Tuesday, May 21, 2013

State Efforts To ‘Reclaim’ Our Public Lands Traced To Koch-Fueled ALEC

By Jessica Goad and Tom Kenworthy via CAP

Despite the many problems that states and municipalities face today—from budget shortfalls to unemployment—seven western states have decided to embark on unconstitutional and quixotic battles attempting to force the federal government to turn millions of acres of public lands over to the states. Doing so, however, would result in the eventual exploitation for private profits of these beautiful parks, refuges, forests, and other lands because the leaders driving such efforts would prefer to see quick economic gains from resource extraction rather than prioritizing these areas’ more sustainable economic uses such as recreation.

Rather than being managed so that all Americans can enjoy them, turning our public lands over to states would result in their management on the whims of governors and state legislatures, who in the West are often quite conservative and tend to ideologically favor limited regulation and private profits. According to one state lands commissioner, these bills would be “catastrophic” to the public lands that Americans know and love.

Clashes between states and the federal government over their respective authorities have long been a regular feature of our politics, especially when it comes to issues regarding control over federal public lands in the West. More than 700 million acres of federal public lands, including national parks, national forests, and national monuments, belong to all Americans, and are tremendous economic generators—the Department of the Interior stimulated $385 billion in economic development and more than 2 million jobs in 2011 alone. At times, conflicts over ownership of the federally managed parks, forests, refuges, and other properties have grown into a regional cause in the West, as they did during the “Sagebrush Rebellion,” a political movement demanding the turnover of federal lands to the states that arose in the 1970s but eventually fizzled out in the late 1980s.

We are now seeing yet another iteration of that hardy but misguided western impulse. These state legislative efforts are nothing more than corporate-backed messaging tools that can be traced to conservative front groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, and Americans for Prosperity, as we discuss further below. The proposals run directly contrary to abundant evidence that Americans and westerners support federal management of their public lands and value the economic benefits those lands provide, especially when they are protected from mining and drilling and are used instead for recreation and other more sustainable purposes.

In the past year, legislatures in seven western states — Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Idaho — have passed, introduced, or explored legislation demanding that the federal government turn over millions of acres of federal public lands to the states. If successful, these bills could be disastrous: Rather than being managed for the benefit and use of the American public, these lands will instead be managed in whatever way each state wants to use them—which generally means maximizing private profits through mining, drilling, and other resource extraction.

These lawmakers are waging a losing battle that amounts to little more than political grandstanding to rally their extreme conservative base and feed an antigovernment narrative. Such bills contradict the majority of public opinion in these states, as well as economic realities and constitutional precedent dating back to the mid-19th century.

ALEC and Americans for Prosperity have been fanning the fire under these efforts to “reclaim” federal public lands. ALEC is a conservative corporate front group funded by fossil-fuel interests such as the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil that develops model legislation for state legislators to introduce in their legislatures, and it has endorsed many of the bills turning public lands over to the states. As the Associated Press reported, “Lawmakers in Utah and Arizona have said the legislation is endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that advocates conservative ideals, and they expect it to eventually be introduced in other Western states.”

That should come as little surprise, considering that one of ALEC’s “model bills” — those that it drafts and develops to shop to various state legislators — is the “Sagebrush Rebellion Act,” which was “designed to establish a mechanism for the transfer of ownership of” non-state lands “from the federal government to the states.”

Further evidence that ALEC is the puppet master behind these performances: Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory (R), who is leading the charge for states to “take back” public lands through his “American Lands Council,” has been presenting the idea of turning federal land over to the states at ALEC conferences such as the one in Salt Lake City last summer. Additionally, Rep. Ivory has been promoting this idea to various state legislatures — he spoke, for example, with Wyoming’s Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Interim Committee in October 2012.

Proponents of these bills claim that the states do not receive tax revenue from federal lands and argue that the proceeds from turning the land over to the states to then be further developed can help fund essential state services such as education. They also argue that the federal government promised to turn public lands over to the states at the establishment of their statehoods more than 100 years ago.

This issue brief provides an overview of each state’s attempt to force the turnover of public lands, and then describes why this is not only bad policy that is not in accordance with what westerners actually believe, but is also unconstitutional based on numerous Supreme Court decisions.

State efforts to ‘reclaim’ public lands

In this section, we provide an overview of each of the bills in seven western states and detail where they are in the legislative process.

Utah

The Outdoor Industry Association, the trade organization for outdoor recreation companies, notes that the outdoor economy — in part based on protected public lands — stimulates $12 billion in consumer spending and more than 122,000 jobs for Utah every year. This extraordinary economic resource will be threatened if the state succeeds in its attempt to take over public lands and instead use them for resource extraction.

Despite this, Utah has been leading the charge when it comes to state attempts to reclaim public lands. Rep. Ivory sponsored the Transfer of Public Lands Act and Related Study, a bill that passed both the state House and Senate and was signed into law by Gov. Gary Herbert (R) in March 2012. The bill established a deadline of December 31, 2014, for the federal government to turn over Utah’s nearly 20 million acres of public lands to the state, or it will sue.

Utah’s Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel noted that the case law with regard to public lands going back to the 1870s gives the bill “a high probability of being declared unconstitutional.” And the Salt Lake Tribune has called Utah’s effort “tilting at windmills.”
Despite this, the Utah state legislature has already appropriated nearly $3 million to cover expected state legal expenses and has set up the Utah Land Commission to oversee the process of returning the lands to the state.

While the bill exempts Native American lands, national parks, and military installations, it still could have a major impact on some of Utah’s most special places. One Utah publication, for example, notes that “While [Ivory] doesn’t say this will happen, it is possible that the huge coal fields now off limits because of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in southern Utah could be developed by the new state land commission.”

Arizona

The outdoor recreation economy in Arizona creates $10.6 billion in consumer spending and supports nearly 104,000 jobs in the state. Yet State Sen. Al Melvin (R) introduced S.B. 1332 in the spring of 2012 requiring Congress to turn over 25 million acres of public lands to the state by the end of 2014, or it would sue. Similar to the legislation in Utah, the Arizona bill would have exempted Indian reservations, national parks, and military lands.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R), however, vetoed the bill in May 2012, surprising many observers due to her conservative background. She justified her veto by saying she was “concerned about the lack of certainty this legislation could create for individuals holding existing leases on federal lands. Given the difficult economic times, I do not believe this is the time to add to that uncertainty.”

Arizona voters also took to the polls to fight against a ballot initiative that similarly would have turned public lands over to the state. Proposition 120, supported by state Republican legislators, would have amended the state’s constitution to “declare Arizona’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over the ‘air, water, public lands, minerals, wildlife and other natural resources within the state’s boundaries.’” This measure would have included turning the Grand Canyon over to the state, but the ballot measure was defeated 68 percent to 32 percent.

Wyoming

Although the Outdoor Industry Association released data noting that the outdoor economy creates $4.5 billion in consumer spending and 50,000 direct jobs in Wyoming, State Rep. David Miller (R) introduced a bill in early February 2013 demanding state ownership of public lands. The bill — H.B. 0228, known as the Transfer of Federal Lands Study — would require the state attorney general to study “possible legal recourses available to compel the federal government to relinquish ownership and management of specified federal lands in Wyoming,” and would establish a task force focused on the land transfer. The bill passed both houses of the state legislature earlier this year and now awaits the governor’s signature.

Rep. Miller is also the CEO of a uranium mining company and told WyoFile, a local news outlet, that he got the idea for his bill in Wyoming from Utah Rep. Ivory’s presentation at last summer’s ALEC conference in Salt Lake City.

