Pallone Applauds House Passage of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act

Pallone Helped Author New Legislation that Guarantees Free Coronavirus Testing for All Americans, Paid Sick Leave, Protections for Health Care Workers and Provides Important Benefits to Children and Families

Washington, DC – Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) released the following statement after the House of Representatives voted in favor of passing H.R. 6201, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. Pallone is an original co-sponsor of the bill and helped draft key provisions, including a guarantee that all Americans have access to coronavirus testing free of charge, and an increase in the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) that the federal government provides to state and territorial Medicaid programs:

“This week, we continued our ongoing work to respond to the coronavirus global pandemic, which has now claimed the lives of more than 40 Americans. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act recognizes the urgency of the moment and prioritizes America’s families by providing critical support to assist those affected by the outbreak.

“I am proud to have helped write this legislation, which ensures that coronavirus testing will be free of charge for all Americans, establishes paid sick leave for those who have to take time off from their jobs, strengthens food assistance for vulnerable Americans and enhances unemployment assistance for Americans who may be laid off or furloughed. It also increases the FMAP for state and territorial Medicaid programs, which will be critical as we prepare for the ongoing economic consequences of the pandemic.

“This national public health emergency requires a coordinated, whole-of-government response to help slow the virus’ spread and keep Americans safe. This package will help us rise to meet the challenge before us. I stand ready to continue to work across the aisle and with the Administration to respond to this global pandemic and help keep Americans safe.”

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act builds on the $8.3 billion emergency coronavirus spending package that was passed and signed into law last week. That package included support for state and local health agencies, vaccine and treatment development, and loans for affected small businesses to lessen the economic blow of this public health emergency. The State of New Jersey is directly receiving at least $15.6 million from that funding package.

A summary of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act is available here.

Bill text is available here.

Pallone Praises House Passage of Lower Drug Costs Now Act

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 12, 2019


Historic Legislation Empowers Federal Government to Negotiate Lower Drug Prices and Makes Transformational Improvements to Medicare


WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) applauded House passage of his legislation, H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, that would lower the cost of prescription drugs. On Monday, December 16 at 11 AM, Pallone and members of the New Jersey Congressional delegation will hold a press conference at the Piscataway Senior Center to update the public on the bill’s impact.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, one-third of American adults report that they or a family member have not filled a prescription, rationed medication below their prescribed dose, or skipped doses altogether because they could not afford the full cost. In New Jersey, the average annual cost of prescription drugs rose nearly 58 percent between 2012 to 2017. In 2017, 24 percent of New Jersey residents did not take medication as prescribed because of high costs.

“Today, Democrats followed through on our promise to the American people to make prescription drugs more affordable. The historic Lower Drug Costs Now Act will empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time in the history of the program and makes those prices available to all Americans with insurance. The bill also reverses years of unfair price hikes and caps seniors’ out-of-pocket costs on prescription medications at $2,000 per year. This legislation will dramatically rein in costs and puts an end to the price gouging that’s been taking place at the pharmacy counter for years,” Pallone said.

“We then take the savings and reinvest it back into the American people with the most transformative improvements to Medicare since the program’s creation. Under H.R. 3, seniors will have access to vision, hearing and dental coverage through Medicare for the first time. We also invest in critical research to find new cures and treatments, as well as providing much-needed funding to combat the opioid crisis.

“The American people are fed up with paying three, four or ten times more than people in other countries for the exact same drug. I’m proud that the House took decisive action today to finally level the playing field and provide real relief to the American people. I now hope Senator McConnell will follow through on President Trump’s repeated promises to ‘negotiate like crazy’ and take up this bill. We cannot afford to wait. It’s time to negotiate a better deal for the American people,” Pallone concluded.

This month, Pallone announced that the Congressional Budget Office anticipates that the bill will save the federal government $500 billion over ten years. The bill’s savings would be reinvested in transformational improvements to Medicare to deliver vision, dental and hearing benefits to Medicare Part B for the first time, including:

• A new dental benefit that will provide coverage for screening and preventive services, as well as both basic and major treatments. The benefit will also cover one partial or full set of dentures once in a five-year period.
• New vision benefits that would cover routine eye exams, contact lens fitting services, and glasses or contact lenses once every two years. An estimated 20.5 million Medicare beneficiaries have vision problems, yet only 57 percent said they had received an eye examination during the previous year.
• New hearing benefits that include hearing aid coverage for individuals with severe or profound hearing loss. The bill would also recognize audiologists as practitioners under Medicare and allow qualified audiologists to provide aural rehabilitation and treatment services.

The bill also bolsters funding for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), investing over $10 billion with the goal accelerating the search for the next big scientific breakthrough.

Pallone spoke about the legislation on the House Floor. Video of his remarks is available below.



For more information on the bill’s impact in New Jersey, please visit the summary of drug pricing benefits and Medicare benefits.

Pallone on Updated Trumpcare CBO Score

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 25, 2017

Washington, D.C. – Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) issued the following statement today after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued an updated score on the impacts of the amended Trumpcare bill that was passed in the House of Representatives earlier this month:

“Today’s CBO analysis further confirms that Trumpcare is a looming disaster for the American people. It’s clear that changes made at the last minute to garner the necessary votes in the House did nothing to blunt the devastating impacts of Trumpcare. In fact, the new analysis indicates that individuals with pre-existing conditions would be priced out of the individual market as a result of the decision to allow states to waive out of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance market reforms.

“At the end of the day, 23 million Americans could lose health care coverage, millions will pay more for less as premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket costs rise, and millions will once again be discriminated against because of their pre-existing conditions. This analysis shows the cruelty of Trumpcare’s dramatic changes to the Medicaid program, stripping $834 billion away from seniors, children, pregnant women and people with disabilities in order to give a nearly trillion dollar tax cut to the wealthiest few.”

Pallone Condemns House Passage of Trumpcare

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 4, 2017


Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) released the following statement after the House voted 217 to 213 in favor of Trumpcare:

“House Republicans today supported a cruel bill that rips health insurance away from 24 million Americans, forces millions of others to pay more for less, and eviscerates protections for people living with pre-existing conditions.

