How is This Supposed to Stimulate the Economy?

Senator Chuck Grassley has introduced an amendment to the federal stimulus bill currently making its way through Congress that would require the Secretary of Treasury to conduct a “study” of the differences between for-profit and nonprofit hospitals.

This is one of the reasons public support for the stimulus package is dropping. It’s not that most people doubt the need for some form of federal spending to jump start the economy. But when members of both parties inject old partisan talking points into the debate or try to fill the bill with pet projects that offer no immediate stimulus, it’s hard to remain confident in the final product.

And this is a very familiar project for Grassley. He’s been calling for greater scrutiny of nonprofit hospitals for a while. Although nonprofit hospitals now have to justify their community benefit in the 990 Schedule H tax form, Grassley wants further investigation of executive compensation and uncompensated care levels at nonprofits. He has even considered legislation that would require these hospitals to spend a minimum amount on charity care and set caps on executive salaries. [more]

SCHIP and Party Politics

My 9-year-old is a healthy guy, thank goodness. It’s hard to imagine how since he eats things he finds in couch cushions, refuses to wear warm clothes in single-digit temperatures and is exposed to elementary school germs that would keep most adults in bed for a week. The health of my children is something for which I am profoundly grateful, and the thought that they could get sick and I wouldn’t be able to get them medical care fills me with a mix of fear of what would happen, rage at the possibility and shame that it happens to others.

By a 290-135 mostly party line vote, the House passed an expansion of SCHIP that will add 4 million children to the program, which currently covers approximately 6 million. The Republican opposition to  the bill has been that it would essentially cause employers to offload coverage on the states, yet given the downward spiral of employment lately it only seems humane to boost coverage for children right now.

What is interesting is the continuing partisanship of the votes, first for the stimulus package and now for SCHIP. Didn’t a new era in Washington start a couple of weeks ago?

Daschle Done In

In the end it was just too much. Tom Daschle today withdrew his name from consideration as head of HHS, saying that the effort needed someone who “can operate with the full faith of Congress.” Basically saying that his credibility to push through reform of a healthcare system where millions of people can’t afford basic care sounds less convincing from someone who made $5.2 million in consulting fees in two years.

Too bad, because I still maintain that Daschle was second only to Hillary Clinton in cabinet level star power, at least until this week. The Washington Post described Daschle as “one of the best-connected Cabinet secretaries in the administration, if not history.” Now the question becomes whether Obama goes with another career politician with Washington ties, or with a state governor type like Tommy Thompson. Can Obama find an insider who knows the mechanics of Washington, and who has paid all of his or her taxes in recent years?

The Post is also speculating that Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius may be next in line for HHS. That would at least make for an interesting stew of former adversaries, considering that she blocked Anthem from getting Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas. She was included in the list of VEEP candidates  before Joe Biden was selected. I wonder if that means she would get the White House healthcare czar office that was reserved for Daschle?

Got any ideal candidates? Who would make the best person to lead HHS? I’m sure the new administration is open to any suggestions these days.

Can Daschle Survive the Vultures?

If  you want healthcare reform soon, then you had better hope Tom Daschle’s nomination to head HHS survives the week. By many media accounts Daschle’s disclosures that he owed the IRS $146,000 in back taxes and interest will not derail his nomination. I’m not so sure. Careers in Washington have been devoured for much less.

What is less worrying than the IRS number are the numbers behind it: the reported $5.2 million the former Senator form South Dakota made as a “sort of” lobbyist in two years. [more]

Grady’s Fight: You With Us or Agin’ Us?

New Grady Health System CEO Mike Young may not be a Southerner, but he is learning a thing or two about how to pick a fight in Atlanta. The first step in any scuffle is to knock the bystanders off the fence and see which side they fall on.

How else to explain a very public set of exposed loyalties in recent weeks. In December, after less than five months on the job, Young sent out a request to the Atlanta’s other non-profit hospitals to pony up $50 million as their share of the uncompensated care burden shouldered by Grady, which could face a 2008 deficit of more than $40 million. Two reasons that he already knew the answer before he asked: 1) Hospitals never share money and 2) The new Grady board led by former Georgia-Pacific CEO Pete Correll is full of Atlanta business and fundraising heavyweights who have been campaigning relentlessly for months, so I’m pretty sure they had asked before. [more]

Can 50,000 Workers Reinvent Themselves?

Well, there goes my emergency job. I always figured that if this editor-in-chief gig were to go south, I could always pay the light bill by putting on the orange apron at Home Depot. I figured I’d angle for something in the lumber department, betting that no one else would want to load lumber and work the panel-cutting saw.  As long as I stayed away from offering any plumbing advice, I could hang on for as long as I needed to.

Until Monday, when Home Depot announced it was cutting 7,000 positions and closing its Expo Design stores nationwide. It was the first cut of a very bad Monday that saw almost 50,000 job cuts, bringing the total for the new year to 185,00 and on pace to match 2008’s loss of 2.6 million if the slide continues. Pfizer says it will cut 10 percent of its labor force when it buys Wyeth. Caterpillar announced 20,000 job cuts alone. Even Harley-Davidson has announced job cuts of 1,100.

Christina Romer, President Obama’s Chair-designate for the Council of Economic Advisers, has laid out the broad strokes of a job plan expected to add 3 to 4 million jobs in two years, a figure which some analysts predict could serve to only keep unemployment at current levels when considering the number of people joining the work force by 2010.

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