President Obama Signs Massachusetts Disaster Declaration

President Obama Signs Massachusetts Disaster Declaration | The White House Skip to main content | Skip to footer site map The White House. President Barack Obama Get Email UpdatesContact Us Go to homepage. The White House Blog Photos & Videos Photo Galleries Video Performances Live Streams Podcasts 2012: A Year in Photos

A unique view of 2012

Briefing Room Your Weekly Address Speeches & Remarks Press Briefings Statements & Releases White House Schedule Presidential Actions Executive Orders Presidential Memoranda Proclamations Legislation Pending Legislation Signed Legislation Vetoed Legislation Nominations & Appointments Disclosures Visitor Access Records Financial Disclosures 2012 Annual Report to Congress 2011 Annual Report to Congress 2010 Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff A Commitment to Transparency

Browse White House visitor logs

Issues Civil Rights It Gets Better Defense End of Iraq War Disabilities Economy Jobs Reform and Fiscal Responsibility Strengthening the Middle Class Support for Business Education Energy & Environment Ethics Foreign Policy Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Refinancing Rural Service Seniors & Social Security Snapshots Creating Jobs Health Care Small Business PreK-12 Education Rural Taxes Tax Receipt The Buffett Rule Technology Urban Policy Veterans Joining Forces Violence Prevention Women Now Is The Time

To do something about gun violence

Immigration Reform

Creating an Immigration System for the 21st Century

The Administration We the People

Create and Sign Petitions Now

President Barack Obama Vice President Joe Biden Being Biden Audio Series First Lady Michelle Obama Dr. Jill Biden The Cabinet White House Staff Chief of Staff Denis McDonough Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco Counselor to the President Peter Rouse Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett Executive Office of the President Other Advisory Boards About the White House White House On the Go

Download our mobile apps

Take A Virtual Tour

View the Residence, East Wing and West Wing

Inside the White House Interactive Tour West Wing Tour Video Series Décor and Art Holidays Presidents First Ladies The Oval Office The Vice President's Residence & Office Eisenhower Executive Office Building Camp David Air Force One White House Fellows President’s Commission About the Fellowship Current Class Staff Bios News and Newsletters White House Internships About Program Presidential Department Descriptions Selection Process Internship Timeline & FAQs Tours & Events 2013 Easter Egg Roll Kitchen Garden Tours Take a Virtual Tour of the White House Mobile Apps Our Government The Executive Branch The Legislative Branch The Judicial Branch The Constitution Federal Agencies & Commissions Elections & Voting State & Local Government Resources /* Maximize height of menu features. */if(typeof(jQuery)!='undefined')jQuery.each($('#topnav'),function(i,v){var o=$(v),oh=o.height(),sh=o.siblings().height();if(oh Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases   The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release April 22, 2013 President Obama Signs Massachusetts Disaster Declaration

The President today declared a major disaster exists in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and ordered Federal aid to supplement commonwealth and local recovery efforts in the area affected by the severe winter storm, snowstorm, and flooding during the period of February 8-9, 2013.

Federal funding is available to commonwealth and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe winter storm, snowstorm, and flooding in the counties of Barnstable, Berkshire, Bristol, Dukes, Essex, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex, Nantucket, Norfolk, Plymouth, Suffolk, and Worcester.

In addition, federal funding is available to the commonwealth and eligible local governments on a cost-sharing basis for snow assistance for a continuous 48-hour period during or proximate to the incident period in Berkshire, Bristol, Essex, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Worcester Counties. 

Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures for all counties within the commonwealth.

W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named James N. Russo as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected area.

FEMA said additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the commonwealth and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.

Blog posts on this issue April 22, 2013 6:34 PM EDTCelebrate National Park Week!

National Park Week celebrates and gives back to our country’s great natural and cultural landscapes.

April 22, 2013 5:57 PM EDTYoung Scientists and Innovators Amaze President Obama at the White House Science Fair

100 students from more than 40 states were at the White House for an all-day, hands-on celebration of the power and potential of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education.

