Rep. Cooper pushing ‘Healthy Americans Act’

By: Christine Buttorff, news correspondent

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Nashville) wants to end employer-based health care insurance and replace it with a tax-credit to allow everyone to purchase their own private health insurance.

Cooper is one of the House sponsors of the ‘Healthy Americans Act,’ which was reintroduced in the House earlier this month.

Congress will not be taking any action on the proposal until at least next year under a new president, but while in Nashville on Monday, Cooper said it’s important to begin talking about the issue now. Health care spending accounts for about 16-percent of the gross domestic product, and is especially important to Nashville’s economy.

“Nashville probably has more to gain or lose than any other city in America because we’re a premier health care capital,” said Cooper. “Whether it’s HCA, or Saint Thomas, or Vanderbilt [University Medical Center] or other fine health care institutions and companies here we are much more health care oriented than most other places in the country.”

Under the bill, employers would give employees the money spent on health care premiums. Employees would then be required to buy health insurance with after-tax dollars.

Cooper said a $15,000 tax-credit for a family of four would also allow those whose employers don’t offer health insurance to buy it. Health insurance for a family of four is estimated to cost about $12,000 per year.

Under the bill, employers will still be able to offer prevention and wellness benefits, and withhold premiums from paychecks. However, many corporations have pushed back, saying that health benefits are one way they are able to recruit.

Cooper said that system has been abused meaning extra perks are added allowing some individuals, particularly high-paid executives, to deduct more money.

“There are some people who wouldn’t get their $50,000 break, but everyone would get at least $15,000,” explained Cooper. He added that if everyone is enrolled, risk would be pooled across the whole population, so insurance companies will be required to insure even those with serious, chronic conditions.

In addition to pooling risk, the bill is also estimated to save $1.48 trillion dollars in health care costs over the next eight years as insurance companies adapt to compete for individuals on the private health insurance market.

A 150-member group called the “National Coalition on Benefits,” (NCB), which includes major employers such as the BlueCross BlueShield Association and the FedEx Corporation, have expressed other concerns. In a letter this month to the bill’s Senate sponsors, the NCB said that the bill has the potential to inhibit the way employers offer standardized benefits across state lines.

The “Employee Retirement Income Security Act,” (ERISA) allows employers, according to the letter, “to offer uniform benefits to their employees, retirees and families without being subject to the confusing patchwork of mandates, restrictions and costly rules that vary from state to state.”

Cooper counters that some kind of national standard would be created to establish a basic health plan across states.

The bill would offer subsidies for those making up to 400-percent of the Federal Poverty Level ($21,200 for a family of four), and therefore get rid of Medicaid altogether.

Both of Tennessee’s Republican Senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker are co-sponsors of the Senate bill, introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah).

Invitations were issued to 'women leaders' for Monday’s event. About 100 women and a few men attended.

Aid long delayed

By Alan Johnson, Catherine Candisky and Jonathan Riskind

hat Gerald E. Cartee really needs is a new heart.

His is wearing out, but it won't be replaced. Instead, he's seeking $700 a month in Social Security disability benefits to help him get by during whatever time he has left.

What Cartee is going to get, however, is a "tickle" on Dec. 30. That's when Social Security Administration bureaucrats will update, not resolve, his case, filed in July 2005.

"It's frustrating. God, it's frustrating," Cartee said. "You don't get anything out of them if you write or talk to them. It's like you're just another number."

Cartee, 57, of Worthington, worked as a medical records clerk until he became seriously ill about three years ago. He was shocked when his doctor told him he had had at least two silent heart attacks; he also has congestive heart failure, vascular disease, cirrhosis of the liver and hepatitis C.

But, according to Social Security, Cartee is not disabled and can still work at his old job. He appealed the original determination and is waiting for a hearing before an administrative law judge.

Returning to work is impossible, Cartee said. He can't even walk one block to his mailbox without shortness of breath and chest pains. His partner, Michael, bought him a small scooter to help him get around.

Dr. Paul Nanda of Columbus, his physician, concluded in a June 17 report that Cartee has, "as we already knew, significant heart failure."

