September, 29 2015, 01:30pm EDT
Texas Continues to Fight Back: El Paso Clinic Reopens Following Supreme Court Action Blocking Sham Abortion Restrictions
After being forced to close its doors in early 2014 due to Texas' clinic shutdown law, an El Paso clinic reopened today and announced it will start offering abortion services again next week.
WASHINGTON
After being forced to close its doors in early 2014 due to Texas' clinic shutdown law, an El Paso clinic reopened today and announced it will start offering abortion services again next week.
Reproductive Services--a non-profit organization with over 37 years offering safe and legal abortion to the women of El Paso--is among the coalition of women's health care providers who asked the Supreme Court earlier this month to overturn the Texas clinic shutdown law, HB2.
HB2 requires that all abortion providers obtain local hospital admitting privileges--a mandate that has already forced the closure of over half the clinics in the state. The regulations also require every reproductive health care facility offering abortion services to meet the same hospital-like building standards as an ambulatory surgical center (ASC), which would require millions of dollars in medically unnecessary construction costs.
The U.S. Supreme Court has twice intervened in this case to prevent these requirements from closing additional clinics--first, on October 14, 2014, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stayed a permanent injunction from the trial court, and again on June 29, 2015, after the Fifth Circuit issued a final decision upholding the requirements. As a result of the Supreme Court's actions, the ASC requirement is currently blocked statewide, and the admitting-privileges requirement is currently blocked with respect to Whole Woman's Health of McAllen and Reproductive Services of El Paso, which are located in regions of the State that had been most devastated by HB2.
Despite these rulings, the Texas Department of State Health Services refused to issue Reproductive Services a license to reopen the El Paso clinic until late last month, when the trial court threatened to hold the agency in contempt.
"Reproductive Services reopening their doors means the women of El Paso and West Texas can once again access safe and legal reproductive health care options that they need and deserve," said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "We are proud to stand with them as they bravely fight against these unrelenting attacks on abortion care in Texas.
"We now look to the Supreme Court to ensure high-quality providers like Reproductive Services can remain open and reject the cynical maneuvering of politicians who are standing between Texas women and their constitutional rights."
If the Supreme Court fails to take the Texas case or ultimately preserves the clinic shutdown law, Reproductive Services would be forced to close again along with many of the state's other remaining abortion clinics, resulting in a 75% percent reduction in clinics since HB2 was enacted and cutting off access to safe and legal abortions for millions of Texas women.
Major medical groups oppose the types of restrictions found in Texas' clinic shutdown law. The American Medical Association (AMA) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) jointly submitted an amicus brief opposing the law to the Fifth Circuit, stating that "H.B. 2 does not serve the health of women in Texas but instead jeopardizes women's health by restricting access to abortion providers." Medical experts confirm that legal abortion care in the U.S. is extremely safe, and that laws like Texas' would do nothing to make it safer.
Clinic shutdown laws have swept the South in recent years, threatening to further devastate abortion access in a region already facing limited availability of reproductive health care services. The last abortion clinic in Mississippi is awaiting a decision on whether the U.S. Supreme Court will review its state's clinic shutdown law when the Court's term starts on October 1 while health care providers in Louisiana are awaiting a federal court ruling which could shutter all but one clinic in the state. Courts have blocked similar measures in Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Alabama.
Case History: Whole Woman's Health v. Cole (formerly Whole Woman's Health v. Lakey)
Following a lawsuit brought by the Center for Reproductive rights on behalf of Whole Woman's Health and several other Texas health care providers in April 2014, a federal district court blocked two of the most harmful restriction of Texas' House Bill 2 (HB2) in late August 2014: the ambulatory surgical center requirement and the admitting-privileges requirement.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stayed that decision in large part on October 2, 2014, allowing the requirements to immediately take effect. Because forcing hospital-style surgery center building and staffing requirements on every clinic would amount to a multi-million dollar tax on abortion services, all but 7 reproductive health care facilities in the state were prevented from offering safe and legal abortion services for 12 days. On October 14, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the injunction in large part, allowing many of the previously closed clinics to reopen their doors while the state's appeal moved forward.
