Jonathan Kantrowitz

Statement of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund:

Last night the Senate passed S. 1789, The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, concerning the racially discriminatory disparity in the treatment of the crack and powder forms of cocaine. Although the Senate passed legislation concerning the crack/powder sentencing disparity, it refused to completely eliminate that unjustified disparity. The Senate’s failure is deeply troubling. If left uncorrected, the Senate’s action would mean that racial discrimination will persist.

There is no dispute that the crack/cocaine disparity must be eliminated. No scientific or criminological justification exists for treating the two forms of the drug differently. Second, the sentencing disparity has had a devastating, racially discriminatory impact on African Americans. The recognition of these two, simple facts is widespread, as is the recognition of the need to act now to eliminate this unjustified disparity.

The United States Sentencing Commission concluded that eliminating the 100:1 sentencing disparity would do more to reduce the sentencing gap between blacks and whites “than any other single policy change” and would “dramatically improve the fairness of the federal sentencing system.”

Attorney General Eric Holder has stated that “[t]his Administration firmly believes that the disparity in crack and powder cocaine sentences is unwarranted, creates a perception of unfairness, and must be eliminated.”

Lanny Bruer, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division testified that “we cannot ignore the mounting evidence that the current cocaine sentencing disparity is difficult to justify based on the facts and science. . . [t]he Administration believes Congress’ goal should be to completely eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.”
Judge Reggie B. Walton, Associate Director of the Office of Drug Control Policy under President George H.W. Bush and appointed by President George W. Bush to the Federal Bench, testified about “the agony of having to enforce a law that one believes is fundamentally unfair and disproportionately impacts individuals who look like me.”

Judge Michael McConnell of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, who was nominated to that position by President George W. Bush and who served in the Department of Justice during the Regan Administration, has called the federal crack cocaine laws “virtually indefensible.”

Scientific and medical experts have determined that crack and powder cocaine are pharmacologically identical and have the same effect on users. As Dr. Glen Hanson, then acting Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, testified to the Sentencing Commission that the pharmacological effects of crack cocaine are no more harmful than powder cocaine. There is absolutely no scientific basis for treating crack and powder cocaine differently.

We acknowledge that proponents of reform supported this action only because they believed it was the only way to achieve some progress, but a better result is obtainable. The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee reported legislation to completely eliminate the disparity between powder and crack cocaine, H.R. 3245. That legislation awaits action by the full House. It should swiftly be passed.

The Obama Administration has also supported complete elimination of this unjustified disparity. As a candidate, President Obama called for elimination of the disparity stating: “the disparity between crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong, cannot be justified and should be eliminated.” The Attorney General and the head of the Department of Justice Criminal Division have echoed this call. It is incumbent on the Administration to make its actions reflect its words. The Administration must support real reform, complete elimination of the disparity, and do everything in its power to eliminate unjustified, racially discriminatory sentencing practices.

CT News Junkie has the story:

Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi…said paid sick leave is a tough issue.

“I believe yes, people do deserve the right to have paid sick leave,” he said. “If we want paid sick leave for people we need to sit down and figure out a way to fund it. We need to work with the private sector to come up with a funding mechanism. We cannot continually push mandates like this on the private sector or municipalities.

He wants the government to pay for the sick leave? If we require employers with 50 or more employees to offer paid sick leave? I an earlier post I posed the question “Is Rudy Marconi a Democrat?” Now I have to wonder if he’s a mainstream politician at all.

No one else has remotely suggested that the government should fund paid sick leave, which is 1) a public health issue, and 2) in the employer’s own interest. Granting a few extra pay-days to mostly low wage people (including wait people who are paid under the minimum wage) is by no means a major burden for larger companies.

Bailout of financial institutions other than AIG will result in a profit.

The CBO has released the third of its reports on transactions undertaken as part on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) .