April 20, 2013 1:10 PM EDTWatch Live: 2013 White House Science Fair

President Obama hosts the 3rd Annual White House Science Fair and celebrate the student winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions from across the country.

view all related blog posts ul.related-content li.views-row img {float: left; padding: 5px 10px 0 0;}ul.related-content li.view-all {padding-bottom: 3em;} Stay ConnectedFacebookTwitterFlickrGoogle+YouTubeVimeoiTunesLinkedIn   Home The White House Blog Photos & Videos Photo Galleries Video Performances Live Streams Podcasts Briefing Room Your Weekly Address Speeches & Remarks Press Briefings Statements & Releases White House Schedule Presidential Actions Legislation Nominations & Appointments Disclosures Issues Civil Rights Defense Disabilities Economy Education Energy & Environment Ethics Foreign Policy Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Refinancing Rural Service Seniors & Social Security Snapshots Rural Taxes Technology Urban Policy Veterans Violence Prevention Women The Administration President Barack Obama Vice President Joe Biden First Lady Michelle Obama Dr. Jill Biden The Cabinet White House Staff Executive Office of the President Other Advisory Boards About the White House Inside the White House Presidents First Ladies The Oval Office The Vice President's Residence & Office Eisenhower Executive Office Building Camp David Air Force One White House Fellows White House Internships Tours & Events Mobile Apps Our Government The Executive Branch The Legislative Branch The Judicial Branch The Constitution Federal Agencies & Commissions Elections & Voting State & Local Government Resources En español Accessibility Copyright Information Privacy Policy Contact USA.gov Developers Apply for a Job

View the original article here

President Obama Signs Massachusetts Emergency Declaration

President Obama Signs Massachusetts Emergency Declaration | The White House Skip to main content | Skip to footer site map The White House. President Barack Obama Get Email UpdatesContact Us Go to homepage. The White House Blog Photos & Videos Photo Galleries Video Performances Live Streams Podcasts 2012: A Year in Photos

A unique view of 2012

Briefing Room Your Weekly Address Speeches & Remarks Press Briefings Statements & Releases White House Schedule Presidential Actions Executive Orders Presidential Memoranda Proclamations Legislation Pending Legislation Signed Legislation Vetoed Legislation Nominations & Appointments Disclosures Visitor Access Records Financial Disclosures 2012 Annual Report to Congress 2011 Annual Report to Congress 2010 Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff A Commitment to Transparency

Browse White House visitor logs

Issues Civil Rights It Gets Better Defense End of Iraq War Disabilities Economy Jobs Reform and Fiscal Responsibility Strengthening the Middle Class Support for Business Education Energy & Environment Ethics Foreign Policy Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Refinancing Rural Service Seniors & Social Security Snapshots Creating Jobs Health Care Small Business PreK-12 Education Rural Taxes Tax Receipt The Buffett Rule Technology Urban Policy Veterans Joining Forces Violence Prevention Women Now Is The Time

To do something about gun violence

Immigration Reform

Creating an Immigration System for the 21st Century

The Administration We the People

Create and Sign Petitions Now

President Barack Obama Vice President Joe Biden Being Biden Audio Series First Lady Michelle Obama Dr. Jill Biden The Cabinet White House Staff Chief of Staff Denis McDonough Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco Counselor to the President Peter Rouse Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett Executive Office of the President Other Advisory Boards About the White House White House On the Go

Download our mobile apps

Take A Virtual Tour

View the Residence, East Wing and West Wing

Inside the White House Interactive Tour West Wing Tour Video Series Décor and Art Holidays Presidents First Ladies The Oval Office The Vice President's Residence & Office Eisenhower Executive Office Building Camp David Air Force One White House Fellows President’s Commission About the Fellowship Current Class Staff Bios News and Newsletters White House Internships About Program Presidential Department Descriptions Selection Process Internship Timeline & FAQs Tours & Events 2013 Easter Egg Roll Kitchen Garden Tours Take a Virtual Tour of the White House Mobile Apps Our Government The Executive Branch The Legislative Branch The Judicial Branch The Constitution Federal Agencies & Commissions Elections & Voting State & Local Government Resources /* Maximize height of menu features. */if(typeof(jQuery)!='undefined')jQuery.each($('#topnav'),function(i,v){var o=$(v),oh=o.height(),sh=o.siblings().height();if(oh Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases   The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release April 17, 2013 President Obama Signs Massachusetts Emergency Declaration

