Sebelius Key to Achieving Universal Health Care – National Consumers League

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by Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Universal health care has long been a top priority for the National Consumers League since our early Josephine Roche, who served as adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt and wrote the first universal health care bill during the late 1930s. Pieces of that legislation laid the groundwork for the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

President Obama pledged throughout his campaign to enact laws to provide that every man woman and child in U.S. has access to affordable, safe, and effective health care. It is unconscionable that the richest nation in the world hasn’t found a way to provide basic care for its citizens. The results of this failed policy are disastrous: 46 million Americans have no health insurance, and an abundance of bankruptcies due to lack of health insurance among consumers who face illness or accident and have to pay out-of-pocket for medical expenses. As many Americans lose their jobs in this difficult economy, and millions of families are added to the rolls of the uninsured, American companies, most notably the auto industry, have to pay $1,000 extra for every car they sell – an expense not borne by their European or Japanese counterparts – because of health care costs for their employees and retirees.

President Obama’s first pick to steer the nation on the path to universal care, former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle, withdrew his name from the running when it turned out he hadn’t paid an important tax bill. That was a shame, because Daschle, the author of a book that has served as a manifesto on health care reform, knew where he wanted to go. He had the kind of close relationships in Congress required to steer this complicated legislative ship through the minefield that is inevitable as we see special interests fighting over every line in the health care reform bills.

The good news is that the President has nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who looks to be a friend to consumers. A democrat in a red state (she enjoys a 57 percent approval rating) who casts herself as a “consumer champion,” Sebelius opposed rationed care and rapid hospital discharges as governor of Kansas, declined campaign contributions from industries she regulated while serving as Insurance Commissioner, and in 2002 rejected the purchase of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas by Anthem Inc, a company based in Indianapolis. Sebelius argued that the sale would result in higher premiums in Kansas, and she won the subsequent lawsuit challenging her decision.

The important thing to know about Sebelius (and a skill that will serve her well in the HHS post) is that she has fought battles to advance the cause of universal health care in Kansas, calling for universal coverage in her 2007 State of the State address, fighting to insure coverage of children 5 and under. She also comes from a political family; her father was Ohio Governor John Gilligan and her father in law, John Sebelius, served in Congress.

As we seek to finally achieve universal health coverage in the United States, this cabinet slot is perhaps more important than any other. I think NCL’s Josephine Roche would be pleased with the choice of Governor Sebelius to guide our nation in its quest to achieve universal care for all Americans (though Roche would no doubt be shocked to learn we hadn’t achieved it in 2009!) – and I think we should be too.

Stimulus to Aid Those Who Most Need It – National Consumers League

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by Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

According to a recent New York Times poll, 55 percent of Americans are earning enough to just make ends meet; 6 in ten of those polled say they fear that someone in their household could lose his or her job in the next year. Sixty percent said the economic outlook is “very bad.” Despite those gloomy numbers, more than 75 percent still said they were optimistic: 55 percent said  they are optimistic about the next four years with Barack Obama as president.

That’s important, because the economic situation is dire, and the President is going to need a lot of wind behind his back to make his new budget – and the stimulus package that goes with it – work for our country.

The stimulus contains badly needed help for those on the bottom rung of the workforce, those who have lost their jobs and need help from an important safety net: unemployment insurance. But it comes with strings attached for any state that accepts the money.

The issue of providing help for those who’ve lost their jobs goes back to NCL’s roots – Florence Kelley, the League’s first General Secretary, advocated for unemployment insurance many decades ago. In 1922, the National Consumers League worked for passage of a bill that provided unemployment insurance in Wisconsin, the first such bill of its kind and did the same over a decade later, testifying in Albany before the New York Legislature for passage of unemployment insurance.

NCL also testified before Congress in the 1930s for federal support for state unemployment insurance. Along with minimum wage and limits on working hours, NCL’s leaders believed that help for those who, through no fault of their own, had lost their jobs, was a critical part of the economic safety net.

However, today, unemployment insurance is not available to everyone who has lost a job. And some states provide such restrictive coverage that those in greatest need cannot get help. So the stimulus law says that states getting stimulus money must extend unemployment protections to low income workers and others previously denied compensation.

To qualify for the first 1/3 of federal aid, the states need to fix eligibility requirements that exclude low income workers. To qualify for the rest of the aid, states have to chose from a series of options that include extending benefits to part time workers or those who leave their jobs for urgent family demands, like domestic violence or a very sick child. The National Employment Law Project or NELP, whose legal co-director, Cathy Ruckelhaus, spoke at the League’s Muller v. Oregon conference held in June of 2008, says that 19 states qualify for some of the federal financing, and a dozen others could become eligible by making some small changes in their eligibility requirements. Workers in the Deep South are the worst off – Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas stand out. Shockingly, some Southern state governors are threatening to reject this federal assistance for their poorest workers because they argue it could lead to new state taxes, among them Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina. This is a disturbing stance, given the high rates of unemployment in these states.

We agree with the New York Times: “… by dumping billions of dollars into shrinking state unemployment funds, which puts money into the hands of people who spend it immediately on food and shelter, the stimulus could help states through the recession and into a time when unemployment trust funds can be replenished. In other words, the stimulus could make a tax increase less likely.” This federal assistance comes at a critical moment in history and governors should welcome it on behalf of their citizens, not find poor excuses for rejecting funds badly needed by the lowest income workers in their states.

Happy National Consumer Protection Week! – National Consumers League

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Yesterday was the official kick-off of this year’s National Consumer Protection Week, and consumer advocates (at least those not temporarily buried under a rare DC snowstorm) have begun the celebration!

Every year, federal, state, and local government agencies and consumer organizations from across the nation collaborate to bring American consumers timely, important info about consumer issues. This year’s theme is “Nuts and Bolts: Tools for Today’s Economy,” and it’s especially relevant, given how crazy and scary our economy is these days. The organizations and agencies we work with on the NCPW Steering Committee are an awesome group of dedicated consumer educators and advocates, and its their hard work that results in each year’s NCPW!

Whether you are interested in trying to stretch your paycheck, improve your credit history, or tell the difference between a real deal and a potentially fraudulent product or service, information is one tool that can always help you get the most for your money. And the best news is that this information is all FREE!

In celebration of NCPW, we at the National Consumers League have put together a new section at fraud.org about avoiding pyramid schemes (we blogged about this last week) and are working hard to educate consumers on a  wide variety of topics. Stay tuned for more this week about the issues that we think are important to consumers during NCPW — and year-round!