July, 21 2020, 12:00am EDT
WASHINGTON
As thousands of Americans find themselves facing COVID-19-related hospital bills, seven organizations sent a letter to Congressman Richard Neal (D-MA) urging him to address the injustice of surprise medical billing. As Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Neal has the power to quickly move legislation to end this cruelty of the American health care system.
Surprise bills - in which a patient receives charges for out-of-network services they couldn't possibly have anticipated - cost Americans with employer-sponsored insurance $40 billion annually. About one in five emergency room visits, half of ground ambulance trips, and 70 percent of air transport trips have the potential to result in a surprise bill for patients, due to the high likelihood they will be out-of-network.
In 2019, a bipartisan deal to end surprise medical billing was tanked by Chairman Neal at the last second. Instead, Neal and Ranking Member Kevin Brady introduced a bill that would have resulted in higher costs for patients and benefited private equity firms and insurance companies. Blackstone, a private equity firm now under scrutiny for sticking patients with surprise medical bills during the coronavirus pandemic, is Neal's top 2020 campaign contributor.
"Congressman Neal needs to stop obstructing efforts to protect people from predatory behavior like surprise billing and start being part of the solution," said Sarah Miller, Executive Director of the American Economic Liberties Project. "With cases of COVID-19 surging across the country, Neal should use his power as Chairman of House Ways and Means to immediately end surprise billing."
"Private equity is the driving force behind the epidemic of surprise billing. Their interest, money and influence, must not be allowed to prevent common sense measures to stop them from gouging families," said Ricardo Valadez, Private Equity Campaigns Manager to the Americans for Financial Reform. "Congress should also take up the comprehensive stop wall street looting act to curb private equity abuses that harm workers, patients, communities, and the environment."
"It is no surprise that private equity firms are seeking to maintain the status quo so they can continue squeezing obscene profits out of the American people, even if it means driving them into medical debt or bankruptcy during a global pandemic," said Eagan Kemp, Public Citizen's health care policy advocate. "What remains frustrating is that this problem would already be solved if it weren't for politicians taking private equity money and doing their bidding by blocking legislation that would ban surprise bills."
"Richie Neal is one of the most powerful members of Congress, and it's clear he's using that power to benefit Wall Street fund managers instead of regular Americans," said Michael Kink, counsel to the Center for Popular Democracy. "It's time to put people over profits, end surprise billing, and crack down on private equity greed instead of enabling it."
A copy of the letter is available here. It was signed by: the American Economic Liberties Project, Americans for Financial Reform, Center for Popular Democracy, Private Equity Stakeholder Project, Public Citizen, Revolving Door Project, and Strong Economy for All.
The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America's system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.
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Humanitarian Groups Dread 2025 Aid Shortfall as Trump Term Looms
"At a time when the richest people on Earth can go to space as a tourist," said one advocate, "it is incomprehensible that we as an international community are unable to find the necessary funding to provide displaced families with shelter."
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As the United Nations humanitarian agency and its partner organizations launched the annual Global Humanitarian overview on Wednesday to appeal for aid ahead of 2025, officials shared sobering numbers: 305 million people in dire need of assistance, 190 million people the agencies believe they can help next year if funding demands are met, and $47 billion that's needed to help the people facing the greatest threats.
Tom Fletcher, under-secretary-general at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said governments, particularly those in wealthy countries like the United States, face "a choice" as the world bears witness to starvation, increasingly frequent climate disasters, and other suffering in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, and elsewhere.
"We can respond to these numbers with generosity, with compassion, with genuine solidarity for those in the most dire need on the planet—or we can carry on," said Fletcher at a news briefing. "We can choose to leave them alone to face these crises. We can choose to let them down."
Fletcher and other humanitarian leaders noted that as of last month, just 43% of the $50 billion funding appeal made for 2024 had been met.
Food assistance in Syria has been cut by 80% as a result of the large funding gap, while protection services in Myanmar and water and sanitation aid in Yemen have also been reduced.
Fletcher said that with another major funding shortfall expected in 2025, OCHA and its partners are expecting to be forced to make "ruthless" decisions to direct aid to those most in need—likely leaving out 115 million people.
Fears that funding needs will be far from met in 2025 are arising partially from the election last month of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who pursued significant cuts during his first term to agencies including the U.N. Population Fund, UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
"America is very much on our minds at the moment, we're facing the election of a number of governments who will be more questioning of what the United Nations does and less ideologically supportive of this humanitarian effort that we've laid out in this report," said Fletcher. "But it's our job to frame the arguments in the right way to land and not to give up. And so I'll head to Washington. I'll spend a lot of time in Washington, I imagine, over the next few months, engaging with the new administration, making the case to them, just as I'll spend a lot of time in other capitals where people might be skeptical about the work that we are doing."