CBO currently estimates that the cost to the government of the TARP’s transactions—including investments, grants, and loans—completed, outstanding, and anticipated will amount to $109 billion. Much of that estimated cost is associated with the assistance provided to American International Group (AIG)—at a cost of about $36 billion—and the automotive industry—at a cost of about $34 billion. CBO estimates a very small net gain to the government from the capital purchase program, in which the Treasury purchased more than $200 billion in shares of preferred stock from hundreds of financial institutions.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimates that the total cost of the TARP’s transactions will amount to $127 billion. OMB’s estimate is $18 billion higher than CBO’s estimate principally because of differences in the estimated cost of assistance to AIG and in the amount expected to be disbursed by the Home Affordable Modification Program (an initiative that provides direct payments to mortgage servicers to help homeowners avoid foreclosure).

Both CBO and OMB value the TARP’s investments by discounting to the present the projected cash flows stemming from each investment, using a discount rate that captures both the time value of money and the premium that a private investor would require as compensation for the risk of the investment or commitment. The resulting “net present value” is the cost or gain projected for the investment and represents an estimate of its market value.

Currently, the Secretary of the Treasury has the authority to purchase and hold up to $699 billion in assets at one time. CBO estimates that $344 billion of that authorized amount is outstanding or will be disbursed before the program expires on October 3, 2010. (That figure includes an estimated $45 billion that is projected to be used for purposes not yet specified.)

Number of uninsured Americans could grow by 10 million in just five years

* Read the report: The Cost of Failure to Enact Health Reform

Without significant reform to the current health care system, the number of uninsured Americans could grow by 10 million people in just five years, and spending on government health care programs for the poor could more than double by 2020, according to a new report released today by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

The report projects that by 2015, there could be as many as 59.7 million people uninsured—and further estimates that the number could swell to 67.6 million by 2020. An estimated 49.4 million individuals were without health coverage in 2010.

Analysts at the Urban Institute used their Health Insurance Policy Simulation Model to assess the changes in coverage patterns and health care costs that will occur nationally from 2010 to 2020 in the event that major reforms are not enacted. The study examined three alternative scenarios:

1. Worst case—continuing high levels of unemployment; slow growth in incomes; high growth rates for health care costs;
2. Intermediate case—somewhat faster growth in incomes, but a lower growth rate for health care costs; and
3. Best case—full employment; faster income growth; even slower growth in health care costs.

Under all three economic scenarios, the analysis shows that the middle-class would suffer most without reform. For employers who continued to offer health insurance benefits, an increasing amount of the costs would likely be passed on to workers. At the same time, individuals and families would face higher out-of-pocket costs for premiums and health care services.

The Urban Institute model shows that under the worst case scenario, if health care reform is not enacted:

* Families will face dramatically higher health care costs. Individual and family spending on premiums and out-of-pocket health care costs will increase significantly. Spending will jump 34 percent by 2015 and 79 percent by 2020.
* The number of uninsured Americans will increase from 49.4 million in 2010 to 59.7 million in 2015, and 67.6 million in 2020. If states were to cut back eligibility for public programs like Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program—or make the enrollment process more difficult—the number of uninsured will be even higher.
* Middle-income families will be hardest hit. The uninsured rate for middle-class families earning 200-399 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL)—roughly $40,000 to $75,000 a year—will rise by nine percentage points, from 19 percent to 28 percent. Overall, the share of the uninsured from all families with incomes higher than about $40,000 will rise from 44 percent to 53 percent in 2020.
* Uninsured rates will also rise among older adults. The uninsured rate for adults ages 45 to 54 will increase from 17 percent in 2010 to 24 percent in 2020. For adults ages 55 to 64, the uninsured rate will increase from 15 percent in 2010 to 22 percent in 2020.
* Premiums will become increasingly expensive for employers and their workers. Premiums for both single and family policies will more than double by 2020, increasing from $4,800 to $10,300 for single policies, and from $12,100 to $25,600 for family policies.
* Employers will see large increases in costs. Employer spending on premiums, despite the fact that fewer people will be covered through their employer, would increase from $430 billion in 2010 to $851 billion in 2020—a 98 percent increase.
* Employers will quit offering coverage benefits to workers in small and medium-sized firms. As premiums nearly double, employees in small firms would see offers of health insurance almost cut in half, dropping from 41 percent of firms offering insurance in 2010 to 23 percent in 2020. Medium-sized firms would also cut offers of health insurance, dropping from 90 percent in 2010 to 75 percent in 2020.

