Pacific Progressive

HHS Announces Coordinated Care Initiative

By Christian Torres

If the Department of Health and Human Services has its way, hundreds of physician practices will follow the money and take up a coordinated model of health care.

The Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative, announced Wednesday, will increase Medicare  payments to primary care providers who adopt a coordinated care model. A four-year demonstration, overseen by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, begins next year in several health care markets. Providers in HHS-supported accountable care organizations, which also promote coordinated care, will not be able to participate.

Coordinated care is based on teamwork among primary care doctors, specialists and other providers, with a particular focus on prevention and better managing chronic disease. HHS officials said that coordination yields both quality improvements and significant savings — primary goals of the 2010 health law this initiative stems from.

Richard Baron, director of the Seamless Care Models Group at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, said the HHS initiative “recognizes the need to see changes in the primary care practice model, but that we first need to see changes in the payment model for primary care.”

CMS will select five to seven health care markets for its demonstration. According to Baron, CMS is looking for areas with multiple interested insurers, both public and private. These insurers will then help target and select about 75 practices in each market. Providers will be paid an extra $20 per month, on average, per Medicare beneficiary in the first two years; the funds will cover a little over 330,000 Medicare patients total. The money can be used at providers’ discretion to build up infrastructure for coordinated care, likely with increased staff, longer hours of access and electronic health records.

Florida CHIP Program ‘Treading Water’

Despite the tough economy, Florida’s Children’s Health Insurance Program added just 2,000 children in the year ended June 30, for a growth rate of less than 1 percent. Among school-age kids, the program added just 700 children.

Before last year, the Florida CHIP progam was growing by about 8 percent a year. It now has about 275,000 kids enrolled.

Rich Robleto, executive director of Florida Healthy Kids Corp., which runs the low-income health insurance program for children who don’t qualify for Medicaid, cites two factors. He said each month the CHIP program loses up to 8,000 children who transfer to Medicaid because their parents’ income fell; Medicaid added 98,000 children last year.

In addition, Robleto said, a new federal rule requires parents to provide proof they are United States citizens before children can be covered. The documention requirement caused about 10,000 kids to drop off CHIP, he said.

Florida has limited dollars to advertise the CHIP program, and Robleto said many families who lost health coverage during the economic downturn are not familiar with the government program. He said the program is trying to find both children who are eligible and have not been insured and children who have recently lost private coverage because their parents lost their jobs. Florida and two other states account for 40 percent of the 5 million children who are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but not enrolled. The other states are California and Texas.

“It’s almost as if we are treading water,” he said.

More than 5 million children are enrolled in CHIP across the country.

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente. 

For-Profit Colleges Face Consumer Backlash, Dwindling Profits

This material was created by Campus Progress.

 by Jen Kalaidis

It seems the for-profit industry—expensive colleges offering low-quality education and employing corrupt recruiting techniques—may finally be meeting its demise.

More aggressive regulations by the federal government and a growing campaign against predatory practices have resulted in steep plunges in student enrollment numbers for the multi-billion dollar industry, with many for-profit institutions seeing numbers drop by more than 45 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Campus Progress has been a driving force in advocating for reform in the for-profit industry, bringing to light many of the troubling practices occurring at for-profit colleges around the country. Most disturbing is the number of students who report leaving such institutions with mounds of debt and few, if any, job prospects.

(Infographic: An Education in For-Profit Education)

Wave of Lawsuits Targets 15 More Law Schools for Inflating Job Placement Rates

by Jon Christian

This material was created by Campus Progress.

Two lawyers have announced that they will file class action lawsuits against 15 law schools in seven states for misreporting postgraduate job placement rates.

The cases will be represented by the Law Offices of David Anziska and Strauss Law PLLC. Anziska and Strauss have previously filed similar suits against Thomas M. Cooley Law School and New York Law School. The lawyers allege that the schools named in the complaints have inflated advertised job placement rates by including part-time positions and jobs that do not require law degrees.