“By allowing states to waive critical consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act, Trumpcare gives insurance companies free reign to once again discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, and charge exorbitant prices for plans that don’t actually cover the care that people need.

“Trumpcare cruelly cuts $1 trillion in benefits for Medicaid and Medicare in order to give a $900 billion tax cut to the wealthiest Americans and corporations. The bill arbitrarily cuts and caps Medicaid, which will lead to mass rationing of care for seniors in nursing homes, pregnant women and working parents, and people living with disabilities.

“Two months ago House Republicans rightfully rejected Trumpcare, but today, after the bill was made worse, they inexcusably supported an immoral bill that is going to leave millions of Americans without any health security.”

Pallone Warns President-Elect Trump Against Dismantling The Affordable Care Act

Washington, DC: Today, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr., went to the House Floor to express his grave concern about President-elect Trump’s plan to undo the Affordable Care Act:

“Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks:

I rise today to raise serious concerns about the President-elect’s plan to dismantle Obamacare.

As a chief architect of the law, I am proud to report that the percentage of Americans uninsured is at a record low, more than 20 million additional Americans have healthcare, and a million additional enrollees are expected next year.

In my home state of New Jersey, the uninsured rate has fallen from 14.9% to less than 10% in just two years. More than half of New Jerseyans enrolled through the Healthcare Marketplace this year had less than $100 per month. More than 400,000 New Jerseyans have benefitted from Medicaid expansion.

The Affordable Care Act is working.

Reports have surfaced that the President-elect’s plan to dismantle Obamacare would eliminate the subsidies that have enabled more than 70 percent of consumers to find plans at less than $75/month. Any effort to eliminate subsidies would lead to unsustainable cost increases and a loss of healthcare coverage for people nationwide.

There is also a threat to undo the Medicaid expansion under which almost 16 million Americans have been insured. With children representing about half of all Medicaid recipients, the elimination of that expansion would be disastrous for the most vulnerable Americans.

Democrats stand ready to work to improve and strengthen the Affordable Care Act, but we will continue to stand resolute against any effort to dismantle it. For the sake of the American people, we can’t get this wrong.”

Pallone, Thompson Bill to Empower Persons with Disabilities Passes House

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 20, 2016


Washington, D.C. – Today, H.R. 670, the Special Needs Trust Fairness Act passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 383-22. The bill was introduced by Congressmen Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) and Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson (PA-05) last year and would enable a disabled individual to set up a Special Needs Trust on their own behalf. A Special Needs Trust is a special type of trust that is designed to supplement certain daily living expenses and medical care.

“The barriers that currently prohibit an individual from creating a Special Needs Trust on their own behalf, despite having the mental capacity to do so, places an undue burden on disabled individuals who are simply trying to make ends meet,” said Pallone. “This legislation will eliminate these unnecessary barriers and enable individuals living with a disability to provide for their future financial stability."

“I am proud to have worked on this important bipartisan legislation with Rep. Pallone,” Thompson said. “The Special Needs Trust Fairness and Medicaid Improvement Act is focused on a fundamental issue of equal protection under the law, making sure people across the country with life-changing disease or disabilities are being treated fairly.”

As the law is currently written, disabled individuals must have a parent, grandparent, guardian or the court create a Special Needs Trust on their behalf. For individuals who may not have an available individual willing to establish the trust on their behalf, this can create significant logistical and financial barriers, and places an undue burden on the individual and our already overworked court system. The Special Needs Trust Fairness Act will remove this barrier, and allow individuals with disabilities, when appropriate, to create their own Special Needs Trust, which will empower them to be responsible for their own life decisions and have access to what is rightly theirs.

Congressman Pallone spoke in favor of the bill on the House floor. The text of his remarks can be found below and the video can be found here.

Thank you, Mr./Madame Speaker. I strongly support my bipartisan legislation, H.R. 670, the Special Needs Trust Fairness Act.

This legislation, which I have championed for multiple Congresses with my Republican colleague, Representative Glenn Thompson, would allow individuals with disabilities to set up Special Needs Trusts for themselves without a court petition. I thank Representative Thompson for his continued leadership on this issue.

A Special Needs Trust is a special kind of trust that is designed to provide support for certain expenses for disabled individuals to supplement Medicaid benefits. Currently, these types of trusts generally must be established by parents, grandparents, legal guardians or a court on behalf of the disabled individual. People can only set up a Special Needs Trust for themselves after petitioning a court. Oftentimes, this process can take several months and can incur significant legal fees during the process.

This is just not right; individuals with disabilities can and should have the ability to set up a Special Needs Trust for themselves, and this legislation fixes that basic inequity. This is a commonsense, but very meaningful fix in the lives of those living with a disability.

I’d like to also note that H.R 670 was amended in the Energy and Commerce Committee by adding an additional provision to require states to extend tobacco cessation coverage to pregnant women through the first year postpartum. This is also good policy. Tobacco cessation is absolutely critical to both saving dollars and saving lives, and particularly so for pregnant and postpartum women. When we invest in helping people to quit smoking, the benefit is not only clear to the health of our communities, but also to our economy. My own home state of New Jersey is currently piloting a project in our Medicaid program specifically aimed at cutting costs and improving birth outcomes through targeted evidenced-based efforts that help pregnant women to quit smoking.

In addition, these policies are fully offset by clarifying that the federal match for hair growth and cosmetic products is available when those products are medically necessary, which is the current policy of most states already. The remaining savings are put in a “Medicaid Improvement Fund”, as a down payment on more positive improvements to the Medicaid program in the future.

I am proud that we were able to work together on these policies. This is an example of the type of work that we should do more often in the Medicaid program- working together to pass policies that remove barriers for beneficiaries, strengthen benefits, and support the long-term health of the program overall.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 670 and I hope that the Senate will consider this new version so that it can swiftly become law. Thank you, I reserve the balance of my time.

