Pining for Taxpayer Bailout, For-Profit Health Insurance Industry Threatens Massive Post-Covid Premium Hikes

"Why should Congress enrich insurance companies with our public money when their duty is to protect the public, not to protect corporate profits?"


by
Eoin Higgins, staff writer




https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/pining-taxpayer-bailout-profit-health-insurance-industry-threatens-massive-post







A lobbyist told The Hill in an interview Tuesday that unless the insurance industry receives a federal bailout, companies intend to raise premiums on Americans due to the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on private employer-based plans—a threat that progressives said only strengthens the case for a single-payer, Medicare for All system.


"Nationalize them," Boston-based activist Jonathan Cohn said of insurance companies.


American Benefits Council senior vice president for health policy Ilyse Schuman said that employer-based healthcare plans were unlikely to handle the stress of an increase in benefit claims from the disease without hiking prices for consumers.

"They'll be left with no option but to pass costs along to employees in the form of higher premiums next year," said Schuman. "That's really why we're asking Congress to step in and protect employer-sponsored coverage."

According to The Hill, insurers are already asking for federal relief from the burden of paying out claims:


America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the leading trade group for insurance companies, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association urged congressional leaders in a letter last week to provide temporary "federal risk mitigation programs to support the financial stability of plans that incur extraordinary, unplanned costs in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19."




The industry's need for a bailout in order to meet obligations built into its business model struck a number of progressive observers as indicative of the need for fundamental change in the way Americans access care.

"One more reason for Medicare for All," tweeted the Rittenberg Report blog.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) unveiled legislation to that end on Friday, calling for universal healthcare for all Americans at least through the duration of the coronavirus crisis.

"If this pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we are only as safe as the least-insured among us," Sanders said in a statement announcing the plan.

Attorney Emma Caterine told Common Dreams that bill was a better option than bailing out the industry.

"Rep. Jayapal and Sen. Sanders' bill would actually provide people healthcare without having to go through insurance companies that want to profit off this crisis," said Caterine. "Why should Congress enrich insurance companies with our public money when their duty is to protect the public, not to protect corporate profits?"

'A Complete Abomination': Mega-Rich Hedge Funds Swoop Down to Grab Covid-19 Small Business Relief Funds

Some hedge funds "insist they are small businesses—just like hair salons, restaurants, and dry cleaners—that could use a helping hand," Bloomberg reported.


by
Jake Johnson, staff writer







https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/complete-abomination-mega-rich-hedge-funds-swoop-down-grab-covid-19-small-business




As small business owners struggle to obtain desperately needed money from a first-come-first-served federal coronavirus relief program, some wealthy hedge fund managers are attempting snag a share of the $350 billion taxpayer fund with the help of high-powered legal firms that know how to quickly navigate the confusing application process.

"Some hedge funds already have applied" for a loan under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Bloomberg reported Tuesday. PPP is a relief fund for small businesses established by the CARES Act, the sweeping coronavirus stimulus legislation that President Donald Trump signed into law last month.


Companies are eligible for PPP funds if they have fewer than 500 employees and the "current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary to support the ongoing operations.""Since early April, law firms have hosted Webinars and sent out alerts, and accounting firms have reached out to clients, all with the goal of explaining how they might be able to tap into the Paycheck Protection Program," Bloomberg reported. "The loans can convert to grants if recipients retain or rehire their workers."

Hedge funds "are designed to employ as few people as possible so star traders don't have to share millions of dollars in fees," Bloomberg noted, meaning they often have a low enough number of employees to qualify for PPP loans. But whether a taxpayer-backed loan is "necessary" for them to maintain operations is another matter entirely.

"The question of whether to partake in the program is dividing members of the money management community," Bloomberg reported. "Some traders have called it morally corrupt, while others insist they are small businesses—just like hair salons, restaurants, and dry cleaners—that could use a helping hand after global markets tumbled and cost them money."

Donald Motschwiller, CEO of First New York, a hedge fund that manages $2.9 billion in assets, told Bloomberg that while he hasn't decided whether to apply for federal relief for his firm, none of the 15 hedge funds in his circle he asked about the program said they would object to applying for loans.

Other hedge fund managers feel differently.




"It's a complete abomination," Nate Koppikar, a partner at San Francisco-based hedge fund Orso Partners, told Bloomberg.

"While we recognize that every manager must make their own decision about the viability of their firm, we have provided guidance to our members that we do not believe the money in this program was intended for managers general partnership interests," Bryan Corbett, president and CEO of the Managed Funds Association, an industry trade group, said in a statement to Bloomberg.

Critics warn that a lack of oversight of the sprawling stimulus package could mean that the public won't know which companies are benefiting from taxpayer funds that were meant to help small businesses keep workers on payroll amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.


Hedge fund titans are not the only wealthy people attempting to profit off the small business program.

As Common Dreams reported last week, some of the nation's most profitable private equity firms are pressuring the Trump administration and members of Congress to tweak federal regulations to allow them to benefit from PPP.

Attempts by wealthy money managers to obtain small business loans come as Congress is considering pumping $250 billion more into the program, which got off to a disastrous start earlier this month as business owners without access to savvy legal teams experienced difficulties applying for relief.

"Many firms are still struggling to apply for the money as they face technical glitches and confusion about lending terms," USA Today reported Monday. "Hundreds of thousands of others have gotten approval but still haven't received funding."

Analysis Reveals 'Rotten, Un-American Giveaway' GOP Buried in COVID-19 Relief Package to Overwhelmingly Benefit Millionaires

"It's a scandal for Republicans to loot American taxpayers in the midst of an economic and human tragedy," declared Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.


by
Jessica Corbett, staff writer




https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/analysis-reveals-rotten-un-american-giveaway-gop-buried-covid-19-relief-package







Democratic lawmakers and progressive critics expressed outrage Tuesday after a nonpartisan congressional body found that nearly 82% of benefits from a Republican tax provision in the most recent coronavirus relief package will go to the nation's millionaires and billionaires and cost taxpayers an estimated $90 billion this year alone.


"This analysis shows that while Democrats fought for unemployment insurance and small business relief, a top priority of President Trump and his allies in Congress was another massive tax cut for the wealthy," Whitehouse said in a statement. "Congress should repeal this rotten, un-American giveaway and use the revenue to help workers battling through this crisis."The finding came in a new Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) analysis released by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) detailing the expected impact of the GOP provision, which was part of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed into law by President Donald Trump last month.

Noting the current health and financial conditions created by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Whitehouse added that "it's a scandal for Republicans to loot American taxpayers in the midst of an economic and human tragedy."


The tax provision in question "temporarily suspends a limitation on how much owners of businesses formed as 'pass-through' entities can deduct against their nonbusiness income, such as capital gains, to reduce their tax liability," the Washington Post explained. "The limitation was created as part of the 2017 Republican tax law to offset other tax cuts to firms in that legislation."

Less than 3% of people set to benefit from the suspension earn under $100,000 per year, according to the JCT. The controversial provision is part of a set of tax changes in the coronavirus package that is expected to add about $170 billion to the national deficit over the next decade.

As the Post reported, the new JCT analysis also "included the impact of another tax change in the coronavirus relief legislation that allows firms to write off 100% rather than 80% of their losses, reversing another change in the 2017 tax law."

The JCT analysis (pdf) came after Whitehouse and Doggett sent a letter to Trump administration officials requesting information that could help explain the origins of the GOP provisions to the relief package. It also followed reporting that Trump, his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and real estate investors in the president's "inner circle" could benefit from the legislation's tax giveaways.


Doggett tried to put the impact of the tax changes into context Tuesday by pointing out that "for those earning $1 million annually, a tax break buried in the recent coronavirus relief legislation is so generous that its total cost is more than total new funding for all hospitals in America and more than the total provided to all state and local governments."




"Someone wrongly seized on this health emergency to reward ultrarich beneficiaries, likely including the Trump family, with a tax loophole not available to middle class families," the Texas congressman added. "This net operating loss loophole is a loser that should be repealed."

The analysis requested by Whitehouse and Doggett also riled other Democrats in Congress, including Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.).


Reporting on the analysis elicited sharp condemnation of congressional Republicans—including calls to #VoteThemAllOut in November—and arguments that wealthy Americans should be paying more, not less, in taxes to help get the country through this public health crisis:


The JCT analysis was released as the fourth phase of coronavirus relief legislation remained stalled in Congress. Critics of the federal response to the pandemic—which includes "paltry" $1,200 checks to Americans that banks can reportedly seize to pay down outstanding loans and fees—have urged the public to learn from the crisis and push for a major shift in government going forward.

"After an era of right-wing ascendance, the pendulum is poised to swing toward justice and equity," Amy Hanauer of the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) wrote Tuesday in an op-ed for Common Dreams. "What we need now is a more fundamental transformation that addresses fissures that were there before this virus hit and that are making this virus hit harder."

