For-Profiteer Kent Conrad Hits the Airwaves

Senator Kent Conrad appeared on Fox News and CSPAN this morning. He echoed Corporacrat Ben Nelson in calling for a very limited conference on health reform. Conrad called for the Senate bill to emerge largely intact from the House-Senate conference. This bill highly favors existing, private health insurance companies.

No longer can government leaders conduct a "make or buy" decision. Everything must be contracted to the private sector, with it's unceasing profit growth requirements. That leads us to Kent's second topic, budget reform. Conrad used the same logic for budget reform that he spouted on health reform.

One pillar is making America more competitive in a "global economy." This is a euphemism for the race to the lowest global common denominator on worker pay/benefits, regulation and taxes. The private sector hates paying taxes. Investment capital could flee to lower tax portions of the world economy. Goldman Sachs threatened to do just that in the United Kingdom.

Health reform is part of the race to the lowest global bar on worker benefits. Both CBO and CMS predict 17 million will lose employer sponsored health insurance under reform. That's after 26 million lose workplace coverage prior to 2011.

Kent Conrad serviced his for-profit healthcare corporate donors with no, as in zero, facilities in his state. I'm sure he can serve Wall Street and the moneyed class just as ably. Watch tax reform under a Conrad commission. Also keep an eye on health reform promises. A tapped out Uncle Sam might not live up to commitments made to the people. As employers and the government do less, who picks up the slack? That would be you, the individual.

CBO Joins CMS in Projecting 17 million to Lose Workplace Health Insurance Post Reform

The Congressional Budget Office projects 17 million Americans will lose employer sponsored health insurance from 2015 to 2019. That will be the second stage of the health insurance dump to the individual. The first is underway.

150 million Americans will have employer coverage in 2010 (CBO projection)

176.3 million had it in 2008 (Census Bureau data)

If CBO is correct, 26.3 million Americans will lose workplace health insurance in two short years. Another 17 million will lose it once all reform provisions are in place. On the 17 million number, CBO and Medicare's Chief Actuary agree. CBO does propose employer coverage will increase by 2 million a year from 2011 to 2014, but that flies in the face an established trend of employers doing less (per Census Department numbers).

Health reform shifts responsibility for health coverage and medical expenses to the individual and a tapped out Uncle Sam. Businesses clearly want to do less. The government promised to do more in 2014. Those commitments may dwindle given talk of fiscal restraint.

A two stage dump is on the way. It's no fun to see, especially from the middle of the first shedding.

Other bill changes include giving WellPoint, UnitedHealth, Aetna, Humana, and Cigna an extra year before taxing for-profit health insurers. Nonprofit insurance plans in Nebraska and Michigan get special treatment. Nebraska also gets an extra year Medicaid supplemental from Uncle Sam. Nebraska, Nebraska? It rings like a Ben Nelson shakedown.

Sickening Framing: From Health Care to Budget Reform

Senators tossed cliches in this morning's Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee meeting. If I hadn't seen the players, Joe Lieberman vs. Max Baucus, it could've been a Senate Finance Committee meeting on health reform. I heard:

We don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

It impacts America's ability to compete in a global economy.

Both phrases were heavily used in health care reform. They're now working overtime for America's Gordian budget knot.

Another odd coincidence, Senator Joe Lieberman did most of the talking. He sat fat and happy in the Chairman's, I mean Chimera's seat. "Flip flop" Joe lobbied for Medicare buy-in 90 days ago. Yet, his bait and switch garnered no ill will from the White House. Instead the White House went all Carrie on Howard Dean, using a five year old campaign health promise to eviscerate Dr. Dean.

Joe Lieberman creepily smiled at his guests, two fellow Senators. Kent Conrad (of North Dakota critical access hospital fame) testified on getting the budget under control. He specifically cited the revenue side of the budget, saying current taxation hampered America's ability to compete in a global economy. This is a buzz phrase for cutting taxes on the wealthy. Otherwise, they will take their ample capital to lower tax portions of the globe.