The problem holding back Cartee and thousands of other Ohioans is the huge Social Security disability backlog. The problem is old and appears likely to persist.

Only eight of the nation's 142 Social Security offices -- including one in Dayton -- have longer waits than Columbus.

More than 761,000 claims were pending nationally as of June 27, up from about 745,000 a year ago, according to the Social Security Administration. Once a benefit rejection is appealed, the average national wait for a decision is just what it was a year ago: 510 days.

In Columbus, as in some other cities with many cases and especially long waits, the agency has focused on providing more hearing judges. Two more are starting in the Columbus office this year, said the office of Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

The number of cases pending in the Columbus office declined to 9,310 at the end of June from 10,731 a year ago. The average waiting time dropped, too, to 728 days from 771.

But the wait, as calculated by the government, starts after a reconsideration appeal is rejected. In Cartee's case, the clock started running in November 2006 -- 16 months after he asked for help.

Congress and the White House have begun increasing funding for the agency in recent years. Brown is one of the lawmakers pushing for an even bigger boost to help erase the backlog.

Brown and Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, are among lawmakers who want to add $240 million to the White House budget request. Too many people are waiting years to have their applications approved, some losing homes or custody of their children or even dying before benefits are awarded, said a letter sent last month by Brown, Voinovich and 50 other senators to the leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Jeff and Janis Mickey would readily agree. The Orient couple waited 5 1/2 years to get final word that Mrs. Mickey's disability application had been approved; that came just 11 days ago. They are still waiting for the first monthly check of about $1,700.

Mrs. Mickey, formerly a customer service manager with Marriott foods, suffered a massive heart attack in November 2001 and had triple-bypass surgery. Over 10 months, she had nine serious heart procedures. Her transplanted arteries clogged quickly; now she has five stents in them.

All along, however, Social Security officials continued to say that Mrs. Mickey could work in a "sedentary job."

During the long wait for a disability decision, the Mickeys plunged $80,000 into debt. They began selling things, including most of Mr. Mickey's pipe collection.

They would have lost their home and car had it not been for generous family members. Mr. Mickey's checking account has not been in the black for five years. He is constantly digging into his $1,000 overdraft protection, then paying it back to get even. But he never gets even.

The situation is complicated by Mr. Mickey's health problems. He is disabled because of a polymyositis, a rare serious muscle disease that forced him to leave his job as a banker 12 years ago. He sometimes is bedridden for up to six weeks.

Although they knew each other in high school in Jewett and even appeared as love interests in a play, The Importance of Being Ernest, they did not get together as a couple until 31 years and two broken marriages later.

Now they are united in a fight against government red tape.

"It's repulsive," Mr. Mickey said. "They make you feel like a bum. I'm disgusted by the system."

"It was demoralizing for me," Mrs. Mickey added. "I thought many times, 'It's never going to happen.' "

llness that brings pets to the vet

by Joan Lowell Smith
Friday July 18, 2008, 6:27 PM

Ever wondered what prompts pet owners to make an appointment with the veterinarian? What better source for answers than the largest and oldest pet health insurance company in the country: Veterinary Pet Insurance in Brea, Calif., which provided a Top 10 list of reasons for owners to plop their pooches and kitties in the car for a trip to the vet.


CANINE
1.Ear infection
2. Skin allergy
3. Pyoderma/hot spots
4. Gastritis/vomiting
5. Enteritis/diarrhea
6. Urinary tract infection
7. Benign skin tumor
8. Eye inflammation
9. Osteoarthritis
10. Hypothyroidism

FELINE
1. Urinary tract infection
2. Gastritis/vomiting
3. Chronic renal failure
4. Enteritis/diarrhea
5. Diabetes mellitus
6. Skin allergy
7. Colitis/constipation
8. Ear infection
9. Respiratory infection
10. Hyperthyroidism

Carol McConnell, vice president and chief medical officer for VPI, acknowledged that pet owners may be surprised by what's not on the list. "Falling just short of the Top 10 are major injuries -- broken bones, poisoning, trauma from car accidents or animal attacks," she said.

McConnell added that hypothyroidism in dogs rose from No. 11 in 2006 to No. 10 last year, jumping sprains to No. 13, and then explained that hypothyroidism occurs when the thyroid gland does not produce enough thyroid hormone, which is responsible for regulating metabolism. Dogs suffering from that malady appear lethargic and gain weight, despite a strict diet and exercise.

Feline enteritis leaped from No. 16 in 2006 to No. 4 in 2007. One-third of all common conditions are often related to or exacerbated by diet changes or "dietary indiscretions" -- a nice way of saying the owner is overfeeding or giving the wrong foods to kitty.

The good news is that the pet food recall has had a positive effect on dietary choices. "This past year," McConnell said, "our numbers indicate that pet owners took gastrointestinal and dietary difficulties more seriously."

Many claims are associated with age-related changes, such as osteoarthritis and renal (kidney) failure, but she said any of the Top 10 can occur at any age. As the economy squeezes consumer's discretionary income and many pet owners are recalculating budgets, VPI averaged claims state by state on non-routine veterinary care in 2007: California's $500 per pet topped the list. New Jersey's average was $437 and the lowest per pet non-routine medical expenses were Mississippi's at $207. For more data on VPI, call (800) USA-PETS or visit petinsurance.com.

Voynick's views

We checked with Brian Voynick, a veterinarian often quoted in this column. Owner of American Animal Hospital in Randolph and host for 11 years of "Pet Stop" on News 12 New Jersey, Voynick agrees with the lists.

"Sure," he said. "Those have been the reasons for the past 26 years I've been practicing, but it's not that complicated. Many of the items are related to the skin. For example, ears are an extension of the skin. Most patients we see have either skin problems or gastrointestinal problems."

"With cats, we're in the dark ages when it comes to proper nutrition," Voynick said. "We should be preventing most of those conditions. We've come a long way with dog diets, but we're pitifully deficient when it comes to cat nutrition." When he attends continuing education meetings, Voynick said the most crowded seminars are always those dealing with skin disease and GI problems.

He also explained hyperthyroidism in cats as "a benign tumor on the thyroid gland, which you can feel -- about the size of a pencil eraser -- accompanied by excessive appetite, weight loss and a racing heart that can hit 220 beats per minute."

At a conference in London a couple of years ago, a world-renowned endocrinologist named Mark Peterson tackled cat diets. "He showed us the perfect diet for a cat by displaying a giant cartoon of mice being poured from a cereal box," Voynick said. "Think of it. Mice are vegetarians, so the cat is getting veggies, too."

Contact Joan Lowell Smith at P.O. Box 302, Garwood,N.J. 07027 or e-mail her at jsmith@starledger.com.


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Wedding Examiner

Once a lady with a huge rock on her finger was signing as a witness for a county civil ceremony I performed and asked how much the wedding cost. In Los Angeles County, a marriage license is $70 and the ceremony is $25, so for $95 you’re legally married and out the door. The lady sighed and confided, “Gee, I wish I’d known about you for my wedding. It’s been two years and we’re still paying it off.”

Thus we conveniently arrive at the second of the Five Ways To Screw Up Your Wedding:

Go Heavily Into Debt.

Nowadays couples frequently pay for their own weddings without the traditional boost from the folks, since they’re marrying a little older and sometimes the folks just don’t have it to spare. Supposedly the cost of the "average American wedding" keeps spiraling up and up, and this year (according to the Wedding Report Inc.) the average is currently just below $29,000.

But I’d be a bit skeptical of this statistic. What is meant by “average?” Is it a mean, a median, a true average? Just one $4 million celebrity wedding can lift hundreds of $25 civil county weddings into “average” territory, depending how you chew up and spit out the numbers.

And who was sampled to arrive at this “average”? The Wedding Report methodology page says it electronically surveys about 3700 participants--which would eliminate anyone who isn’t wired into a computer. That’s 3700 people surveyed out of over two million weddings in the U.S. last year--their estimate, based on a proprietary blend of data from state and county sources--so that’s a pretty small slice of the overall wedding cake. Maybe not so average, huh?