The President today declared an emergency exists in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and ordered federal aid to supplement commonwealth and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from explosions on April 15, 2013, and covering eligible activities through April 22, 2013.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the counties of Middlesex, Norfolk, and Suffolk.

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.  Emergency protective measures, including direct federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent federal funding. 

W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named James N. Russo as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected area.

Blog posts on this issue April 18, 2013 12:29 PM EDTIn the Face of Evil, Boston Has Shown that Americans Will Lift Up What Is Good

President Obama speaks at in interfaith service dedicated to those who were gravely wounded or killed at the Boston Marathon bombing.

April 18, 2013 10:15 AM EDTWatch Live: President Obama Addresses Healing Service in Boston

President Obama will deliver remarks this morning at Healing Our City: An Interfaith Service which is dedicated to those who were gravely wounded or killed in Monday’s bombing near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

April 18, 2013 9:57 AM EDTCourage, Strength, Resilience: Women Fight AIDS

The Kaiser Foundation hosts an event for the launch of EMPOWERED, Alicia Keys' new campaign to help end the HIV/AIDs epidemic.

view all related blog posts ul.related-content li.views-row img {float: left; padding: 5px 10px 0 0;}ul.related-content li.view-all {padding-bottom: 3em;} Stay ConnectedFacebookTwitterFlickrGoogle+YouTubeVimeoiTunesLinkedIn   Home The White House Blog Photos & Videos Photo Galleries Video Performances Live Streams Podcasts Briefing Room Your Weekly Address Speeches & Remarks Press Briefings Statements & Releases White House Schedule Presidential Actions Legislation Nominations & Appointments Disclosures Issues Civil Rights Defense Disabilities Economy Education Energy & Environment Ethics Foreign Policy Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Refinancing Rural Service Seniors & Social Security Snapshots Rural Taxes Technology Urban Policy Veterans Violence Prevention Women The Administration President Barack Obama Vice President Joe Biden First Lady Michelle Obama Dr. Jill Biden The Cabinet White House Staff Executive Office of the President Other Advisory Boards About the White House Inside the White House Presidents First Ladies The Oval Office The Vice President's Residence & Office Eisenhower Executive Office Building Camp David Air Force One White House Fellows White House Internships Tours & Events Mobile Apps Our Government The Executive Branch The Legislative Branch The Judicial Branch The Constitution Federal Agencies & Commissions Elections & Voting State & Local Government Resources En español Accessibility Copyright Information Privacy Policy Contact USA.gov Developers Apply for a Job

View the original article here

Untold Story of Small Biz Delay under ACA, Just Déjà Vu from Massachusetts

The revelation that the Obama Administration will delay the roll out of the “choice option” for small

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has been credited with advocating for small business employee choice in the ACA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

business until 2015 came as a huge surprise to many, including Joe Klein at Time, however anyone familiar with the Massachusetts experiment will feel a strong sense of déjà vu. In a 2010 paper I authored for the Heritage Foundation, I documented the delayed and failed effort by the Massachusetts public exchange (Connector) to offer real choice and savings to small businesses. My report suggested the experience served as a warning to other states. I suppose I should have targeted  it toward the federal government instead. Small companies should be even more uncertain of the law now that the cost–saving mechanism they were sold is now on the back burner. Yet the penalties for not offering insurance, new taxes on fully-insured plans, and EHB requirements all remain on schedule.

