How do healthcare proposals compare?

(photo source unknown)

President Obama is traveling to Montana today for yet another so-called town hall meeting to explain what his healthcare reform plan is all about. Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to post the following information listing what each of the plans under debate propose.

If you ask me, there are too many unknown variables in all of the plans because there's simply no way to address each and every possibly scenario in healthcare and insurance coverage. And given people's resistance to change, fear of the unknown, and the wild notions Republicans are spreading about healthcare reform--that it will turn the U.S. into a socialist country, among them--I can't see how any of these plans could ever get a fair chance.

Furthermore, when I think about the notoriously lazy legislators who vote on bills without reading them (being thousands of pages long probably doesn't help), and considering the complexity of the subject, I can't help but wonder how any of them could possibly fully understand any of the plans enough to cast an educated vote.

FACTBOX on healthcare reform as published by Reuters

When Congress returns Sep 8, lawmakers will continue work on an overhaul of the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system. There are three different plans in the works, all containing changes that would be phased in over a number of years.

In the House of Representatives, three committees have each approved changes to one House bill. The changes will be melded by House leaders into final legislation before a floor vote expected in September.

In the Senate, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has approved its version and the Senate Finance Committee is working on a separate healthcare overhaul bill.

The following is a comparison of major points in the various proposals.

INSURANCE MARKET REFORMS

All bills include the following:

• Bar discrimination based on gender or pre-existing medical condition.
• Coverage is guaranteed and benefits could not be rescinded after coverage is issued.
• No annual or lifetime caps on benefit payments.

Senate Health Committee and Finance Committee

• Premiums could vary only on family size, geographic region, tobacco use, age and benefits provided.
• Coverage is guaranteed and benefits could not be rescinded after coverage is issued.
• Insurers must provide financial incentives for quality and preventive care.

House bill

• Would eliminate co-pays for preventive care.

COVERAGE

Senate Health Committee bill

• Individuals are required to obtain coverage or pay a penalty of up to $750 per year. To help people pay for it, credits would be available up to an income of $88,000 a year for a family of four.
• Employers are required to pay 60 percent of coverage for workers or pay $750 per year penalty. First 25 employees are exempt.
• Health and Human Services Department would decide what is in a basic insurance plan required to be offered to all.

Senate Finance Committee bill

• An individual mandate is likely. No employer mandate is expected to be included but employers whose workers obtain subsidized coverage through an insurance exchange would have to cover some of the cost of those subsidies.

House bill

• Individuals would be required to obtain coverage or pay a penalty based on income.
• Employers would be required to contribute 65 percent of workers' family insurance premiums or pay an 8 percent penalty. No penalty for small businesses but competing versions define small business as either under $250,000 or $500,000 annual payroll.

INSURANCE OPTIONS

Senate Health Committee bill

• Insurance "gateway," or exchange, would serve as a clearing house for private insurers and a new public insurance option run by the government to sell policies to those who do not have coverage elsewhere.
• New government-run insurance system would negotiate with providers for payments not more than the average of private insurers in the gateway system.
• Those who have insurance would be permitted to keep their current plans and health insurers could sell policies outside the gateway system.
• Health and Human Services Department would set out essential health benefits and minimum coverage for individuals.
• Temporary aid for employers to cover retirees between ages 55 and 64 until the gateway system is in place.
• Dependents would be covered until age 26.

Finance Committee

• Expected to provide for non-profit co-operatives rather than a government-run insurance plan.
• Establishes state insurance exchanges for small businesses and individuals without employer-sponsored insurance.
• The proposed new government-run plan or co-op insurance plans would be offered through these exchanges.

House bills

• Would set up a public insurance option similar to the Senate Health Committee bill.
• State insurance exchanges would offer individuals and small businesses insurance from private insurers or the government-run plan.
• Insurance co-operatives would be allowed.

INSURANCE SUBSIDIES

Senate Health Committee and House bills

• Provide various forms of individual subsidies on a sliding scale up to 4 times the poverty level ($88,000 for a family of four).
• The bills provide for some form of premium credit or tax subsidy for small businesses.

Senate Finance proposal

• Expected to provide refundable tax credit for individuals up to 3 times the poverty level.
• To provide a small business tax credit.

MEDICAID

Millions more people would become eligible for state Medicaid health plans for the poor.

Senate Health bill

• Expansion to those with incomes up to 150 percent of the poverty level.