On June 9, 2015, the Fifth Circuit's final decision in the appeal once again upheld the state restrictions in substantial part, this time threatening to shutter all but 10 abortion providers in the state. Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to block the Fifth Circuit's decision and allow the clinics to remain open while the legal challenge continued. The Center for Reproductive Rights has now asked the nation's highest court to formally review the Texas law. The Court is likely to decide whether it will hear the case sometime before the end of 2015.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is a global human rights organization of lawyers and advocates who ensure reproductive rights are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person.
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'Appalling': Biden Administration Declines to Force Big Pharma to Cut Price of Prostate Cancer Drug
"This decision effectively rubber-stamps continued Big Pharma abuse," said one Democratic lawmaker.
Mar 21, 2023
Patient advocates on Tuesday blasted the Biden administration's refusal to compel the manufacturer of a lifesaving prostate cancer drug developed completely with public funds to lower its nearly $190,000 annual price tag.
In 2021, prostate cancer patient Eric Sawyer petitioned U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra to grant march-in rights—under which the government can grant patent licenses to companies other than a drug's manufacturer—for enzalutamide, which is sold under the brand name Xtandi by Pfizer and Japanese pharmaceutical giant Astellas.
The drug's development was 100% taxpayer-funded. Yet a one-year supply of Xtandi currently costs $189,800 in the United States, or up to five times more than its price in other countries.
HHS' National Institutes of Health (NIH) said Tuesday that it "does not believe that use of the march-in authority would be an effective means of lowering the price of the drug."
"What the Biden administration is saying is that charging U.S. residents three to six times more than any other high-income country is reasonable."
The agency added that it "will pursue a whole-of-government approach informed by public input to ensure the use of march-in authority is consistent with the policy and objective of the Bayh-Dole Act," a reference to legislation meant to promote the commercialization and public availability of government-funded inventions.
James Love, director of the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Knowledge Ecology International, called the administration's rejection "appalling."
"What the Biden administration is saying is that charging U.S. residents three to six times more than any other high-income country is reasonable," he wrote.
U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement that he is "extremely disappointed that the Biden administration denied a petition by prostate cancer patients to substantially reduce the price of Xtandi."
"This is a drug that was invented with taxpayer dollars by scientists at UCLA and can be purchased in Canada for one-fifth the U.S. price," Sanders added. "The Japanese drugmaker Astellas, which made $1 billion in profits in 2021, has raised the price of this drug by more than 75%... How many prostate cancer patients will die because they cannot afford this unacceptable price?"
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, said in a statement:
Today's decision is a blow to prostate cancer patients, their families, and taxpayers. Developed with U.S. taxpayer research dollars, Xtandi costs American patients $180,000 a year—as much as six times as much as patients in other countries. This excessive price gouging cost taxpayers $2 billion to cover Medicare beneficiaries' treatment in 2020 alone. The Biden administration has missed yet another opportunity to do something meaningful to lower prescription drug costs and protect taxpayer investments.
The administration's position "protects monopolists over taxpayers and patients, despite clear statutory authority and reasonableness to intervene," Doggett added. "This decision effectively rubber-stamps continued Big Pharma abuse."
In a move that Public Citizen president Robert Weissman called "pathetic," HHS and the Department of Commerce announced Tuesday that they would "pursue a whole-of-government approach to review... march-in authority as laid out in the Bayh-Dole Act" by forming an interagency working group.
The group "will develop a framework for implementation of the march-in provision that clearly articulates guiding criteria and processes for making determinations where different factors, including price, may be a consideration in agencies' assessments."
In a statement, Becerra said that the administration is "committed to increasing access to healthcare and lowering costs."
"March-in authority is a powerful tool designed to ensure that the benefits of the American taxpayers' investment in research and development are reasonably accessible to the public," he added. "We look forward to updates from the Bayh-Dole Interagency Working Group, and at my direction, HHS will review the findings, engage the public, and better define how HHS could effectively utilize our authority moving forward."