Among the targets of this month’s suits are Pace University School of Law, John Marshall School of Law, and Albany Law School, according to a press release by the two firms.

“The numbers reported by the schools just don’t comport with the reality of the legal job market,” Anziska wrote in a press release. “We hope that litigation, combined with pressure from regulators, applicants, students and alumni changes the way legal education is marketed and provides compensation to those who may have been mislead in the past.”

Four Facts You Should Know About the California DREAM Act

This material was created by Campus Progress.

by Eddie Garcia

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the second half of the state’s DREAM Act, just days before the end of the legislative session. The law, AB 131, will allow qualified, immigrant students to apply for state-based financial aid through the Cal Grant program. 

The legislation is a huge victory for youth organizers, education leaders, and immigrant rights advocates working in California to expand access to higher education for undocumented youth. Prior attempts to pass the bill were vetoed multiple times by the state’s former governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, despite overwhelming support in the state legislature. 

"The Dream Act benefits us all by giving top students a chance to improve their lives and the lives of all of us," Brown said in a statement. 

Concerns over the bill’s projected fiscal impact created a divisive narrative in the media that nearly prevented it from becoming law.

What exactly will the new law accomplish? Here’s what you need to know:

1. AB 131 allows for undocumented students at public colleges and universities to apply for and receive Cal Grants, the state’s financial aid program. While these awards would still be distributed with priority to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, undocumented youth would be offered aid after those requests are met. The law also opens access to California’s Board of Governor’s fee waiver program, designed to help low-income students pay for school, to undocumented youth. 

Uncle Sam Should Support Built-to-Last Companies, Not Built-to-Loot Enterprises

by: Chuck Collins, Institute for Policy Studies | Op-Ed for Truthout

There's nothing holding back the corporations demanding another tax holiday from investing in America right now.

A powerful coalition of U.S.-based global companies is lobbying hard for a "tax holiday" on offshore profits.

Companies like Google, Apple, Pfizer, and General Electric have parked huge amounts of profits — a stash totaling more than $1.4 trillion —in offshore tax havens. They've stowed those funds abroad primarily to avoid having to pay federal taxes on that income.

But now they want to bring their treasure to the United States, albeit at a steep discount on what they owe the IRS. Instead of paying the statutory corporate income tax rate of 35 percent — or even the "effective rate," which for most global companies, is closer to 11 percent — they're urging Congress to let them do this at a tax rate that's a whisker over 5 percent.

They tell Congress they need a "tax holiday" to free up badly needed capital to invest in right here — creating jobs at a time when the U.S. economy is sputtering.

They've formed a lobby front called the WIN America coalition to make their case, spending over $50 million and hiring over 42 lobbyists that previously worked as staffers on select Congressional tax writing committees. Most GOP members would support any tax cut, even in their sleep, so WIN America has focused its lobbying firepower on Democratic members.

Prison Based Gerrymandering Ended in California

From Demos

National public policy organization Demos applauds California Governor Brown for signing AB 420, a bill to end prison-based gerrymandering. Introduced byAssemblymember Mike Davis, the legislation ends the practice of treating incarcerated individuals as residents of the districts where they are temporarily confined, for redistricting purposes. 

This legislation directs the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to report the last known addresses of incarcerated persons to the Citizens’ Redistricting Commission. The data can then be used to count incarcerated individuals as members of their home communities. The new rule will go into effect in the 2020 redistricting cycle.

“We applaud California’s elected officials for reforming the state’s practice of treating incarcerated individuals as residents of their prison localities for redistricting purposes,” said Brenda Wright, Democracy Program Director at Demos. “This reform brings California’s redistricting practices into alignment with the state’s own residency laws, which provide that a person does not gain or lose a domicile solely by reason of incarceration,” Wright added.