No Trump, Says Watchdog Group, American Coronavirus Deaths Have Not Been "Very Low"

"The facts, again, remain Trump's biggest albatross."


by
Jessica Corbett, staff writer




https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/no-trump-says-watchdog-group-american-coronavirus-deaths-have-not-been-very-low







The watchdog group Public Citizen on Tuesday challenged President Donald Trump's repeated claims that casualties in the United States related to the coronavirus are "very low," adding to mounting criticism from across the globe over how his administration has handled the crisis.

"Trump's habitual disregard for the facts and his fantasies about his administration's grossly negligent pandemic response pose an ongoing mortal danger to U.S. citizens," Dr. Michael Carome, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, declared in response to the president's Monday night COVID-19 briefing.

After a reporter at the briefing asked whether Trump agreed that putting coronavirus mitigation practices in place earlier would have saved lives, the president rambled on about the spread of the virus in recent months before saying that "by the way, we're doing very well because when you look at all of those flat graphs and you add it all up, the United States is very low, and per capita we're very low. We're doing very well."

Carome pushed back against that comment in his statement Tuesday. "The facts, again, remain Trump's biggest albatross," he said. "The per capita numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths in the U.S. compared with other countries are very high."

According to Carmone:


Data compiled by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control reveal that among 204 countries and territories, the U.S. ranks 17th in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and 15th in the number of COVID-19 deaths per capita.

Similarly, among the 36 economically advanced countries comprising the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the U.S. ranks eighth in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and 11th in the number of COVID-19 deaths per capita.




The United States had at least 589,048 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 25,163 related deaths as of press time Tuesday, according to the Johns Hopkins tracker. Globally, there were 1,956,077 cases and 125,123 deaths.

As the U.S. has become the epicenter of the global pandemic—which experts believe began in China late last year—both Trump and congressional leaders have faced intense criticism for responding to the country's outbreak with inadequate measures to limit the spread of the virus and provide health and financial relief to the public.

Trump's "disastrous crisis management" throughout the pandemic has left people within and beyond the United States asking, in the words of German news magazine Der Spiegel: "Are we witnessing the implosion of a superpower?"

Viet Thanh Nguyen, a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, suggested Friday that "if anything good emerges out of this period, it might be an awakening to the pre-existing conditions of our body politic. We were not as healthy as we thought we were. The biological virus afflicting individuals is also a social virus."

"Its symptoms—inequality, callousness, selfishness , and a profit motive that undervalues human life and overvalues commodities—were for too long masked by the hearty good cheer of American exceptionalism, the ruddiness of someone a few steps away from a heart attack," Nguyen continued. "Even if America as we know it survives the coronavirus, it can hardly emerge unscathed."

"If the illusion of invincibility is shredded for any patient who survives a near-fatal experience," he added, "then what might die after COVID-19 is the myth that we are the best country on earth, a belief common even among the poor, the marginal, the precariat, who must believe in their own Americanness if in nothing else."

Nothing But a Taxpayer 'Subsidy to Insurers': Democrats Float Plan to Backstop For-Profit Healthcare Industry During Covid-19 Pandemic

"Democrats are doing exactly what insurance companies want by expanding COBRA. We need Medicare for All now."


by
Eoin Higgins, staff writer







https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/nothing-taxpayer-subsidy-insurers-democrats-float-plan-backstop-profit-healthcare




House Democratic leadership came under fire Tuesday after it was reported a proposal is now under consideration to backstop for-profit healthcare insurance companies with taxpayer dollars instead of simply opening public programs like Medicare and Medicaid to those laid off or uninsured amidst the coronavirus outbreak ravaging the country.

Under the proposal, first viewed and reported on by Vox, the costs of COBRA—an existing program which allows laid-off and furloughed workers to continue to buy into their employer-provided insurance plan by shouldering all or a large portion of the premiums—would be assumed by the federal government.

According to Vox:


The Worker Health Coverage Protection Act would expand that to 100 percent coverage, both for laid-off workers and furloughed ones. In the case of laid-off employees, these new COBRA subsidies would cover both the employee and employer portions of the premium costs. In the case of furloughed workers, the bill would just cover the cost of the employee’s premiums because the employer would continue to pay in as well.

"It's affordable because if you don't have a job you're going to get significant subsidies," said Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), one of the bill's sponsors and the chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor.

The Democratic Socialists of America said lawmakers should concentrate on solutions that help the American people.



