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Kevin Zeese 301-996-6582,kzeese@
Mark
Dudzic 201-314-2653,
mdudzic@thelaborparty.org
Margaret Flowers, M.D. 410-591-0892,
mdpnhp@gmail.com
Russell Mokhiber 202-468-8868,
russellmokhiber@gmail.com
Carol
Paris, M.D. 301-904-6210,
caparis52@hotmail.com
Katie Robbins 212-475-8350,
healthcarenow08@gmail.com
Pat
Salomon-Rodriguez, M.D., drpatsalomon@aol.com
Adam Schneider 410-215-8319, asch
Members of the Baucus 8 appeared at the
H. Carl Moultrie I Courthouse today for their final hearing following 6 months
of probation and, for 3 members, 40 hours of community service. The Baucus 8, all of whom are doctors or
health advocates, were arrested in the Senate Finance Committee Health Care
Roundtable on May 5th for standing up and asking why single payer
advocates were not allowed to testify.
Members of the Baucus 8 appeared at the
H. Carl Moultrie I Courthouse today for their final hearing following 6 months
of probation and, for 3 members, 40 hours of community service. The Baucus 8, all of whom are doctors or
health advocates, were arrested in the Senate Finance Committee Health Care
Roundtable on May 5th for standing up and asking why single payer
advocates were not allowed to testify.
Dr.
Pat Solomon, a retired pediatrician noted that, "When we looked at the list of
41 people testifying in the 3 days of Roundtables, we saw that not a single
witness was an advocate of the principle that healthcare should be a fundamental
human right for all in America, nor was there anyone to speak for the majority
of the American people who support single payer/Medicare for
All."
Senator
Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, convened the May Roundtable to
kick off the public consideration of the 111th Congress' legislative proposals
for healthcare reform. The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, a
coalition of nurses, doctors, labor, faith, health advocate and community groups
representing over 20 million people nationwide, sent a request to the Finance
Committee for one of their leaders testify. When this was denied, thousands of
single payer supporters across the nation contacted the committee to request
that single payer be included.
"Despite
the outpouring of requests," said Katie Robbins of Healthcare-Now.org, "we were
clearly told that we would be excluded. This cemented our growing impression
that the healthcare debate was at best, political theater, and that we would
have to try a different tactic in order that the only really affordable health
reform solution, that addresses the real health care needs of 100% of our nation
be heard."
Kevin
Zeese of ProsperityAgenda.US called the committee "pay to play" because, as he
said, "Every seat at the Roundtable was bought by the lobbyists. Senator Baucus
received nearly $2 million in campaign contributions from the health industry in
2008 and the entire Senate Finance Committee received over $13 million in
2008."
"Congress
and the White House keep calling the medical industry corporations the 'stakeholders' in this reform
process," said Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program
(PNHP), "But we know that the true stakeholders are those who provide and
receive medical care, not those who profit off the current
situation."
"After
we were arrested, Senator Baucus admitted that it was a mistake to take single
payer off the table," said Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action. "Clearly it
was. Both the House and Senate bills would require Americans to buy a junk
insurance at an inflated price. This bill is a bailout of the insurance
industry. Instead of bailing out the private insurance companies, we ought to
get rid of them and replace them with one public insurance pool. Everybody in,
nobody out. Congress ought to defeat this monstrosity, start from scratch and
pass single payer. We will get single payer sooner or later. Better
sooner."
"
Wendell Potter, formerly of CIGNA and Humana (not a
member of the Baucus 8) calls this legislation 'The
Private Health Insurance Profit Protection and Enhancement Act,'" stated Dr.
Carol Paris, also of PNHP and a practicing physician in Southern Maryland. "And we agree because the final
legislation will benefit the medical corporations, further strengthening their
ability to buy members of Congress, and will continue the expensive and
complicated health situation that we have in this country right now which makes
it difficult for patients and doctors to focus on health
care."
In
fact, as an
example of the revolving door between those who are lobbyists and those who are
staff, Liz Fowler, former Vice President of Public Policy at Wellpoint, one of
the largest health insurers in the nation, left her lucrative position to work
as the point person in the Senate Finance Committee to oversee the legislation.
Her name is cited as author of the Senate Finance Bill.
