(AP) — A record number of residents signed up for private insurance this year through Minnesota's health exchange, officials said Thursday, attributing the spike in part to uncertainty over the federal health care law and a novel state program that offsets skyrocketing premiums. Combined with concern about shrinking plan access in Minnesota's fragile health insurance market, O'Toole said that uncertainty might have prompted more Minnesota residents to try to lock in coverage before there are massive changes. MNsure's initial data shows 41,000 of its shoppers will receive the state's new 25 percent discount — a sum that doesn't include residents who purchased coverage through insurance agents or directly from health plans.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 5 hours ago.
Minnesota's health exchange reports record number of signups
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Here's how many people in every state don't have health insurance
The percentage of Americans without health insurance hit an all-time low in 2016, mostly due to the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare.Despite the substantial decrease in the national rate, there is a substantial variance in the uninsurance rate between states.
According to new data from Gallup-Healthways, the highest uninsured rate is in Texas, where 20.5% of people do not have coverage. This is also the ninth straight year that Texas has had the highest uninsured rate according to the survey.
Massachusetts and Hawaii, which notably had expansive health coverage laws prior to the ACA, are tied for the lowest percentage of people without coverage at 3.2% each.
Additionally, the survey looked at which states had the biggest decreases in the uninsured rate between 2013 and 2016.
All 10 of the biggest drops came in states that expanded Medicaid via the Affordable Care Act, led by Kentucky. Right behind Kentucky's 12.6 percentage point drop was Arkansas with a 12.3 pp fall and West Virginia with a 11.5 pp drop.
On the other end, those states that did not see a dramatic reduction in their uninsured population share one of two traits,according to the survey.
"Of the 11 states with the smallest reductions, six have not expanded Medicaid," said the Gallup-Healthways survey release. "Among these 11, the states that have expanded Medicaid — Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont, Delaware and Minnesota — were already among the states with the lowest uninsured rates in the nation in 2013 and therefore had the least room for improvement."
*SEE ALSO: One chart shows just how devastating healthcare costs are for American families*
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin Reported by Business Insider 5 hours ago.
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STOCKS HIT ALL-TIME HIGHS: Here's what you need to know
Stocks touched all-time highs on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said he would release his plan to reform the tax system in the next few weeks.Although they back-tracked on some of their gains near the end of the trading day, all three major indices still finished in the green.
First up, the scoreboard:
· *Dow:* 20,181.12, +126.78, (+0.63%)
· *S&P 500:* 2,308.66, +13.93, (+0.61%)
· *Nasdaq:* 5,716.30, +33.86, (0.60%)
· *US 10-year yield:* 2.400%, +0.060
· *WTI Crude:* $53.04 per barrel, +0.70, +1.34%
1. US President Donald Trump said that in the new few weeks he will release his plan to reform the US tax system. "We're going to be announcing something over the next, I would say, two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax," Trump said at a meeting with airline executives on Thursday. He added that he is "lowering the overall tax burden on American businesses, big league."
2. The Bank of Mexico hiked rates by 50 basis points to 6.25% in its latest interest-rate decision. In the accompanying statement, the bank noted that emerging markets were facing greater uncertainty regarding fiscal, commercial, and migration policies under consideration by the new US administration.
3. Airline stocks rallied after Trump promised to fix the "out of whack" air traffic control system. American Airlines was up by over 3%, Southwest was up by 2.7%, JetBlue was up by 3.6%, United Continental was up by 1.7%, and Delta was up by 2.9%.
4. Twitter's stock tanked after the company warned its revenue growth would continue to "lag" its recent spike in users. Its stock was down by 10.6% in premarket trading on Thursday.
5. Bitcoin tanked after Chinese exchanges announced they were blocking customers from withdrawing their bitcoins. The cryptocurrency was down by 9.6% around 9:30 a.m. ET. Thursday's announcements are notable because nearly 100% of all bitcoin transactions take place on Chinese exchanges.
6. New York City landlords have never been this aggressive about filling up vacant apartments. In January, concessions like a month of free rent and brand-new appliances rose to a record high in both Manhattan and Brooklyn, according to the real-estate appraiser Douglas Elliman. Concessions hit new highs for a fourth straight month, and the share of new leases with such giveaways was above 30% for the first time.
7. Yum Brands whiffed on sales as fewer people eat at Pizza Hut. Yum Brands Inc, the owner of KFC and Taco Bell, reported a lower-than-expected rise in quarterly sales at established restaurants worldwide as fewer diners ate at its Pizza Hut chain.
8. Initial jobless claims unexpectedly fell. Claims, which count the number of people who applied for unemployment insurance for the first time since the past week, fell to 234,000. Moreover, the four-week moving came came in at 244,250, which is the lowest level since November 3, 1973 when it was 244,000.
*Additionally:*
One chart shows just how devastating healthcare costs are for American families.
Here's one name Trump will hear when he looks to replace Janet Yellen as Fed chair.
Trump's plan to make Wall Street unregulated again won't go unchallenged.
This is how you know something desperate is going on in China's economy.
Top Bridgewater exec explains how its intense, unique culture helped the world's largest hedge fund make $50 billion.
Be very afraid of the stock market, argues Business Insider's Linette Lopez.
Here's how many people in every state don't have health insurance.
*SEE ALSO: Famous last words of 18 famous people*
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin Reported by Business Insider 3 hours ago.