Pallone Lauds Historic House Passage of Permanent SGR Fix, Amplifies Call on Senate to Step Up

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 8, 2015

Bill Secures Funding for Programs Vital to New Jersey

NEW, BRUNSWICK, NJ – While touring the Eric B. Chandler Health Center in New Brunswick today, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06), Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called on the Senate to pass a bill to permanently replace the broken Medicare doctor payment system, the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, following historic passage by the House of Representatives last month. Congressman Pallone is a co-author of the bill, H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), and helped usher it through the House.

“After more than a decade of short-term fixes, House passage of a permanent fix to the broken SGR was an historic achievement,” said Congressman Pallone. “The onus is now on the Senate to pass the long-overdue solution. If the Senate steps up, we will never again be faced with the uncertainty of insufficient stopgap repairs to the flawed Medicare doctor payment system.”

MACRA would repeal the SGR and replace it with a system that rewards value, ensures the accuracy of payments, and improves the quality of care for seniors. The replacement, H.R. 1470, a bicameral, bipartisan agreement, was also co-authored by Congressman Pallone.

In addition, H.R. 2 secures and extends funding for programs that will help improve the health and welfare of New Jersey children, families and seniors. It provides nearly $8 billion in funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers over the next two years. This funding will help serve 28 million patients and strengthen access to primary and preventive health care in communities across the country. In New Jersey, over 475,000 individuals are served through federally qualified Community Health Centers. Throughout the state, nearly 100 locations are designated as Health Professional Shortage Areas – consisting of the most vulnerable and underserved populations – and are eligible to be served by National Health Service Corps. The funding for the Teaching Health Centers would continue to help train medical and dental residents in the state.

The bill also fully funds the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) through September 30, 2017, continuing access to health care coverage for over 8 million children and pregnant women in low-income households across the country. Of the recipients nationwide, over 200,000 are New Jersey residents, top 10 among all states.

Among a number of other Medicare provisions, MACRA would permanently extend the Transitional Medical Assistance (TMA) program, which provides up to one year of additional Medicaid coverage to low-income families as they transition from welfare to work. Without the program, over 35,000 low-income New Jersey families would lose Medicaid coverage. It also permanently extends the Qualifying Individual (QI) program, which helps to pay Medicare Part B premium costs for low-income seniors. In New Jersey, roughly 40,000 people are able to get this financial assistance through the program.

Congressman Pallone was joined on the Chandler Health Center tour by Sandra Adams, Executive Director and CEO of the Eric B. Chandler Health Center; Eric Jahn, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Community Health at the Eric B. Chandler Health Center; Sean Hopkins, Senior Vice President, Federal Relations and Health Economics at the NJ Hospital Association; Mishael Azam of the Medical Society of NJ; and clinicians and medical residents.

Pallone, Sweeney, Vitale Highlight Critical Need to Extend CHIP Funding at Children’s Specialized Hospital

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ – Today, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, along with Senate President Steve Sweeney and Senator Joseph Vitale, visited PSE&G Children’s Specialized Hospital in New Brunswick to discuss the importance of extending funding for the for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The officials held a roundtable discussion with hospital staff and families currently benefitting from CHIP to highlight the critical need to continue funding this essential program.

Frank Pallone Jr.

Congressman Pallone was one of the original authors of the 1997 CHIP program, which has traditionally garnered strong bipartisan support at the federal and state levels, and has grown to provide health coverage to more than 8 million pregnant women and children, including over 185,000 in New Jersey. New Jersey Family Care is also funded through CHIP and serves over 800,000 children throughout the state. If Congress does not act, however, funding for the program is set to expire in September 2015.

“CHIP is responsible for providing millions of children across the United States with access to the high-quality and affordable healthcare that they need in order to grow up to be healthy adults,” said Congressman Pallone. “But without Congressional action, funding for CHIP will expire next fall, which will jeopardize the health coverage of millions of children whose families cannot afford to purchase coverage for them on their own. Congress must act now to continue funding for this essential program, so that no child loses coverage.”

“No child should be denied the ability to see a doctor or get the medical care they need and no pregnant woman should go without health care,” said Senator Sweeney. “The CHIP program has been one of the most important and successful health care services in the country and in New Jersey. In caring for low-income families. Federal funding should be renewed and state support should be maintained.”

“Pregnant women now enrolled in CHIP could lose coverage and pre-natal care,” said Senator Vitale. “They are from low-income families and they don’t qualify for Medicaid so they could be left without health care at a time when they need it most. When children have health insurance, they are sick less frequently and for a shorter duration and are more likely to attend and perform well in school.”

Last week, Congressman Pallone introduced legislation, supported by every Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would extend funding for CHIP for four years, through 2019, to protect coverage for millions of children and families, and strengthen the program by providing states with secure funding and new tools to improve enrollment and retention.

The bill, the CHIP Extension and Improvement Act of 2015, makes a number of program improvements to reduce bureaucracy and increase state flexibility. The legislation maintains the 23 percent “bump” increasing states’ matching rates and the maintenance-of-effort provision so that states do not change Medicaid and CHIP eligibility standards. Among other improvements, the legislation provides states with a permanent option to use “Express Lane Eligibility,” which reduces administrative burdens for both states and beneficiaries.

A Senate companion bill was also introduced last week by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Bob Casey (D-PA) and was supported by every Democrat in the Senate. The bill, entitled the Protecting & Retaining Our Children’s Health Insurance Program Act of 2015 (PRO-CHIP), would also extend CHIP funding through 2019.

Pallone, Waxman Introduce Legislation to Continue Children’s Health Insurance Program Funding, Protecting Coverage for Millions of Children

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr., and Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman introduced legislation to extend funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) through 2019. Without this legislation, no new funding for the CHIP program will be available after September of 2015. Reps. Pallone and Waxman were among the original authors of the 1997 CHIP program, which has traditionally garnered strong bipartisan support at the federal and state level, and has grown to provide health insurance to more than 8 million children as well as pregnant women today.

Ranking Member Pallone noted, “CHIP is responsible for providing millions of children around the United States with access to affordable health care. Unless Congress acts to continue funding for this essential program, many children will lose their coverage by October 2015. The legislation I wrote with Mr. Waxman would provide states with four more years of funding to ensure our young people will have access to the care they need.”