After Conrad was excused, the CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Institute testified. David Walker's boss funded the Institute with billions in profits from The Blackstone Group, a private equity underwriter (PEU). How did carried interest taxation and the Bush capital gains cut help Mr. Peterson? Not everyone was as lucky as Pete, cashing out at the market top.

Here's the frame:

The health care fix is expensive, necessary and paid for.

America can't afford its current obligations, programs will have to be cut.

How much of a stretch is it for people to think, we can't afford what might pass, even though health insurance assistance doesn't start until 2014?

Here's what's not being said. Employers will shift health insurance costs to workers, even dumping the benefit altogether. 60 million Americans went without health insurance at one point in the last year, according to the CDC.

CMS Chief Actuary Richard Foster projects 17 million Americans will lose employer coverage under health reform. If the name sounds familiar, Mr. Foster was threatened with his job by ex CMS head Tom Scully. After crafting the Medicare Prescription Drug program, Scully went the Pete Peterson route, becoming a PEU with Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. Now Senior Partner, Scully owns 135,880 shares of Universal American, a health insurance company and WCAS affiliate.

Joe's tantrum yanked the public option and ditched any Medicare buy-in. This drove Universal American's stock price up over $1 a share. Tom Scully's personal portfolio increased over $135,000. Sweet!

How long before Kent Conrad, David Walker and company call for a capital gains tax cut to make us more competitive globally? That would be perfectly good for Scully. He hopes it's soon.

Don't forget the two D.C. mantras:

We can't afford it.

We can't afford to tax the rich or corporations.

What pittance will remain in four years to fund health reform? By then the global economy, with its faceless greedy leaders, will be the enemy of good people everywhere.

Foster Says Employer Coverage to Drop 17 million

Richard Foster is back in the news. He was Medicare's chief actuary during the Bush Prescription Drug. CMS Chief Tom Scully silenced Foster over his cost estimates. NY Times reported in 2004:

Mr. Scully threatened to fire the agency's chief actuary, Richard Foster, if he released estimates to Congress showing that the bill could cost as much as 50 percent more than the White House had let on.

Scully went on to bigger and better things, lobbying for Alston & Bird and senior partner with private equity underwriter (PEU) Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. Richard Foster remained a loyal public servant, having survived his public dressing down by for-profit healthcare shill Rep. Bill Thomas (now retired).

Foster made the news again, albeit in very small print on back pages. The Cleveland Plain Dealer noted:

17 million workers who have (workplace) coverage would leave their company health plans. Some would decide to enroll in a different plan with lower premiums -- thanks to federal subsidies they could get -- or to enroll in an expanded version of Medicaid if their incomes are low enough.

Others, working for small companies, could be forced to switch because their employers drop coverage. Penalties for dropping insurance would be "very low" for these employers compared with the cost of providing insurance, Foster said.

Whatever their reasons, this would result in a net reduction of 5 million Americans who now get employer-provided coverage, Foster found.

Actually the net reduction would be 176.3 million - 168.4 million or 7.9 million Americans. That's 3 million more without workplace coverage.

The burden will shift from employers to government or the individual. As Uncle Sam is tapped out, expect most of that to land in the citizen's lap.

This is the plan, not some quirky afterthought. Soon America will party like it's 1999. Employers can celebrate when they ditch that pesky health insurance benefit.

President Obama said his criteria had been met and encouraged Congress to act on the bill. He said America was "on the precipice." For some it will be a long fall, with four years before help arrives.

For-Profiteers: Bayh Defends Lieberman

Two insurance shills, Senators Evan Bayh and Joe Lieberman, covered for their corporate sponsors by opposing Medicare expansion. (Lieberman opposed expansion three months after proposing it.)

But, Sen. Evan Bayh defended Lieberman as he exited a special caucus of Democrats and reiterated that Medicare expansion was out of the bill.

"..there was no acrimony, no singling [Joe] out," said Bayh.

