November, 15 2021, 01:46pm EDT
Watchdog Applauds Biden Admin for Protecting Greater Chaco Landscape, Calls for Reforming Public Lands Leasing Program Without Further Delay
WASHINGTON
Today responding to news that President Biden will initiate consideration of a 20-year administrative withdrawal of federal lands and minerals from future mineral development in an approximately 10-mile withdrawal area surrounding the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, government watchdog Accountable.US released the following statement:
"This is a region of great cultural, spiritual, and historical significance to many Pueblos and native tribes going back more than a millennium," said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US. "The Biden administration was right to protect this area from new federal oil and gas leasing and development. We applaud their decisive action and encourage them to be equally bold by reforming the overall public lands leasing program without further delay."
Accountable.US is a nonpartisan watchdog that exposes corruption in public life and holds government officials and corporate special interests accountable by bringing their influence and misconduct to light. In doing so, we make way for policies that advance the interests of all Americans, not just the rich and powerful.
LATEST NEWS
Amid Gaza Genocide, Palestinians Renew Push for UN Membership
"The intention is to put the application to a vote in the Security Council this month."
Apr 02, 2024
As the official death toll from Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip approached 33,000 on Tuesday, Palestinians renewed their yearslong effort to have Palestine recognized as a United Nations member state.
Thanks to a 2012 resolution, Palestine can currently participate in the sessions and work of the U.N. General Assembly as a nonmember observer state and maintain a mission at the global organization's headquarters.
On Tuesday, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to the United Nations, sent a short letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres requesting that the Security Council review Palestine's pending membership application from 2011.
The letter came after the ambassador toldReuters on Monday that "the intention is to put the application to a vote in the Security Council this month"—specifically, at an April 18 ministerial meeting.
The chairs of the Arab Group, Organization of Islamic Cooperation Group, and Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement also wrote to Guterres as well as the presidents of the Security Council and General Assembly on Tuesday to support the application and highlight that 140 U.N. member states recognize Palestine.
As Reuters detailed:
An application to become a full U.N. member needs to be approved by the Security Council—where the United States can cast a veto—and then at least two-thirds of the 193-member General Assembly.
The U.S. mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan said that the Palestinian Authority had not met the required criteria for statehood in its 2011 bid for full U.N. membership and "has only moved further from the goals it should achieve since."
"In addition, whoever supports recognizing a Palestinian state at such a time not only gives a prize to terror, but also backs unilateral steps which are contradictory to the agreed upon principle of direct negotiations," Erdan said.
Israel has become increasingly isolated on the world stage since launching its devastating assault on Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on October 7. In addition to killing and injuring over 100,000 Palestinians in less than six months, Israeli forces have displaced most of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million residents and severely restricted the flow of humanitarian aid—causing people to starve to death.
South Africa is leading a case against Israel at the U.N.'s International Court of Justice, which has found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Hamas-governed Gaza. Governments are under mounting pressure to stop sending weapons to Israel.
After vetoing three Security Council resolutions calling for a cease-fire throughout the war, the United States—which gives Israel billions of dollars in annual military aid—finally abstained last week, allowing one to pass while downplaying its significance.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Campaigners Beat 'Greedy' Insurance Giants Exploiting Medicare Advantage
"The private insurance industry is used to getting its way, but this year we out-organized them," said one People's Action leader.
Apr 02, 2024
As insurance companies' stock fell 6-12% on Tuesday in response to the Biden administration's Medicare Advantage announcement, one healthcare campaigner celebrated that the U.S. government didn't cave to the "greedy" industry's pressure.
"The private insurance industry is used to getting its way, but this year we out-organized them," declared Aija Nemer-Aanerud, the People's Action Health Care for All campaign director.
Medicare Advantage (MA) plans are an alternative to traditional coverage under the federal health insurance program for people with disabilities and those age 65 or older. They are administered by private insurance companies known for denying patients necessary care and overcharging the government, which costs taxpayers up to $140 billion extra each year.
"We urge President Biden to do more to rein in abuse of the Medicare program by private corporations."
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Monday that "payments from the government to MA plans are expected to increase on average by 3.7%, or over $16 billion, from 2024 to 2025. The federal government is projected to pay between $500 and $600 billion in Medicare Advantage payments to private health plans in 2025."
First unveiled in January, the 3.7% is higher than what campaigners wanted. Last week, Alex Lawson of Social Security Works and Brittany Shannahan of Public Citizen delivered to the White House around 28,000 petition signatures urging President Joe Biden to "reduce MA rates to a level commensurate with traditional Medicare and recoup all overpayments."
However, the rate is also far less than what insurers and industry groups were demanding—and, as Reutersnoted Tuesday, the decision was a departure from the norm, as CMS "typically raises the final reimbursement from the advanced notice."
"Medicare is one of the most popular government programs because it delivers healthcare to people when and where they need it," said Nemer-Aanerud. "Private insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare spent millions in advertising and lobbying in Washington to demand more of our public money for privatized, so-called 'Medicare Advantage' plans."