“CHIP is critical for ensuring health insurance coverage for millions of children is affordable and accessible,” said Ranking Member Waxman. “Without it, many children could lose coverage. Our legislation provides states with the certainty of an additional four years of funding, ensuring there are no disruptions to children’s coverage, and provides important flexibilities to further streamline states’ CHIP programs.”

The bill, the CHIP Extension and Improvement Act of 2014, makes a number of program improvements to reduce bureaucracy and increase state flexibility. The bill provides states with a permanent option to use “Express Lane Eligibility” which reduces administrative burdens for both states and beneficiaries and would also allow states the flexibility to use this option to enroll adults. States that are currently using this flexibility, which is set to expire next year, have reported significant administrative savings. According to a Mathematic evaluation of Express Lane, states using this process experienced an average of $1 million per year in recurring net savings.

An important theme of the bill is increasing participation among eligible children. CHIP has directly contributed (along with Medicaid) to a record low uninsured rate among children. The CHIP legislation would also continue a program that rewards states for adopting best practices and exceeding enrollment targets. In addition, the bill includes a focus on primary care and prevention, extending federal support for a boost in Medicaid payments for primary care services and strengthening preventive benefits.

Extending CHIP funding through 2019 is critical because of the benefit and cost sharing protections the program offers for children. A recent examination of CHIP benefits commissioned by First Focus found that CHIP provides robust coverage of child-specific services and critical cost sharing protections.

For additional background information, click here. For a section-by-section summary, click here. For the bill’s text, click here.

When an earthquake strikes

The following is from Congressman Rush Holt's newsletter:

When an earthquake struck the mid-Atlantic coast at 1:51 p.m. on August 23, 2011, tens of thousands of people reported their experiences in the speediest, most effective way they knew: via Twitter. This led to a strange phenomenon. Earthquakes travel through the earth very quickly: about three to five kilometers every second. But tweets travel through electronic networks nearly 100,000 times faster. As such, the first tweets about the earthquake, sent from towns near the quake’s epicenter in Virginia, reached New Jersey sooner than the earthquake itself.


If you happened to be monitoring Twitter at the time, you might well have had a half-minute’s warning of the impending earthquake.

How might governments take advantage of this kind of early warning? As experts testified at a hearing of my Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources this week, a network of seismometers along the west coast could detect major quakes and send advance warning to nearby cities, offering perhaps five minutes’ warning to major urban areas. Five minutes isn’t much time, but it would enable officials to stop trains, alert critical infrastructure, and warn people to take cover.

A major earthquake in a modern urban area could cost $250 billion and countless lives. Even so, lawmakers have failed to invest the $16 million per year that the U.S. Geological Survey estimates would be necessary to operate such an early-warning system.

Instead, the current Congress, over my objections, continues to slash much-needed investments in research and infrastructure.

A Lost Opportunity

In January I wrote to you about an opportunity for New Jersey to invest in our citizens’ health: the federal government had offered $7.6 million to help New Jerseyans gain access to affordable health care. At the time Gov. Christie was, for ideological reasons, refusing to accept the money.

In May this story reached an unfortunate and troubling end when, after years of inaction by the Christie Administration, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services formally rescinded the grant offer.

If Gov. Christie had accepted the money, about 95,000 more New Jerseyans would have health coverage today.


Rush Holt
Member of Congress

It Is More a Matter of Will

The following is from Congressman Rush Holt's newsletter:

Half a century ago, 26 percent of Americans endured, in the words of President Johnson, the “squalor and misery” of poverty. Many politicians claimed at the time that their misery was natural, even inevitable – that any economy will have winners and losers, and that government can do nothing to address that fact.

But President Johnson knew better. And so 50 years ago this week, he launched the “War on Poverty,” kick-starting programs as varied as Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Head Start and others.

And what has been the effect? As a recent Columbia University study revealed, today’s poverty rate – when properly measured, taking into account the effects of government efforts – is about 16 percent, down by 40 percent since the War on Poverty began.

This success can be traced to the programs created or improved by President Johnson. Without Medicare and Social Security, for instance, half of seniors would live in poverty today and would lack any type of health insurance. Food Stamps now keep four million people out of poverty.

Although President Johnson’s coinage may have been a misuse of the word “war” (a misuse repeated in many other government efforts to confront challenges, problems, or threats – cancer, drugs, or terrorism), he intended the effort to be massive. In fact, beyond Medicaid, the programs amounted to only 1.5 or 2 percent of GDP – a large sum to be sure, but not as huge as implied by the critics of these programs. In the wealthiest country in the world, with one of the largest GDPs per person, and with tens of millions of people looking for a way out of poverty, we could do more.

Yet today many in Congress are instead embracing the old and disproven claim that government is helpless in the face of poverty. These skeptics, mostly Republican, have already cut Food Stamps by $5 billion – and they’re trying to cut it by another $40 billion. About 57,000 students have been kicked out of Head Start, and only about one in ten children eligible for Head Start is now enrolled in the program.

Eliminate poverty? Maybe, maybe not, but it is more a matter of will than of our ability to devise programs to confront the problem. Can we muster the compassion to say, "We will not accept this in the United States!"?

Share This Newsletter

I hope you find this weekly newsletter, the eGenda, to be engaging and informative. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you regularly about my votes, my services, and the issues that affect Central New Jersey – as well as to share important information during emergencies like Hurricane Sandy.

If you find the eGenda helpful, may I ask for your help in sharing it? Please forward this message to your friends and family in Central New Jersey, or ask them to sign up by visiting holt.house.gov/egenda. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Rush Holt
Member of Congress

Pallone Rallies New Jerseyans to #GetCovered Starting Oct. 1

New Brunswick, NJ- Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06), top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, touted the upcoming opportunity starting October 1 for New Jerseyans to sign up for affordable health care coverage through the new marketplace made possible by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Pallone was joined Tuesday at the Children’s Specialized Hospital in New Brunswick with the hospital’s President and CEO, Amy Mansue and also Justine Ceserano, New Jersey State Director of Enroll America, whose mission is to maximize the number of uninsured Americans who enroll in health coverage made available by the ACA.