Background from Massachusetts

Governor Romney’s orig­inal health reform proposal envisioned a statewide health insurance exchange that would have offered small businesses a robust choice of plans with a wide range of deductible and benefit levels. His proposal provided for defined contributions from employers, used the exchange as a “premium aggre­gator,” and created a pooling mechanism to allow employees of small businesses to purchase group insurance together to spread risk and provide greater premium stability.

His plan would have helped elevate the individual employee as the primary decision-maker and inject some competition into the system. Even with the policy compromises required to pass the health care reform bill in 2006, the final version still included mechanisms that would have helped small business in the short term—if they had been implemented.

This same rationale was used to garner Democratic support for the ACA in Congress, as Robert Pear from The New York Times documented in his recent article on the delay:

In the weeks leading up to the passage of the health care legislation in 2010, [Senator Mary] Landrieu provided crucial support for the measure, after securing changes to help small businesses.

One problem: The Massachusetts reality didn’t match the rhetoric at the time, and should raise serious questions about the federal experience even after the employee plan choice is launched in 2015, 2016, or 2020.

Massachusetts Vision Altered During Implementation

The 2006 health care reform law tasked the Massachusetts Connector with developing a small business program. The original launch date was July 1, 2007, but coverage was not finalized until January 2009, almost three full years after the health care reform bill was signed. Even with this lengthy delay, the original Contributory Plan (CP), suffered from design and incentive issues. The CP was the Connector’s first pilot program marketed to small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. In this scenario, a company would select a benchmark plan within a benefit-level tier (gold, silver, or bronze), and then the employee would choose a plan within that tier.

Instead of engaging with a broker community that is geared to small businesses options, the Connector allowed only 20 brokers to sell CP and only to the companies that were already their clients. The Co­nector offered these brokers a 2.5 percent fee, compared to the 4 percent standard commission that they could earn outside of the Connector. (Congress decided to go around brokers in the ACA and hire navigators, and HHS invented “assisters” to fill this role instead.)

The health insurance products offered through the Connector lacked creativity, because the governing board voted to over-standardize plan designs. As a result, the products looked similar to those available outside the Connector and often more expensive.

Not surprisingly, the program drew limited interest from the small business community and failed to draw its initial goal of 100 employers out of the 185,000 in the state. As a result, the Connector launched a new small business program called Business Express (BE) in order to put “its resources into one effort for small businesses,” and froze enrollment for CP.

BE had a grand total of seven plans, and enrollment was largely boosted through a deal with a third-party administrator, the Small Business Service Bureau, to transfer members into the Connector. That contract has since ended.

Small Businesses in Massachusetts Have Voted With Their Feet

After six years, millions of dollars in advertising, hundreds of free media stories on the Connector, and a controversial mailing to all small businesses in the state, the numbers speak for themselves.

 Success of a Public Exchange?

 How Employee Choice Was Added to the ACA

The untold story about employee choice and the ACA revolves around Jon Kingsdale, former executive director of the Connector, who was responsible for implementing the first contributory plan in Massachusetts. Yet after failing to launch a successful program, he traveled to DC to lobby Congressional Democrats and Obama Administration officials to include the same type of program in the ACA.

The media doesn’t understand the full history of this program, so we are left with Jon Gruber from MIT telling a reporter from the National Journal recently, “The main message, I think, is optimistic. Overall it’s [exchanges] going to work, and over time it’s going to work out…” I guess he is still holding out hope for things to turn around in the Connector as a Board member, six years into the experiment.

The open question is whether the federal and state run exchanges can learn from the experience in the Commonwealth.

My advice is to promote defined contributions through the exchange, set up premium aggregators, allow for any willing insurer to sell in the exchange, reduce the number of mandates, and focus on allowing market forces to control underlying health care costs. Finally, if the goal is truly to expand access to insurance, not just retain government control, a paradigm-changing reform should allow for premium tax credits to be utilized in private exchanges. This will test the true value proposition of a public exchange. If they add value they should survive, if not, they should go out of business and not be propped up by government favoritism.

Find me on Twitter: @josharchambault

View the original article here