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Senate Dems Urge Treasury Chief to Crack Down on Rich Tax Dodgers
"The Treasury Department can and should exercise the full extent of its regulatory authority to limit this blatant abuse of our tax system by the ultrawealthy."
Mar 21, 2023
Four U.S senators this week called on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to use her existing authority to go after American billionaires and multimillionaires who "use trusts to shift wealth to their heirs tax-free, dodging federal estate and gift taxes."
"They are doing this in the open: Their wealth managers are bragging about how their tax dodging tricks will be more effective in the current economy," stressed Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
"While we look forward to continuing to partner with you on legislative solutions," the senators wrote to Yellen, "the Treasury Department can and should exercise the full extent of its regulatory authority to limit this blatant abuse of our tax system by the ultrawealthy."
Their letter to the Treasury leader, dated Monday and first reported by CBS MoneyWatch Tuesday, highlights that "only the wealthiest American families" are asked to pay transfer taxes such as the estate tax, gift tax, and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax.
As the letter lays out:
Tax avoidance through grantor trusts starts with the ultrawealthy putting assets into a trust with the intention of transferring them to heirs. Grantor trusts are trusts where the grantor retains control over the assets, and the structures of some of these grantor trusts allow the transfer of massive sums tax-free. Tax planning via grantor trusts, including grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), is a kind of shell game, with a wealthy person and their wealth managers able to pass assets back and forth in ways that effectively pass wealth to heirs while minimizing tax liability.
Some of the wealthiest families further compound this tax avoidance with perpetual dynasty trusts, which can be used to shield assets from transfer tax liability indefinitely. For example, aggressive valuation discounts can artificially reduce the value of assets transferred into a trust below the GST tax exemption threshold, after which the assets can grow in perpetuity within a trust exempt from transfer tax.
"The ultrawealthy at the top of the socioeconomic ladder live by different rules than the rest of America, especially when it comes to our tax system," the letter charges. "As the richest Americans celebrate and take advantage of these favorable tax opportunities, middle-class families struggle with inflation and Republicans threaten austerity measures and the end of Social Security and Medicare."
To help force the richest Americans to "pay their fair share" in taxes, the senators are calling on Treasury to revoke a pair of tax code rulings from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); require GRATs to have a minimum remainder value; reissue family limited partnership regulations; clarify that intentionally defective grantor trusts (IDGTs) are not entitled to stepped-up basis; and put out clarifying regulations on certain valuation rules for estate and gift taxes.
The senators also sent a series of questions—about potential administrative action, how much is estimated to be held in grantor trusts, and how much could be raised from cracking down on abuse—and requested a response from Treasury by April 3.
Their letter comes after President Joe Biden earlier this month introduced a budget blueprint for fiscal year 2024 that would hike taxes on the rich—proposed policies praised by progressive experts and advocates as "fair, popular, and long overdue."
Yellen last week appeared before the Senate Finance Committee—of which Warren and Whitehouse are members—to testify about the administration's proposal. She said in part that "our proposed budget builds on our economic progress by making smart, fiscally responsible investments. These investments would be more than fully paid for by requiring corporations and the wealthiest to pay their fair share."
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Biden DOL Praised for Historic Suit Over Using Debt Threat to Stop Workers From Quitting
The department's "action against predatory stay-or-pay contracts sends a monumental message to employers: Obey the law or face repercussions," said the head of Towards Justice.
Mar 21, 2023
Workers' rights advocates are applauding the Biden administration this week for filing a historic lawsuit against a Brooklyn-based healthcare staffing agency for coercive contracts that allegedly violate federal labor law.
Biden's Department of Labor (DOL) says in a complaint filed against Advanced Care Staffing (ACS) and CEO Sam Klein in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York that "in flagrant disregard" of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the company "has entered into contracts purporting to require employees to complete at least three years of full-time work for ACS in order to retain their wages."
"The contracts warn employees that if they leave ACS's employ before three years' time, they will face ACS and its lawyers in an arbitration behind closed doors, where ACS will demand that employees kick back much of their hard-earned wages—including wages to which they are entitled under federal law," the complaint continues.
"Under this scheme, the pay that ACS promises its employees may be converted into nothing more than a loan that employees must repay with interest and fees, leaving some employees with no compensation at all, much less the wages required by the FLSA," the document adds. "The FLSA prohibits an employer from holding employees' wages hostage, allowing employees to keep their wages free and clear only if employees remain in the service of their employer."
The DOL, led by acting Secretary Julie Su, aims not only to end this "unlawful conduct" but also "to recover unpaid wages and liquidated damages due to the former employees from whom ACS has already initiated arbitrations, and to restrain defendants from withholding unpaid wages from their former employees."
Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda reiterated in a statement Monday that "federal law forbids employers from clawing back wages earned by employees, for employers' own benefit."
"Employers cannot use workers as insurance policies to unconditionally guarantee future profit streams. Nor can employers use arbitration agreements to shield unlawful practices," Nanda said. "The Department of Labor will do everything in its power to make sure employees are being paid their hard-earned wages, and to safeguard them from these types of exploitative practices."
Bloomberg last September reported on Benzor Shem Vidal, a nurse who immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines and took legal action against ACS for forcing him to work in "brutal and dangerous conditions," including simultaneously caring for 40 patients.
As Bloomberg detailed:
Under Vidal's contract, Advanced Care Staffing could sue him in arbitration for damages if he quit within three years of starting work—and make him pay the legal costs, according to the complaint in federal court in Brooklyn. The conditions were so onerous that they violate human trafficking laws meant to protect people from being exploited for labor, Vidal said.
"Mr. Vidal believed it was impossible for him to provide adequate care to patients but was also terrified to resign," his lawyers wrote. "He knew that his contract with Advanced Care Staffing purported to allow the company to pursue legal action against him, with potentially ruinous financial consequences, if he decided to terminate his employment."
Advanced Care Staffing did not immediately respond to an inquiry. The company has placed thousands of employees at facilities in New York and surrounding states, according to its website.
The DOL complaint lays out his experience over several pages and concludes that "defendants have a policy and practice of entering into contracts with employees with identical or substantially similar contract provisions to the 2022 contract with Vidal."
Celebrating the new case against ACS, Towards Justice executive director David Seligman declared Tuesday that "DOL's action against predatory stay-or-pay contracts sends a monumental message to employers: Obey the law or face repercussions."
"A fundamental premise of our labor laws is that employers pay workers, and not the other way around," said Seligman. "This lawsuit builds on a multiagency effort from the Biden administration to curb coercive contracts that rob workers of bargaining power. We look forward to what's next."
As Seligman noted in a series of tweets, other actions include the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) last June launching an inquiry into practices and products that may leave workers indebted to their employers, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in January proposing a ban on noncompete clauses.
After noting that the DOL is taking on the ACS case as a minimum wage fight, Seligman said another important aspect is the department's allegation that the company's "arbitration requirements violate federal law too, not just because the employer is attempting to shield unlawful practices but also because the arbitration requirement itself shifts costs onto workers."
The DOL complaint states that ACS's arbitration and contract demands "have an impermissible chilling effect on their employees' ability to effectively vindicate their federal statutory rights, including the protection to be free from an unsafe or hazardous workplace, and to obtain unpaid wages due."
Student Borrower Protection Center senior policy adviser Chris Hicks on Tuesday stressed that such problems stretch far beyond one company, saying that "whether it's training repayment agreement provisions (TRAPs) or stay-or-pay contracts, employers are using debt as a tool of coercion to force workers to stay in low-paying, unsafe jobs."
Hicks also highlighted that "the Biden administration has been strengthening its whole-of-government approach to ensure workers are able to fully and freely exercise their rights—including their right to depart without the looming threat of debt."
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