The open enrollment period for the first year of the new online marketplaces runs from October 1, 2013 through March 31, 2014. For those who enroll by December 15, health coverage will begin on January 1, 2014. In New Jersey, more than 610,000 people will be eligible for the new health insurance premium discounts in 2014.

“Next Tuesday, the new online Marketplace, healthcare.gov, will be open for business, providing New Jerseyans with a very simple and fast way to get health insurance that will meet their needs, their lifestyle, and their budget at any income level,” said Pallone. “Today, over 900,000 or 13% of New Jersey’s non-elderly residents are uninsured, but very soon, that number will begin to drop when hundreds of thousands of New Jersey’s hard working families can gain some peace of mind when it comes to affording their health care and getting the coverage they need.”

Also beginning October 1, 395,000 more New Jerseyans will be eligible for coverage through Medicaid expansion thanks to the ACA. This applies to people with the lowest incomes – those with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

“Two-thirds of the nation’s children who are uninsured are eligible for either Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. Their parents are working but do not have insurance and therefore they think their children don't have access to health coverage,” said Amy B. Mansue, president and CEO, Children’s Specialized Hospital. “Having one system that will easily determine if they are eligible and the price of the premium is a huge step forward in helping our children receive the quality healthcare they deserve.”

Pallone also spoke about the many ways New Jerseyans are already benefiting from the ACA like, for example, health plans are now required to allow parents to keep their children under age 26 without job-based coverage on their family coverage. Over 70,000 young adults in New Jersey gained or were able to keep their insurance coverage as a result of these provisions.

Americans looking for health coverage should go to www.healthcare.gov. If they have questions, they can call 1-800-318-2596, a toll-free hotline open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Pallone Announces More than $3 million to NJ Community Health Centers

Grants Will Help Uninsured Gain Coverage

Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) announced $3,387,083 in grant awards from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to New Jersey health centers to enroll the uninsured in new health coverage options made available by the Affordable Care Act. New Jersey’s health centers served 467,913 patients last year, 43 percent of whom were uninsured. The health centers in New Jersey that are awarded these funds expect to hire 69 additional workers, who will assist 73,201 people with enrollment into affordable health insurance coverage.

“Community health centers are an absolutely essential tool in expanding coverage to 30 million more Americans as part of the Affordable Care Act, and these grants will be instrumental in New Jersey’s effort,” said Congressman Pallone. “With these awards, uninsured consumers will get help understanding their coverage options through the new Health Insurance Marketplace, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.”

The following grants will be awarded in New Jersey’s Sixth Congressional District:

• $117,619 to Monmouth Family Health Center in Long Branch
• $180,649 to the Jewish Renaissance Medical Center in Perth Amboy
• $138,849 to the UMDNJ – Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway
• $100,635 to Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey Community Health in Asbury Park

“Community health centers attend to the unique health needs of hard-to-reach populations and have a significant impact by improving health in our communities. These health centers provide a fundamental value and a huge return on investment to the health care system and the country as a whole,” added Pallone.

The grants to New Jersey came as part of a larger $150 million awarded by HHS to health centers in all 50 states to help individuals apply for health coverage. For a full list of health centers receiving this funding, click here.

Christie vetoes pending bills

From PolitickerNJ:


TRENTON – Gov. Chris Christie announced vetoing eight pieces of pending legislation Friday afertnoon.

The following bills were written off by the governor:

SCS for S-968, 1494/A998 (Weinberg, Turner/Vainieri Huttle, Watson Coleman) – ABSOLUTE - Establishes procedures and standards regarding public service privatization contracts

S2188/A3775 (Gordon,Weinberg/Wagner,Eustace,DeAngelo,Benson) – ABSOLUTE – Requires employer notification when relocating call center services outside the United States

S2644/A4233 (Vitale, Gill, Weinberg/Oliver, Prieto, Quijano) – ABSOLUTE - Expands Medicaid eligibility pursuant to federal “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”

S2825/A4172 (Weinberg, Greenstein, Sarlo/Mosquera, Lampitt, Stender, Jasey, Watson Colman, Wisniewski, Caride) - ABSOLUTE – Makes FY 2013 supplemental appropriation to DOH for $7,453,000 for family planning services

A3668/SCS for S2467, 2471 (Jasey, McKeon, Cryan, Johnson, Quijano/Gill, Weinberg, Codey) -ABSOLUTE – Prohibits investment by State of pension and annuity funds in companies manufacturing, importing, and selling assault firearms for civilians use

A3807/S2595 (Caputo, Tucker, Wagner, Eustace/Rice, Gill) – ABSOLUTE – ‟Corporate Disinvestment Property Tax Relief Act”; appropriates $13.5 million

A3878/S2673 (Conaway, Riley, Lampitt, Eustace/Gill) – ABSOLUTE- Requires Commissioner of Banking and Insurance to establish public awareness campaign about new federally required health insurance exchange

A4171/S2824 (Wagner, Vainieri Huttle, Stender, Quijano, Eustace/Weinberg, Gill) – ABSOLUTE - Provides Medicaid coverage for family planning services to individuals with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level

Christie said regarding all of the bills vetoed that they “would deplete the state’s fiscal resources, restructure government in a significant manner, and significantly alter the policy and spending priorities set forth in the Appropriations Act.’’

He said they would have added hundreds of millions of dollars to state and local budgets. He said that although individual bills may have had merits they should have been negotiated as part of the overall budget negotiation process.

Time to Stop Making Excuses

The following is from Congressman Rush Holt's newsletter:

As more and more evidence is compiled, the truth about climate change becomes more and more clear. We are seeing storms and superstorms, droughts and glacial melting, heat waves and sea level rises, barges running aground on the Mississippi and wildfires raging, hundreds and hundreds of phenomena totally consistent with the models and predictions of what results from humans throwing billions of tons of carbon into the air, as well as totally inconsistent with other explanations, like naturally occurring cycles or solar variations or volcanic eruptions or some such thing.