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With health law in jeopardy, more than 12M still sign up
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 12.2 million people have signed up for coverage nationwide this year under the Obama-era health care law even with the uncertainty created by President Donald Trump's vow to repeal and replace it. The federal Health and Human Services Department reported last week that 9.2 million people signed up in the 39 states served by the HealthCare.gov website, which offers subsidized private health insurance to people who don't have job-based coverage. In addition to the subsidized private plans available through HealthCare.gov and state marketplaces, the law offers states the option of extending Medicaid to cover more low-income adults. [...] the numbers are well short of the 13.8 million people that the Obama administration had hoped to sign up. The state has seen premium increases averaging from 50 percent to 67 percent, and lawmakers used $312 million in rainy day funds to buy down monthly rates for consumers who don't get federal subsidies. Since most health law customers already get federal assistance, the bulk of the state money is going to residents who purchase plans outside the government-sponsored marketplace. In confirmation hearings, he told senators that the new administration does not want to "pull the rug out" from people who now have coverage, and he all but acknowledged that there's no Trump replacement plan ready to roll out.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 3 hours ago.
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Private health insurance premiums to rise by nearly 5 per cent
The cost of private health insurance for Australian families will increase by as much as $200 after the federal government approved plans by funds to increase premiums by nearly 5 per cent from April.
Reported by Brisbane Times 3 hours ago.
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What repeal? D.C.'s health exchange plows forward with plans for 2018
The future of the Affordable Care Act is still anyone's guess. But for D.C. Health Link — the District's health insurance marketplace created as a result of the health reform law — officials appear to be moving full speed ahead, announcing a change for plans next year. The D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority board, which oversees D.C. Health Link, voted Wednesday to require participating health insurance companies to offer Health Savings Account-compatible bronze plans in 2018. Health plans…
Reported by bizjournals 3 hours ago.
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Zenefits cuts 45% of staff as new CEO pushes changes
Zenefits announced it will cut 45 percent of its workforce as new CEO Jay Fulcher reduces costs in the wake of regulatory scrutiny and management shakeups that collapsed the company’s expansion plans. The 430 job cuts announced Thursday are the third round of staff reductions for the San Francisco human resources software maker in the past year amid investigations that found some employees used software to skirt training requirements and sold health insurance without the necessary licenses. Sacks replaced CEO Parker Conrad last February as the company struggled with pressure from regulators and investors who forced Zenefits to cut its valuation after failing to meet revenue goals. Zenefits will relocate its operations organization to Tempe, Ariz., hire seasonal workers for part of its services organization and expand its product and engineering teams in Vancouver and Bangalore to complement its San Francisco team, Fulcher said in the memo.
Reported by SFGate 2 hours ago.
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Unable To Block Him, Democrats Want Labor Nominee Puzder To Withdraw
Watch VideoDemocrats failed to stop the confirmation of two of President Trump's most controversial Cabinet members — Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. So now they're turning their attention to Labor Secretary nominee Andrew Puzder.
"They ought to withdraw Puzder's nominee before he further embarrasses this administration," Sen. Chuck Schumer said.
Puzder has been accused of being anti-labor. He strongly opposes minimum wage increases and the Affordable Care Act, which forces more companies to provide their employees with health insurance.
Puzder also has some skeletons in his closet. He caught flak for employing an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper and only paid the back taxes for that after he was nominated.
*SEE MORE: Trump's Cabinet Picks Aren't Standing By His Biggest Campaign Promises*
Puzder's ex-wife also said he assaulted her during their marriage, but she has since retracted those accusations.
But reports suggest the biggest reason his nomination hearing has been rescheduled four times is because he's struggling to divest from his businesses.
Puzder owns CKE, which is the parent company of fast food franchises like Hardee's and Carl's Jr.
But there's no reason to think that any of that will stop him from being confirmed. Even though the vote on DeVos came down to a tiebreaker from the vice president, it probably wasn't in jeopardy of failing thanks to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The Washington Post wrote: "McConnell knew he could afford to lose two Republican votes. … He signaled to Collins and Murkowski that they were absolutely fine to break with their conference on DeVos, knowing it would help them politically."
Senate Democrats have promised to thoroughly scrutinize Puzder's record during his confirmation hearings, but Trump's past nominees have shown Democrats just don't have the numbers to block him. Reported by Newsy 1 day ago.
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High or low? Private health insurance rise takes jump to 54% in a decade
Private health insurance premiums have jumped by more than 50 per cent in less than a decade, with family policies now costing up to $5000 a year.
Reported by Brisbane Times 22 hours ago.
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Health insurance hike well above inflation
Consumers are facing another big hike in health insurance premiums, even though it will be the lowest rise in 10 years.
Reported by SBS 20 hours ago.
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Tom Price, Staunch Obamacare Opponent, Confirmed As Health Secretary
By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voted on Friday to confirm Representative Tom Price as the top U.S. healthcare official, putting a determined opponent of Obamacare in position to help President Donald Trump dismantle the healthcare law.
The Senate voted 52-47 to approve the conservative Georgia Republican and orthopedic surgeon as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a massive department with an annual budget of more than $1 trillion.
In his new job, Price will have authority to rewrite rules implementing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is officially called. Price could move quickly to rework Obamacare regulations while waiting for Republicans in Congress to keep their pledge to scrap the law entirely.