Notably, however, the Wyoming attorney general’s office wrote an opinion stating that Utah’s federal land transfer laws relied on “a repeatedly rejected reading of the United States Constitution and a strained interpretation of Utah’s statehood act.”

New Mexico

The state of New Mexico sees $6.1 billion in consumer spending stimulated by the outdoor recreation industry, as well as more than 68,000 jobs every year. Nevertheless, New Mexico State Rep. Yvette Herrell (R) and State Sen. Richard Martinez (D) introduced the Transfer of Public Land Act in early 2013, calling on the federal government to turn 23 million acres of New Mexico’s public lands over to the state by the end of 2015. It also would create a public lands transfer task force to study the process of taking ownership of these federal lands.

Jumping into this fray is the Koch-backed conservative group Americans for Prosperity, which called the bill “an exciting change” and urged its members to call the state legislature to express support. On the other hand, the state’s lands commissioner stated that the bill would be “catastrophic,” and noted that a fiscal impact analysis shows that if public lands were transferred to the state, the office would “need 2,000 more employees and an additional $218 million to administer the land at the same level as the federal government.”

The bill is currently in the legislative process, and it is unclear what New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez’s (R) position is on it.

Colorado

Colorado is a hotspot for the outdoor recreation economy, which stimulates $13.2 billion in consumer spending and nearly 125,000 direct jobs to the state. But a handful of members in the Colorado state legislature are attempting to revive a failed attempt of last year’s legislative session by introducing a bill — known as S.B. 13-142 — which would require the federal government to turn over all “agricultural lands” to the state. The law’s broad definition of agricultural lands certainly includes the more than 14 million acres of national forests in the state and likely includes its Bureau of Land Management lands.

State Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg (R) and State Sen. Scott Renfroe (R) introduced the bill in late January 2013, requiring the federal government to turn these lands over to the state by December 31, 2014. The bill, however, failed in committee in early February.
A similar bill failed in last year’s legislative session after much criticism from public and statewide opinion leaders. As a Denver Post columnist put it at the time, “We are all hoping this goes away very quickly.”

Nevada

Nevada sees $14.9 billion created by the outdoor recreation industry every year, as well as 148,000 direct jobs. And yet Nevada Assemblyman John Ellison (R) and State Sen. Pete Goicoechea (R) are drafting a bill for the 2013 legislative session that would create a committee “to help broker the transfer of federal land to the state,” according to the Elko Daily Free Press. Legislation is still being drafted as of late February.

Specifically modeled after the Utah bill, the Nevada bill would create a Nevada Land Management Implementation Committee appointed by county commissioners, which would conduct a study anticipating the effects that a land transfer would have on the state “in contemplation of Congress turning over the management and control of those public lands to the State of Nevada on or before June 30, 2015.”

Idaho

The outdoor recreation economy creates $6.3 billion in consumer spending in Idaho per year, as well as 77,000 direct jobs. While the Idaho legislature has not yet officially considered a bill to turn some or all of the state’s 33 million acres of public lands over to the state, discussions and preparations to do so are in the works. State Rep. Lawerence Denney (R), chairman of the state’s Resources and Conservation Committee, has expressed interest in introducing such a bill. Utah Rep. Ivory addressed a joint meeting of the state’s House Resources and Conservation Committee and Senate Resources and Environment Committee in late January 2013, lauding the Utah bill and its merits.

The idea of selling off public lands has not, however, seen political success in Idaho. The Associated Press reports that in the state’s 2006 gubernatorial race, now-Gov. Butch Otter (R) was forced to withdraw his support for federal legislation that would sell off public lands in the West to offset costs of Hurricane Katrina — only after “getting bruised by his political challengers and voters irritated by the possibility of losing some of Idaho’s prized backcountry.”

State efforts are seriously misguided

This section outlines the three main reasons why state attempts to “take back” public lands are misguided: People in these states do not believe there is a problem; the economic arguments don’t pan out; and the efforts are unconstitutional.

People in these states don’t think there is a problem

Central to the intent behind and promotion of these bills is the notion that people living in these seven states are upset about the job that the federal government is doing when it comes to managing public lands, and that there is too much public land preventing resource development. But conservative ideologues are wrong in this regard, which is indicated in the data below.

A recent poll from Colorado College’s State of the Rockies Project, for example, asked western voters whether they think having “too much public land” is a problem. Here are the answers—either that it is a “serious” problem or that it isn’t a problem—by state:

While this poll did not cover Idaho and Nevada, recent polls in those states show similar sentiments. A poll in Idaho, for instance, determined that 73 percent of Idahoans agree that “One of the things our federal government does well is protect and preserve our national heritage through the management of forests, national parks and other public lands.” And in Nevada, two-thirds of small-business owners believe that allowing private companies to develop public lands “would limit the public’s enjoyment of them.”

Despite what conservatives want to think, the western public understands that there is a role for the federal government in managing public lands and doesn’t want to see the land turned over to states or private interests.

Economic arguments don’t pan out

Another key argument that proponents of such bills make is that the federal government is “locking up” public lands that could be used for economic development such as mining and drilling. To make this argument more appealing, some of the bills transfer a portion of the funds from selling or developing lands to state public education funds and send the rest to relieve the national debt. As Utah Rep. Ivory put it, “If we unleash those resources in a responsible, sustainable manner, that’s a matter of national employment. That’s a matter of national economic GDP growth; that’s a matter of national deficit and debt reduction.”

But conservatives miss two key points in making these economic arguments. First, public lands already provide an extraordinary economic impact, both from traditional resource development currently allowed on the lands such as mining, drilling, and timber, and from outdoor recreation on protected lands. Second, they fail to note that adequately managing millions more acres of land will be very difficult for states facing budget constraints.

Public lands provide tremendous economic impacts. The Department of the Interior—the agency that manages most public lands — stimulated $385 billion in economic development and more than 2 million jobs in 2011 alone. This number includes the extraction of oil, gas, coal, and other minerals from public lands, in addition to timber, grazing, and recreation. Recreation-related activities alone created 403,000 jobs and nearly $49 billion in economic activity across the country. The U.S. Forest Service, which manages national forests, also has major economic impacts — visitor spending on recreation in and near national forests, for example, added $13 billion to gross domestic product and sustained 200,000 jobs across the country in fiscal year 2011.

The fact that public lands create jobs is echoed in public sentiment. In six western states, for example, 79 percent of voters believe that public lands support the economy, while only 15 percent believe they “take land off the tax rolls, cost government to maintain them, and prevent opportunities for logging and oil and gas production that could provide jobs.”

Regarding the second point about states likely not being prepared for the burden of managing an influx of public lands, Jodi Peterson of High Country News, a publication based in Paonia, Colorado, says it best:

If that transfer ever does occur, the old adage “Be careful what you wish for” might apply. Cash-strapped states would have trouble covering even minimal management of former federal land … [and] there aren’t ready buyers for these millions of acres.

The attempts are unconstitutional

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that these attempts are unconstitutional, according to case law dating back to the 1800s, and therefore will only serve to waste state taxpayers’ money. Each of the state attempts to force Congress to turn over public lands references the state’s enabling act—the language that made it a state to begin with. Proponents say the federal government has not kept its promise to give the public lands back to the states.