Almost a decade ago, two scientists from New Jersey, Rob Socolow and Steve Pacala, presented a way of thinking about the problem intended to help deal with it. Let's look at specific steps, using current knowledge and technology, that humans (and policymakers) could take, each step saving 25 billion tons in emissions from being released over the next 50 years compared to a business as usual scenario.  They suggested calling these bunches of carbon "wedges" because each step could be visualized as a wedge cut out of a graph of growing carbon in the air. Each of these steps would be challenging but achievable without technological breakthroughs. With maybe 10 such wedges, the climate could be stabilized and climate runaway could be avoided.

Wedges consist of such things as doubling vehicle fuel efficiency, stopping large deforestation, improving the efficiency of heating and cooling buildings by 25 percent, replacing or retrofitting coal-fired power plants so they double efficiency, and increasing electricity generation with wind by a factor of 25 or so from the level of a decade ago. A menu of wedges, picked and chosen depending on what various countries could do and what the projected cost would be, made the problem seem tractable.

Some of us thought then that we could get to work: that the wedge visualization made the problem less daunting, and that lawmakers would all see not just the costs of implementing the wedges but also the economic, societal, and technological benefits.

Alas, years have passed, and denial and inaction have prevailed.  Some benefit has been gained from the surge in production of natural gas that has displaced some coal in generation of electricity. Although that benefit is incidental "and accidental, from a policy point of view", climate scientists nevertheless welcome it. However, the world finds itself now in need, not of 10 or 12 remedial wedges, as scientists thought a decade ago, but probably 20 or more.

It is time to stop making excuses for our reluctance to commit.

Announcing Community Office Hours

In the months ahead, I am holding a series of community office hours in towns throughout Central New Jersey.  A full list of upcoming events is available on my website.

At each event, I or a member of my staff will be available to help you deal with any problems you may be having with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, or any other federal agency.  Staff also will be available to provide information on federal grants and contracts, acquiring flags flown over the U.S. Capitol, and more.

The office hours are intended to provide an easy, accessible way for you to seek help, and I hope you'll stop by.  If you are unable to attend, though, please know that you can seek assistance at any time by calling 1-87-RUSH-HOLT (1-877-874-4658).

The History of the House

Since 1789, the U.S.House of Representatives has been at work creating the laws of the land and shaping the American experience.  History.House.Gov is an effort to preserve, collect, and interpret the heritage of the House, serving as the institution's memory.

This new comprehensive website integrates the history of the House, the art and artifacts in the House Collection, and records and research materials that date back to the beginnings of Congress. Features include:

• A searchable database of the art, artifacts, and documents in the House Collection
   
• A searchable database of the nearly 11,000 individuals who have served as representatives
   
• A blog showcasing unique stories in House history, research tips, and themes relevant to current events
   
• Daily highlights from House history
   
• Educational resources for educators and students
   
• Research resources to help answer questions about the House and historic legislation.

Sincerely,

Rush Holt
Member of Congress

There's Still Time for a Sensible Approach to NJ's Health Insurance Exchange

by Gordon MacInnes
Published in NJPP Blog: As a Matter of Fact ...


Last week, Gov. Christie vetoed the second bill to have New Jersey set up its own health insurance exchange to implement Obamacare. The legislative majority believes that we would be better served operating our own insurance exchange, rather than await the uncertain shape of a massive federal exchange or a poorly-defined “partner” exchange with most of the heavy lifting done by the feds.

The governor’s veto message – and its emphasis on uncertainty – gets the whole thing backwards. Fortunately, there is still time for the governor to send a letter to Washington opting for the state exchange, issue an executive order to get the machinery rolling, and work with the Democratic leadership to draft a third, acceptable bill.

Let’s start with the Obamacare landscape. Two years ago the president signs the biggest and most complicated health care legislation since the creation of Medicaid and Medicare in 1965. Twenty-seven states file petitions declaring the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. The Republican Party spends two years promising to repeal the ACA. With unemployment dancing at 8 percent, the president’s re-election chances don’t look great and the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to agree that the ACA doesn’t pass muster.

Lo and behold, the Court surprises the nation with its June decision, which is followed by a respectable re-election win by the president in November. The trouble is that the deadlines for implementing Obamacare were not revised amidst all this uncertainty: On January 1, 2014 the transformative law takes effect and about 30 million folk who are without health insurance today will suddenly become paying customers.

Second, since when has certainty ruled political life in America? The governor understands risk perfectly well. He took a political risk when he showed such warmth for the president’s tour of the devastated Jersey Shore. He took a fiscal risk when he projected the most aggressive revenues and the highest spending increases of any governor in the nation for his 2013 budget. He passed the risk along to every municipality when he proposed that the state grab the increased utility tax revenues instead of allotting them to towns as mandated by law.

Now back to Obamacare. During the period of constitutional and political tumult, New Jersey received $8.7 million from the feds to do the background work on the informational, financial, promotional and logistical issues around the health insurance exchange. So if anyone should have a relatively clear idea of the costs and implications of establishing a New Jersey insurance exchange, it is the Christie administration, which has used federal funds to explore these complicated questions.

Here’s an important problem to untangle in all of this. There are two ways that currently uninsured persons will be covered under Obamacare: the insurance exchange for households with incomes between 138 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level (at 200 percent a family of three takes in $38,180); or Medicaid, where states can opt to accept a major expansion in Medicaid coverage for adults and children in families up to 138 percent of the poverty level. Gov. Christie has not signaled whether he will accept the expansion, but either way it would be very sensible for the exchange to use technology to allow anyone up to 400 percent of poverty to enter their data and be guided to the most efficient option for health coverage. A New Jersey-operated exchange would have to worry about only one state to coordinate between the premium subsidy and Medicaid eligibility questions.