Republicans, who have the majority in Congress, are trying to craft a replacement for Obamacare but have not agreed on one. Twenty million Americans gained health insurance under the law.
Price’s nomination was dogged by questions about his trading in hundreds of thousands of dollars in health company stocks while working on healthcare legislation. Democrats boycotted the committee vote on his nomination, saying he had made misleading statements about shares he bought. Price says his actions were legal and ethical.
A member of the House of Representatives since 2005 and currently chairman of the budget committee, Price is the author of legislation to repeal Obamacare and replace it with age-adjusted tax credits for the purchase of health insurance.
Democrats criticized Price for his stock trading as well as his opposition to Obamacare, his ideas about restructuring the Medicare program for the elderly, and his support for cutting federal funds to Planned Parenthood, a women’s healthcare organization that provides abortions.
The Department of Health and Human Services oversees Medicare and Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor. It also encompasses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Robert Birsel)
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voted on Friday to confirm Representative Tom Price as the top U.S. healthcare official, putting a determined opponent of Obamacare in position to help President Donald Trump dismantle the healthcare law.
The Senate voted 52-47 to approve the conservative Georgia Republican and orthopedic surgeon as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a massive department with an annual budget of more than $1 trillion.
In his new job, Price will have authority to rewrite rules implementing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is officially called. Price could move quickly to rework Obamacare regulations while waiting for Republicans in Congress to keep their pledge to scrap the law entirely.
Republicans, who have the majority in Congress, are trying to craft a replacement for Obamacare but have not agreed on one. Twenty million Americans gained health insurance under the law.
Price’s nomination was dogged by questions about his trading in hundreds of thousands of dollars in health company stocks while working on healthcare legislation. Democrats boycotted the committee vote on his nomination, saying he had made misleading statements about shares he bought. Price says his actions were legal and ethical.
A member of the House of Representatives since 2005 and currently chairman of the budget committee, Price is the author of legislation to repeal Obamacare and replace it with age-adjusted tax credits for the purchase of health insurance.
Democrats criticized Price for his stock trading as well as his opposition to Obamacare, his ideas about restructuring the Medicare program for the elderly, and his support for cutting federal funds to Planned Parenthood, a women’s healthcare organization that provides abortions.
The Department of Health and Human Services oversees Medicare and Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor. It also encompasses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Robert Birsel)
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.
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World News Radio February 10
A legal setback for Donald Trump with a US appels court ruling against reinstating his travel ban. Private health insurance premiums to rise by three times the rate of inflation. Weekend sport preview.
Reported by SBS 17 hours ago.
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12.2 million sign up for 'Obamacare' despite its problems
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 12.2 million people have signed up for coverage nationwide this year under the Obama-era health care law even with the uncertainty created by President Donald Trump's vow to repeal and replace it. The federal Health and Human Services Department reported last week that 9.2 million people signed up in the 39 states served by the HealthCare.gov website, which offers subsidized private health insurance to people who don't have job-based coverage. [...] the numbers are well short of the 13.8 million people that the Obama administration had hoped to sign up. The state has seen premium increases averaging from 50 percent to 67 percent, and lawmakers used $312 million in rainy day funds to buy down monthly rates for consumers who don't get federal subsidies. Since most health law customers already get federal assistance, the bulk of the state money is going to residents who purchase plans outside the government-sponsored marketplace. Price has told senators the administration does not want to "pull the rug out" from people now covered, and he all but acknowledged that there's no Trump replacement plan ready to roll out.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 16 hours ago.
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Healthiest Employers: Introduction
As all 22 of Kansas City’s 2017 Healthiest Employers can tell you, designing a high-caliber wellness program is as beneficial for business as it is for employees. Honorees have seen health insurance premiums go down as participation goes up. The camaraderie developed through team sports or workout classes leads to collaboration among departments. The perks of on-site fitness facilities and healthy food options aid recruiting and retention. The profiles of the honorees give insight into what their…
Reported by bizjournals 15 hours ago.
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Healthiest Employers: Honoree – AB May
AB May Description: AB May is a home service company providing heating, cooling, electrical, plumbing and appliance service to homeowners in the Kansas City area. Top local executive: CEO Glen Posladek Founded: 1959 Employees: 250 Address: 7100 E. 50th St., Kansas City Most impressive outcome: That would be when we reached an amazing engagement level of 85 percent and our health insurance premiums dropped 8 percent. New in 2016: One of the challenges we have is connecting wellness with our…
Reported by bizjournals 15 hours ago.
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NAMI Maryland Applauds Continuity of Care Bill
COLUMBIA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Maryland today announced support for SB 768 & HB 1128, sponsored by Senator Brian Feldman and Delegate Ariana Kelly, respectively. The Continuity of Care legislation would remove unnecessary barriers that disrupt treatment decisions made between patients and their doctors. Maryland health insurance consumers carefully choose plans that cover their specific needs and medications. Although Marylanders sign a one-year a
Reported by Business Wire 14 hours ago.
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We Have Not Yet Begun To Fight Tom Price
Just because the Senate voted to make Tom Price the nation’s top health care official doesn’t mean that the debate surrounding his nomination should end.
This fight is just beginning.