Mark
Dudzic of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer said the group's action has been
vindicated by the subsequent actions in the Senate. "The current deplorable proposals for
healthcare reform under consideration in Congress show what happens when you
start bargaining by conceding all of the terrain to your opponent. Any shop
steward in America would have done a better job
than the leaders of the political party in control of overwhelming majorities in
both houses of congress."
In
addition to probation, the prosecutor insisted that the three defendants who
lived in the Washington,
DC area also perform 40 hours of
community service. "I spend every day serving my community," said Adam Schneider
who is employed by Health Care for the Homeless. "I'm proud of the stand we took
and had no problem doing an extra 40 hours of service to my community. But if
there was any justice in the world, Senator Baucus and his corporate sponsors
would have also been required to spend 40 hours with my clients to understand
their desperate need for access to healthcare before they give a $500 billion
bailout to the private health insurance industry."
The
group is unanimous that no matter what passes this year, health care reform is
not over in this nation. Patients will continue to suffer and die needlessly,
families will continue to face bankruptcy and foreclosure because of medical
debt until we have a national publicly-financed and privately-delivered single payer/Medicare for all health
system. Such a system would be transparent and accountable to the people unlike
the current situation in which private insurers are experts at hiding
information from the public and at violating their own written rules without
recourse.
This year saw tremendous growth in a
national movement for Medicare for all. The Baucus 8 vow to continue to do
whatever it takes, even facing arrest again, to get an honest and open-minded
debate about what type of health system is best so that people in this nation
can be healthy and productive and stop worrying about what they will do if
accident or illness strikes.
"If abortion medication isn't available—if pharmacies literally don't carry it, or only have limited quantities available—we will see unprecedented suffering," said one rights advocate.
A month after the two largest pharmacy chains in the United States announced their efforts to become certified to dispense abortion pills by mail, in accordance with a new Food and Drug Administration rule, the Republican attorneys general of 20 states on Wednesday warned the companies that providing the medications by mail in their states could result in legal action against them.
In a letter co-signed by 19 attorneys general from states that have banned or attempted to ban abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Attorney General Andrew Bailey of Missouri wrote to officials at Walgreens and CVS and suggested that they could face litigation if they follow new regulatory guidelines introduced by the FDA in early January.
The agency announced last month that retail drugstores can dispense mifepristone and misoprostol—drugs used for medication abortions, which accounted for 51% of abortions in 2020 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rule reversed strict regulations that for decades required patients to obtain mifepristone only at health clinics, which medical experts have long said were unnecessarily limited people's access to the pills and were rooted in politics rather than science.
"The prohibition and difficulty in accessing abortion pills has no medical basis, just a political one."
Both pharmacies
said soon after the rule was changed that they were beginning the process of becoming certified to send abortion pills to patients who have a prescription for them from a healthcare provider, in states where abortion care is legal.
The attorneys general who signed Bailey's letter on Wednesday claimed the companies will be in violation "not only of federal law, but also of the laws of the various states" if they follow the FDA guidance.
Two states—Indiana and Texas—have
imposed bans on medication abortions starting at a certain point in pregnancy, while 18 states require patients to be in the physical presence of a prescribing clinician to obtain mifepristone and misoprostol—restrictions that run afoul of the new federal regulations.
A manufacturer of mifepristone filed a lawsuit late last month to overturn West Virginia's abortion ban, arguing that the FDA's approval of the drug preempts the state's law.
The Biden administration also issued a legal opinion last month saying the U.S. Postal Service can mail abortion pills to states with abortion bans or severe restrictions, if the sender does not intend to break the law.
Of the 20 states whose attorneys general signed the letter sent Wednesday to CVS and Walgreens, 10—Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, and Utah— still permit abortion care. Several of the states have attempted to ban the procedure but the proposals have been blocked.
Despite this, the attorneys general suggested that sending abortion pills to patients in their states will violate their laws.
"These state laws reflect not only our commitment to protecting the lives and dignity of children, but also of women," wrote Bailey. "We emphasize that it is our responsibility as state attorneys general to uphold the law and protect the health, safety, and well-being of women and unborn children in our states."
The right-wing attorneys general "are in the wrong here," said women's rights group UltraViolet.
\u201cHonestly what is the problem with accessing medication at a retail pharmacy???\n\nThese 20 conservative attorneys general are in the wrong here. The prohibition and difficulty in accessing abortion pills had no medical basis, just a political one.\nhttps://t.co/X3DJT60wYt\u201d— UltraViolet has the #ReproReceipts (@UltraViolet has the #ReproReceipts) 1675350567
The letter comes just over a week after South Dakota's Republican governor, Kristi Noem, joined state Attorney General Marty Jackley in
threatening the state's pharmacists with felony charges if they distribute abortion pills.
If the pharmacies cave to the demands of the Republicans, said author and advocate Jessica Valenti, people in the 20 states in question "will no longer have access to one of the most common forms of miscarriage treatment."
"If abortion medication isn't available—if pharmacies literally don't carry it, or only have limited quantities available—we will see unprecedented suffering," she
said.
"Oil company bosses and shareholders are being allowed to get even richer by banking huge profits, while normal people are facing enormous energy bills and millions are being forced into fuel poverty."
The London-based oil giant Shell reported Thursday that its profits more than doubled in 2022 to a record $40 billion as households across Europe struggled to heat their homes, a crisis that campaigners blamed on the fossil fuel industry's price gouging.
Global Witness estimated that Shell's full-year profits for 2022 would be enough to cover the annual energy bills of nearly half of all U.K. households. The group also calculated that Shell's profits could fund "the £28 billion that the U.K. government estimates would be needed to give all public sector workers—including nurses, teachers, police and firefighters—raises in line with inflation."
"For those facing exorbitant energy bills, and for all of our nurses, firefighters, and teachers on the picket line this week, Shell's profits are an insult. Shell is richer because we're poorer," Jonathan Noronha-Gant, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, said Thursday. "If oil and gas companies were properly taxed, and if our government stopped handing them billions of pounds in the form of tax breaks and other subsidies—then that would free up the money that's desperately needed to give Brits long-term support with the cost of their energy bills, and to give our key workers the financial recognition they deserve. But so far that hasn't happened."
"So we have to ask ourselves—whose side is our government on?" Noronha-Gant continued. "Are they on the side of those of us living in cold, draughty homes, or are they on the side of an industry that is riding the wave of the energy crisis in Europe and the war in Ukraine, and is wrecking the planet in the process? All in the name of enriching its shareholders."
With its new earnings report, Shell joined ExxonMobil, Chevron, and other major oil companies in posting record-shattering profits for 2022, a year that saw massive energy market disruptions stemming from Russia's war on Ukraine.
"The announcement of yet another obscene profit for Shell shows the scale of the harm that these companies are inflicting on households and businesses."
Shell announced Thursday that it returned a total of $26 billion to shareholders last year through dividends and share buybacks. The company said last month that it expects to pay just $2.4 billion in windfall taxes in the U.K. and E.U. for 2022.
"Our results in Q4 and across the full year demonstrate the strength of Shell's differentiated portfolio, as well as our capacity to deliver vital energy to our customers in a volatile world," Shell CEO Wael Sawan said in a statement. "We believe that Shell is well positioned to be the trusted partner through the energy transition."
Climate advocates countered that far from helping alleviate Europe's energy crisis, Shell—which has been accused of
overstating its renewable energy spending—is a big part of the problem.
"The announcement of yet another obscene profit for Shell shows the scale of the harm that these companies are inflicting on households and businesses," said Freya Aitchison, an oil and gas campaigner with Friends of the Earth Scotland. "Oil company bosses and shareholders are being allowed to get even richer by banking huge profits, while normal people are facing enormous energy bills and millions are being forced into fuel poverty."
"Shell is worsening climate breakdown and extreme weather by continuing to invest and lock us into new oil and gas projects for decades to come," Aitchison added, pointing to the company's Jackdaw gas project. "These profit figures are further evidence that our current fossil-fueled energy system is seriously harming people and the climate."
Earlier this week, as Common Dreamsreported, four Greenpeace campaigners boarded and occupied a Shell-contracted platform in the Atlantic Ocean to call attention to the company's contributions to global climate chaos. The Shell platform is headed toward a major oil and gas field in the U.K. North Sea.
On Thursday, Greenpeace activists set up a mock gas station price board outside of Shell's London headquarters to spotlight the firm's record-shattering profits.
\u201cNo more excuses. Stop Drilling, Start Paying. #MakeShellPay\u201d— Greenpeace UK (@Greenpeace UK) 1675346085
Elena Polisano, a senior climate justice campaigner for Greenpeace U.K., said in a statement Thursday that "Shell is profiteering from climate destruction and immense human suffering."