But in reality this is just not true. Each of these enabling acts that the states agreed to in order to become members of the union renounced their claims to federal public lands. Here are the relevant sections of each state constitution or enabling act:

Utah: “That the people inhabiting said proposed State do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof”Arizona: “That the people inhabiting said proposed State do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated and ungranted public lands lying within the boundaries thereof and to all lands lying within said boundaries”Wyoming: “The people inhabiting this state do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof”New Mexico: “That the people inhabiting said proposed state do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated and ungranted public lands lying within the boundaries thereof”Colorado: “That the people inhabiting said Territory do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said Territory”Nevada: “That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States”Idaho: “And the people of the state of Idaho do agree and declare that we forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof”

In even further proof that these are attempts are unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken many times on this issue. Ironically, the case law in this regard was discussed by Utah’s own Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel in its opinion on the Utah bill, stating:

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that “[w]ith respect to the public domain, the Constitution vests in Congress the power of disposition and of making all needful rules and regulations. That power is subject to no limitations. Congress has the absolute right to prescribe the times, the conditions, and the mode of transferring this property, or any part of it, and to designate the persons to whom the transfer shall be made. No State legislation can interfere with this right or embarrass its exercise; and to prevent the possibility of any attempted interference with it, a provision has been usually inserted in the compacts by which new States have been admitted to the Union, that such interference with the primary disposal of the soil of the United States shall never be made.” Gibson v. Chouteau, 80 U.S. 92 (1872).

Additionally, a Congressional Research Service report in 2007 on the history of federal land management and the Constitution noted that:

The U.S. Constitution addresses the relationship of the federal government to lands. Article IV, § 3, Clause 2—the Property Clause—gives Congress authority over federal property generally, and the Supreme Court has described Congress’s power to legislate under this Clause as “without limitation.” The equal footing doctrine (based on language within Article IV, § 3, Clause 1), and found in state enabling acts, provides new states with equality to the original states in terms of constitutional rights, but has not been used successfully to force the divestment of federal lands. The policy question of whether to acquire more, or to dispose of any or all, federal lands is left to Congress to decide.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that those living in these seven states do not fundamentally agree with the attempts to “take back” public lands, that the economic arguments for it are incomplete, and that the efforts are unconstitutional, conservatives in these state legislatures across the West have still introduced bills demanding the federal government turn federal public lands over to the states. Efforts in Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Idaho are misguided and merely serve to fan the fire of extreme and fruitless rhetoric at the taxpayers’ expense.

Jessica Goad is Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress. Tom Kenworthy is a Senior Fellow at the Center. This article was reprinted from CAP with permission.

Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF version of this issue brief.

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Obamacare 2.0: Shaky like 1.0

Obamacare fires are flaring up all over — in Hill hearings, in scary headlines about big rate hikes and in closed-door meetings of nervous Democrats.

The White House response: We’ll get to that.

President Barack Obama’s messaging gurus and their allies say they will step on the gas before enrollment begins this fall, but the effort, they concede, is not in full swing.

Obama’s allies know the health care law needs a massive outreach effort, but Obamacare Round 2 is already starting to look a lot like Round 1, when Democrats roundly accused the White House of botching its appeal to the public, giving Republicans the upper hand on defining the law.

It’s a clear contrast with the immigration reform effort, where the rollout has been filled with business and advocacy groups praising the Gang of Eight bill and quickly knocking down any attacks. This week, there has been plenty of fodder for GOP critics of the health care law but mostly silence from the administration.

Part of that is because the White House team is in flux. Tara McGuinness, who just joined the White House to run the messaging of the law, told POLITICO that her shop is “ramping up on the health care communications and outreach.”

She pointed out that Democratic senators met with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough on Thursday, the first in a series of Hill meetings.

Meanwhile, the groups that will be responsible for on-the-ground work say they’re waiting.

Obama is leaning heavily on outside allies, and on Friday he asked Planned Parenthood to help sell the law with a pitch heavy on benefits to women, like contraceptive coverage and preventive care — the same targeted themes he stressed during his reelection campaign.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama urges Planned Parenthood to help inform on Obamacare)

But Enroll America, the coalition of health care advocates, industry groups, and labor and civil rights organizations that’s planning a massive outreach effort, says it’s still planning to kick into full gear its “Get Covered America” campaign this summer — it’s not speeding up the timetable. Headed by Anne Filipic, the former deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, the coalition is planning a campaign of online organizing, grass-roots outreach and paid advertising.

Organizing for Action has been planning its own outreach campaign for the summer, too, which is shaping up as a big test of the strength of its armies of volunteers. OFA officials didn’t respond to questions about whether they’ll speed up their plans.

Why wait? The answer, the law’s supporters say, is that if they do the outreach too early — and people are told they can sign up for Obamacare coverage with generous subsidies but there’s nowhere to go right now — they’ll just tune out. 

But Democrats are worried now — about the messaging and the mechanics of the rollout.

“I’m concerned — because we did take substantial criticism for putting this plan in place — that it achieve its true purpose,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas. “There’s so much work to do in such a short period of time.”

(Also on POLITICO: Obamacare exemption talk lights up Capitol Hill)

Other Democrats say the public is still confused about the law and they want to see more outreach and public education. Sen. Max Baucus, an author of the law, raised that concern in a recent hearing, arguing that if the administration doesn’t act, they’ll face a “huge train wreck coming down” — a comment that got serious attention from Republicans this week.

“I think there is a lot of confusion,” Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, a chief deputy whip for House Democrats and a vocal supporter of the law, told POLITICO. She’s not worried about Republican “hand-wringing” about all of the law’s potential problems, she said, “but what is of concern is that the October deadline … is rapidly approaching, and we need to make sure there is outreach happening.”

DeGette agreed that it may be too early to crank up the outreach machinery to full volume. Even though she’s planning town halls this summer to talk up the law and its benefits and said all members of Congress should do the same, “I think it would just cause more confusion if we did it right now because there’s no exchange for them to go to.”

But DeGette still says there’s an urgent need for more public education — at the right time.

She recalled a recent conversation where “a woman came up to me in Denver and said, ‘I’m a single mom, I make $40,000 a year. I don’t know how I’m going to get health insurance.’” When DeGette told her the Colorado health exchange would open on Oct. 1 and she might be eligible for coverage and subsidies, the woman reacted as if she’d never heard of Obamacare before: “She said, ‘I am? How do I get that information?’”

Other advocacy groups, like the National Council of La Raza and Young Invincibles, say they already have their own outreach efforts under way. “We certainly think it’s never too soon to start promoting the fact that big changes are coming,” said La Raza’s Jennifer Ng’andu.

Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, an advocacy group that’s leading the outreach effort, says the top priority should be for HHS to just keep working on the exchanges and the other infrastructure that will be needed for the October launch.

“I have every reason to be confident that the train is on track and will arrive at the station on time,” Pollack said. “Will there be any glitches? Of course, … and as problems emerge, as they do with every new program, they will be fixed.”

But as Democrats are realizing, those glitches gives the Republicans plenty of room to jump on every hint of a problem with Obamacare — and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had fun with Baucus’s “train wreck” comment by suggesting that Obama should give a speech warning about how terrible the law will be, and other Republicans have been circulating the “train wreck” quote all week.

And Republicans got new ammunition for their warnings that Obamacare will cause big health insurance premium hikes after CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield proposed a 25 percent rate hike for its coverage of individuals — and said it’s because of the law. Maryland officials have insisted, however, that those rates aren’t final and the state’s insurance commissioner can reject them — a point HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also made to lawmakers on Thursday.

Chet Burrell, CareFirst’s president and CEO, says the nonprofit insurer will have to raise its rates that much because of the law’s requirement that everyone will have to be accepted for coverage next year, even if they have pre-existing conditions. He’s not opposed to that goal — he calls it a “very worthy public purpose” — but says it will make individual coverage more expensive.