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Secretary-General Jan Egeland, who led OCHA for three years, toldAl Jazeera that U.S. funding under the Trump administration is "a tremendous question mark."
"Should the U.S. administration cut its humanitarian funding, it could be more complex to fill the gap of growing needs," said Egeland.
The U.S. is the largest humanitarian donor in the world, contributing $10 billion last year—but its donations pale in comparison to its military spending, which was budgeted at more than $841 billion in 2024, and the earnings of its top corporations.
As NRC noted, Facebook parent company Meta earned $47.4 billion—about the same amount humanitarian agencies are requesting this year—before income taxes in 2023.
Without naming billionaire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—a Trump ally and megadonor who's expected to have a role in his new administration—Camilla Waszink, director of partnership and policy at NRC, called out the widening gap between the world's richest people and those in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
"At a time when the richest people on Earth can go to space as a tourist and trillions of U.S. dollars are used annually on global military expenditure, it is incomprehensible that we as an international community are unable to find the necessary funding to provide displaced families with shelter and prevent children from dying of hunger," said Waszink. "There is an urgent need for a revamp of global solidarity. Existing donor countries must ensure assistance keeps pace with needs and inflation, and emerging economies should compete to become among the most generous donors in the same way they compete to host expensive international sports events."
"It is devastating to know that millions of people in need will not receive necessary assistance next year because of the growing lack of funding for the humanitarian response. With a record number of conflicts ongoing, donors are cutting aid budgets that displaced and conflict-affected people rely on to survive," she added. "Conflicts and a blatant disregard for protection of civilians are driving massive humanitarian needs. It is essential that donors provide funding, but they must also invest in ending conflicts, bringing violations to a halt and preventing new needs from developing."
Fletcher noted that in addition to conflicts like Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the civil war in Sudan, the climate crisis is a major driver of growing humanitarian needs.
"2024 will be the hottest year on record," said Fletcher. "Presumably 2025 will then be the hottest year on record. Floods, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires affecting millions. We're on the brink of surpassing the 1.5°C in warming, and that will hit hardest in the countries that have actually contributed least to climate change. It wipes out food systems. It wipes out livelihoods, it forces communities to move from their homes and land. Drought has caused 65% of agricultural economic damage over the last 15 years, worsening food insecurity."
In conflict zones and in regions affected by the climate emergency, said Fletcher, "it's our mission to do more."
"My people are desperate to get out there and deliver because they really are on the frontline," he said. "They can see what is needed, but we need these resources. That's our call to action. And we also need the world to do more. Those with power to do more—to challenge this era of impunity and to challenge this era of indifference."
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CEO of UnitedHealthcare—Largest Private Insurer in US—Killed in Apparent Targeted Attack
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The CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was fatally shot early Wednesday outside of a hotel in midtown Manhattan.
During a press conference, New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that Thompson was killed "in what appears, at this early stage in our investigation, to be a brazen, targeted attack. This does not appear to be a random act of violence." Thompson was taken to Mount Sinai West hospital before being pronounced dead.
Thompson, 50, was believed to be on his way to attend the company's annual investor conference, which was set to take place at the New York Hilton Hotel. Thompson, according to his LinkedIn page, has worked for UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and was named CEO of UnitedHealthcare in April 2021. He was a resident of Minnesota, according to the NYPD.
According to the NYPD, it appears the suspect was "lying in wait for several minutes" before approaching Thompson from behind and firing and striking Thompson multiple times. "Many people passed the suspect, but he appeared to wait for his intended target," said the commissioner.
The shooter, who a detective with the NYPD said appears to be male, then fled the scene, first on foot, and then on an e-bike, and was last seen in Central Park early this morning. There is currently a search underway for the shooter.
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'Right Thing to Do': FERC Delays Controversial LNG Export Terminal
"We are happy about the delay, but these projects don't ever need to be approved and neither does any other LNG facility," one frontline advocate said.
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Frontline communities along the Gulf Coast were granted a "temporary reprieve" last week when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission moved to pause its approval of the controversial Calcasieu Pass 2 liquefied natural gas export terminal while it conducts an assessment of its impact on air quality.
FERC approved Venture Global's CP2 in late June despite opposition from local residents who say the company's nearly identical Calcasieu Pass terminal has already wracked up a history of air quality violations and disturbed ecosystems and fishing grounds in Louisiana's Cameron Parish, harming health and livelihoods.