“California’s previous miscount of incarcerated individuals also violated the fundamental ‘one-person, one-vote’ principle of our democracy.  Counting them as residents in prison localities artificially inflates the local population count, allowing districts to be drawn with fewer actual constituents than required. This then impairs the representation of individuals in districts that are not padded by inclusion of a prison population,” said Wright.

The new rules for allocating incarcerated populations in AB 420 echo local practices; most California counties with state prisons omit the prison population from their calculations when drawing county supervisorial districts.  California’s new legislation makes it the fourth state to reform its redistricting practices concerning incarcerated persons, joining New York, Maryland and Delaware which have enacted similar legislation.

“We hope that the U.S. Census Bureau will take note of the growing state trend to end prison-based gerrymandering, and begin counting incarcerated persons as residents of their home communities in the 2020 decennial census,” added Brenda Wright.

READ THE LEGISLATION HERE: http://1.usa.gov/ol0sAc

 

House Amendment to Reverse Citizens United Ruling Meets With Mixed Support

by: Britney Schultz, Truthout | Report

In the wake of the landmark Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which upheld that corporations were "persons" and that their deep-pocket political expenditures were a constitutionally protected expression of their free speech rights, much resistance to the decision has sprung up, from the grassroots to the halls of power in Washington.

Last month, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Maryland) and Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers (D-Michigan) reintroduced an amendment to the US Constitution, HJ Res. 78, which called for a reversal of the Citizens United case by limiting corporate contributions in elections. The bill is cosponsored by 18 US representatives.

Representative Edwards expressed initial hesitation to amending the Constitution, but said that the Supreme Court left her with no other choice after its ruling in Citizens United. 

"Justice John Paul Stevens warned that the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United threatened 'to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation,' and how right he was," said Edwards. "Since that flawed ruling was issued, campaign spending by outside groups including corporations surged more than four-fold to reach nearly $300 million in the 2010 election cycle." 

According to a poll conducted last year by Hart Research, an overwhelming majority of American voters agree that corporate spending has more to do with buying influence in Washington than with exercising free speech; 95 percent of those polledagreed that, "Corporations spend money on politics to buy influence/elect people favorable to their financial interests." 

Offshoring Manufacturing Has Broad Implications for National Security

from the Alliance for American Manufacturing

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) announced today that it is partnering with two former Department of Homeland Security officials, former Secretary Tom Ridge and former Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection Colonel Robert B. Stephan, to review the national and homeland security risks posed by the decline of America’s manufacturing base and assess what steps are necessary to ensure adequate domestic production capacity to protect our nation’s security interests.

AAM will publish the findings of this assessment in a report due out at the end of this year, which will include specific recommendations for enhancing national security, preparedness and resiliency through a strong domestic manufacturing sector.

“Ten years have passed since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and during that time the U.S. has seen the loss of over 50,000 manufacturing plants and over 5.7 million jobs,” said AAM executive director Scott Paul. “This report will raise awareness of the need to rebuild our industrial base to ensure that Americans are safe and secure.”

Paul added, “Both Governor Ridge and Colonel Stephan are eminently qualified to review weaknesses in our domestic manufacturing sector that could inhibit our ability to both prepare for and respond to a terrorist attack or naturally occurring disaster.”

"The AAM report will look at what's working, where gaps still remain and how to address those vulnerabilities," said Ridge. "Such a review is important because although great progress has been made in the ten years since the 9/11 attacks, evolving threats continue to pose risks to U.S. critical infrastructure preparedness and resilience."  

"One key aspect of preventing and mitigating disastrous events is hardening critical infrastructure," said Stephan. "This includes nuclear power plants, refineries, chemical facilities, pipelines, and transportation systems. A robust, diverse, and resilient domestic manufacturing sector is vital to these protective efforts."

