seen because it is based on an inflation metric from August through October, which was also around 40-year highs. Inflation has cooled somewhat since then, though prices remain elevated.

“I’m sure everyone is anxiously awaiting because prices are still high,” said Mary Johnson, a Social Security and Medicare policy analyst at The Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group. “Just shopping for food to feed people during the holidays is going to be a huge challenge.”

Roughly 70 million people will receive the increase, which follows a 5.9% adjustment for 2022.

Many senior citizens depend heavily on Social Security. Some 42% of elderly women and 37% of elderly men rely on the monthly payments for at least half their income, according to the Social Security Administration.

Just when the beefed-up payment will arrive depends on recipients’ ages and birth dates. Those who received Social Security before May 1997 get their monthly benefit on the 3rd of each month. For more recent retirees, those whose birth dates are the 1st through the 10th of the month receive it on the second Wednesday, while those born on the 11th to 20th and the 21st to 31st of the month are paid the third and fourth Wednesdays, respectively.

Even though recipients received a sizable adjustment for this year, inflation ate away at the boost.

The increase fell short of actual inflation by an average of more than $42 – or 46% – every month or roughly $508 for the year, Johnson said.

Many retirees have been forced to turn to their savings or public assistance. One-third of seniors reported signing up for food stamps or visiting a food pantry over the past 12 months, compared with 22% in 2020, according to recent surveys by The Senior Citizens League. Also, 17% have applied for assistance with heating costs, compared with 10% in 2020.

This is not a new problem. Benefits have not kept up with the rising cost of living for years, even with the annual adjustments.

As of March, inflation has caused Social Security payments to lose 40% of their buying power since 2000, according to a study released earlier this year by the league. Monthly benefits would have to increase by $540 to maintain the same level of buying power as in 2000.

Senior citizens will also see their Medicare Part B premiums drop in 2023, the first time in more than a decade that the tab will be lower than the year before, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in the fall. It’s only the fourth time that premiums are declining since Medicare was created in 1965.

The standard monthly premiums will be $164.90 in 2023, a decrease of $5.20 from 2022.

The reduction comes after a large spike in 2022 premiums, which raised the standard monthly premium to $170.10, up from $148.50 in 2021. A key driver of the 2022 hike was a projected jump in spending due to a costly new drug for Alzheimer’s disease, Aduhelm. However, since then, Aduhelm’s manufacturer cut the price and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services limited coverage of the drug.

Also, spending was lower than projected on other Part B items and services, which resulted in much larger reserves in the Part B trust fund, allowing the agency to limit future premium increases.

The big annual adjustment could end up hurting some seniors, Johnson said.

For instance, the resulting increase in income could push them above the thresholds for certain government benefits, such as Medicare Extra Help, Medicaid, food stamps and rental assistance, leaving them eligible for less or no aid. Or they could have to pay more for their Medicare Part B premiums, which are adjusted for income.

Also, they could have to start paying taxes – or owe higher levies – on their Social Security benefits if their income rises above a certain level.

Further, the increase could leave Social Security’s finances on even shakier ground. The combined trust funds that pay benefits to retirees, survivors and the disabled will be depleted by 2035 and only able to distribute roughly three-quarters of promised payments unless Congress addresses the program’s long-term funding shortfall, according to the most recent Social Security trustees’ report.

[ad_2]

Source link

December 30, 2022