Everyone who is in Maryland’s high-risk pool now — a program specifically designed to cover people with pre-existing conditions — will switch to regular private coverage, Burrell said, and health coverage for those people is five times as expensive as it is for everyone else with individual coverage.

“This isn’t some evil health insurance company plot,” Burrell said, but a “realistic” look at what happens when everyone with pre-existing conditions can get regular health coverage for the first time.

Advocates aren’t too worried about the danger that other insurers across the country could boost their rates in the same way. Pollack said CareFirst, which provides coverage to his group, already had a history of asking for big rate increases even before the law.

Jen Mishory of Young Invincibles, which is trying to get young adults to sign up for Obamacare, notes that those aren’t the actual rates most people would pay — most young adults would get subsidies that would hide a lot of the cost. And if other insurers in the health exchanges offer lower rates, “the consumers will be able to choose” based on those prices, she said.

But Burrell predicts that other insurers will ask for the same kinds of rate increases when they sell their individual plans in the health exchange, and he says the only reason other Maryland insurers haven’t been called out on it is that their filings with the state have been so confusing that it’s hard to tell what their actual increases will be.

Members of Congress, meanwhile, had a big headache on their hands after POLITICO reported on efforts to fix a part of the law that requires lawmakers and their staffs to get their coverage through the health exchanges instead of through the same federal employees health plan that covers other government workers.

The problem is that the provision — added to the law by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa — isn’t clear on how they’d get their employer contributions that pays for most of their premiums now through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The measure was supposed to be a statement that Congress should be treated like everyone else, but if they don’t find a fix, they could end up paying the entire premium themselves — which is harsher than how others in the exchanges would be treated.

Now, Democratic leaders are fighting Republican charges — fueled by the POLITICO coverage — that they’re trying to get special treatment for Congress, but they insist they’re just trying to make sure that there’s a way to pay for the premiums and treat all staff members equally (some fall under the provision, some don’t). House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is pushing for an administrative fix that wouldn’t require new legislation.

There are various scenarios about how that could happen, but the focus is on preventing them from having to pay the full cost of insurance themselves — unlike other people who will be in the exchanges or who get covered on the job.

But the whole episode shows how lawmakers are now facing the consequences of the way the health care bill was passed — by taking the Senate bill and passing it in the House, without the chance to work out a final bill in a House-Senate conference committee that would have cleaned up the sloppy language.

“It’s, frankly, grossly inadequate,” DeGette said. “It’s one of those Senate specials where they put it into the bill to get votes and then it never went to conference, so it never got fixed.”

Jennifer Haberkorn contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 5:17 p.m. on April 26, 2013.


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Obama to seek 'fiscally sustainable path,' not balanced budget

President Obama is unlikely to balance the budget when he releases his budget blueprint next month.

White House press secretary Jay Carney on Monday said Obama’s budget will seek to put the U.S. on a “fiscally sustainable path” that brings the deficit below 3 percent of gross domestic product.

He said Obama’s proposal would not attempt to hit an arbitrary target, however, and that it will only project over the next decade.

“The broader effort underway here is to try to, through the budget process, achieve a compromise that allows for both entitlement reform and tax reform, that produces the savings necessary to achieve that $4 trillion-plus target over 10 years of deficit reduction to put our economy on a fiscally sustainable path,” Carney said. “And that is the president's goal: Deficit reduction large enough to put our economy on a fiscally sustainable path so that the ratio of debt-to-GDP is below 3 percent for a period of time that would allow concurrently, through investments and other policy decisions, allow the economy to grow.”

The House GOP budget to be released tomorrow by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is expected to balance in 10 years. Ryan’s proposal is expected to include deep cuts to entitlement programs and government spending, but no new taxes.

In seeking to balance the budget in 10 years, the new document from Ryan will be more ambitious than his last budgets.

“We think we have a responsible plan to balance the budget, which — the reason we do a balanced budget is not to make the numbers simply add up, it leads to a healthy, growing economy that creates jobs,” Ryan told “Fox News Sunday.” “It's a means to an end. And the means is to get to a good, growing economy to create jobs and opportunity.”

Carney said Obama’s goal was to produce a budget that would provide economic growth and create jobs.

“It should not be deficit reduction for deficit reduction's sake. The goal here should be economic growth and job creation,” Carney said.

Republicans have criticized the White House for failing to release its budget, which under the law was due in the first week of February. Congressional sources now say they believe the budget will come in early April, which will trail budget proposals from the House and Senate.

On Monday, Carney again reiterated that the White House did not "have a date-certain" for release of the president's budget.

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Some Nevadans May See Higher Premiums Under Obamacare

Editor’s note: This is one in an occasional series of stories on health care reform.

The Affordable Care Act may not be so affordable for some Nevadans.

The law, commonly called Obamacare, combines benefit mandates and subsidies designed to make health insurance less costly for millions of Americans who now lack coverage.

But observers ranging from state insurance officials to employee benefit consultants say some consumers could see premium increases big enough to price them out of insurance markets. If that happens, fewer people than expected could buy into the system, and that might mean the difference between Obamacare’s success or failure.

It’s not yet clear how dramatic Nevada’s premium increases might be. The state Division of Insurance has received no new product filings for the state’s public insurance exchange, Nevada Insurance Commissioner Scott Kipper said.

Kipper and other division officials declined to estimate what premiums might be, post-reform.

But they did say changes are coming, especially for consumers who buy plans on the individual market, rather than through their employers. Individual buyers make up 15.4 percent of the state’s fully insured market, excluding people who buy through self-insured businesses or government programs.

“They will see something that looks very different from what they have, and it may be priced very differently as a result,” said Glenn Shippey, an actuary in the life and health section of the Division of Insurance. “We’re not sure what that difference is going to be on an individual basis, but it’s important to understand there will be a lot of changes in existing policies.”

VANISHING INDIVIDUAL PLANS

Simply put, if you have an individual insurance plan, it will probably cease to exist. Its replacement will be a minimum benchmark — basic — plan with “essential health benefits” that all Nevada insurers must offer after January. Officials for the Division of Insurance and the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange recommended a benchmark plan similar to Health Plan of Nevada’s comprehensive yet flexible point-of-service plan, which is already the small-group market’s largest plan by enrollment.

The benchmark doesn’t mean every Nevadan must buy point-of-service coverage through Health Plan of Nevada, but it does mean every insurance carrier’s individual plan must meet those coverage levels.

So, whether they need it or not, Nevadans buying individual policies will be covered for maternity care, mental health services, infertility treatments, home health, bariatric surgery, chiropractic care and hearing aids.

Those benefits are common for comprehensive, large-group plans, but rare in individual coverage.

Obamacare also mandates that new plans pay for at least 60 percent of the cost of care they cover. Many individual policies pay just 40 percent of expenses.

The enhanced coverage could boost access to care for thousands of Nevadans, but there is a pricey flip side to those add-ons.

“There’s no way these plans can remain at the (premium) costs they were, because carriers have to provide more benefits in their plan structure,” said Todd Rich, chief deputy commissioner of the Division of Insurance. “They have to price the plans higher.”

Added Shippey: “Individuals in all states are going to see some significant increases, depending on what type of individual we’re talking about. The new laws and rules coming into effect could cause substantial premium increases for some individuals.”

But a richer benefits package isn’t the only factor set to drive up premiums.

New restrictions will limit the difference in premium costs between young, healthy people and older, sicker patients. Nevada law allows insurers to charge older, unhealthy people premiums as much as six times more than younger consumers pay. After January, that gap can only be three times more.

Also gone will be premium reductions for healthier groups. Today, insurers under­write businesses.

An athletic club staffed with healthy, young people gets a preferred rate, while a bar and grill where older employees live on fatty food gets a maximum rate, said Assurance Ltd. employee benefit consultant Frank Nolimal. He travels Southern Nevada giving businesses a presentation called, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Health Care Reform and Beyond.”

Post-reform, insurers won’t be able to reward or penalize employee behavior. The community rating will be the same for all.

Those rating changes mean young, healthy people could see big increases in premium costs, while unhealthier populations could get a break.

“One side of the fence is subsidizing the other side to keep premiums level,” Nolimal said.

That could be a problem for individual buyers, because they lack tax benefits or employer assistance to pay for coverage, said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for the Washington-based trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans.

When someone must buy coverage on their own, they pay the full cost, and that makes them more price-sensitive, Zirkelbach said. That’s why many individuals trade comprehensive coverage for lower premiums.

LESS COVERAGE VS. LOWER PREMIUMS

Toying with that trade-off between less coverage and lower premiums could affect whether Obamacare works.

“The positive is that people are getting more benefits, and they’ll pay less out-of-pocket,” Zirkelbach said.

“But any time you add new benefits to a policy, you add to the cost of coverage. There’s a pretty broad agreement that, for these reforms to work, we need broad participation in the system, particularly among the younger and healthier, to offset the costs of those with high health-care needs. To the extent new mandates increase costs for younger people, they may price them out of the market altogether. That will drive up costs for everyone.”

Division of Insurance officials said it’s too early to tell how much premiums could change in January. And representatives of the state’s two biggest insurers, UnitedHealth Group and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, either declined to comment or didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Advocacy groups and lawmakers have taken a stab at guesstimating, though. Their predictions vary wildly.

FEDERAL SUBSIDIES

As far back as 2009, Anthem officials crunched the numbers and said premiums for Nevada members with the company’s individual policies would rise 85 percent on average. For small businesses, the typical premium increases would be 70 percent.

Some groups would be hit harder than others: For a healthy, 25-year-old male, the monthly premium on an individual plan with a $2,500 deductible and comprehensive pharmaceutical coverage would jump 115 percent, from $119 to $257. A family of four in average health would pay 61 percent more, with premiums rising from $674 to $1,088.

But a 60-year-old couple in poor health would see an 11 percent decline, as monthly charges fell from $1,741 to $1,558.

In March 2012, a study prepared for the state by Massachusetts-based Gorman Actuarial found that individual-market premiums in Nevada could rise 11 percent to 30 percent on average, though federal subsidies could blunt that blow for lower-income consumers.

A January report in Contingencies, the American Academy of Actuaries’ publication, also predicted that people 21 to 29 will pay 42 percent higher premiums nationwide, while those 30 to 39 can expect to shell out 31 percent more. What’s more, adults 21 to 29 making $25,000 or more a year can expect to pay more.

An April study by consulting firm Milliman for America’s Health Insurance Plans found that a healthy 27-year-old U.S. male could see an average 149.8 percent annual premium jump, from $1,414 to $3,532.

Federal subsidies could change that calculation: A young man earning less than $25,000 or so a year would see premiums drop by 25 to 60 percent, thanks to tax breaks, while one who earns about $42,000 a year or more would see premiums spike 169 percent.

For an unhealthy, 57-year-old woman, yearly premiums could tick up 4.1 percent, from $7,892 to $8,214, though federal aid would bring down premiums 51 percent or more for women making less than roughly $42,000 a year.

‘GRUMBLINGS AND RUMORS’

Policymakers are now weighing in. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius didn’t put numbers on it, but she told the Wall Street Journal in March that “there may be a higher cost associated with” moving individual buyers into a “fully insured product for the first time.”

Sebelius added that some men and younger customers could see rates rise, while women and older customers might enjoy rate drops.

Though the state Division of Insurance wouldn’t offer its own analysis, it is issuing caveats. Adam Plain, an insurance regulatory liaison with the agency, cautioned that premium studies use differing methods, and may rely on distinct regional demographic data that don’t apply in every market. Plus, assumptions used in studies may be outdated because new regulations are added daily to the books.

Employee benefits experts give mixed reviews to existing studies.

Nolimal said a 115 percent premium jump for younger, healthier consumers is “very close” to estimates he hears .

Quincy Branch, president and CEO of Branch Benefits Consultants in Las Vegas, said he hears “grumblings and rumors,” yet nothing concrete from carriers.

New premiums could become more concrete in coming weeks.

Insurers will begin filing plans with the Division of Insurance late this month and in early June. The division will make those plans available to the public shortly after they receive them, though Kipper said that won’t mean the agency has signed off on the premiums. He said the division would study rate requests to ensure they’re not excessive, inadequate or unfairly discriminatory. The approval process for each plan could take two to 10 weeks, depending on complexity. Plans would take effect Jan. 1.

Large-group markets for bigger employers will see fewer effects. Those plans typically offer the kind of comprehensive coverage just now coming to individual and small-group plans, and they’re spared community- and age-rating changes for two years, Nolimal said.

Self-insured companies, which pay health costs directly, are exempt from many mandates, though they often offer richer coverage than individual plans.

Still, Rich said the agency believes small and large groups will also feel the effects of new plan mandates, if not as much as individual buyers will.

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison @reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @J_Robison1 on Twitter.


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Sen. Cruz: 'I'm glad' Obama is finally reaching out to Republicans

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is "glad" President Obama has been meeting with Republican lawmakers recently.

Cruz's comments during a radio interview on Monday follow Obama dining with a dozen of Cruz's Republican Senate colleagues on Wednesday. The president is scheduled to meet with both Republican and Democratic caucuses in the House and the Senate during the week.

"I think we should always be willing to listen. I think we should always treat each other with civility and respect," Cruz, a Tea Party favorite, said Monday during an interview on The Bill Bennett Show. "I'm glad that he is reaching out. That is better than what I have seen the first couple of months here where it seemed that he had no interest whatsoever in talking with the other side."

During the dinner on Wednesday Obama told the group of Republican senators that he wanted to finish a grand bargain plan for reducing the deficit by the end of July. Participants leaving the meeting seemed optimistic about the possibility of completing a grand bargain.

Cruz added though that he would like to see more from Obama than just sitting down and listening to Republicans.

"But I'm a big believer that actions speak louder than words —that if he's really interested," Cruz said.  "The day I was elected to office I said I look forward and am eager to work with President Obama if he's willing to get serious about solving the grave economic and fiscal challenges."

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More Employers Setting Up Nap Rooms for Weary Workers

Workers can be forgiven if they look at the company with envy. Armed with technology and operating in a global economy, they are a tired lot.

(Read More: Mobile Wipes Out Eight-Hour Workday)

Without the benefit of a brief afternoon nap, they have turned to habits both healthy and unhealthy to fight their fatigue, only to be faced with the same early-morning wake-up call the next day.

Health experts have gone so far as to say worker fatigue is an epidemic that is weighing on workers' health and productivity. And employers who have ignored it—most of them—have done so at their own risk.

"The measures we have (of productivity) don't necessarily measure quality," said Joel Naroff, an economist based in Holland, Pa. "What workers learn is to get the job done. While they may be trying to get it done as best as possible, the operative phrase is 'best as possible,' not 'best.' "

Sleeping on the Commute

Many workers throughout the nation may feel particularly groggy Monday morning. They lost an hour by setting their clocks ahead over the weekend for the annual ritual of daylight saving time.

New Jersey Shore-area workers arrived at the Middletown, N.J., train station one recent Monday for a trip to northern New Jersey or New York that would take upward of an hour, trudging along the sidewalk, coffee and smartphones in hand, while they waited for the train.