The report will also address the risks associated with growing U.S. dependence on a range of manufactured goods, from steel to microchips, that are made in China or other nations. Risks may include protracted delivery times, sub-grade quality and lack of access to necessary materials and components from potentially hostile trading partners. China recently surpassed the U.S. as the leading manufacturing nation – a position held by the U.S. for more than a century.

Tom Ridge is the president and CEO of Ridge Global, an international security and risk management firm headquartered in Washington, DC. He served as the 43rd Governor of Pennsylvania and the first Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 

Colonel Bob Stephan is managing director of Dutko Global Risk Management and served as the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection from 2005 to 2008. In this capacity, he spearheaded development of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP).

High Levels of Latino and African American Seniors Lack Retirement Security

From Demos

The Institute on Assets and Social Policy and the national policy center Demos released a report revealing that only four percent of Latino seniors and eight percent of African-American seniors have the resources to maintain economic security for the duration of their lives. The report, "The Crisis of Economic Insecurity for African-American and Latino Seniors," underscores how the nation's seniors were experiencing declining economic security even before the Great Recession.

While only one in four white seniors currently have adequate resources for a secure retirement, the disparity between whites and people of color reveals that, for seniors of color, retirement insecurity is the norm and security is the exception.  This report looks to the history of racial discrimination in the housing and labor markets to explain this condition of insecurity among seniors of color: the extensive practice of redlining, segregation and workplace discrimination has inhibited the ability of today's seniors of color to accumulate the asset wealth needed for a secure retirement. Inequality experienced over the course of one's lifetime is compounded in later years and can continue with ripple effects over generations..

In response to these findings, the report makes the following recommendations:

--Ensure the strength and adequacy of the Social Security program.

--Sustain funding for senior support services, which help seniors meet basic needs.

Only 25 South Carolinians Getting Free Rides to DMV for Voter IDs

by Brian Stewart

This material was created by Campus Progress.

by Brian Stewart

Only 25 South Carolina residents have scheduled a free ride to obtain a photo ID on Wednesday as part of an effort by the state to show that its new Voter ID law isn’t discriminatory.

Gov. Nikki Haley promised anyone without proper ID that the state would offer them a free ride to get one after she signed the law, which threatens to disenfranchise about 178,000 residents, in May.

About 675 people called the DMV about the offer and the law, according to the Associated Press. Of those, 48 requested rides and only 25 have scheduled rides.

Haley said she is “pleased” with the 25 requests, according to The State: “We got 25 appointments so that’s 25 people we’re helping. I’m pleased with that.”

Unfortunately, that’s only a troubling .014 percent of the 178,000 South Carolina residents lacking proper ID—and an even smaller portion of the state's total eligible voters.

"We fielded over 600 calls of people who needed help," Haley told the AP when asked if the “real problem remains." “Our job is to help people, and I thought we thoroughly did that."

The state's DMV Executive Director Kevin Shwedo told the AP that most callers to the Voter ID hotline wanted information and not rides, adding that some traveled to the DMV on their own. The U.S. Justice Department is reviewing South Carolina’s law and has asked the state Attorney General for more information before proceeding.

Unfortunately, despite Haley's offer to help the state's residents obtain proper ID, it looks like the South Carolina's Voter ID law continues to serve only one purpose—disenfranchising voters.

Continue to follow Campus Progress for Voter ID coverage here.

Brian Stewart is a journalism network associate at Campus Progress.

 

Student Loan Default Rate Soars at For-Profit Schools

This material was created by Campus Progress.

 by Brian Stewart

More people are defaulting on student loan payments than in the past decade—with the largest spike in default rates coming in the high-cost, low-benefit for-profit education industry.

According to new data released today by the Department of Education, 8.8 percent of all student loan borrowers in fiscal 2009 defaulted on their loans, an increase from just 7 percent of borrowers in fiscal 2008. The figures are for those whose initial loan repayments were due between October 2008 and September 2009 and had defaulted by this September 2010.