"Democrats are doing exactly what insurance companies want by expanding COBRA," tweeted DSA. "We need Medicare for All now."

The bill's friendliness to the insurance industry was noted as a selling point by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation senior policy advisor Katherine Hempstead.

"This proposal should be favored by providers, since it will increase their likelihood of receiving higher commercial rates from these workers," Hempstead told Vox. "Also, this is advantageous for insurers that are in the employer market but not the marketplace."


While the proposed legislation would provide a stopgap for the subsequent loss of insurance for some of the newly unemployed during the economic downturn that's come in the wake of the disease, it won't cover everyone.




As Vox reported:


Even with generous subsidies, it's important to note the bill won't cover everyone; while 49 percent of Americans get their health insurance through their employer, many people who have been laid off work in restaurants or retail—and smaller businesses don’t necessarily provide insurance to their employees. People who got their insurance through the ACA marketplace, for instance, could be in a tough spot.

Progressives panned the proposal as too little too late and as an unnecessarily complicated giveaway to the private health insurance industry.

"If you're really concerned about low reimbursement rates for providers, just insure everyone through Medicare and offer a rate multiplier for enrollees under 65," tweeted healthcare advocate Timothy Faust. "All COBRA expansion does is hand out a subsidy to insurers."

David Sirota, journalist and former top aide to the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), suggested Democrats could also use Medicaid as an avenue for expanding healthcare access for jobless Americans—if they wanted to.

"The Democrats could push to simply expand Medicaid," said Sirota, "but instead they are pushing new subsidies for private health insurance companies."

As Common Dreams reported, a competing bill introduced Friday by Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) would use Medicare to give all Americans no cost healthcare for the extent of the pandemic, effectively shutting out the private health insurance industry and offering relief to all Americans.


In a statement Friday announcing the measure, Jayapal said there was no excuse to withhold care from anyone during the outbreak for any reason.

"Everyone in America should have guaranteed access to health care, especially during national emergency," said Jayapal.

Trump EPA 'Defies Logic' With Emission Standard Rule—Even as Experts Warn Air Pollution Makes Coronavirus More Deadly

Decision by EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler denounced for being "as tone-deaf as it is reckless."


by
Julia Conley, staff writer




https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/trump-epa-defies-logic-emission-standard-rule-even-experts-warn-air-pollution-makes




On the heels of a Harvard University study which showed the long-term effects of air pollution can make coronavirus patients more likely to die from the disease, President Donald Trump's EPA flouted its own scientists' guidance Tuesday when it announced it would not tighten regulations on industrial soot emissions.

According to the New York Times, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler determined that scientists at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health seemed "to have a bias" when they published a study last week showing that exposure to tiny industrial particles called PM 2.5 is making some Americans more likely to die of the coronavirus.


"This decision by Andrew Wheeler is as tone-deaf as it is reckless," said Environmental Working Group president Ken Cook in a statement. "Right now, long-term exposure to PM 2.5 is increasing the number of people who are dying from the coronavirus. If there ever was a moment for all Americans, regardless of political persuasion, to demand the Trump EPA stop gutting the nation's air quality standards and finally place a premium on public health protection, it's now."As a result, power plants and vehicle manufacturers will not be required to lower emissions.

Even before the new coronavirus, officially called COVID-19, began spreading across the U.S. last month, killing more than 25,000 people in the country so far, scientists warned that PM 2.5 pollution contributes to tens of thousands of premature deaths in the U.S. every year.

As the Times reported, scientists believe reducing emissions by only nine micrograms per cubic meter would save more than 12,000 people per year.




Wheeler's decision "defies logic," the advocacy group Environment America said.

"Even before COVID-19, the data clearly showed that America's existing air quality standards weren't doing enough to protect our health," said Morgan Folger of Environment America. "Instead of foregoing its responsibility and mission to protect our health and the environment, EPA should listen to the scientists and strengthen soot protections."

Wheeler reportedly came to his decision following extensive lobbying by automakers and the fossil fuel industry, particularly after the EPA's scientists released last September a 457-page assessment showing that PM 2.5 pollution helps cause about 45,000 deaths per year.

The administrator's "appalling" adherence to the advice of industry polluters rather than scientists and public experts follows a familiar pattern, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) said.

"Wheeler spent much of his career lobbying on behalf of powerful industries like coal producers, and it's clear he sees his job at the EPA as a continuation of that work," said Dr. Gretchen Goldman, research director for UCS. "Nearly every decision he's made has been aimed at making it easier and cheaper to pollute, in defiance of science, the public interest, and the EPA's public health mission he’s supposed to carry out. In the face of our current crisis, this indifference to our health is inexcusable."