The Senate confirmed Price as secretary of Health and Human Services in the middle of the night in a straight 52-47 vote along party lines. He was a deeply flawed nominee. Nancy Altman of Social Security Works, who is an attorney, reviewed his ethics and the legality of his actions in an post headlined, “Should Tom Price Be in Jail for Insider Trading?” PBS noted, somewhat more delicately, that Price has “shown little restraint in his personal stock trading.”
But Price is not just ethically challenged. He is also ideologically charged. His policy views place him on the extreme right of health care debates.
*Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the ACA*
Price is committed to privatizing Medicare and cutting spending on the federal health insurance program, which covers seniors and people with permanent disabilities. If he has his way, the 57 million people Medicare serves can count on drastic cuts in coverage. He wants to limit Medicaid spending, which will harm the health of lower-income Americans. He wants to end taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood and opposes a woman’s right to choose. He supports cutting Social Security payments through several mechanisms, including raising the retirement age.
However, Price opposes one of the best ways to cut health care costs. As I discussed earlier, Price also opposes having Medicare pay his fellow physicians (he is an orthopedic surgeon) based on outcomes or quality of care, despite the fact that the current system contains perverse incentives for over-treatment. He is a longtime ally of the American Medical Association, a group that opposed the creation of both Medicare and Social Security.
Opponents of Price’s confirmation shift gears must now mobilize to fight the extremist policies he will pursue. But should be mindful that the pre-Price status quo hasn’t work for most Americans.
Take, for example, Price’s intention to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. A recent study concluded that repealing the ACA would lead to the deaths of 43,000 Americans per year. The ACA helped many people, but it would be unwise to ignore the fact that it fell far short of its intended goal.
A recent survey by the Commonwealth Fund found that the ACA improved Americans’ ability to buy insurance on their own. But it wasn’t a cure-all. For example:
·
Some 63 million Americans went without health care for medication they needed because of the cost in 2016. That’s an improvement over the 2012 figure of 82 million, but it’s nowhere near good enough.·
One in three (31 percent) Americans said it was difficult or impossible to find a health plan that met their needs in 2016. That was down from the 53 percent who said that in 2012, but, again, still too high.·
The number of people who said they couldn’t afford to see a doctor when they were sick fell from 29 percent in 2012 to 20 percent in 2016.
*Controlling Costs*
Health care affordability is still a critical problem. Even “good” employer-sponsored health care is unaffordable in many American households. Milliman, an actuarial firm, found that the average employee share of health care costs in 2016 reached $11,033 for a family of four with an employer-sponsored PPO plan.
Part of the problem is that, despite what conservatives believe, the private sector is not very good at providing health coverage. Both the ACA and employer insurance rely on the for-profit health insurance industry where, as the Center for Economic and Policy Research notes, overhead keeps rising. As CEPR’s Nick Buffie puts it,
The same cannot be said of public health insurance programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Veteran’s Health Administration.
Contrary to what most Republicans (and many Democrats) would have us believe, there are some things government can do more efficiently and effectively than the private sector. Health care happens to be one of them.
*Make the Case for Government Itself*
The best way to fight Price and other right-wing ideologues is with clear-cut alternatives to their ideas — in this case, with proposals that build on a popular and cost-efficient program to give Americans quality, affordable health care.
That means Medicare for All — a single-payer, government-managed system that builds on the efficiencies of today’s Medicare, carefully rolled out to avoid disruption.
In the meantime, let’s protect the Affordable Care Act. But the best way to do that is by doing what Democrats should have done all along: by making the case for a better system, and then fighting for it. That means making the case for government itself.
Tom Price believes that government can’t do anything right. He’s wrong. He believes government doesn’t need to care for the poor, people with disabilities and the elderly, or manage the economy, protect our health, or keep its covenant with working Americans when they retire.
Price doesn’t believe American families should have affordable child care, or that they should be guaranteed adequate vacation time, sick leave, or family leave. He believes in lowering taxes for the wealthy and leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves.
We must resist that agenda. But let’s not forget: The status quo has failed most working Americans. The best way to challenge Tom Price, and his far-right ideology, is by laying out a vision for a better future — and defending government’s role in bringing it about.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 12 hours ago.
This fight is just beginning.
The Senate confirmed Price as secretary of Health and Human Services in the middle of the night in a straight 52-47 vote along party lines. He was a deeply flawed nominee. Nancy Altman of Social Security Works, who is an attorney, reviewed his ethics and the legality of his actions in an post headlined, “Should Tom Price Be in Jail for Insider Trading?” PBS noted, somewhat more delicately, that Price has “shown little restraint in his personal stock trading.”
But Price is not just ethically challenged. He is also ideologically charged. His policy views place him on the extreme right of health care debates.
*Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the ACA*
Price is committed to privatizing Medicare and cutting spending on the federal health insurance program, which covers seniors and people with permanent disabilities. If he has his way, the 57 million people Medicare serves can count on drastic cuts in coverage. He wants to limit Medicaid spending, which will harm the health of lower-income Americans. He wants to end taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood and opposes a woman’s right to choose. He supports cutting Social Security payments through several mechanisms, including raising the retirement age.
However, Price opposes one of the best ways to cut health care costs. As I discussed earlier, Price also opposes having Medicare pay his fellow physicians (he is an orthopedic surgeon) based on outcomes or quality of care, despite the fact that the current system contains perverse incentives for over-treatment. He is a longtime ally of the American Medical Association, a group that opposed the creation of both Medicare and Social Security.