While some commuters scoffed at the idea that they were sleep-deprived, others flashed a knowing smile at the question. Jessica Chepauskas, 23, of Middletown, was one of them. She used to drive part of the way to her job, but recently changed her routine and now takes NJ Transit "so I get an extra hour of sleep," she said.

Technology may be getting faster and the world may be getting smaller, but the number of hours in the day hasn't changed.

American workers emerging from the recession have been under pressure to work harder, with fewer hands on deck. They've been handed technology to help them remain in constant touch. And they've been taking care of children and aging parents.

Some 43 percent of Americans ages 13 to 64 said they rarely or never get a good night's sleep on weeknights, according to a 2011 poll by the National Sleep Foundation, a research group based in Arlington, Va.

Part of the Problem?

Humans are designed to set their sleep patterns around daylight and nightfall. Yet almost everyone—95 percent—said they use electronics, including television, computers, video games, cellphones or a combination of them within an hour of bedtime, subjecting themselves to an artificial light that isn't conducive to restful sleep, researchers from the foundation said.

(Read More: How a 390-Year-Old Family Business Avoids Layoffs)

It creates all sorts of hazards. Fatigued workers have trouble concentrating and are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and depression, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And they can put others' lives at risk. Continental Flight 3407 from Newark, N.J., to Buffalo, N.Y., crashed on its approach in February 2009, killing 49 passengers and crew members and one person on the ground. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board said the pilots' performance was probably impaired by fatigue.

"Reducing accidents and incidents caused by human fatigue has been on the NTSB's Most Wanted List since 1990," the agency wrote in its accident report.

Despite alerts such as that from the NTSB, employers have been slow to pay attention to sleep, said Carol Ash, director of sleep medicine at Meridian Health System in New Jersey, who consults with Fortune 500 companies.

It seems odd. Employers, trying to rein in soaring health care costs, have increasingly taken on more oversight of their workers' wellness. They have prodded their workers to exercise. They have encouraged them to keep their blood pressure, cholesterol and weight in check. But they don't think twice about asking them to be on call 24/7, Ash said.

Meanwhile, until the fourth quarter of last year, employers recovering from the recession had tried to stay afloat with gains in productivity, squeezing more work from their existing staff, according to Labor Department statistics.

But the figures don't measure the quality of work.

"For the vast majority of people, it's a formula for failure," Ash said. "The more you have a sleep deficit, the lower the productivity. It's an inverse relationship."

Not that every employer needs to carve out space for naps. Ash said workers needing time to nap could be cured if they got a restful night of sleep. (A 2010 survey by the Society of Human Resource Management, a trade group, found just 5% of employers had a nap room on site.)

But Colleary saw the possibilities.

He had an internship with a bank in New York that touted a nap room, only it wasn't well-thought-out. There was room for three people. There were no assigned times. He would open the door, turn on the light, and inadvertently wake anyone who was trying to nap.

At Nationwide Planning Associates, he gathered data showing the benefits of napping, scheduled a meeting with management and persuaded them to spend as much as $10,000 on the project.

Colleary said they make sure there are enough employees to handle calls from clients. And if they are short-staffed on a given day, they will forgo their nap. But the bulk of his co-workers have taken the company up on the perk.

"It was a long time in the making," Colleary said. "It was the middle of the day, and we would say, 'I'm really tired.' 'Me, too, I wish we could take a nap, ha ha ha.' Then over time it became more serious, and we thought, what if we really could do this?"

Advice for your best sleep

Having trouble staying awake at work? Carol Ash, director of sleep medicine at Meridian Health, offers these tips:

Get between seven and nine hours of sleep a night.
Go to bed and wake up at the same time, even during weekends.
Don't nap for more than 20 minutes.
Turn off electronics an hour before bed.
Keep your room dark, quiet and cool, preferably between 65 degrees and 70 degrees.
Avoid spicy food. Avoid alcohol at least three hours before sleep. And avoid caffeine in the afternoon and night.

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How the IRS Scandal Threatens Obamacare

Photo credit: OECD / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-NDPhoto credit: OECD / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-NDObamacare is not merely a massive overhaul of the health care system. It is also a substantial expansion of the Internal Revenue Service. That’s because the law relies on the tax collection agency to both enforce its individual mandate and administer the tax credits the law offers to subsidize the purchase of health insurance. Following recent revelations that agents in multiple IRS offices, including tax officials in Washington, targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny, a number of former and current Republican legislators are already counseling caution about the agency's role in administering the law.

Concerns about the agency’s oversight of the health law are well-founded—and not only because of general concerns about the agency’s judgment.

For one thing, the IRS appears to have specifically targeted groups that opposed the health care law. According to The Washington Post, “although some of the groups were explicitly labeled ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot,’ others that came under intense scrutiny were focused on challenging the Affordable Care Act — known by many as Obamacare — or the integrity of federal elections.”

In other words, the agency has singled out Obamacare opponents for unusual treatment. That does not speak well of the agency’s ability to fairly carry out its duties under the law.

Perhaps more importantly, however, the agency has already launched an attempt to subvert the health law’s clear statutory language. As I noted earlier today, the text of the legislation specifies that the law’s tax credits for private insurance are available in exchanges created by states. It does not provide for those subsidies to be available in exchanges run by the federal government. Yet the IRS rule regarding the tax credits essentially ignored this, and allowed for the subsidies to be available in both state and federally run exchanges.

What this means is that the IRS is already taking creative liberties with the administrative duties it is assigned under the health law. It’s already attempting to use its power to expand Obamacare beyond the specifics of its statute. It’s already ignoring the text of the law when doing so suits its purposes. 

And it has done so with the explicit support of the same top official who claimed that there was “absolutely no targeting” of conservative groups going on at the IRS.

As the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon noted last week, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman insisted in a 2012 congressional subcommittee hearing that the IRS was in no way singling out groups based on political outlook. We now know that to be false.

A year prior, Shulman insisted that the IRS rule regarding premium subsidies in federally run exchanges was “consistent with the language, purpose, and structure” of Obamacare. Tellingly, he did not point to a statute authorizing the IRS interpretation. Admittedly, that would have been difficult, because there isn’t one. As the Congressional Research Service noted in its analysis of the law, a “strictly textual analysis of the plain meaning of the provision would likely lead to the conclusion that the IRS’ authority to issue the premium tax credits is limited only to situations in which the taxpayer is enrolled in a state-established exchange.” [Emphasis added.]

The IRS has already demonstrated dubious political and legal judgment regarding its role in the administration of Obamacare. More officials should question its judgment in matters related to the law. 


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Joss Whedon’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ And The Challenge Of Modern Shakespeare Adaptations

One of the reasons William Shakespeare’s work is so enduring is that it’s perceived to be timeless. Romeo and Juliet are stand-ins for every teenage couple that perceives themselves to be or actually is pulled apart by family or other societal forces. Hamlet is every son with a dead father and an uncertain sense of himself. Bands of brothers will continue to charge into battle from this day to the ending of the world, and they and we will need to believe they do so for a greater cause to enable them to keep doing it. But while many of Shakespeare’s psychological insights may feel unmoored from time, in the same way Lizzy Bennet and Mr. Darcy could have met, sparred, and found each other in almost any time period, with adjustments along the way, the means by which Shakespeare delivered those insights vary widely in how tightly they’re tied to particular historical circumstnaces and mores, and in how much structres from the past have reinvented themselves for new eras. This poses enormous challenges for the success of a contemporary Shakespeare adaptation: it’s easy to turn the Capulet and Montagues’ relatively amorphous family fued into a gang rivalry or a spat between business empires, but rather harder to come up with a modern equivalent of the Salic Law that will get audiences juiced.