Evan's household income received a huge boost from WellPoint. Wife Susan sits on five for-profit health care boards, including giant insurer WellPoint. She flipped stock options for over $1.5 million in the last five years.

Joe's insurance sponsors must be happy.

P.S. Dirty Max Baucus joined Bayh in coming to Joe's aid, saying it looked like Medicare buy-in wouldn't make it into the Senate bill. Corporafornication lives. Give them all a medal.

Most Missing Bush E-mails Found

The Executive Office of the President settled lawsuits with two groups over millions of missing Bush administration e-mails. The AP reported:

Computer technicians found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days' worth of potentially lost e-mail from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.

It will be years before the public sees any of the recovered e-mails because they will now go through the National Archives' process for releasing presidential and agency records. Presidential records of the Bush administration won't be available until 2014 at the earliest.

When will the public have the opportunity to read Fran Townsend's and Andy Card's e-mails on Hurricane Katrina? Maybe on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina...

Immelt Wrong: Meanness & Greed Hardly Waning

It's sad to see how far the management bar fell in a decade. At one time corporations existed to provide jobs and quality products. That shifted to permanently growing quarterly profits and optimizing executive incentive pay.

Wall Street ditched quality when packaging loans, residential and commercial. They shifted risk elsewhere, while making huge securitization fees. Risk management was replaced with greed obsession.

GE's Jeff Immelt commented on the fall:

We are at the end of a difficult generation of business leadership, and maybe leadership in general. Tough-mindedness, a good trait, was replaced by meanness and greed, both terrible traits.

Rewards became perverted. The richest people made the most mistakes with the least accountability. In too many situations, leaders divided us instead of bringing us together.

America has abysmal leadership. It infects teak paneled corporate board rooms and our hallowed halls of government. The perverted cycle of rewards operates within and between the two bastions of the power elite. Corporate money fuels political parties and their business forwarding candidates.

Government makes little anymore, preferring to act as a giant general contractor. It is a fractal of American firms, many who have no domestic manufacturing capabilities. No longer can our officials conduct a "make or buy" analysis. Government farms out huge contracts on an indefinite quantity, indefinite deliver basis.

Immelt's mean, greedy business managers aren't gone. They're standing in line for their turn on Uncle Sam's teat, just like Jeff.

The Obama administration wants to import business tactics to cure education. Those same strategies were espoused by Jeff's mean, greedy leaders. The President plans to reward teachers and doctors with "pay for performance." It too will pervert.

Immelt correctly described horrific leadership and its damning impact. He's dead wrong that it's ending. Horrific practices continue in spades. Obama leads by bad example. He's full of populist rhetoric and corporatist implementation. I think Jeff did a fine imitation with his speech.

Banner Day for Ghostly Corporacrats

From health care to financial reform, Congress caved on regulations. Corporacrats united in Capital chambers on behalf of their big money sponsors. Three Ghosts took them on a tour, after which Congress took appropriate action.

The Ghost of Armageddon Past visited regarding financial regulation. AP reported:

Prodded by moderates, however, nearly half the Democrats teamed up with Republicans late Thursday to loosen restrictions on derivatives and reject tougher (financial) regulations.

The Ghost of Health Insurance Future showed next:

A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer, prompting a rebuke from patient advocates.

Officials of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network said they were taken by surprise when the earlier ban on annual coverage limits was undercut, adding that they have not been able to get a satisfactory explanation.

"We don't know who put it in, or why it was put in," said Stephen Finan, a policy expert with the cancer society's advocacy affiliate.

The Ghost of Financial Christmas Present showed:

The House has rejected an effort to expand a Wall Street regulation bill with mortgage relief that would let debt-ridden homeowners reduce their payments in bankruptcy court. The vote was 241-188 to reject.

Corporations can cram down debt holders without triggering credit default swaps. They get a tax break for buying back debt for pennies on the dollar. Individuals can do none of that.

All three ghosts made it clear; it's unseemly to corporafornicate in public. Talk populist and keep any Tiger like corporfornicating behind closed doors.