Opponents of Price’s confirmation shift gears must now mobilize to fight the extremist policies he will pursue. But should be mindful that the pre-Price status quo hasn’t work for most Americans.
Take, for example, Price’s intention to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. A recent study concluded that repealing the ACA would lead to the deaths of 43,000 Americans per year. The ACA helped many people, but it would be unwise to ignore the fact that it fell far short of its intended goal.
A recent survey by the Commonwealth Fund found that the ACA improved Americans’ ability to buy insurance on their own. But it wasn’t a cure-all. For example:
·
Some 63 million Americans went without health care for medication they needed because of the cost in 2016. That’s an improvement over the 2012 figure of 82 million, but it’s nowhere near good enough.·
One in three (31 percent) Americans said it was difficult or impossible to find a health plan that met their needs in 2016. That was down from the 53 percent who said that in 2012, but, again, still too high.·
The number of people who said they couldn’t afford to see a doctor when they were sick fell from 29 percent in 2012 to 20 percent in 2016.
*Controlling Costs*
Health care affordability is still a critical problem. Even “good” employer-sponsored health care is unaffordable in many American households. Milliman, an actuarial firm, found that the average employee share of health care costs in 2016 reached $11,033 for a family of four with an employer-sponsored PPO plan.
Part of the problem is that, despite what conservatives believe, the private sector is not very good at providing health coverage. Both the ACA and employer insurance rely on the for-profit health insurance industry where, as the Center for Economic and Policy Research notes, overhead keeps rising. As CEPR’s Nick Buffie puts it,
The same cannot be said of public health insurance programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Veteran’s Health Administration.
Contrary to what most Republicans (and many Democrats) would have us believe, there are some things government can do more efficiently and effectively than the private sector. Health care happens to be one of them.
*Make the Case for Government Itself*
The best way to fight Price and other right-wing ideologues is with clear-cut alternatives to their ideas — in this case, with proposals that build on a popular and cost-efficient program to give Americans quality, affordable health care.
That means Medicare for All — a single-payer, government-managed system that builds on the efficiencies of today’s Medicare, carefully rolled out to avoid disruption.
In the meantime, let’s protect the Affordable Care Act. But the best way to do that is by doing what Democrats should have done all along: by making the case for a better system, and then fighting for it. That means making the case for government itself.
Tom Price believes that government can’t do anything right. He’s wrong. He believes government doesn’t need to care for the poor, people with disabilities and the elderly, or manage the economy, protect our health, or keep its covenant with working Americans when they retire.
Price doesn’t believe American families should have affordable child care, or that they should be guaranteed adequate vacation time, sick leave, or family leave. He believes in lowering taxes for the wealthy and leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves.
We must resist that agenda. But let’s not forget: The status quo has failed most working Americans. The best way to challenge Tom Price, and his far-right ideology, is by laying out a vision for a better future — and defending government’s role in bringing it about.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 12 hours ago.
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US Senate votes to confirm representative Tom Price as health secretary
The US Senate voted today to confirm Representative, Tom Price as the top US health care official.The Senate voted 52-47 to approve the conservative Georgia Republican and orthopedic surgeon as the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). A member of the House of Representatives since 2005 , Price is the author of legislation to repeal Obamacare and replace it with age-adjusted tax credits for the purchase of health insurance.The Department of Health and Human Services oversees Medicare and Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor.
Reported by All India Radio 38 minutes ago.
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Personal Accident and Health Insurance Claims and Expenses in India to 2020: Market Databook - Research and Markets
DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Personal Accident and Health Insurance Claims and Expenses in India to 2020: Market Databook" report to their offering. The "Personal Accident and Health Insurance Claims and Expenses in India to 2020: Market Databook" contains detailed historic and forecast data covering personal accident and health insurance claims and expenses in the personal accident and health insurance industry in India. This databook provide
Reported by Business Wire 11 hours ago.
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Andy Puzder’s Reverse Nuremberg Defense
Jack Plunkett/AP Images for Carl's Jr.
CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder, right, discusses Carl's Jr.'s commitment to the state of Texas during a news conference on Wednesday, August 6, 2014 in Austin, Texas.
Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political and social issues. The American Prospect is co-publishing this piece.
When Andrew Puzder faces Senate hearings next week on his nomination as labor secretary, much of the questioning will focus on his management of CKE Restaurants, the Carpinteria-based franchiser of the national Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr., Green Burrito, and Red Burrito fast-food chains.
Both Puzder and CKE have been under unflattering scrutiny since December, when Donald Trump announced the nomination, citing the fast-food executive’s “extensive record fighting for workers”—a claim disputed by critics of Puzder’s nomination who point to the fact that only last month workers at restaurants owned by CKE filed 33 complaints against the company, including 22 wage and hour violations, seven unfair labor practices charges and four allegations of sexual harassment.
Responding to a January 23 Capital & Main investigation of the franchise system, which found that under Puzder’s leadership, CKE’s Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants ranked first among major U.S. hamburger chains in the rate of federal employment discrimination lawsuits, CKE spokesperson George Thompson countered that CKE only owns 6 percent of the restaurants in Capital & Main’s data set, and that “94 percent of the restaurants you’ve counted are ones over which Andy has had zero oversight and management control.”
It’s a familiar defense for franchisors, for whom maintaining the appearance of “zero oversight” is at the very heart of a business that profits by transferring the risk of local business conditions and the liabilities of direct employment onto franchisees. But that defense was perhaps dealt its severest blow by the August 2016 agreement struck between the labor department and Subway, the world's second-largest franchisor. That public memorandum of understanding with the DOL's Wage and Hour Division to do training and compliance assistance at all of its franchisees dramatically reset the bar for what an above-board business could and should be doing.
The landmark agreement was immediately recognized by industry attorneys as potential evidence for establishing the fact that, contrary to decades of franchise agreement disclaimers, a franchisor does possess the ability, whether exercised or not, to directly or indirectly affect the terms and conditions of employment of its franchisees’ employees.
“CKE and its franchises,” said National Employment Law Project attorney Cathy Ruckelshaus, “have been operating underneath the laws for decades. Putting it in a franchise agreement that [CKE is] not responsible for wage theft or compensation or discrimination doesn't make it so.”
Still, insisting that there is a wide distance between itself and its franchisees has benefits for CKE.
“First of all, you don't have all the labor constraints,” explained a former Hardee’s executive, who spoke to Capital & Main on condition of anonymity. “You don't have labor. It's just 5 percent off the top with no real risk. … So it's the way to go. I mean, [the risk] is not by a little—it's considerable. You could have a company restaurant that you build and they put the Walmart six miles down the road and a McDonald's on the mall pad, and you're not getting anybody. If it's a franchisee, that's not your problem. None of that crap is really your problem. … Andy said for many years that he wanted to leave California, because of all the labor laws and the taxes. So he’s moving to Tennessee, where there's also no personal income tax.”
A 2010 study led by labor economist David Weil, who went on to head the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) during the final two years of the Obama administration, concluded that for an industry based on low wages, narrow profit margins and extreme competition, shifting the direct employment of workers to franchisees can be a recipe for wage and overtime violations. Weil reasoned that franchising incentivizes noncompliance because franchisees pay royalties linked to revenues rather than profits. By typically paying the franchisor a straight 5 percent of gross sales, the franchisee can only maximize profits out of the difference between sales and costs. The franchise agreement effectively ties the franchisor's hands on the product side and pressures it to cut corners off the labor side to improve its bottom line.
Focusing on the franchise relationship and applying the concept of joint employment in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)—a concept on the labor and employment law books since the 1930s and taken from the very broad definition of what it means to employ—became an enforcement doctrine at the WHD under Weil. During the Obama years, the WHD conducted nearly 4,000 investigations at the 20 largest fast-food brands, turning up more than 68,000 FLSA violations and successfully recovering $14 million in back wages for roughly 57,000 employees.
*TO DISCOVER HOW MUCH INFLUENCE* CKE exerts over its franchisees, Capital & Main analyzed a 2012 CKE “franchise agreement” contract—the ironclad compact that dictates every aspect of CKE’s relationships to over 2,200 Carl’s Jr. or Hardee’s franchisee-owned stores—and compared it to four of its fellow billion dollar-plus burger heavyweights: Burger King, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and Jack in the Box.
Though this contract (which is the last publicly available CKE franchise agreement) doesn’t differ substantially from its industry peers, the 51-page document outlines what is clearly a granular level of control by CKE corporate overseers that seems starkly at odds with the corporation’s claims that franchisees are free and autonomous agents. CKE’s rules obligate franchisees to adhere to what the corporation refers to as the company’s “System,” a broad and highly detailed set of specifications and procedures “developed and owned” by CKE.
The System spells out everything—from the look of the restaurant, to the making, marketing, and selling of the products it offers, to the training and governance of employees. A franchisee must obtain CKE approval for the location of a restaurant, its layout and design, its promotional materials, its menu items, its vendors and its bookkeeping system. It must submit weekly and annual financial reports to CKE and, for its part, CKE can audit or inspect a restaurant at any time, as well as order training for franchise employees and demand repairs or major renovations at the franchisee’s expense.
CKE leaves a mere two areas solely to the discretion of the franchisee: The pricing of menu items; and anything related to workers in terms of employment and compensation. The agreement also requires franchisees to notify CKE of civil suits or labor violations, “including, without limitation, all laws or regulations governing or relating to … immigration and discrimination, occupational hazards and health insurance, employment laws.”
The agreement then binds the deal with an insistence that CKE’s left hand can’t know what its right hand is doing.
“This Agreement does not create a fiduciary or other special relationship between the parties,” it says. “Franchisee is an independent contractor and is solely responsible for all aspects of the development and operation of the Franchised Restaurant,” and “CKE has no responsibility … in the event the development or operation of the Franchised Restaurant violates any law, ordinance or regulation. The sole relationship between Franchisee and CKE is a commercial, arms’ length business relationship.”
Maintaining this “arms’ length business relationship” turns out to be a fairly boilerplate aspect of all the franchise agreement language that Capital & Main examined. But for an industry well-known for its meticulously proscriptive supervision of its brands, the zero-oversight defense has sprung some leaks in recent years.
It was decisively breached in another, 2014 application of joint-employment rules against McDonald’s, this time by National Labor Relations Board general counsel Dick Griffin, when the NLRB issued 13 complaints against McDonald's and some of its franchisees for unfair-labor practices, and named McDonald’s Corporation as a joint employer with joint liability. The board based its rationale on the fact that the fast-food behemoth’s franchise agreement orders its franchise owners to strictly follow its rules on food, cleanliness and employment practices, and that McDonald’s often owns the restaurants that franchisees use.