I say all of this as a roundabout way of approaching Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, a play that’s a perfect example of a relatively modern relationship that’s brought together under difficult-to-translate circumstances. Beatrice and Benedick, two wits who have each other as their favorite targets, are brought together in a horribly traumatic moment that’s difficult to imagine today: Beatrice’s cousin has her chastity impugned at the altar on her wedding day, is left at the altar, and her family pretends that she’s died of shame in order to build time to restore her reputation. The process by which Hero’s wedding is ruined is essentially a timeless one—she’s framed for cheating with another man on the night before her marriage to Claudio—but the reaction to this news is not. Claudio isn’t just disgusted by the idea that Hero has cheated on him: the fact that she has sexual experience at all is at the root of Claudio’s complaint to Hero’s father at the altar:

Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.
There, Leonato, take her back again:
Give not this rotten orange to your friend;
She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.
Behold how like a maid she blushes here!
O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal!
Comes not that blood as modest evidence
To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,
All you that see her, that she were a maid,
By these exterior shows? But she is none:
She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;
Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

I wrote on Friday that this is a scenario that’s exceedingly hard to move into the modern era, and I thought the success of Much Ado About Nothing would depend on the ability of the movie to find a contemporary scenario into which this conflict fit without seeming jarringly anachronistic, making it easier to suspend disbelief about the characters’ reactions. While there’s no question that cheating on your wedding night is a big deal in modern society, we’re—fortunately—not a society where it would be a reasonable test of your lover’s affections to ask him to kill his best friend for besmirching your cousin’s sexual reputation. There are options here, of course. I would have been curious to see a slightly larger social context where Hero and her family are Christian, and the film took seriously the idea that her honor is valuable to her because she’s been taught it’s the most important thing about her. And even more interesting could have been a setup where Claudio’s reaction seems to come more from a sense of anxiety about the revelation that his bride has more sexual experience than he does than from the idea that Don Leonato has offended him by pretending to honor him but offering him “this rotten orange” as a sign of that honor.”

So it’s an interesting choice for Whedon that he does add one significant bit of modern context to Much Ado. But it’s meant to flesh out the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick, the part of the play that transitions most smoothly into a modern setting, rather than to render less jarring the conflict that lets them end the “merry war of words” between them. In the scene that opens the film, it’s revealed that Beatrice (Amy Acker) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof) slept together before he went off to the wars, and for reasons unclear, they’re both embarrassed and angry with each other about the encounter. It’s a decision that works surprisingly well for all its lack of necessity, giving new meaning to Beatrice’s barb that Benedick is “a good soldier to a lady,” or her insistence that “I know you of old” after he slips out of their conversation with “a jade’s trick,” just as he slept out of her bed early in the morning to avoid awkward conversation. When the Prince tells Beatrice at the party that “You have lost the heart of Senor Benedick,” Beatrice’s reply that “He lent it to me for a while” has a new and lovely melancholy.

But the dynamic between Beatrice and Benedick has larger problems. Denisof, a veteran of How I Met Your Mother plays Benedick like womanizer Barney Stinson, rather than as a man who’s hesitant to see the military unit that’s given his life meaning and companionship broken up by marriage—this is bro-hood, not brotherhood. In his readings of lines like “I hope you have no intent to turn husband,” or Benedick’s declaration that the woman he marries must be “Virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen her,” I could almost see MacLaren’s Pub breaking through the background as if conjured for another realm. Acker’s performance as Beatrice is better, a melancholy rather than merry read on the character, which wisely means she’s competing less with Emma Thompson than Denisof is with Kenneth Branagh, even to the extent of stealing his voice concealment schitck during the garden party, and she suffers less by comparison as a result. But the new backstory between her and Benedick would have required slightly more context to explain why an independent woman in a contemproray setting who has repeatedly rejected the idea of marriage would be so wounded by a one-night stand. Explaining that reaction might have provided a set of norms that would have clarified the Claudio-Hero story, and given more context for Beatrice and Benedick’s reactions when Hero is falsely accused, and Benedick takes her side rather than standing with his friends, giving him more reason than simply wanting to impress Beatrice.

The real problem is with what happens after Hero is accused and pretends to have died. Fran Kranz and Jillian Morgese do very nice work with the most fundamentally boring parts in the play, and in particular, someone should really cast Kranz in an indie romantic comedy already. But watching Beatrice demand that Claudio be killed for the sin of falsely accusing Hero, or watching Denisof flash a pistol at Claudio in the tastefully-appointed library in Joss Whedon’s real-life house just feels silly and histrionic. Rather than Shakespeare’s words giving us the gravity we’ve scrambled after in contemporary life, something that worked so well with contemporary war in Ralph Fiennes’ excellent 2011 adaptation of Coriolanus, here, his scenario just feels ludicrous, diminishing everyone involved, and making the challenges of contemporary romance feel histrionic rather than blesssed with a vocabulary that can express their proper gravity. That’s not to say there are no pleasures to be had here, particularly the channeling of Nathan Fillion’s spectacular gift for pomposity into Dogberry, a performance that would do Michael Keaton proud, and the lovely use of Clark Gregg’s decency as Don Leonato in perhaps the most deft and subtle casting in the movie. But Whedon’s interpretation ultimately makes the much ado about nothing in the title seem like a negative reflection on his characters rather than a charming reflection of the inherent nonsense and complication of true love.


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HHS Issues New Funds For ObamaCare Enrollment Efforts

The Obama administration announced new funding Thursday for efforts to help the uninsured find coverage through ObamaCare.

The Health and Human Services (HHS) Department will spend $150 million on enrollment assistance through community health centers, which serve an estimated 21 million patients annually.

The funding comes as Democrats are expressing concerns about implementation of the landmark law. Polls show that few people understand it, or how they might benefit. 

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that outreach through community health centers will "help consumers understand their options."

"Health centers have extensive experience providing eligibility assistance to patients, are providing care in communities across the nation, and are well-positioned to support enrollment efforts," Sebelius said.

The Obama administration and outside groups are planning efforts to educate consumers about healthcare reform starting this summer.

HHS is also funding tens of thousands of "navigators" — people who will help consumers shop for insurance in the newly created exchanges.

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Trump says he would fund canceled White House tours

Real estate mogul Donald Trump said Monday that ending White House tours because of sequestration cuts made the country look "awfully pathetic," and that he would be open to funding the tours out of his own pocket.

“Well I guess it’s political. They want to hurt the people. They want to do something to make their point," Trump said of the White House's decision to cancel the tours, adding that the decision was "just really ridiculous."

"It does make us look awfully bad and awfully pathetic,” Trump continued.

The reality television show host made the comments on "Fox and Friends," and was asked about a tweet from former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who suggested that Trump should offer to fund the tours.

"I think it’s so nice of Newt to suggest that," Trump said. "I don’t know anything about it, I'm hearing about it for the first time. I like Newt a lot. I didn’t hear this, but it sounds reasonable to me. Why not?”

NBC News reported last week that the canceled White House tours save the Secret Service around $74,000 a week, and would save around $2 million by the end of the fiscal year. Some 37 Secret Service officers are employed to staff the tours.

Multiple conservative commentators have offered to donate money to keep the tours going, but White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday that it was likely impossible to set up a way, under the sequester, for outside individuals to fund the operation.

"My guess is that it's not," Earnest said. "And the reason for that is the sequester mandates across-the-board, non-strategic, indiscriminate cuts to the budget. It allows very little, if any, flexibility for those who are administering the budget. And it means agency heads are put in a very difficult position of choosing between two bad options."

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Why Bee Venom Could Be The Secret Weapon We Need To Combat The HIV Epidemic

Scientists believe they may have discovered an unlikely weapon in the fight against the global HIV/AIDS epidemic: bee venom.

According to researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, bee venom contains a powerful toxin called “melittin” that can effectively kill the HIV virus while leaving the surrounding cells unharmed. Now that they’ve isolated the toxin, they’re using it to develop a vaginal gel to prevent the spread of HIV — a new tool that will hopefully help stop the transmission of the virus in places with high rates of infection:

“Our hope is that in places where HIV is running rampant, people could use this gel as a preventive measure to stop the initial infection,” says Joshua L. Hood, MD, PhD, a research instructor in medicine. [...]

According to Hood, an advantage of this approach is that the nanoparticle attacks an essential part of the virus’ structure. In contrast, most anti-HIV drugs inhibit the virus’s ability to replicate. But this anti-replication strategy does nothing to stop initial infection, and some strains of the virus have found ways around these drugs and reproduce anyway.

“We are attacking an inherent physical property of HIV,” Hood says. “Theoretically, there isn’t any way for the virus to adapt to that. The virus has to have a protective coat, a double-layered membrane that covers the virus.”

Beyond prevention in the form of a vaginal gel, Hood also sees potential for using nanoparticles with melittin as therapy for existing HIV infections, especially those that are drug-resistant. The nanoparticles could be injected intravenously and, in theory, would be able to clear HIV from the blood stream.

Researchers haven’t yet explored all of melittin’s potential to be used for contraceptive purposes, but Hood pointed out that the gel could likely be adapted to target sperm as well as HIV — essentially creating a spermicide that could protect against both pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. But as of now, the gel is safe for both sperm and vaginal cells, and may be particularly useful for HIV-positive individuals who want to safely conceive.

And, since melittin could also help combat viruses other than HIV, bee venom could have broader implications for public health efforts. Melittin may be able to similarly destroy the hepatitis B and C viruses.

Bee venom’s important toxin is just the latest unexpected breakthrough in HIV treatment and prevention efforts. Last week, scientists reported that they may have “functionally cured” a two-year-old child of her HIV infection by aggressively treating her infection from the time of her birth. Unfortunately, the automatic cuts that recently began taking effect as a result of the sequestration may hamper future HIV research, as scientists will now have fewer resources to invest in research projects focused on unlocking the keys to treating the epidemic.


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About That Updated Application...

Bob's post yesterday got me excited. Finally the government is going to simplify things and make my life easier to sign up for health insurance. So I anxiously waited for the document to be released this morning and as soon as it hit I saw this story on Yahoo. According to the story there are only 12 pages for the family to complete. Wahoo!!!

The original was 26 pages and included pages for six family members to enroll. With five in my family I was looking at having to complete 22 to 24 pages. I had to see it to believe it so I pulled it off the CCIIO website.

It was a 12 page application...that allowed for TWO people to enroll. What about my three kids? How do I add them to the application? Reading into the detail a little further on the bottom of page two was the kicker. It says:

"If you have more than 2 people in your family, you'll need to make a copy of the pages and attach them."
Let's recap. The original 26 page application was designed to enroll six family members. It is now extinct and has been replaced by a new and simplified 12 page application for two people. For me to add all three children (each additional family member requires two pages) increases the new simplified app to 18 pages.

Saving 8 pieces of paper might excite Al Gore, but for most people it's still going to be a long process.


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Sen. McConnell touts support of Rand Paul filibuster in campaign email

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) touted his support for Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) filibuster last week of John Brennan's nomination for CIA director in a new campaign email on Monday.

"Thirteen hours on the Senate floor with no breaks. Thirteen hours of pushing back against an out of control Obama Administration who often refuses to work with or even acknowledge Congress," McConnell, who is up for reelection in 2014, said in the email, sent out to supporters. "Thirteen hours of capturing a nation's attention to both an important issue and an important new voice for our party."

On Wednesday Paul filibustered Brennan's nomination in order to pressure the Obama administration to answer questions about its drone policy. The filibuster lasted more than 12 hours and a number of Republican senators joined Paul. McConnell eventually came to the floor to praise Paul's effort to push the Obama administration to answer his questions.

"Rand stood in their way last week and I was thrilled to join him. But I stand in their way all too often for their tastes. So in addition to standing with Rand, I hope you'll help Team Mitch today," McConnell continues in the fundraising email.

President Obama and his congressional allies are "out" for Paul, McConnell added.

"You and I know that I am their number one target this year. They want me to pay for standing up to them. They want to control the agenda and the power in Congress," McConnell said.

McConnell said Obama has put a "target" on his back and is likely to start planning to push Paul out of the Senate as well.

"President Obama has put a huge target on my back and will no doubt soon start eyeing Rand as well," McConnell concludes in the email.

Among Democrats, actress Ashley Judd has signaled strong interest in challenging McConnell. Tea Partyer Matt Bevin is also considering a challenge to McConnell.

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Behind Every GOP Governor Cooperating With Obamacare Is An Industry Lobby Profiting From Obamacare

Another GOP governor has pledged to go ahead with Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, and once again, industry was standing right there with him. AP reports on West Virginia:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia will expand Medicaid as called for by the federal health care overhaul, through a plan unveiled Thursday by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin that would extend coverage to an estimated 91,500 uninsured low-income residents….

U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., joined Tomblin for Thursday’s announcement at Charleston’s St. Francis Hospital along with chief executives of several hospital systems. Expanding Medicaid is expected to help the state’s hospitals, which face a scheduled in federal reimbursement payments, by providing coverage to thousands of residents now treated at hospitals without compensation as charity care. The financial analysis cites studies estimating the annual savings to hospitals at $20 million to $30 million.

The same thing is happening in Ohio and Missouri. In Idaho, the GOP governor and legislature decided to build an Obamacare exchange thanks to industry pressure.


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Awash In Record Profits, Corporations Shift Even More To Offshore Tax Havens

Even as American corporations are raking in record profits, the largest among them are shifting larger amounts of money away from the United States and into offshore tax havens that allow them to pad their bottom lines even more, according to multiple analyses of legal filings made since the beginning of 2013.

The Wall Street Journal found that the 60 largest companies moved $166 billion offshore in 2012, shielding 40 percent of their earnings from American taxes and costing the U.S. billions in lost revenue:

The amount of money at stake is significant, particularly when the U.S. budget deficit is high on the political agenda. Just 19 of the 60 companies in the Journal’s survey disclose the tax hit they could face if they brought the money back to their U.S. parent. Those companies say they might have to pay $98 billion in additional tax—more than the $85 billion in automatic-spending cuts triggered this month after the White House and Congress couldn’t agree on an alternative.

A similar analysis from Bloomberg found that 83 of the largest American companies moved $183 billion overseas in 2012, bringing the total offshore to $1.46 trillion for those 83 companies alone. Most of the companies, like Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo, have set up subsidiaries in low-tax countries like Bermuda, Ireland, and the Cayman Islands specifically to receive tax benefits. That has ramifications for states, which lost $42 billion in revenue to corporate tax dodging in the last three years alone, and taxpayers and small businesses, who often have to pick up the tab.

And while the debate over corporate tax reform has flared again in Washington, the favorite reform of Republicans and corporate lobbying groups would only exacerbate the problem, making it easier for corporations to push even more money overseas at the expense of revenue and investment that could be made in the United States.


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