Small Business Is Latest Focus in Health Fight

By REED ABELSON

As the number of people without health insurance continues to rise, many states and Congress have begun to focus on one of the biggest causes: the growing number of small business owners and their workers who are unable to afford coverage.

The states are taking a variety of approaches. To help ease the burden of insurance premiums that have roughly doubled since 2000, some, like Arizona, are extending tax credits to small employers that provide medical coverage.

NYS Assembly and Senate Passed Legislation to Expand 9/11 Benefits to September 11, 2010. Awaits Governor’s Signature!

New York, NY, July 8, 2008 – BALCONY, the Business and Labor Coalition of New York, commended the legislation introduced by Governor David Paterson to expand disability benefits to City and State employees injured while responding to the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC). The new legislation, introduced on June 13, is based on recommendations made in March by the September 11th Worker Protection Task Force. Under the proposed legislation, disability retirement benefits would be available to more first responders than are currently covered by State law. In addition, the deadline to register for Workers’ Compensation and disability would be extended to September 11, 2010.

Both the New York State (NYS) Assembly and the NYS Senate passed the legislation. However, the bill will not officially become law until the Governor signs it, which is expected to happen sometime this month.

CITIZEN ACTION LAUNCHES HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA NOW CAMPAIGN IN NEW YORK – BALCONY CO-CHAIRMAN ALAN LUBIN ADDRESS ALBANY RALLY

Health Care for America Now represents a historic coming together of more than 100 national and state-based groups that represent labor, community organizations, doctors, nurses, small businesses, faith-based organizations, people of color, netroots activists, and think tanks. In a time when there’s an exciting mood in the country for changing our broken health care system.

The formation of HCAN was announced in over 50 cities in the nation yesterday, including 38 state capitals!

Click here to watch a video of today’s press conference in Albany and to join the Health Care for America Now campaign:

http://www.citizenactionny.org/campaigns/healthcare.html

New Health Care Campaign To Pour $40 Million into Push for Universal Coverage

By Roger Hickey, Campaign for America’s Future.

It’s time to replace our fragmented, wasteful health care system with one that provides quality, affordable care for every American.

On Tuesday, July 8, a new campaign will be launched — for Health Care for America Now! — at press conferences in Washington and 55 other cities and towns. We at the Campaign for America’s Future are proud to play a leadership role in launching this much-needed campaign, led by 100 national and local organizations.

The steering committee includes ACORN, AFSCME, Americans United for Change, Campaign for America’s Future, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Center for Community Change, MoveOn, NEA, National Women’s Law Center, Planned Parenthood, SEIU, UFCW, and USAction — not a bad core group to make history with. And now is the time!

Doctors Press Senate to Undo Medicare Cuts

by Robert Pear

WASHINGTON — Congress returns to work this week with Medicare high on the agenda and Senate Republicans under pressure after a barrage of radio and television advertisements blamed them for a 10.6 percent cut in payments to doctors who care for millions of older Americans.

The advertisements, by the American Medical Association, urge Senate Republicans to reverse themselves and help pass legislation to fend off the cut.

How to pay doctors through the federal health insurance program is an issue that lawmakers are forced to confront every year because of what is widely agreed to be an outdated reimbursement formula. But the dispute, which showcases the continued potency of health care issues, has reached a new level of urgency this year. Some doctors are reassessing their participation in the program and powerful interests on all sides are in a lobbying frenzy.

State Taxes Slow Yet Again, and Further Weakening Appears Likely

Mid-Year Budget Cuts May Lie Ahead

Donald Boyd, Lucy Dadayan, and Nino Giguashvili

Tax Revenue Change

State tax revenue increased 1.7 percent in the January-March quarter of 2008
compared to the same quarter the year before. This nominal growth rate slowed for
the third quarter in a row and was the slowest since the first quarter of 2003. Changes
in nominal tax revenues for the last 37 quarters are shown in Table 2.

Inflation for goods and services purchased by the state and local sector, as measured
by the state and local government consumption expenditure index, was more
than 6 percent compared to a year earlier for the second straight quarter—far above
the 2.2 percent for the economy as a whole. (For more on this trend, see discussion of
“Rising Cost Pressures on States and Localities” in the Rockefeller Institute’s March
2008 State Revenue Report.1) When the effects of enacted tax cuts and inflation for
state and local government purchases are considered, real adjusted state tax revenue
decreased by 5.3 percent (see Table 1). That, too, was the weakest performance since
January-March 2003. The pattern of growth in state tax revenue, adjusted for inflation
and enacted tax increases from 1991 to the present, is illustrated in Figure 1.

Read the full report: State Revenue Report July 2008

LABOR DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES $26 MILLION INVESTMENT IN NEW YORK’S WORKERS

Nearly $1 Million for the State’s Capital Region

Albany, NY (June 30, 2008) – State Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith today announced nearly $26 million in strategic investments across the state to help train workers and revitalize local economies. At a press conference with City of Schenectady Mayor Brian U. Stratton and members of the Schenectady County Legislature, the Commissioner touted these investments as targeted toward making our state competitive and keeping our workers right here in New York.

Tri-Lateral Conference on School Construction

by Bill Hohlfeld

This past Friday, June 27,  industry leaders from business, labor and government convened in Nassau County to discuss and learn more about prevailing wage and employee misclassification law. The forum was sponsored by BALCONY, the Long Island Labor Advisory Council LILAC , NYSUT, and The New York State School Board Association.

The opening remarks were given by Nassau County Executive, Tom Suozzi, who openly called for business and labor to come together in common interest and forge a Project Labor Agreement that will serve to raise wages, increase the tax base and provide a safer, healthier environment in our schools. He cited the current agreement that exists between the NYC School Construction authority and the NYC Building Trades as a model for just such a plan.