By Gordon A. MacInnes, a fellow at The Century Foundation, a public policy research organization.

The federal government pays 90 percent of the bill for interstate highways, and even secessionist states such as Texas and South Carolina go along with its specifications for lane width, signage, and speed limits. Now, the Obama Administration seeks to greatly extend the reach of federal policy with an ante of just 7.5 percent or so of the annual bill for public education. The vehicle for this audacious play is the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA), formerly known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

The U.S. Department of Education’s (USDE) “Blueprint for Reform of Education,” which it released on the Ides of March, makes the case for a dramatic rewriting of national policy, including some worthwhile and needed changes to the present law.

First, it recognizes the hash that NCLB made of curricular standards and standardized testing. Essentially, most states set weak, numerous, vague, or too specific academic standards and then gamed the state tests to deceive the public about how well students were performing. USDE now proposes that states agree on a new set of clear, strong, and relatively fewer standards, followed by cooperatively developed assessments that go beyond multiple choice.

Second, the Blueprint replaces NCLB’s ludicrous mandate of 100 percent proficiency by 2014 with a more complex system that emphasizes steady and significant progress by students, schools, and districts. It maintains the important attention to how specific subgroups of students perform, with consequences for those districts and schools where the achievement gap persists for poor, minority, or English-learning students.

Third, as it did last year in the stimulus legislation, USDE requires that every state develop a data system that follows each student from preschool to graduation. A few states such as Texas and Florida can now generate very useful analyses of how well free-lunch eligible, Latino fourth graders, for example, are doing on English in every classroom, school, and district in the state. All states need to get to the point of being able to track, analyze, report, and evaluate student achievement.

Fourth, USDE deserves credit for recognizing in the Blueprint the broken system for preparing, recruiting, supporting, retaining, and promoting more effective teachers and principals, even if some of its recommendations are impractical and unfair.

Finally, the Blueprint gives special emphasis to English learners, the disabled, migrant students, and students in rural districts. This may read like a pretty good start on rewriting the centerpiece of federal education policy. Actually, there are five very serious problems with the Blueprint that Congress needs to correct before enacting ESEA

1. The Blueprint ignores the widely accepted evidence of what works best to close the achievement gap: concentrating on making young students from poor families strong readers. For almost two decades we have known that poor kids start kindergarten about eighteen months behind their middle-class peers in vocabulary, general knowledge, familiarity with stories and books, and knowing their letters. If this gap is not narrowed, then the poor students have a much-reduced chance of becoming confident readers by third grade, which is a powerful indicator of whether they will finish high school.

ESEA should be revised to concentrate more federal dollars on increasing the number of poor children who attend high-quality preschools and “graduate” into primary schools that emphasize intensive early literacy. No such encouragement is offered. USDE could have highlighted the dramatic gains made by the 35,000+ Title I students in the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools, where federal funds have greatly expanded pre-kindergarten opportunities for poor students.

2. The Blueprint ignores the consequences of deep poverty on instructional performance and improvement. Again, the evidence about the disparities between poor and middle-class students is plenteous, overwhelming, and uncontested. But concentrated poverty is the killer of educational achievement. This fact should be central to the USDE’s focus on the bottom 10 percent of schools and its almost flippant mandate that states and districts turn these schools around.

My analysis of New Jersey’s bottom-performing schools reveals-not surprisingly-that almost all of them are in the poorest neighborhoods in the poorest cities. Camden, one of the nation’s three poorest cities, “contributed” fourteen of its nineteen elementary schools to the list of those scoring in the bottom 10 percent of the state’s third grade literacy test in 2008. Fifteen of Newark’s forty-nine schools were on the same list, almost all of them from the city’s poorest Central and South Wards. In these cities, the student mobility and free-lunch rates tend to be higher in the lowest-performing schools. In Newark, the student mobility rate in the so-called 10 percent schools averages 25 percent.