The People's Action leader pointed out that "we countered their lobbying by helping people share their stories with lawmakers about how Medicare Advantage plans harmed them by denying care when they needed it most."
"We commend the Biden administration for listening to our people and refusing to cave to the insurance lobby's demands," the campaigner added. "We urge President Biden to do more to rein in abuse of the Medicare program by private corporations and reinvest public funds into expanding and strengthening traditional Medicare."
As private insurers have grown their MA businesses, "concerns about the cost of the program have been rising for years from wonkier corners of Washington," Bloomberg's John Tozzi reported Tuesday. According to his newsletter:
"We went years without the advocacy community really paying attention to it," says Wendell Potter, who left a career doing public relations for health insurers to become an outspoken critic of the industry.
That shifted over the last year or two, he said, as a loose group of advocates coalesced around the issue... Potter said advocates now get face-to-face meetings with top Biden administration officials about the issue.
Potter partnered with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—a leader in the fight for Medicare for All, a single-payer healthcare system that would cover everyone nationwide—for a Newsweek op-ed published just before the CMS announcement.
The pair took aim at the insurance industry's "disinformation campaign" about what they call "Medicare (Dis)Advantage."
"First off, the industry claims that Medicare Advantage plans reduce costs. But this is simply not true," Potter and Jayapal explained. "And it gets worse. While Big Insurance touts the coverage Medicare Advantage plans provide, the reality is Medicare Advantage plans often provide worse coverage than traditional Medicare."
They wrote that "another important characteristic of Medicare Advantage plans is their aggressive use of tools to delay and deny care such as prior authorization, which is seldom used in traditional Medicare, and rarely for services like physician-administered cancer treatments (no one wants chemotherapy if they don't need it)."
"Medicare Advantage plans also drive health inequalities, contrary to Big Insurance claims," they continued. "And the industry's biggest and boldest piece of disinformation is that Medicare Advantage plans will be forced to cut benefits if the government stops massive overpayments that have been padding corporate profits for decades."
"This is wholly false," they stressed. "And you want to know how we know? Because we have reduced overpayments before."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Forbes Billionaires List Shows 'Utterly Unconscionable' Wealth Growth of World's Richest
The Forbes Billionaires List "is essentially an annual calculation of how much of the wealth created by the global economy is captured by a tiny caste of oligarchs rather than being used to benefit humanity as a whole."
Apr 02, 2024
Forbes on Tuesday released its latest catalog of, as one economic justice campaigner put it, people who should be regulated "out of existence" as the business magazine unveiled its 2024 Billionaires List, featuring near the top a number of U.S. tech billionaires who have aggressively opposed workers' rights movements and fair taxation.
The magazine reported that the number of worldwide billionaires grew by 141 in the past year, with 2,781 people holding wealth that exceeds $1 billion.
Those people own combined assets of $14.2 trillion, exceeding the gross domestic product of every country in the world except the U.S. and China.
Bernard Arnault, head of the LVMH fashion and cosmetics empire in France, currently holds the top slot on the Billionaires List, while Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are No. 2 and No. 3 on the list.
Both Musk and Bezos have garnered international attention in recent years for their companies' illegal anti-union activity, and Tesla and Amazon have both avoided billions of dollars in federal taxes in recent years.
"It is utterly unconscionable that at a time where masses of the world's population are living in dire poverty, a few individuals are allowed to amass staggering wealth," said Daisy Pearson, campaigns and activism officer at Global Justice Now. "This is only possible through exploitation, and their monopolization of wealth and resources further allows them to amass huge power and influence over decisions that affect our everyday lives. Enough is enough—we should be regulating these barons out of existence."
"It is utterly unconscionable that at a time where masses of the world's population are living in dire poverty, a few individuals are allowed to amass staggering wealth."
Chase Peterson-Withorn, wealth editor at Forbes, toldThe Guardian that "the superrich continue to thrive" as people across the planet face higher prices of goods, cost-of-living crises, and the costs associated with increasingly frequent extreme weather events and the climate emergency.
"A record-breaking 14 centibillionaires [$100 billion] have 12-figure fortunes," Peterson-Whithorn said.
Luke Hildyard, executive director of the High Pay Center, told the outlet that the Forbes list, rather than an accounting of those who have earned the most money, "is essentially an annual calculation of how much of the wealth created by the global economy is captured by a tiny caste of oligarchs rather than being used to benefit humanity as a whole."
While the global population is "living through incredibly unequal times, lurching from one crisis to the next," added Robert Palmer, executive director of Tax Justice U.K., the richest people in the world amass "extraordinary levels of wealth."
"World leaders need to ensure the superrich are paying their fair share, for example through introducing wealth taxes," said Palmer. "This would help provide the resources needed to tackle multiple crises from inequality to climate change."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular