Progress Illinois

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A Silent Stimulus?

To weather the unrelenting economic recession without slashing services, state governments are going to need more assistance from Washington. Luckily, some help is on the way. And it's coming via an unlikely source.

Today, the Washington Post reports that wedged into the House health care reform bill passed two weekends ago was $23.5 billion directed at states to cover short-term Medicaid costs. Here are the details:

Medicaid relief for states comprised one of the biggest pieces of February's $787 billion federal stimulus package, but that funding will run out next year, halfway through states' next round of spending plans.

Under the Affordable Health Care for America Act, the federal government would continue to pay a higher share of all Medicaid costs -- 66 percent on average, up from 57 percent before the stimulus -- for an additional six months, and erase in one fell swoop a major chunk of states' projected shortfalls for the coming year.

If enacted, this would be a huge boon to state lawmakers clawing to close projected 2011 budget gaps in the coming months. The provision is not included in the Senate version yet, but there is still plenty of time to insert it.

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How federal health care reform will affect state finances is a concern held by many policy wonks across the country, especially those from states dealing with devastating budget shortfalls. It worries Illinois' own Rep. Phil Hare, as well. But speaking on C-SPAN's Washington Journalthis morning, the Quad City Democrat said he is confident that betweennow and 2013 -- when most of the major provisions of the bill will beimplemented -- reformers can develop safeguards to prevent any unfundedmandates on state governments.

Hare also talked up the high cost faced by American families andhealth care providers if no action is taken on this issue. Heillustrated the point by citing data from his own district, where anestimated 100,000 people lack insurance.He reported that, three years ago, Monmouth Hospital administered$400,000 worth of care to the uninsured. Two years ago,that number jumped to $1.3 million. Last year, the facility -- locatedin a town of 13,000 -- dolled out $2.8 million in charity care."If anybody doesn't think we have a financial problem out here onhealth care," Hare said, "they need to go to Monmouth, Illinois." Watchit:

In addition to chatting about health care reform yesterday, I also asked Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL) about the abrupt closure of the Seaford Clothing plant in his district earlier this month. 

A bit of background: The Rock Island factory was owned and operated by Hartmarx Inc., whose bankruptcy battle we followed closely this spring.  On the day of the final sale of the company to British private equity firm Emerisque, a dispute over certain fees resulted in the parties deciding to close the plant, instantly eliminating over 300 jobs.  Hare, who had worked diligently to save Hartmarx from liquidation (the favored outcome of the company's creditors), described himself and the workers as "blindsided" by the news. Hare has a strong personal connection to the factory, having worked there himself for 13 years.  Most recently, Hare has pushed back against claims by the former Hartmarx executives that their last-minute demands for more money should have been expected.    

Watch it:

I had a chance this afternoon to sit down briefly with Rep. Phil Hare today as he passed through Chicago.  Below is the first part of our interview, which touched on Sen. Ted Kennedy's death and the prospects for passing health care reform this fall.  Hare said that he'd hoped Kennedy would be able to "come to the floor and vote for a health care bill that he'd worked so hard on," adding, "He'll be there in spirit.  And I think now, more than ever, we need to push this."   Hare also reiterated his commitment to vote against any bill that does not include a public option. 

The interview was filmed in a downtown restaurant and, as such, comes with a complimentary soundtrack:

We'll be posting part two tomorrow.

Progressives have made it clear that they will fight to include a public option in whatever health care reform package emerges on Capitol Hill. Now they're putting their money where their mouths are. In a show of support for those members of Congress who have pledged to reject any bill that lacks a public plan, activists have raised nearly $400,000 from over 6,500 supporters through ActBlue during the past week. Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher -- who is steering the fundraising campaign along with various other bloggers (under the umbrella organization Blue America) -- describes the financial support as "rewarding good behavior."  The money also applies some pressure to the Progressive Caucus to stand by their pledge if push comes to shove. Blue America explains:

They stood with the American people and ordinary working families when push came to shove and both political parties decided propping up a disastrous health care system and a corrupt Insurance Industry was more important than keeping the promise made over and over to working families [...]

That takes courage, and we need to show them how much we appreciate them for doing so.

Also of note: The list of benificiaries includes three members of Illinois' congressional delegation -- Reps. Luis Gutierrez,  Jesse Jackson Jr., and Phil Hare -- who've pulled in nearly $13,000 combined.

Here's our latest health care round-up:

Reconciliation Is On The Table

As you've probably heard by now, the latest news from Washington -- as reported by the Wall Street Journal -- is that Congressional Democrats are considering splitting health care legislation into two parts if the Gang of Six can't reach a sensible agreement in the Senate Finance Committee. The first bill would include non-budget items with broad support -- insurance consumer protections, establishing the health insurance exchange and a co-op system, small subsidies for people who can't pay premiums -- that could pass the Senate with more than 60 votes and avoid a filibuster.