USDE displays undeserved certainty that these pedagogically challenging problems can be corrected by mandating that districts exercise one of four governance options in the bottom 10 percent schools: close them down, reconstitute the leadership and faculty, contract with an educational or charter management organization, or “transform” them by supporting teachers with lots of training, instructional materials, evidence, and classroom support. There is no convincing evidence that any of these models have been effective in enough cases to mandate their use.

3. The Blueprint is based on an assumption that cleaning up standards and assessments is a quick, relatively smooth process that can be the anchor of a reauthorized ESEA. Wrong.

Normally, ESEA is authorized for a five-year period. USDE must believe that with unprecedented speed, the following can be accomplished by the fractious, complex, diverse, and tradition-bound public education establishment:

– by 2011, almost all states will have adopted whatever standards emerge from the process being managed by the National Governor’s Association and Council of Chief State School Officers;

– then, within a relatively short time, schools, districts, and each state will have identified, purchased, and introduced the new textbooks, instructional materials, and software required to teach the new standards;

– furthermore, the schools and districts quickly will assess the capacity of their faculties to teach the new standards using the new materials and will be able to organize and implement supplementary training to those teachers who are under-prepared for the more rigorous content in short order; and,

– finally, by, say, the third year, there will be new assessments in place that will have been designed, field tested, corrected, re-tested, and then adopted for use as measures of accountability in math and English for at least seven grade levels.

This schedule could be abbreviated if USDE and the other forty-nine states agreed quickly that Massachusetts or, perhaps Minnesota, has reasonably clear, strong, internationally aligned academic standards in place, and that its assessments provide the accountability and instructional information required. This would short-cut the process dramatically and make the standards and assessments criteria of the Blueprint achievable. The odds of this happening are very long.

One should anticipate that the first consequence of more rigorous academic standards actually will be a widening of the achievement gap, as the pace of introducing new content and skills in poor schools will lag the assessment of them in new, tougher assessments.

4. The Blueprint continues the fiction that individual schools, even those at the very bottom, can adapt to new standards and assessments without the leadership of the state and their districts.

Let’s use Newark as an example again. Fifteen of its forty-nine elementary schools would be designated “Challenge” schools under the proposed revision, which means that they are subject to one of the four mandated governance treatments. Only seven or eight of these can be “transformed” with a district-led program of substantial teacher support and training; the balance would be closed or turned over to new leadership that would operate with autonomy. But it turns out that ten of the forty-nine would be designated “Reward” schools because they have done a superb job in closing the achievement gap. Like the Challenge schools, Reward schools are to be granted extraordinary autonomy, which, one assumes includes issues of curriculum, instructional materials, faculty training, and support.

So, as many as half of Newark’s school may operate pretty much on their own in responding to a new set of academic standards and assessments. This is precisely where Newark (and twenty-nine other New Jersey districts) found itself in 1998, when the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered each of its elementary schools to select one of ten approved “comprehensive school reform” models for adoption within a three-year period. The result was chaos, as the schools selected eight different models in a district where about one in five students moves to another school annually. Moreover, the models that were adopted did not deliver on the results promised by their promoters in testimony to the court, with the result that academic performance declined in many schools and did not improve overall.

The only sensible way to adapt to sweeping changes in academic expectations is to focus the responsibility on the district central office. Otherwise, there will be no coherence in preparing teachers and students for the new curriculum. Given this mandate, central offices will normally reach out to the practitioners who are producing the best results to participate in the daunting task of determining how to teach to the new standards. That is certainly the case in districts such as Montgomery County (Maryland) and Union City (New Jersey) that have narrowed substantially the achievement gap.

