Health Care Alert

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We Need Real Universal Health Care Coverage

By John Conyers

Created Apr 23 2007 - 11:54pm

The health care crisis we face today affects everyone, overwhelming America's workers and businesses. Many low-wage earners do not receive health benefits and cannot afford insurance. Higher salaried workers know that the cost of their health insurance may lead to the next round of layoffs.

More than 46 million Americans lack basic health care coverage. Millions more face high deductibles and staggering costs leaving essential care out of reach.

We can no longer seek gradual reforms or provide insurance companies with financial incentives to solve the problem. The time has come for a single payer national health care system that provides complete care to all Americans.

Since the 2006 elections, we have heard plenty of new voices calling for universal health care. Unfortunately, many of these claim to be universal health care, but are merely bandaids to the problem.

One proposal has the federal government giving billions of dollars to insurance companies to cover the uninsured. Other proposals only cover children or shift the entire burden of healthcare to employees in the form of health savings accounts.

Unfortunately, patchwork fixes like these will not work. The only way to provide a lasting solution to our health care crisis is through single payer universal health care. We must not let the movement toward universal health care be co-opted by proposals that serve to enrich those seeking to extend the status quo at the expense of true reform.

To address this need, I have introduced H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act. My bill would create a single payer universal health care system by strengthening and extending the Medicare program to cover all Americans.

Please help me enact this important legislation by signing this statement of support [0]. We must have real reform through a single payer universal health care program if we are to solve our nation's health care crisis.

N.J. Governor Critical After SUV Crash

Friday April 13, 2007 12:46 PM

By GEOFF MULVIHILL

Associated Press Writer

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine was in critical condition Friday but expected to recover after his motorcade was hit on the Garden State Parkway and crashed into a guardrail, breaking his leg, six ribs, his sternum and fracturing a vertebrae.

Authorities were searching for a pickup truck driver whose actions were blamed for the crash.

Corzine, 60, won't be able to resume his duties as governor for several days, if not weeks, and he won't walk normally for months, his doctor said. Fortunately, he did not suffer any brain damage in the crash, said Dr. Robert Ostrum, who performed two hours of surgery on the governor Thursday night at Cooper University Hospital.

``He's in serious shape, but he's alive and going to survive. Hopefully, he'll be back to work in a few weeks,'' said state Senate President Richard Codey, who took over as acting governor, speaking Friday on WNBC-TV.

Corzine was in the front passenger's seat of a sport utility vehicle driven by a state trooper when a white pickup truck swerved to avoid a red pickup truck that had moved onto the highway from the shoulder, State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes said. The white pickup hit the passenger side of the SUV, sending it skidding into a guardrail. The red pickup left the scene.

The crash occurred around 6 p.m. while Corzine was en route from Atlantic City to the governor's mansion in Princeton to moderate a meeting between the Rutgers women's basketball team and radio personality Don Imus.

Imus was fired from his CBS radio program Thursday amid furor about racially charged comments he made about the team on air. The closed-door meeting went on without Corzine, and lasted for about three hours.

Fuentes said it was unclear whether the governor was wearing his seat belt at the time of the crash.

Troopers in a vehicle following Corzine's administered first aid and called for help. Corzine, Trooper Robert Rasinski and a gubernatorial aide were flown by helicopter to the hospital.

When Corzine arrived at the hospital, doctors said he was conscious but had several injuries: a femur bone broken in two places that had lacerated his skin, a broken sternum, six broken ribs on each side, a head laceration and a minor fracture on a lower vertebrae. Rasinski had minor injuries and the aide was fine.

The governor was moved to the hospital's trauma intensive care unit after surgery and was listed in critical but stable condition early Friday. He was sedated and receiving pain medication.

Ostrum said a rod was inserted in Corzine's leg, and additional operations were scheduled for Saturday and Monday. The injuries were not considered life-threatening, but it would be at least three to six months before Corzine could walk normally, he said.

``He's got a pretty significant rehab in front of him,'' Ostrum said.

Corzine, a Democrat who gave up his seat in the U.S. Senate to become governor, went into politics after being ousted from Goldman Sachs, where he had been CEO, in a power dispute in 1999. He was elected to the Senate the following year.

The acting governor, Codey, also served as acting governor for about 14 months before Corzine took office last year following former Gov. James McGreevey's resigning over an extramarital affair with a man.

Associated Press Writer Angela Delli Santi in Trenton contributed to this report.

Bush's Budget Projects $333 Billion Tax Increase

Editor's note: I am moving to post at the primary blog(also see new articles below).
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March 26, 2007

Joint Tax Committee Releases Description of Tax Provisions in President's Budget, Projects $333 Billion Tax Increase from Proposed Standard Deduction for Health Insurance

The Joint Committee on Taxation today released Description of Revenue Provisions Contained in the President's Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Proposal (JCS-2-07):

This document, prepared by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, provides a description and analysis of the revenue provisions modifying the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the “Code”) that are contained in the President’s fiscal year 2008 budget proposal, as submitted to the Congress on February 5, 2007. The document generally follows the order of the proposals as included in the Department of the Treasury’s explanation of the President’s budget proposal. For each provision, there is a description of present law and the proposal (including effective date), a reference to relevant prior budget proposals or recent legislative action, and an analysis of policy issues related to the proposal.

On page 301, the Joint Committee projects that the President's proposed standard deduction for health insurance, coupled with repeal of the exclusion for employer-paid health insurance, self-employed health insurance deduction, and itemized medical deductions, would result in a $333 billion tax increase over 10 years.

March 26, 2007 in Congressional News | Permalink