'Beyond Predatory': Trump Treasury Department Gives Banks Green Light to Seize $1,200 Stimulus Checks to Pay Off Debts

"The Treasury Department is pointing out opportunities for banks and debt collectors to steal Americans' relief checks out from under them."


by
Jake Johnson, staff writer




https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/beyond-predatory-trump-treasury-department-gives-banks-green-light-seize-1200







President Donald Trump's Treasury Department has given U.S. banks a green light to seize a portion or all of the one-time $1,200 coronavirus relief payments meant to help Americans cope with financial hardship and instead use the money to pay off individuals' outstanding debts—a move consumer advocates decried as cruel and unacceptable.


In an audio recording from the webinar obtained exclusively by the Prospect, Ronda Kent, chief disbursing officer at the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Fiscal Service, told bankers that "there's nothing in the law that precludes" financial institutions from seizing a person's payment and using it to pay off the individual's debts."The Treasury Department effectively blessed this activity on a webinar with banking officials last Friday," The American Prospect's David Dayen reported Tuesday.

"After a third of U.S. renters couldn't make rent this month, the Treasury Department is pointing out opportunities for banks and debt collectors to steal Americans' relief checks out from under them," Jeremy Funk, spokesperson for consumer advocacy group Allied Progress, said in a statement responding to Kent's comments.

"It's the middle of a pandemic," said Funk. "This money should be going toward food, rent, and medicine—it's not the time to hand out favors to debt collection industry donors or pad some big bank's bottom line," said Funk. "Secretary Mnuchin needs to ensure that these $1,200 checks go straight into Americans pockets where they belong."

Listen to the recording:



Americans with direct deposit information on file with the Internal Revenue Service are expected to begin receiving the $1,200 payments in their bank accounts this week, provided that their banks do not opt to seize the money.

Those for whom the government does not have direct deposit information—a group that is disproportionately low-income—could be forced to wait up to five months to receive paper checks in the mail.

The direct payments were authorized under the CARES Act, a massive coronavirus stimulus package President Donald Trump signed into law last month.

As Dayen explained, Congress explicitly exempted the one-time stimulus payments from collection under the CARES Act "if the debt is owed to federal or state agencies, unless the debt involves a child support payment."

"But Congress did not extend this exemption to private debt collection," Dayen wrote. "The payments are defined as tax credits and not federal benefits, making them subject to 'garnishment,' in which a debt collector that wins a judgment in court can seize anything of value held by the debtor."

"Congress did give Treasury the authority under Section 2201(h) of the CARES Act to write rules exempting the payments from private debt collectors," Dayen noted, but the Treasury Department—headed by former Goldman Sachs executive Steve Mnuchin—has thus far refused to exercise that authority despite pressure from Democratic members of Congress and state attorneys general.


On Monday, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey issued guidance stating that the $1,200 payments "are exempt from seizure or garnishment by creditors under Massachusetts law."




"These payments are supposed to help individuals and families put food on the table during this crisis, not enrich debt collectors," Healey said in a statement. "With this guidance... my office is putting the debt collection industry on notice that these payments are off limits."

Healey on Monday also signed onto a letter (pdf) led by New York Attorney General Letitia James urging Mnuchin to issue "a regulation or guidance designating CARES Act payments as 'benefit payments' exempt from garnishment." The letter was signed by 25 state attorneys general.

"During this public health and economic crisis, the states do not believe that the billions of dollars appropriated by Congress to help keep hard-working Americans afloat should be subject to garnishment," the letter states.


"Banks have more immediate access to the coronavirus checks by virtue of having them deposited into accounts at their institutions," Dayen wrote. "They're also in front of the line for repayment of debts ahead of other private debt collectors."Dayen noted that "legally speaking, banks have the right to 'offset' any deposits to pay off delinquent loans, overdraft fees, or other charges."

The possibility that banks could seize individuals' relief payments as millions of people across the U.S. face layoffs, pay cuts, and reductions in work hours sparked outrage on social media.

"This is beyond predatory," tweeted finance expert and investigative journalist Nomi Prins.






Jess Scarane, a progressive running to unseat Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), tweeted that "this 'stimulus' gets worse and worse for working people every day."

"Even the meager help we thought individuals would get can end up in the hands of banks," said Scarane, "while people continue to struggle to put food on their tables and survive."