5. The USDE has greatly overestimated the capacity of state departments of education to reform the systems they have created.

In the past decade or so, the number of professional employees working in state education departments has declined rather noticeably (New Jersey has lost about 40 percent of its workers in the past ten years, while its responsibilities have been enlarged). A richer percentage of professionals, therefore, are paid to implement federal programs such as Title I, special education, Safe and Drug-free Schools, and so on. Most departments are well-schooled in writing regulations and developing paperwork systems to determine compliance. These rules are dominated by the verbs “must” and “shall.” These are not the verbs that are used to describe effective educational practices. Instead, “might,” “try,” “adjust,” and “re-adjust” work better.

Under the Blueprint, there is an assumption that state education departments know how to repair broken schools. But history shows that there have been enough starts and re-starts with grand-sounding acronyms launched by states to finally, once and for all, “reform” public education. Add the Blueprint to the list. However, the notion that state department professionals are deep in the mud concerning fixing broken schools will come as a surprise to most commissioners and public educators.

From time to time, there are exceptions to this characterization of state educators and what they do. But rule-making and enforcement dominate, and these are two activities inconsistent with the practice of effective education in districts with concentrations of students from poor families.

The hope for a stronger, more effective federal policy rests in the hands of Congress, particularly in the leadership of the House and Senate committees who have pledged a bipartisan and cooperative approach to the Obama administration.

by Maggie Mahar, a fellow at The Century Foundation, a public policy research organization.

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Overall, the changes in the reconciliation bill will make the Senate bill more progressive – and fairer.

My prediction: The bill will pass. Those who oppose universal coverage are becoming angrier, louder, more abusive, and more frantic. This is because they realize that they are losing, and now they are just flailing about.

Thursday evening I heard Bart Stupak acknowledge, on “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” that while the Democrats may not have the votes today, by Sunday, they could well have them. On this, I agree with Stupak.

Below, are the details of the new bill, and my comments on them.

Under the new reconciliation bill:

– Low-income and middle-income families will have an easier time affording premiums. The tax credits for health insurance premiums are more generous for individuals and families with incomes between 250 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) – i.e. individuals earning less than $41,500, or a family of three earning less than $70,400. When compared to the Senate bill, the legislation also cuts cost-sharing for individuals and families with incomes between 100 percent and 250 percent FPL.

Comment: Research shows that when a low-income family of four (for instance a family earning less than $22,000) is required to share in health care costs, too often they delay needed care. For these families, even a $15 co-pay can be a barrier. Fifteen dollars will buy groceries for two dinners for a family of four (e.g. spaghetti with tomato sauce and bread). Middle-income families who don’t have help from an employer also need the higher subsidies that the new bill provides.

– Six months after the bill is enacted, all existing health insurance plans are prohibited from imposing life-time limits on payouts or refusing to cover children suffering from pre-existing conditions. Excessive waiting periods before insurance kicks in also will be banned, and insurers will be required to provide coverage for non-dependent children up to age 26 on their parent’s polices. (Parents will pay extra for the coverage, but adult children will get better deals than many would on their own.) Beginning in 2014, group health plans will no longer be able to exclude adults based on pre-existing conditions. Annual limits on how much an insurer will pay out will be restricted beginning six months after enactment, and prohibited starting in 2014.

Comment: Limits on how much insurers will pay out annually or over a lifetime can condemn individuals to death. If you have the bad luck to be diagnosed with a very expensive disease that might require years of pricey treatments (MS for example, or childhood cancers) your insurance can easily “max out” – even though treatment that might cure you (in the case of some childhood cancers where we have been making great progress) – or at least give you many additional years of life.

– The “Cadillac Tax” on expensive health insurance plans has been pushed back five years and won’t go into effect until 2018. The thresholds also have been raised: The tax will apply only to individual plans that cost $10,200 or more (up from $8,500) or family plans that fetch $25,500 (up from $23,000). Dental and vision plans would not be included. Under the new bill, there is no special deal for unions.

Comment: In my view, this is a positive change. As I have argued in the past, the Cadillac tax could hit middle-income families.

– While the Cadillac tax is rolled back, the Medicare tax for wealthy individuals earning over $200,000 and married couples who earn over $250,000 rises. Today, they pay a 1.45 percent payroll tax on wages. The Senate bill would raise that tax to 2.35 percent. The reconciliation bill expands the tax to include investment income (dividends, capital gains, etc.) as well as earned income. It still applies only to individuals who show income over $200,000 and couples who report income over $250,000.

Comment: This tax makes up for the cut-back and push-back on the Cadillac tax. In contrast to the Cadillac tax, this tax is limited to those at the very top of the income ladder. Unlike the middle-class, those earning over $200,000 have enjoyed significant tax breaks and income hikes in recent years. They are in a much better position to afford the increase. It’s worth noting that other countries tax investment income to help fund healthcare.

– Medicare will save $200 billion by refusing to over-pay Medicare Advantage for-profit insurers. The bill will freeze Medicare Advantage payments in 2011. Then, beginning in 2012, the provision reduces Medicare Advantage benchmarks relative to current levels. In high-spending areas, insurers will be paid 95 percent of what it would cost Medicare to care for patients. In low-cost areas, they will be paid 115 percent of what it would cost Medicare to provide coverage. (Note – this should encourage insurers to find more efficient hospitals and doctors in high-cost areas. Not all providers in high-cost areas are over-treating or over-charging. The changes will be phased in over three, five, or seven years, depending on the level of payment reductions. The provision also creates an incentive system to increase payments to high-quality plans by at least 5 percent. In addition, Medicare Advantage Plans would have to spend at least 85 percent of revenue on medical costs or activities that improve quality of care, rather than profit and administration. Finally, the new Medicare Advantage policy applies evenly across the country-exceptions for Florida or other states have been eliminated. This is another positive change.

Comment: See these HealthBeat posts on Medicare Advantage here and here. Today, the majority of Medicare beneficiaries wind up paying more to cover corporate welfare for Advantage insurers – and many of the “extras” that Advantage plans offer are not medically necessary. (At the same time there are well-established Medicare HMOS that are very efficient and doing a good job. Under the new bill, they would receive bonuses of at least 5 percent. (See my post on these HMOs here).

– Primary care physicians treating Medicaid patients will be paid up to 100 percent of Medicare rates beginning in 2013. Five stars! Today Medicaid pays only about 70 percent of what Medicare pays for the same services.

Comment: There is no reason that doctors should be paid less when treating the poor. I just wish this provision were going into effect immediately.

– Penalties for individuals who choose not to buy insurance become more progressive. Originally, under the Senate bill, the penalty ranged from $750 per year per person to $2,250 per family, or 2 percent of household income, whichever is greater. It would be phased in with the penalty reaching $750 for an individual or 2 percent of household income in 2016. The reconciliation bill lowers the dollar amount of the maximum penalty from $750 to $695, but raises the percentage of household income that a household would have to pay from 2 percent to 2.5 percent in 2016. Since households pay “whichever is greater” this makes the penalty more progressive; wealthier households would have to pay more.

Comment: I still think these penalties are too low. A young, healthy individual earning $70,000 a year would have little incentive to buy the insurance; he earns too much to qualify for a subsidy to help pay the premium, and in his income bracket a $750 penalty just isn’t that much money. But we need those young, healthy, affluent individuals in the insurance pool, or insurance will be too expensive for many families who aren’t quite poor enough to qualify for subsidies, but not quite rich enough to be able to afford comprehensive insurance with a low deductible. I suspect that the penalties will be adjusted as we get closer to 2014 and have a better idea of what insurance will cost.

– Any employer with 50 or more full-time employees who does not offer health coverage would have to pay $2,000 per full-time employee if any of its full time employees receive federal subsidies to help pay for health coverage. Under the Senate bill, the employer paid only $750 per full-time employee. But the new bill offers a break for small employers – those with 50 or more full-time workers can subtract the first 30 full time employees from the payment calculation (e.g., a firm with 51 workers that does not offer coverage will pay an amount equal to 51 minus 30, or 21 times the applicable per employee payment amount).