Senate Finance

• Expansion to be determined. Federal government would bear added costs for a number of years, expected eventually to shift those costs to states.

House bills

• Expansion of coverage to 133 percent of poverty. Requires states to enroll those newly eligible.

MEDICARE

All bills include provisions to improve quality of healthcare in the Medicare program for the elderly. Payments to be designed to encourage quality, not quantity of services.

House bill

• Requires government to negotiate prices with drug companies.
• Eliminates the drug coverage gap over 15 years.
• Will cover the cost of voluntary discussions with healthcare providers on end-of-life care.

(Compiled by Jackie Frank and Donna Smith, editing by Eric Beech)

To read the House bill, go here.

To read the Senate bill, go here. (The document does not specify which of the two bills--Health or Finance committee--this is.)

Sources: Reuters, CNN
Copyright © 2009, Primetime Oracle
All Rights Reserved

Healthcare industry spends big on lobbyists

It's no surprise that healthcare companies are pouring millions of dollars in lobbying to influence how legislators will vote on President Obama's healthcare reform.

Pharmaceutical companies, doctors, insurers and hospitals are the leading spenders, Reuters reported.

Here is a look at some of the biggest spenders so far according to Senate reports:

- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers, $6.1 million.

- Pfizer, $5.6 million

- American Medical Association, $3.8 million.

- Eli Lilly, $ 3.6 million

- Amgen, $3.4 million.

- Blue Cross/Blue Shield, 2.8 million.

- GlaxoSmithKline, $2.3 million.

- Novartis, $1.8 million.

- MetLife Group, $1.7 million.

- Allstate, $1.5 million.

- Merck & Co. $1.5 million.

Source: Reuters
Copyright © 2009, Primetime Oracle
All Rights Reserved

Banks paid $32.6-bil in bonuses amid U.S. bailout

Here's an important article about what Wall Street banks are doing with the money they robbed from you and me. I meant to post this yesterday but procrastinated.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo

By Karen Freifeld

July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and seven other U.S. banks paid in 2008 while receiving $175 billion in taxpayer funds, according to a report by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo analyzed 2008 bonuses at nine banks that received Trouble Asset Relief Program financing from the U.S. government. New York-based Citigroup and Merrill, which has since been taken over by Bank of America Corp., received TARP funding totaling $55 billion, Cuomo said.

“When the banks did well, their employees were paid well. When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well,” Cuomo’s office said in the 22-page report. “When the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well. Bonuses and overall compensation did not vary significantly as profits diminished.” Ugh!

The study, called “No Rhyme or Reason: The ‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose’ Bank Bonus Culture,” comes as Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission examine whether to limit the compensation paid to top corporate executives. (I'm digging that title. It's perfect.)

“One senior bank executive noted recently that individual compensation should not be set without taking into strong consideration the performance of the business unit and the overall firm,” according to the Cuomo report.

Upside, Downside

“As this executive put it, ‘employees should share in the upside when overall performance is strong and they should all share in the downside when overall performance is weak.” But despite such claims, one thing is clear from this investigation to date: there is no clear rhyme or reason to the way banks compensate and reward their employees,” the report said.

Wall Street firms’ pay has traditionally been tied closely to performance of the companies, which is why employees receive most of their compensation at the end of the year after final results are known. Depending on seniority and performance, bonuses for traders, bankers and executives can be a multiple of their salaries, which range from about $80,000 to $600,000.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid out a total of $18 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving a combined total of $45 billion in taxpayer dollars through TARP. Together, the three firms earned $9.6 billion last year, Cuomo said.

Jesus F. Xst--criminal, if you ask me.

Top Recipients

The top 200 bonus recipients at JPMorgan Chase & Co. received $1.12 billion last year, while the top 200 at Goldman received $995 million. At Merrill the top 149 received $858 million and at Morgan Stanley, the top 101 received $577 million. Those 650 people received a combined $3.55 billion, or an average of $5.46 million.

JPMorgan Chase had 1,626 employees who received a bonus of least $1 million last year, more than any other Wall Street firm, according to the report. Goldman Sachs had 953 employees who received $1 million or more in bonuses, while Citigroup Inc. had 738, Merrill Lynch & Co., 696, and Morgan Stanley, 428. Bank of America Corp. had 172, while Wells Fargo & Co. had 62.

This is sooo disgusting to me. Here we are, facing a fucked up economy that is ruining countless lives, and these fuckers are having a blast with our--We the People's--money, which was given to them to "save" their crappy, ineffective, poorly managed companies all while they and the employees of these shitty companies get rewarded for their shitty performance. Where's the incentive to do a better job?