"This order reveals that FERC recognizes that CP2 LNG's environmental impacts are too great to pass through any real scrutiny" Megan Gibson, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), said in a statement on Monday.
"FERC's pause on construction may give us some temporary reprieve, but this project never should have been authorized in the first place."
FERC's decision follows a request for a rehearing of its June decision filed by frontline residents and community groups including For a Better Bayou and Fishermen Involved in Sustaining Our Heritage (FISH) as well as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. In their request, the groups and individuals pointed to errors the commission had made in its approval decision.
"With this order, it seems FERC is finally willing to acknowledge that it has not done enough to properly consider the cumulative harm on communities caused by building so many of these LNG export terminals so close together," Nathan Matthews, a Sierra Club senior attorney, said in a statement. "Prohibiting construction of CP2 LNG while FERC takes another look at the environmental impact of this massive, polluting facility is the right thing to do."
"Still," Matthews continued, "FERC must take concrete steps to properly evaluate the true scope of the dangers posed to communities from gas infrastructure moving forward and avoid making unwarranted approvals in the future."
FERC's decision comes over four months after the D.C. Circuit Court remanded the commission's approval of Commonwealth LNG, also in Louisiana, over concerns that it had not fully assessed the impacts of that project's air pollution emissions. Now, frontline advocates are urging FERC to do its due diligence as it weighs the environmental impacts of CP2.
"Through the lenses of optical gas imaging, we've seen massive plumes of toxic emissions, undeniable proof that these projects poison the air we breathe," James Hiatt, director of For a Better Bayou, said of LNG export facilities. "Modeling must use the latest data from the most local sources to fully capture the harm these facilities inflict on Cameron Parish. Anything less is a betrayal of our community. FERC must choose justice over profit and stop sacrificing people for polluters."
Gibson of SELC said that FERC had already repeated some of the errors in its CP2 approval in its new order.
"This continued failure to fulfill its regulatory duty is not just an oversight—it is a failure to protect vulnerable communities and our economy from the real potential harms of this massive export project," Gibson said.
FERC's decision comes as the fate of the LNG buildout itself hangs in the balance. The Biden administration's Department of Energy is currently rushing to complete its renewed assessment of whether or not LNG exports serve the public interest. Environmental and frontline groups have argued that they do not because of local pollution, the fact that they would raise domestic energy bills, and their contribution to the climate emergency. CP2 alone would spew 8,510,099 metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent per year, which is about the same as adding 1,850,000 new gas cars to the road.
While President-elect Donald Trump has promised to "drill, baby, drill" and is likely to disregard any Biden administration conclusions, a strong outgoing statement against LNG exports would help bolster legal challenges to Trump energy policy.
At the same time, Bill McKibben pointed out in a column on Tuesday that the administration's pause on LNG export approvals while it updates its public interest criteria has acted to slow the industry's expansion, and that FERC's reconsideration of CP2 could add to this delay.
"The vote for the new review is 4-0, and bipartisan," McKibben wrote. "It could slow down approvals for the project till, perhaps, the third quarter of next year. And that's good news, because the rationale for new LNG exports shrinks with each passing month, as the gap between the price of clean solar, wind, and battery power, and the price of fossil fuel, continues to grow."
Ultimately, frontline Gulf Coast advocates want to see the LNG buildout halted entirely.
"I, along with the fishermen in Cameron, Louisiana, know firsthand how harmful LNG exports are, and see the total disregard they have for human life as they poison our families and seafood," said FISH founder Travis Dardar, an Indigenous fisherman in Cameron, Louisiana. "FERC's pause on construction may give us some temporary reprieve, but this project never should have been authorized in the first place. As far as anyone who believes in the fairytale of LNG being cleaner, we have paid with our communities and livelihoods. It's time to break these chains and turn away from this false solution."
Roisheta Ozaine, a prominent anti-LNG activist and founder of the Vessel Project of Louisiana, said that she, as a mother in an environmental justice community, saw "firsthand how LNG facilities prioritize profit over the well-being of our families. Commonwealth and CP2 are no different."
"We are happy about the delay, but these projects don't ever need to be approved and neither does any other LNG facility," Ozane continued. "My children are suffering from health conditions that threaten their daily lives, all while regulatory agencies and elected officials turn a blind eye. It's time for our leaders to put people before profit and prioritize the health of our communities over the pollution that harms us. We deserve a future where our children's health is safeguarded, not sacrificed."
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