Right now, it looks the federal government may have to establish an exchange for up to 27 states, each with its own criteria for Medicaid eligibility (some states exclude legal immigrants altogether while some allow only those who can prove residence for at least five years) and their own scope of coverage with very different reimbursement rates. The notion that the federal government and up to 27 states will have the technology worked out within the next ten months to accept applicants by October 2013 is a very, very optimistic notion. Why take the chance if your state has spent two years studying the problem and can avoid sinking into such a potential bureaucratic morass?

Second, with a New Jersey exchange, the state could negotiate with insurance providers to get the best package of coverage at the best cost. Otherwise, consumers will be greeted with a bunch of packages that have been constructed to maximize the profits of the offering company (if not, the CEO should be fired). The state understands that negotiating can lead to insurance coverage that reduces premium costs without shrinking coverage. In fact, that is exactly what the state does in providing health insurance to its employees.

December 14 is the cutoff for opting for the state-operated exchange. The governor has better information about the costs of a state exchange than anyone in Washington. He has better information about what a state exchange can do that a federal exchange cannot. Unless that confidential information suggests that the state is not capable of operating its own exchange, he should send a letter to Secretary Sebelius by Friday saying “we’re in – details to follow.”

Letter: ROMNEY-RYAN PLAN ENDS MEDICARE AND MEDICAID

As an elder law attorney and former Monmouth County Surrogate, I am very concerned about the Republican threat to Medicare and Medicaid.

In 2011 and 2012 Paul Ryan presented budgets to Congress (which every Republican lawmaker signed and Governor Romney endorsed) ending Medicare as we know it and substituting in its place a “voucher” program. This means government no longer pays for medical expenses but gives each senior money to purchase private insurance based on the amount he/she can pay and their pre-existing condition. If you want better care than your stipend allows, you’ll pay more out of your own pocket or go without. The Congressional Budget Office calculates the immediate effect at $6,400.00 per person. Also, seniors will pay 100% for prescriptions in the “donut hole” ($2,840 to $4,550) where Medicare now pays 50% and 100% in 2020.

If that were not enough to cause concern, their budget cuts $800 billion from Medicaid. Nursing homes will not be getting the funding necessary to cover their occupants. Moreover, with more people living longer and less families able to care for loved ones there will be no place for them to go. The effects will be devastating.

Republicans argue these programs will go bankrupt if they don’t change. That hasn’t happened in 47 years If the wealthy paid their fair share of taxes and Congress stopped raiding these programs, that won’t happen.

Vote for President Obama and other Democratic candidates. Save Medicare and Medicaid. Our future depends on it!

PATRICIA A. BENNETT

How Ryan budget plan would hurt New Jersey

BY GORDON MACINNES

Cross posted from The Record

NEW JERSEY is hurting. It’s hurting so bad that the only way the governor could pay for his proposed tax cut is to borrow the money from our kids and grandkids. Float a bond for $260 million to pay for the $200 million or so tax cut proposed for this budget year. Benefits to future taxpayers? Zero. No matter, we can all enjoy a night out with the reduced taxes and let our kids pay. Given the amount we’ll get back, most of us can reserve a spot at the nearest White Castle.

This is not the condition one would expect of the “Comeback” state. But it gets even worse.

The United States has suffered a cut in its prime credit rating because Congress wouldn’t provide timely funds to repay the nation’s debt.

To add to our growing burdens, the House of Representatives has passed a plan that is supposed to balance the federal budget without increasing revenues. It’s called the Ryan Plan for its Wisconsin sponsor, Paul Ryan.

The first-ever state-by-state analysis of the Ryan Plan released this week by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities presents the bad news. The plan, if approved, would dig the New Jersey hole even deeper, about $760 million deeper in the budget year that begins next July.

That may not sound like enough money to worry about in a $32 billion state budget. But the reason the governor was driven to borrow money for his tax cut was that tax collections came in $700 million short between the time he delivered his budget message in February and when the receipts were counted in May.

1.5 billion in the red

By July, the non-partisan legislative research arm estimated the hole was $1.5 billion; Moody’s — the credit rater — suggested that it was closer to $2 billion and counting.

So, a reduction in federal aid of $760 million has significant and negative consequences for New Jersey citizens. Is the state helping to pay the bill for your grandmother in a nursing home? If so, you might have a problem since Medicaid — the federal-state program that pays for most nursing home care — is due to take a one-third cut between 2013 and 2021.

Other programs would suffer as well — programs for special education kids, for putting cops on the street and for providing emergency aid following fires, floods and hurricanes.

The companion proposal to the Ryan Plan is to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. The combination of repealing the act with its Medicaid expansion and the one-third cut proposed by Ryan is to add another $500 million per year to the budget burden.

This time the addition comes because there will be no expected reduction in the charity care payments to hospitals that treat uninsured patients. With the health care act and the existing Medicaid population, the state could assume a sharp falloff in its hospital payments (that now total about $1 billion).

Blance cuts with revenue increase

As New Jersey residents, we might hope that our governor would use his influence with Governor Romney and the national Republican Party to call on the House of Representatives majority to balance some of its tax cuts with revenue increases. Not only would such a move increase the chances of avoiding the “fiscal cliff” we all jump off on Jan. 1 if there’s no agreement on taxes and budgets, but it would do less harm to New Jersey, which is still crawling out of the Great Recession.

So far, instead of making the call for New Jersey, the governor has applauded Ryan, hailed the cuts in Medicaid and remained silent about the negative consequences facing his state. It’s not too late for him to show that he puts New Jersey above party politics.

Gordon MacInnes is president of New Jersey Policy Perspective

In Lowering the Costs of Healthcare Administration, EMR Is Not Silver Bullet But it is Helpful

Cheryl Jacque explores the promise that implementing EMR systems will lower the cost of healthcare administration. Cheryl, who writes and researches for http://www.healthadministration.org, a website that provides resources and the latest information on health administration, proposes that while initial costs of these new systems will run high, they may be worth it to the doctors, patients and industry executives who use them. Cheryl’s post adds to Middletown Mike’s post on how New Jersey women were recently granted access to preventive care and suggests that the new ICD-10 will allow for more affordable healthcare.

by Cheryl Jacque

Electronic Medical Records (EMR) have the potential to increase efficiency and quality of health care, but there are heavy costs and risks to overhauling the way an entire industry keeps and uses health records.