What’s most troubling is the impact of for-profit colleges on the national student loan default rate. A whopping 15 percent of student borrowers at for-profit institutions—or one in six—failed to repay their loans, up from 11.6 percent. At some for-profit schools, default rates exceeded 20 percent.

In hard numbers: Out of about 3.6 million students who entered repayment during the window, 320,000 defaulted after two years—81,000 more than in fiscal 2008, with more than half from for-profits.

N.C. Insurer Invests $15M In Docs’ Health IT

by Christopher Weaver

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina will announce today that the insurer will spend $15 million to arm as many as 750 physicians in the state with state-of-the-art electronic medical records.

Blue Cross, the dominant financier of the state’s health system with 54 percent of the insured on its rolls, stands to benefit if the electronic records help doctors practice a more efficient style of medicine. For instance, the computer can prompt doctors to do blood tests or other follow-ups with patients.

And the doctors, who all work for either free clinics or in independent small practices, get a free piece of technology they may not otherwise be able to afford. The 2009 stimulus bill makes as much as $44,000 available to each physician who successfully adopts electronic records, but those payments only begin to arrive after doctors make investments.

The Blue Cross money, on the other hand, is available upfront and will help physicians move faster than the stimulus funds, said the insurers chief executive, Brad Wilson, in an interview earlier this month. The move shows the urgency with which insurers seek ways to bring costs down, and the remaining barriers physicians face in making changes.

“Even with the [stimulus] incentives it’s difficult for small practices to make those upfront investments,” said Greg Griggs, the executive vice president of the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians. To “really do it right, and use it in a meaningful manner, is still extraordinarily expensive.”

Teen: My Principal Assaulted Me For Wanting to Form Gay-Straight Alliance Club

by Brian Stewart

This material was created by Campus Progress.

A Tennessee high school student says his principal verbally and physically harassed him because of the T-shirt he was wearing—a homemade shirt showing support for stalled efforts to create a Gay-Straight Alliance at the school.

For months, Chris Sigler—a straight, 17-year-old student at Sequoyah High School whose sister is bisexual and has been subject to bullying—and others have tried to create GSA club but have been blocked by the seemingly discriminatory Principal Maurice Moser, who told the blog Talk About Equality that discussions about forming the club were “disrupting the educational environment.”

Then earlier this month, Sigler wore a T-shirt to school that read: “GSA: We’ve got your back.” Here’s how the ensuing scene reportedly transpired, according to ABC News:

Last Tuesday, a teacher told Sigler to cover up the shirt, but he resisted and wore it again on Friday. Moser ordered all the students out of the classroom, according to the Siglers, except for his sister Jessica, who refused to leave her brother.

Both students allege that Moser then grabbed Sigler’s arm, shoved him and chest-bumped him repeatedly while asking “Who’s the big man now?”

Teen: My Principal Assaulted Me For Wanting to Form Gay-Straight Alliance Club

 by Brian Stewart

This material was created by Campus Progress.

A Tennessee high school student says his principal verbally and physically harassed him because of the T-shirt he was wearing—a homemade shirt showing support for stalled efforts to create a Gay-Straight Alliance at the school.

For months, Chris Sigler—a straight, 17-year-old student at Sequoyah High School whose sister is bisexual and has been subject to bullying—and others have tried to create GSA club but have been blocked by the seemingly discriminatory Principal Maurice Moser, who told the blog Talk About Equality that discussions about forming the club were “disrupting the educational environment.”

Then earlier this month, Sigler wore a T-shirt to school that read: “GSA: We’ve got your back.” Here’s how the ensuing scene reportedly transpired, according to ABC News:

Last Tuesday, a teacher told Sigler to cover up the shirt, but he resisted and wore it again on Friday. Moser ordered all the students out of the classroom, according to the Siglers, except for his sister Jessica, who refused to leave her brother.

Both students allege that Moser then grabbed Sigler’s arm, shoved him and chest-bumped him repeatedly while asking “Who’s the big man now?”