AFL-CIO Pledges Campaign to Stop Cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security

By John Reichard, CQ HealthBeat Editor

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters Monday that “we will run the campaign necessary” to defeat any Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security reductions proposed by joint deficit reduction panel. But he stopped short of saying the labor group won’t endorse members of Congress who vote for such cuts.

Trumka did say in the telephone briefing that opposition to potential cuts would be among the factors considered when it comes to making endorsements in the 2012 elections.
Trumka said he “would have a tough time envisioning us endorsing people who actually voted for major cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. That would have a dampening effect on any candidate even if they were endorsed,” he added.

Trumka said the labor organization’s executive council would meet later Monday to flesh out the campaign against the cuts, which will involve coordinating with other left-leaning organizations.

“Today we’re asking 700,000 activists to start calling their members of Congress to oppose them,” he said. “We’ll be talking about the type of program or the type of campaign that we issue. It could be — everything from ads, leafletting at the work site, phone banking — a number of different things to let people know who stood with them and who stood against them.”

Trumka said that with the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the public is closely watching lawmakers to see how they respond to the deficit panel.

“This marks the beginning of a critically important time for Congress where our elected leaders are faced with a defining choice: to stand up for the 99 percent of America or to continue the business-as-usual approach of the top 1 percent.”

Whether through added funding to repair infrastructure or aid to state governments to keep teachers and fire fighters on the job, “now is the time for decisive leadership on Capitol Hill,” he said.

“We’re deeply troubled about the possible direction” of the debt panel, he said. “Any person even loosely connected to reality can see that working people and working families have already given up too much while Wall Street and the wealthiest Americans have done all the taking. Inequality is at historic levels.

“It should be a no-brainer that we will finally ask Wall Street and the super rich to pay their fair share. Every politician should look at the occupy movement to know that working families across the nation will make their voices heard to protect core American programs and to hold Wall Street accountable for the mess that they created.”

Trumka denied that he was advocating an uneven approach to deficit reduction. A reporter suggested that was the case, given Trumka’s call for no reductions in benefits but “substantial action on the tax side,” in the reporter’s words. Trumka had suggested earlier in the call that ending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners, taxing capital gains as ordinary income, and a surtax on the wealthy were ways to reduce the debt.

“First of all, if you’ve looked at what’s happened so far, there’s been substantial action on the middle income and low income families of this country,” he said. “They’ve already given a lot. They’ve given their homes, they’ve given their jobs, they’ve given back in wages while the rich have done as well as ever. Better than ever.”

John Reichard can be reached at jreichard@cq.com

The Future of the 340B Drug Pricing Program: Challenges and Opportunities

by Jeffrey R. Lewis

former President of PS2 Health Care and now

serves as the Chief Operating Officer of EHIMRx

Executive Summary

Since 1992, numerous “safety-net” health care providers have enjoyed the opportunity, guaranteed under federal law, to purchase outpatient pharmaceuticals at a significant discount from a manufacturer’s market price. This program, usually referred to in shorthand as ‘‘the Section 340B program” or “340B,” referring to the statutory provision under which it is established,1 has grown significantly over the years, not withstanding resistance from some quarters of the pharmaceutical industry. The availability of 340B drugs, in many cases, makes the difference between a safety-net provider being able to offer an effective pharmaceutical program to its patients (with the attendant benefits of monitoring compliance with drug regimens and avoiding potentially harmful drug interactions) and its patients having no access at all to affordable drugs. However, decreasing reimbursement, market forces, and the changes and uncertainties in federal health care reform and the federal administration of the program will present challenges, and likely opportunities, for providers participating in the 340B program.

Read the entire paper: 340B Drug Pricing

DiNapoli Forecasts Weaker Wall Street Outlook

Economic uncertainty due to the European sovereign debt crisis, a sluggish domestic economy, volatile stock markets, and regulatory changes are among the chief contributors to a weakened outlook for Wall Street profits, jobs and bonuses for 2011, according to an annual report on the securities industry released today by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

“The securities industry had a strong start to 2011, but its prospects have cooled considerably for the second half of this year,” DiNapoli said. “It now seems likely that profits will fall sharply, job losses will continue, and bonuses will be smaller than last year. These developments will have a rippling effect through the economy and adversely impact State and City tax collections. As we know, when Wall Street slows, New York City and New York State’s budgets feel the impact and that is a concern.”

The economies and budgets of New York City and New York State are very dependent on the securities industry. According to the Office of the State Comptroller, last year securities-related activities accounted for 14 percent of New York State’s tax revenues and almost 7 percent of New York City’s. In addition, one in 8 jobs in New York City and 1 in 13 jobs in New York State are linked to the securities industry. Given the current weakness, tax collections are likely to fall short of City and State targets in their current fiscal years and may decline by more the following year.

DiNapoli’s analysis also found that:

• The member firms of the New York Stock Exchange earned $9.3 billion in the first quarter of 2011 (almost half of the City’s $20 billion target for the entire year), but profits declined sharply in the second quarter. The Office of the State Comptroller forecasts that profits are unlikely to reach $18 billion for all of 2011, which is one-third less than in 2010.

• After adding 9,900 jobs between January 2010 and April 2011, the securities industry has lost 4,100 jobs through August 2011. Job losses are likely to continue given declines in profitability and recent layoff announcements. OSC estimates that the securities industry could lose nearly 10,000 additional jobs by the end of 2012, which would bring total industry job losses to 32,000 since January 2008.

• Cash bonuses are likely to be smaller in 2011, the second year in a row in which they have declined.

• The average salary in the securities industry in 2010 grew by 16.1 percent to $361,330, 5.5 times higher than the average salary in the private sector of $66,120. The disparity between average salaries in the securities industry and the rest of the private sector narrowed in 2008 and 2009, but widened in 2010.