The healthcare industry is eating up new medical technologies, sometimes by choice, and sometimes by law. The U.S. government mandates that by 2013, the medical records coding system be updated to reflect advances in EMR. The new system of coding the ICD-10 will support new diagnoses and a more nuanced method of record patient conditions and statuses.

One benefit of this new system is that when two patients have the same condition but with more or less severe symptoms, this will be distinguished by code. If the EMR system can tell these two patients apart, then so can insurance companies, who will be able to make their pay scales more precise. Thus, the entire payment system, including Medicare and Medicaid, will become much more efficient in the end.

All participants in the healthcare industry stand to benefit from similar increases in precision, including the pharmaceutical industry. Not only will records become more nuanced, but they may also be on the way to becoming available in real time. The sheer quantity of data may exponentially increase, but that is an insignificant factor when compared to the improvements that this data and the management of this data will bring to the industry.

As pointed out by McKinsey & Company, what is called real world data (RWD) - records that attain this new level of quality - can be used to understand epidemiology trends, patterns in treatment and recovery, and to discover new opportunities to manage diseases. In addition, all stages of product development will gain new clarity, which will help pharmaceutical executives make better decisions along the way. The integration and analysis of real world data will soon allow pharmaceutical executives to more accurately estimate emerging trends will as they occur.

There are some downsides to the boom in healthcare technology. Already, it is plain to see that some healthcare providers are having trouble moving toward the digitization of records and information. For example, the date of the ICD-10 mandate has been moved back two years, due to complaints from providers that the costs of implementing these new technologies are too high.

To make matters worse, implementation of new systems always seems to require additional future costs, many of which are unexpected. For instance, earlier this year, The Economist reported a problem with clocks in Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which exemplifies these unexpected costs. Devices in the hospital each use individual clocks, so when readings are taken or procedures conducted, the time is automatically input according to the individual clock on each device. It was discovered that many devices were dangerously out of synch, which could easily lead to serious mistakes, such as repeated procedures, malpractice suits, or erroneous calculations by physicians. Now, talks are underway to set devices to an atomic clock, which would solve the problem, but also cost a lot of money to develop and integrate. Estimating the overall cost of switching to new healthcare systems is complex and impossible to predict.

Still, the sweeping changes that will result from technological advancement in EMR and in other areas of healthcare will undoubtedly help make the industry more efficient and increase the quality and efficacy of care. The results may be well worth the price.  

 ******  

House Passes Bombs Not Bread Budget

By Imogen Reed



Paul Ryan

The House of Representatives voted 218-199 to approve Paul Ryan’s ‘bombs not bread’ budget last Thursday. The vote means that America’s military will be exempted from all budget cuts over the next decade. The same cannot be said for the poorest and weakest elements of society who will continue to feel the brunt as the budgets for Medicaid, federal worker benefits and food programs are cut to ribbons.

This new budget will actually allow the defense budget to grow by 20 percent and was designed in order to head off an automatic budget of $1.2 trillion over 10 years, which would have kicked in during the summer. Termed a ‘reconciliation’ budget by the Republicans, the budget has effectively saved the military from a budget cut of about $600 billion.

Instead, the Republicans will force retired federal employees to take a 5 percent pay cut to make an $83 billion saving, cap malpractice lawsuits for Medicaid thus saving around $49 billion and by cutting another $48 billion from Medicaid programs in general. In addition to this, the budget is due to slice $36 billion off the food aid budget. It is the kind of budget to make the blood boil, and it even riled 16 Republicans into rejecting the deal; sadly their votes were not enough.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D. Mass.) exploded during the floor debate and said:

"I am so sick and tired of the demonization of programs that benefit poor people in this country, especially the [food stamp] program. This is not some extravagant, overly generous benefit. Rather than cutting waste in the Pentagon budget, which we all know exists, you protect the Pentagon budget. You know, rather than going after subsidies for oil companies and going after billionaire tax breaks, you protect all that."

Dennis Kucinich asked Republicans how they could “reconcile more money for bombs while cutting money for bread?”

The question is especially pertinent as the Congressional Budget Office reported that the number of people requiring the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has increased by 70 percent in five years from 26 million people in 2007 to 45 million in 2012. As a result of this, the cost excluding administration, has increased over 100 percent from $30 billion to $72 billion. As a result of this budget, less money will have to help more people.

Speaking in a Catholic Church, Paul Ryan defended his budget as a moral budget by saying that he supposed “that there are some Catholics who for a long time thought they had a monopoly of sorts, not exactly on heaven, but on the social teaching of our Church." Also that the poor should see independence from the state as a preferred option, but Ryan is ignoring or not realizing that many depend on the state not out of choice, but out of necessity.

90 faculty members and priests of the Catholic Church, however, deigned to disagree with the rising star Republican. In their letter, they said: "We would be remiss in our duty to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few."

In a final quip and attack on Ryan’s budget, the letter added that his “budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinoy’yevna Rosenbaum was a Russian-American philosopher who died in 1982. She is most famous for her novel Atlas Shrugged and for her philosophy of Objectivism whereby she put cold calculated reason ahead of ideas such as faith and religion. The Church, therefore, was calling Ryan amoral.

While certain Republicans who voted in favor of the bill and those who support it like Mitt Romney have accused the Democrats of playing politics with the budget, it is clearly a case of accusing someone else of doing exactly what you are. The budget helps to draw the battle lines for the forthcoming election by pitting the party of the poor against the party of the rich, with the former ranting from the unemployment lines while the latter prosthelytizing from their expensive chaise sectionals and luxury yachts. Republicans will point to creativity and venture capital, to small government and the rich creating jobs.

The budget, in actual fact, is a godsend to the Democrats. It emphasizes all of the negative perceptions people can have about the Republicans. The party of small government is expanding the Pentagon while cutting back on care to the vulnerable, is penalizing the poor’s pockets while not taking a cent more from the rich, the party of the Church and of religion, is being left behind by those very institutions.