Comment: This helps shield the smallest employers from large penalties while increasing penalties for larger employers. I suspect some amendment will be needed here to help small employers in labor- intensive businesses that have a very small profit margin. But the fact that we are talking about businesses with 50 full-time employees exempts many such businesses that have a large number of part-time employees (e.g. restaurants with 30 waiters working part-time, 30 hours a week). The danger is that, in order to avoid the penalty, employers will cut back hours for full-time employees so that they have fewer full-time employees, but this provision can be tweaked

– Mandatory Funding for Community Health Centers is raised to $11 billion over five years (FY 2011 – FY 2015).

Comment: Bravo! This is a major investment in public health.

– Nebraska would no longer be exempt from paying its share of the additional costs all states would incur as a result of expanding Medicaid. But the new bill covers 100 percent of the increased Medicaid costs for all states until 2016. (After that, the federal aid ratchets down.) In addition, the reconciliation bill also will allow an enhanced match to the 11 states that already cover childless adults who’s income is below 133 percent of the federal poverty level (the 11 states will begin receiving higher federal matching funds for this population.) This is good news for states that have been trying to do the right thing. (Hat-tip to Igor Volsky for pointing out this detail on Think Progress.) Under the Senate bill, Louisiana received additional Medicaid funds under a provision that provided extra money for states recovering from a statewide natural disaster. The Louisiana provision remains unchanged.

Comment: Since the federal government failed to provide Louisiana with the help it needed following Katrina, it seems only fair to provide the state with additional help now. And I’m glad to see all states receiving addition funding to help pay their share of Medicaid’s expansion. (There was no reason to make an exception for Nebraska).

– Funding to fight waste, fraud and abuse is increased by $250 million over the next 10 years. The bill also lets the Secretary of Treasury share IRS data with HHS employees to help screen and identify fraudulent providers or providers with tax debts, and to help recover such debts. It also provides strict controls on the use of such information to protect taxpayer privacy.

– The industry fee on sales of brand name pharmaceuticals for use in government health programs is pushed up by one year to 2011, but the revenue raised by the fees are increased by $4.8 billion.

– The excise taxes on medical device manufacturers is delayed by two years to 2013. Class I medical devices, such eyeglasses, contact lenses, hearing aids, and any device of a type that is generally purchased by the public at retail prices for individual use are exempted from the tax.

– Funding for education is expanded. For example, the bill provides $13.5 billion in mandatory appropriations to the Federal Pell Grant program. The legislation also amends the Income-Based Repayment program to cap student loan payments for new borrowers after July 1, 2014 to 10 percent of adjusted income, from 15 percent percent, and to forgive remaining balances after 20 years of repayment, from 25 years.

Comment: This aid for students and their families belongs in the health care reform bill: We know that there is a very strong connection between lack of education and premature deaths from preventable diseases. By making this investment in education, the legislation recognizes that if we want to improve the health of the nation, we must invest in education, and public health.

The Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress have already tackled bank bailouts, automobile bailouts, help for mortgagors, help for home buyers, stimulating the economy, and helping employers hire. They are hard at work at a variety of other initiatives including health care reform, finance reform, energy reform, education reform, don’t ask, don’t tell reform, expanding broadband access, government contract reform, just to name a few.

Next on the Obama to do list is immigration reform. At least initially, they have some bi-partisan cover on this one, sadly lacking in most of their other efforts.

The first volley comes from an op-ed today in the Washington Post:

The right way to mend immigration

By Charles E. Schumer and Lindsey O. Graham
Friday, March 19, 2010

Our immigration system is badly broken. Although our borders have become far more secure in recent years, too many people seeking illegal entry get through. We have no way to track whether the millions who enter the United States on valid visas each year leave when they are supposed to. And employers are burdened by a complicated system for verifying workers’ immigration status…

Our plan has four pillars: requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.

Besides border security, ending illegal immigration will also require an effective employment verification system that holds employers accountable for hiring illegal workers. A tamper-proof ID system would dramatically decrease illegal immigration, experts have said, and would reduce the government revenue lost when employers and workers here illegally fail to pay taxes.

We would require all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security card. Each card’s unique biometric identifier would be stored only on the card; no government database would house everyone’s information. The cards would not contain any private information, medical information or tracking devices. The card would be a high-tech version of the Social Security card that citizens already have.

Prospective employers would be responsible for swiping the cards through a machine to confirm a person’s identity and immigration status. Employers who refused to swipe the card or who otherwise knowingly hired unauthorized workers would face stiff fines and, for repeat offenses, prison sentences…

Ending illegal immigration, however, cannot be the sole objective of reform. Developing a rational legal immigration system is essential to ensuring America’s future economic prosperity.

Ensuring economic prosperity requires attracting the world’s best and brightest. Our legislation would award green cards to immigrants who receive a PhD or master’s degree in science, technology, engineering or math from a U.S. university. It makes no sense to educate the world’s future inventors and entrepreneurs and then force them to leave when they are able to contribute to our economy.

Our blueprint also creates a rational system for admitting lower-skilled workers. Our current system prohibits lower-skilled immigrants from coming here to earn money and then returning home. Our framework would facilitate this desired circular migration by allowing employers to hire immigrants if they can show they were unsuccessful in recruiting an American to fill an open position; allowing more lower-skilled immigrants to come here when our economy is creating jobs and fewer in a recession; and permitting workers who have succeeded in the workplace, and contributed to their communities over many years, the chance to earn a green card.

For the 11 million immigrants already in this country illegally, we would provide a tough but fair path forward. They would be required to admit they broke the law and to pay their debt to society by performing community service and paying fines and back taxes. These people would be required to pass background checks and be proficient in English before going to the back of the line of prospective immigrants to earn the opportunity to work toward lawful permanent residence…

Charles E. Schumer is a Democratic senator from New York. Lindsey O. Graham is a Republican senator from South Carolina.

Reaction has varied to this proposal :

The Ridiculous Schumer-Graham Plan for Immigration ‘Reform.’


Sens. Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham’s blueprint for immigration reform, published in a Washington Post op-ed today, does nothing but perpetuate the fundamental misunderstanding that has plagued our immigration policy for decades. Their goal is not to fix our broken immigration system, but to solve the “problem” of illegal immigrants.

But, President Obama, who met with the two Senators prior to release of the proposal, said the proposal “can and should be the basis for moving us forward.”

And the new push had a side benefit as CNN reports:

The push forward on immigration also helped the president woo a key vote for health care reform.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois, agreed to support the House health care bill after meeting with Obama and discussing immigration reform.

“After extensive discussions with the president, I believe we have a health care bill I can vote ‘yes’ for, and I believe we have a commitment to move forward on a comprehensive immigration reform package as soon as possible,” Gutierrez said in a statement Thursday.

The Christian Science Monitor has the story:

The Middle East quartet issued a call from Moscow today for an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem..

The joint statement from the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the US, ratchets up diplomatic pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he tries to defuse what some have said is the worst dispute with Washington in decades. The statement said the group would “monitor closely” Israeli construction in Jerusalem and condemned the 1,600 unit building project that upended Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel and sparked a diplomatic crisis between the two allies…

…Not all Israelis are rallying around the government despite assertions by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of broad Israeli support for building in East Jerusalem…

A poll by the daily Yediot Ahronot said that 46 percent of respondents support a construction freeze in East Jerusalem, while the figure from a poll commissioned by Haaretz found support for a freeze at 41 percent…

When Haaretz asked about the US president’s treatment Israel, a surprising 69 percent cast it in a positive light. Just over half said it was business-like, 21 percent said hostile, and 18 percent friendly.