The second would include many progressive elements of the reform effort that effect the budget and could thus be considered under the reconciliation process. Under this scenario, 51 senators would have the leeway to push through measures like a broad expansion of Medicaid, new taxes on individuals or employers, more generous subsidies for people buying insurance, cost-saving Medicare and Medicaid reforms, and possibly a public plan. If the GOP and conservative Democrats show no interest in legitimate compromise, the theory goes, then mainstream Democrats should leave them behind and pass a meaningful bill on their own terms.

The tactic might backfire. After all, Republican senators might not approve of the first bill, even if it means voting against common-sense and widely-popular insurance regulations, if they think they are clearing the path for President Obama's full agenda. But that the plan is being considered -- and discussed publicly -- shifts the Congressional debate in the right direction, argues The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn:

But even the theoretical possibility of Democrats passing reform on their own would change the dynamics in Congress, by giving Republicans new incentives to negotiate in good faith--and giving Democrats a way to enact legislation in case the GOP remains as obstructionist as it is now.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius created a firestorm among liberal pols and activists when she reiterated on Sunday that the White House, while supportive of the public option, does not view it as "the essential element” for health care reform. On the airwaves and in print, lefty commentators blasted the Obama administration for its newest hedge, including Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, who wrote that "we didn't elect Obama to be an expedient president." Meanwhile, 60 congressional progressives sent a letter again warning they would vote against any bill -- either the House version or the conference report -- that does not include a public option. Unlike the last letter, which was sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi in late July, this version landed on Sebelius' desk and included three more signatories. And netroots activists are raising money to "reward" lawmakers who stand by their promise.

The main concern of House progressives like Rep. Jan Schakowsky is that any co-op model created by the conservative Senate Finance committee would be too small and fragmented to provide real competition to the insurance companies. At least 500,000 people would have to join the non-profit insurance pools, according to estimates from Sen. Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota), before they would be powerful enough to negotiate reasonable prices with health providers. As Ezra Klein wrote yesterday, "the co-op does not solve a policy problem so much as it solves a political problem." That problem, of course, is finding a compromise that public option critics -- those who don't believe a public insurer limit costs and provide access to high-quality care better than the profit-driven private system -- can support.

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Kim Bobo and the folks at Chicago's Interfaith Worker Justice have almost single-handedly pushed the issue of wage theft into the national political conversation. Bobo's book Wage Theft in America argued persuasively that, under the Bush administration, lax regulation in the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division failed to prevent some employers in low-wage industries from withholding earned wages and benefits. As a result, 2 million workers are paid less than the minimum wage, 3 million are wrongly classified as independent contractors instead of employees, and millions more are illegally denied overtime pay.

A new report (PDF) by the Government Accountability Office backs up her claims. Half of the complaints that the GAO  lodged with the division weren’t even recorded. When claims were taken up, they were often "delayed by months or years.” Now lawmakers in Washington have taken notice.

Last Thursday, Rep. George Miller (D-California) introduced the Wage Theft Prevention Act (H.R. 3303). Co-sponsored by Illinois' own Rep. Phil Hare, the bill would freeze the statute of limitations on wage theft investigations from the date an employer is informed of an inquiry until the agency alerts the employer that the investigation has been completed. This change would ensure that delays won't result in a permanent loss of back pay for workers seeking grievances. We'll be tracking its progress.

The website Firedoglake recently launched an action aimed at getting 40 members of the House Democratic caucus to pledge not to support a health care bill that doesn't include a public option.  So far they've gotten seven members to go on the record in this way.  One of them is Illinois' own Phil Hare, who told the organizers that a bill without a public option is "like a car without a motor."  Watch it:

We'll have more later today on the public option fearmongering from GOP Reps. Mark Kirk and Peter Roskam, as well as Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois.

In an op-ed in The Hill today, Rep. Phil Hare revisits the Employee Free Choice Act, pushing for its passage and arguing that it represents a "second stimulus package."  Hare does a particularly good job of describing the rationale for the bill: specifically, the current obstacles faced by workers trying to unionize:

The current system for forming unions is badly broken, hampering the ability of working families to bargain for a better life. Employers routinely intimidate, harass, coerce, reassign or even fire workers who support a union. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, employers unlawfully fire at least one worker for union activity in 25 percent of all organizing drives. This is unacceptable.

In the cases where workers manage to form a union, many employers continue their resistance by refusing to reach a first contract. In fact, a third of unions still do not have a first contract after more than a year of bargaining. Without a contract, there is effectively no union.

He goes on to take aim at the "frantic and misleading" claims from EFCA opponents that the bill would eliminate the right to a "secret ballot" union election and set wages via binding arbitration.  Read the whole thing.