What’s especially revealing about the uniformity of the franchise agreements between different corporate brand owners is that the rate of labor violations could vary so widely among the franchise systems—by as much as 20 federal employment discrimination lawsuits per billion in sales, according to the Capital & Main review. That different franchise systems could have different rates of noncompliance, said NELP’s Ruckelshaus, suggests the common denominator is the franchisor rather than the franchise agreement.
“There's clearly a culture in these restaurants [of] noncompliance with a lot of the basic labor and employment laws,” she explained. “And it doesn't have to be that way. The franchisor can definitely send out a message to its franchisees that they want them to be compliant with labor and employment laws and treat their workers fairly and all the things that most businesses would do.”
Though CKE’s official corporate policy prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, national origin, or disability, Puzder’s outspoken antipathy to most employment regulations sends a somewhat more ambivalent message. In op-eds, the CEO condemned both the NLRB’s joint-employer standard (a “lose-lose scenario” with “potentially devastating economic effects”) as well as the Obama administration's overtime rule that doubled the salary threshold under which workers get time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a given week.
“CKE is a textbook case of how franchising can enable some businesses to evade responsibility for labor violations committed in establishments that bear their name, sell their products and adhere to their rules,” said Alison Morantz, Stanford Law School's James and Nancy Kelso Professor of Law. “Although such abuses are widespread, they can be substantially reduced with legal and regulatory tools that already exist, and have been used successfully in the past.”
Which is why the role of Andrew Puzder would be pivotal at the Department of Labor.
"If," Morantz continued, "the new administration turns a blind eye to abusive labor practices—or tries to strip federal inspectors of the tools it has available to enforce wage and hour laws—it will encourage franchisors like CKE to deprive hardworking Americans of the basic legal protections that ensure everyday accountability, justice and fair play in the labor market.”
Additional research by Roxane Auer and Holly Myers. Reported by The American Prospect 11 hours ago.
CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder, right, discusses Carl's Jr.'s commitment to the state of Texas during a news conference on Wednesday, August 6, 2014 in Austin, Texas.
Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political and social issues. The American Prospect is co-publishing this piece.
When Andrew Puzder faces Senate hearings next week on his nomination as labor secretary, much of the questioning will focus on his management of CKE Restaurants, the Carpinteria-based franchiser of the national Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr., Green Burrito, and Red Burrito fast-food chains.
Both Puzder and CKE have been under unflattering scrutiny since December, when Donald Trump announced the nomination, citing the fast-food executive’s “extensive record fighting for workers”—a claim disputed by critics of Puzder’s nomination who point to the fact that only last month workers at restaurants owned by CKE filed 33 complaints against the company, including 22 wage and hour violations, seven unfair labor practices charges and four allegations of sexual harassment.
Responding to a January 23 Capital & Main investigation of the franchise system, which found that under Puzder’s leadership, CKE’s Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants ranked first among major U.S. hamburger chains in the rate of federal employment discrimination lawsuits, CKE spokesperson George Thompson countered that CKE only owns 6 percent of the restaurants in Capital & Main’s data set, and that “94 percent of the restaurants you’ve counted are ones over which Andy has had zero oversight and management control.”
It’s a familiar defense for franchisors, for whom maintaining the appearance of “zero oversight” is at the very heart of a business that profits by transferring the risk of local business conditions and the liabilities of direct employment onto franchisees. But that defense was perhaps dealt its severest blow by the August 2016 agreement struck between the labor department and Subway, the world's second-largest franchisor. That public memorandum of understanding with the DOL's Wage and Hour Division to do training and compliance assistance at all of its franchisees dramatically reset the bar for what an above-board business could and should be doing.
The landmark agreement was immediately recognized by industry attorneys as potential evidence for establishing the fact that, contrary to decades of franchise agreement disclaimers, a franchisor does possess the ability, whether exercised or not, to directly or indirectly affect the terms and conditions of employment of its franchisees’ employees.
“CKE and its franchises,” said National Employment Law Project attorney Cathy Ruckelshaus, “have been operating underneath the laws for decades. Putting it in a franchise agreement that [CKE is] not responsible for wage theft or compensation or discrimination doesn't make it so.”
Still, insisting that there is a wide distance between itself and its franchisees has benefits for CKE.
“First of all, you don't have all the labor constraints,” explained a former Hardee’s executive, who spoke to Capital & Main on condition of anonymity. “You don't have labor. It's just 5 percent off the top with no real risk. … So it's the way to go. I mean, [the risk] is not by a little—it's considerable. You could have a company restaurant that you build and they put the Walmart six miles down the road and a McDonald's on the mall pad, and you're not getting anybody. If it's a franchisee, that's not your problem. None of that crap is really your problem. … Andy said for many years that he wanted to leave California, because of all the labor laws and the taxes. So he’s moving to Tennessee, where there's also no personal income tax.”
A 2010 study led by labor economist David Weil, who went on to head the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) during the final two years of the Obama administration, concluded that for an industry based on low wages, narrow profit margins and extreme competition, shifting the direct employment of workers to franchisees can be a recipe for wage and overtime violations. Weil reasoned that franchising incentivizes noncompliance because franchisees pay royalties linked to revenues rather than profits. By typically paying the franchisor a straight 5 percent of gross sales, the franchisee can only maximize profits out of the difference between sales and costs. The franchise agreement effectively ties the franchisor's hands on the product side and pressures it to cut corners off the labor side to improve its bottom line.