• In 2010, the securities industry accounted for 23.5 percent of all wages paid in the private sector despite accounting for only 5.3 percent of all private sector jobs.

• The State Comptroller’s Office estimates that each job gained (or lost) in the securities industry leads to the creation (or loss) of almost two additional jobs in other industries in the New York City and another job elsewhere in New York State.

“Excessive risk-taking on Wall Street was a major factor leading to the financial crisis and the recession,” DiNapoli said. “Regulatory changes that reduce risk and focus attention on long-term profitability rather than short-term gains will enhance stability. Despite the weaknesses we are seeing, the securities industry remains profitable and is a key component of the economies of New York City and New York State.”

Click here for a copy of the report.

Despite Protests, Cuomo Says He Will Not Extend a Tax Surcharge on Top Earners

by Thomas Kaplan

ALBANY — Even as Occupy Wall Street stokes debate over income inequality, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo dug in his heels on Monday against extending a so-called millionaires’ tax on high-earning New Yorkers, saying the income tax surcharge would place New York at a competitive disadvantage with neighboring states.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who campaigned for governor last year on the promise that he would not raise taxes, compared his resistance to renewing the temporary tax surcharge with the stand his father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, took against the death penalty two decades ago.

The similarity, Mr. Cuomo said, was that both positions were highly unpopular with voters.

“The fact that everybody wants it, that doesn’t mean all that much,” he said in a news conference. “I represent the people. Their opinion matters, but I’m not going to go back and forth with the political winds.”

Mr. Cuomo insisted that under no circumstances would he consider backing the extension of the surcharge, saying it would encourage residents and businesses to move to other states. He said he would support a federal millionaires’ tax, because it would treat residents of all states equally.

The governor, aided by Senate Republicans, this year succeeded in warding off efforts by Democratic lawmakers during the legislative session to extend the surcharge, which expires Dec. 31.

But the Occupy Wall Street movement and the spreading protests it has inspired — scores of people gathered at the Capitol on Saturday, and an occupation is planned in Albany beginning at noon Friday — have reinvigorated lawmakers, organized labor and community groups that advocate for the tax’s extension. The surcharge was a primary topic of conversation at a retreat hosted by the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus on Friday; those lawmakers overwhelmingly agreed that they wanted to press further in favor of extending the measure.

And on Monday, various advocacy groups and labor unions, including New York State United Teachers and many of the state’s other largest unions, formed a coalition to start what they described as a “renewed” push for the surcharge’s extension. They are calling themselves 99 New York, a reference to Occupy Wall Street’s theme of representing 99 percent of Americans rather than the richest 1 percent.

“We have everybody joining together now to say, ‘Enough is enough,’ and we’re hoping our elected officials are going to start listening to us,” said Ron Deutsch, executive director of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, a liberal advocacy organization.

Mr. Deutsch and others found evidence of public support for their position in a new poll released on Monday by Siena College, which found that 72 percent of registered voters supported increasing taxes on New Yorkers earning over $1 million per year. The poll, conducted from Oct. 10 to 12, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.

Asked about the poll, Mr. Cuomo invoked his father’s position on the death penalty and cited his refusal to budge despite overwhelming public pressure.

“Reporters would say, ‘Well, people want it,’ ” Mr. Cuomo said. “And the point was, you know, we don’t elect — you can’t just have as a governor a big poll-taking machine, right? And we take a poll, and whatever the poll says, that’s what we do.”

The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, on Monday sent out a press release citing the Siena poll and affirming his commitment to advocating for the tax’s continuation.

The current surcharge applies to income over $200,000 for individuals and $300,000 for married couples; Mr. Silver is proposing to extend the surcharge only for income over $1 million. His office estimated that the surcharge, if extended for an extra year, would generate an additional $4 billion, including $2.8 billion in the next fiscal year.

The state is facing a projected $2.4 billion budget gap for that period. In light of that, Mr. Silver said Assembly Democrats would continue to press for the tax surcharge in the legislative session next year, even after it has expired.

Asked his posture looking toward next year’s budget in a telephone interview, Mr. Silver, citing his desire to improve education and health care, said, “I think the answer is, ‘Governor, we’re not making more cuts.’ ”

Mr. Silver added that “clearly there’s more attention” to the issue because of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Assemblyman Karim Camara, Democrat of Brooklyn and chairman of the legislative caucus for minorities, agreed.

“They’re forcing us to have a very necessary conversation,” Mr. Camara said, “and that’s the beauty of it.”

AARP: New Yorkers want a health exchange

Too bad it doesn’t look like they’ll get one anytime soon.

A poll commissioned by AARP found 69 percent of older New Yorkers surveyed — that’s people between 50 and 64 — want the Senate to set up a health insurance exchange when it returns to the Capitol … sometime. The exchange is necessitated by the 2010 health care overhaul pushed by President Barack Obama; state lawmakers negotiated a bill in June, at the end of session, but the Republican-controlled Senate pulled it from the floor calendar at the last minute, citing concerns from Sen. Greg Ball, R-Putnam County.

There are rolling deadlines to get federal money for the exchanges — the next one, I believe, is 12/31 — and people like the American Cancer Society are pushing for action as early as possible. In addition to the dollars, they argue, they need time just to get things up and running.

But in a radio interview last week, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos said the Senate would not be back in session this year.

“These poll results offer important insight for policy makers about the preferences of New Yorkers age 50-64,” stated Lois Wagh Aronstein, AARP New York State Director. “Clearly, the establishment of a health exchange needs to be a priority for the Governor and legislature.”

Here’s the poll summary:

Final Ny Summary