Kristin Lemkau, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase, Mark Lake, a spokesman at Morgan Stanley, Jeep Bryant, a spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, and Michael Du Vally, a spokesman at Goldman Sachs, all in New York, declined to comment. Carolyn Cinchon, a spokeswoman for State Street, and Citigroup spokesman Stephen Cohen didn’t immediately return a call for comment.

What a pack of wimps. If they're doing nothing wrong, as the companies claim, why do they hide?

Pay for Performance

Melissa Murray a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, declined comment on the report itself. She said the company has a “pay- for-performance” culture where staff are compensated on individual and business performance. “We implemented a say on pay policy this year and our shareholders approved the compensation of the Company’s named executives,” she said.

Citigroup and Merrill Lynch suffered losses of more than $27 billion at each firm, the report said. Yet Citigroup paid out $5.33 billion and Merrill $3.6 billion in bonuses.

Thieves.

“We have put forth guidelines to better link pay to long term performance and effective risk management,” said Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Washington-based Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. “That includes the ability to recover bonuses from employees if those bonuses turn out later to be improper.” The industry association put out its guidelines in June and member firms are working to incorporate them, he said.

Wall Street Pay

The report shows the more bonus-laden compensation styles of the four major Wall Street banks compared with retail banks such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America that employ far more people whose main compensation is typically salaries.

Bonuses averaged $160,420 for Goldman Sachs’s 30,067 employees, compared with $13,580 at Bank of America, employer of 243,000 people, the report said. Bonuses averaged $95,286 per employee at Morgan Stanley, $61,017 at Merrill Lynch and $38,642 at JPMorgan Chase & Co., which operates large retail and investment banking units.

At Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank holding company after acquiring Wachovia Corp. last year, bonuses averaged $3,479 for the company’s 281,000 workers, according to the report.

Goldman produced the most in earnings per employee -- $77,228. In contrast, Merrill had the worst revenue performance, losing $467,797 per employee in 2008 while handing out an average bonus of $61,017, the third highest payout, the report said.

“The data that the attorney general has extracted is far more granular and detailed than anything that we might get from financial filings from these firms, so it’s extremely interesting in that respect,” said Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate for executive compensation at The Corporate Library in Portland, Maine. “The SEC may have a stronger platform to argue for disclosure of compensation for employees that earn in excess of a certain amount.”

Goldman Sachs building in New York City

TARP Pay-Back

Goldman and Morgan Stanley, credit-card lender American Express and custody banks State Street Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Northern Trust Corp. paid back a combined $30 billion in TARP funds on June 17, in a step toward eliminating government restrictions on lending and compensation. JPMorgan Chase paid back $25 billion.

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee, led by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, approved legislation two days ago that would let regulators ban incentive pay at banks and give shareholders a vote on bonuses in response to public outrage over Wall Street pay.

Egregious Behavior

The bill, which needs approval from the House and Senate, would allow banking agencies and the Securities and Exchange Commission to bar compensation practices that push financial companies to take “inappropriate risks.”

Frank said today in a telephone interview that the House tomorrow [July 31] will consider his legislation to allow shareholders to hold an annual, non-binding vote on executive pay and require regulators to set pay restrictions that prevent excessive risk taking.

“Attorney General Cuomo’s report on executive pay at companies receiving taxpayer bailouts is shocking and appalling,” said House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns, a Democrat from New York. “Companies that only months ago were facing bankruptcy and sought the help of the Federal government are now paying out billions in compensation -- and in some cases without reimbursing taxpayers. This egregious behavior proves that Wall Street still doesn’t get that times have changed and the old way of paying executives is long gone.”

Part of Their Lives

Towns said in a letter to Cuomo that he would hold a hearing after the August recess to examine the Obama administration’s reforms in pay practices at companies that received TARP funds.

In October, industry veterans including John Gutfreund, president of New York-based Gutfreund & Co. and the former chief executive officer of Salomon Brothers Inc., said Wall Street would insist on paying bonuses in the face of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a taxpayer bailout and mounting political outcry.

Odds that Wall Street will forgo the payouts are “slim to none,” Gutfreund said in October. “They’re going to have to be a little bit sensitive because politicians, whether they like it or not, are part of their lives now.”

A typical day in Congress...

Sorry, couldn't resist.