"While Shell counts their record-breaking billions, people across the globe count the damage from the record-breaking droughts, heatwaves, and floods this oil giant is fueling," said Polisano. "This is the stark reality of climate injustice, and we must end it."
House Republicans' effort to cap spending at 2022 levels would impact "a wide array of public services," including healthcare programs, education, and much more.
After a private meeting with President Joe Biden on Wednesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reiterated his support for steep federal spending cuts as part of any deal to raise the debt ceiling, upholding his commitment to the far-right Republicans who threatened to deny him the top leadership post.
"I was very clear that we're not passing a clean debt ceiling," McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters following his conversation with the president. "We're not spending more next year than we spent this year. We've got to find a way to change this and I want to sit down and work."
While some members of his caucus have vocally singled out Social Security and Medicare, McCarthy has declined to explain precisely what and how much he wants to cut. But as part of a deal with the far-right flank of his caucus, McCarthy agreed to push for a cap on federal spending at fiscal year 2022 levels.
According to an analysis released Wednesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), such a cap would entail significant cuts to "a wide array of public services that the federal government provides and that people and communities depend on, including public health; food safety inspections; air traffic control operations; the administration of Medicare and Social Security; housing and other assistance for families with low incomes; education and job training; and scientific and medical research, to name just a few."
"Moreover, many of these programs are still feeling the effects of austerity imposed largely by the 2011 Budget Control Act," CBPP's Joel Friedman and Richard Kogan wrote, pointing to a law that the GOP forced through following a damaging round of debt ceiling brinkmanship. "Even with a recent boost in 2023, funding for non-defense programs outside of veterans' medical care is about 2% below its 2010 level, adjusted for inflation, and 9% below when adjusted for both inflation and population growth. Funding for these programs needs to rise to meet national needs, address shortfalls that hamper the delivery of government services, and help create an economy in which everyone has the resources they need to thrive."
CBPP's estimates suggest that a federal spending cut of $146 billion across military and non-military programs would be required to meet House Republicans' demand to cap fiscal year 2024 spending at 2022 levels.
But Friedman and Kogan stressed that cuts to non-military discretionary spending—a broad category that includes healthcare and education programs—would have to be even larger if the Pentagon budget is shielded, as some House Republicans have proposed. Military spending represents more than half of all federal discretionary spending.
"Reducing defense funding to its 2022 level in 2024 would require a cut of $76.2 billion from its current level," Friedman and Kogan noted. "If instead one assumes that defense funding is frozen in 2024—that is, held at its 2023 level rather than being reduced to the 2022 level—but that House Republicans still press to return total discretionary funding to its 2022 level, then those additional cuts would need to be absorbed by non-defense programs. If that comes on top of protecting veterans’ medical care, then the remaining non-defense programs would need to be cut by 24.3% on average."
"The cuts the House Republicans are calling for, whether achieved by reducing non-defense programs categorized as discretionary or mandatory, are deep," Friedman and Kogan concluded. "Claims that they are designed merely to root out 'wasteful spending' are highly misleading and distract from the policy implications of these proposals and the harm they would cause."
The White House has insisted on legislation that raises the debt ceiling without any attached spending cuts or other conditions, a message it reiterated after Biden's meeting with McCarthy on Wednesday.
"President Biden made clear that, as every other leader in both parties in Congress has affirmed, it is their shared duty not to allow an unprecedented and economically catastrophic default," the White House said in a readout of the meeting. "The president welcomes a separate discussion with congressional leaders about how to reduce the deficit and control the national debt while continuing to grow the economy."
As McCarthy prepared for his discussion with Biden, the Republican Study Committee (RSC)—the largest House GOP caucus—convened on Capitol Hill to discuss their priorities for time-sensitive debt ceiling negotiations.
According to a presentation slide obtained by Politico's Olivia Beavers, RSC chair Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) offered a broad outline of the GOP's group's priorities, including a reversal of recent discretionary spending increases. Last year, the RSC called for gradually increasing the retirement age and partially privatizing Social Security.
Aaron Fritschner, communications director for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), criticized House Republicans' continued refusal to put forth a budget detailing their specific demands.
"Wow what a disaster," Fritschner tweeted in response to the RSC presentation. "They truly have no idea what to do."