Focusing on the franchise relationship and applying the concept of joint employment in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)—a concept on the labor and employment law books since the 1930s and taken from the very broad definition of what it means to employ—became an enforcement doctrine at the WHD under Weil. During the Obama years, the WHD conducted nearly 4,000 investigations at the 20 largest fast-food brands, turning up more than 68,000 FLSA violations and successfully recovering $14 million in back wages for roughly 57,000 employees.
*TO DISCOVER HOW MUCH INFLUENCE* CKE exerts over its franchisees, Capital & Main analyzed a 2012 CKE “franchise agreement” contract—the ironclad compact that dictates every aspect of CKE’s relationships to over 2,200 Carl’s Jr. or Hardee’s franchisee-owned stores—and compared it to four of its fellow billion dollar-plus burger heavyweights: Burger King, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and Jack in the Box.
Though this contract (which is the last publicly available CKE franchise agreement) doesn’t differ substantially from its industry peers, the 51-page document outlines what is clearly a granular level of control by CKE corporate overseers that seems starkly at odds with the corporation’s claims that franchisees are free and autonomous agents. CKE’s rules obligate franchisees to adhere to what the corporation refers to as the company’s “System,” a broad and highly detailed set of specifications and procedures “developed and owned” by CKE.
The System spells out everything—from the look of the restaurant, to the making, marketing, and selling of the products it offers, to the training and governance of employees. A franchisee must obtain CKE approval for the location of a restaurant, its layout and design, its promotional materials, its menu items, its vendors and its bookkeeping system. It must submit weekly and annual financial reports to CKE and, for its part, CKE can audit or inspect a restaurant at any time, as well as order training for franchise employees and demand repairs or major renovations at the franchisee’s expense.
CKE leaves a mere two areas solely to the discretion of the franchisee: The pricing of menu items; and anything related to workers in terms of employment and compensation. The agreement also requires franchisees to notify CKE of civil suits or labor violations, “including, without limitation, all laws or regulations governing or relating to … immigration and discrimination, occupational hazards and health insurance, employment laws.”
The agreement then binds the deal with an insistence that CKE’s left hand can’t know what its right hand is doing.
“This Agreement does not create a fiduciary or other special relationship between the parties,” it says. “Franchisee is an independent contractor and is solely responsible for all aspects of the development and operation of the Franchised Restaurant,” and “CKE has no responsibility … in the event the development or operation of the Franchised Restaurant violates any law, ordinance or regulation. The sole relationship between Franchisee and CKE is a commercial, arms’ length business relationship.”
Maintaining this “arms’ length business relationship” turns out to be a fairly boilerplate aspect of all the franchise agreement language that Capital & Main examined. But for an industry well-known for its meticulously proscriptive supervision of its brands, the zero-oversight defense has sprung some leaks in recent years.
It was decisively breached in another, 2014 application of joint-employment rules against McDonald’s, this time by National Labor Relations Board general counsel Dick Griffin, when the NLRB issued 13 complaints against McDonald's and some of its franchisees for unfair-labor practices, and named McDonald’s Corporation as a joint employer with joint liability. The board based its rationale on the fact that the fast-food behemoth’s franchise agreement orders its franchise owners to strictly follow its rules on food, cleanliness and employment practices, and that McDonald’s often owns the restaurants that franchisees use.
What’s especially revealing about the uniformity of the franchise agreements between different corporate brand owners is that the rate of labor violations could vary so widely among the franchise systems—by as much as 20 federal employment discrimination lawsuits per billion in sales, according to the Capital & Main review. That different franchise systems could have different rates of noncompliance, said NELP’s Ruckelshaus, suggests the common denominator is the franchisor rather than the franchise agreement.
“There's clearly a culture in these restaurants [of] noncompliance with a lot of the basic labor and employment laws,” she explained. “And it doesn't have to be that way. The franchisor can definitely send out a message to its franchisees that they want them to be compliant with labor and employment laws and treat their workers fairly and all the things that most businesses would do.”
Though CKE’s official corporate policy prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, national origin, or disability, Puzder’s outspoken antipathy to most employment regulations sends a somewhat more ambivalent message. In op-eds, the CEO condemned both the NLRB’s joint-employer standard (a “lose-lose scenario” with “potentially devastating economic effects”) as well as the Obama administration's overtime rule that doubled the salary threshold under which workers get time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a given week.
“CKE is a textbook case of how franchising can enable some businesses to evade responsibility for labor violations committed in establishments that bear their name, sell their products and adhere to their rules,” said Alison Morantz, Stanford Law School's James and Nancy Kelso Professor of Law. “Although such abuses are widespread, they can be substantially reduced with legal and regulatory tools that already exist, and have been used successfully in the past.”
Which is why the role of Andrew Puzder would be pivotal at the Department of Labor.
"If," Morantz continued, "the new administration turns a blind eye to abusive labor practices—or tries to strip federal inspectors of the tools it has available to enforce wage and hour laws—it will encourage franchisors like CKE to deprive hardworking Americans of the basic legal protections that ensure everyday accountability, justice and fair play in the labor market.”
Additional research by Roxane Auer and Holly Myers. Reported by The American Prospect 11 hours ago.
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