So perhaps $29K doesn’t accurately portray a true average of all American weddings, but rather just the average for the weddings of those on the right side of the Digital Divide who are spendy about their weddings. It seems we don’t have a number comparing Spendies to the other one million nine hundred and ninety-six thousand-odd couples who hitched up, so I don’t think we really know how economically “average” the Spendies are. My guess is, if they have computers and can drop almost thirty grand for one day’s show (or get enough consumer credit to do so) they’re doing a whole lot better than many a truly average American, especially in our days of foreclosure crisis and record lows in saving.

That won’t stop the Marital Industrial Complex from touting the number, however. Why would they do that, if it’s not a true measure of the average cost of American weddings? Because pushing this figure onto the public serves The Complex in two ways: first, it is a means to persuade prospective advertisers that they should come into the bridal market with a big splash, as the wedding water’s fine.

And the second objective? To make the NotSpendies and the Spendies-But-Not-With-$30G-To-Blow feel bad that they aren’t keeping up with all those other newly-minted Mrs. Joneses.


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It’s critical you understand Reason Two before you start planning your wedding, because it’s part of a marketing strategy called “aspirational marketing” and it is not your friend. There are many fine books you can consult on this, but to cook it down: aspirational marketing is about persuading you to murder your budget by convincing you that you DESERVE better than you can afford. In wedding terms, this means they don’t care if you’re working class, sick, struggling, heavily in the red, and unable to stay financially afloat in your living situation; the Marital Industrial Complex will tell you that you DESERVE to have all the trappings of royalty on your wedding day--or you should spend like your bride is a princess, in the case of diamond ads targeted at men--even if it ruins your life. They’re happy to make you want more than you need, they’ll direct you to where to buy it right now, and will even offer you credit (wedding loans!) to "help you out."

Don’t listen! It’s hard, because The Marital Industrial Complex is everywhere--magazines at the checkout stand, sponsored ad segments posing as reality television shows, postcards, websites, books, you name it. Their influence is huge and hard to avoid, and they make everything SO PRETTY!

Now before those of you who have a stash of wedding money get your consumer dander up, I’m not saying every wedding has to be modest. In fact, if you have scads of disposable income, by all means throw your thirty grand (and more!) into the economy and make yourselves and lots of wedding vendors very happy. I love working at lavish affairs and I enjoy their design sense and trendiness just as much as the next officiant. But I’m certainly not going to encourage people who are already in trouble to make a greater misery of their money situation so they can live up to a questionable “average.” If you can pay for your shindig without running up your credit cards or borrowing from friends or taking out an unsecured wedding loan on which you'll be making payments for years--maybe even longer than the marriage itself will last , and that’s a sad thought eh?--then by all means: SPEND. And enjoy your bounty with a clean conscience.

However, for those of you who are on the fence about joining the Spendies, imagine what you would do if someone just plopped thirty grand in cash onto your lap TODAY and you didn't have a wedding to plan. Would you:

Pay off your credit cards? (aaah, what a good feeling that would be!)

Put a down payment on a home, or put it into the mortgage?

Put it into an education fund?

Maybe you could use a new car? Do you have health insurance? Do you need a chunk of savings to cover you in case you become ill or unemployed or want to travel or invest or ????

Or would you feel an overwhelming urge to blow it all--thirty thousand dollars, almost enough to buy a brand new 2008 mercedes c-class sedan--on a dress, dinner, and cake?

Think that over carefully before you decide to Uphold The Average.


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It’s held as a cultural fact that money woes are one of the chief causes of divorce. Whether that’s true or not, debt’s a huge cause of anxiety for many people, so do you really want to make it worse by going in almost thirty grand deeper?

One of my favorite money columnists (Michele Singletary over at the Washington Post) often answers questions like these; if thinking about money before your wedding makes you suddenly nauseated, you can sign up for her wonderful emails on personal finance, and they might help you get your act together. Read her columns about weddings and finances for newly-marrieds too, they're great. You can check her out here, and may your tummy finally find some peace.

Finally, ask yourself (and be honest): am I really going to be able to enjoy this extravagant day, knowing that nothing is actually paid for and interest is accruing even as I say “I do?” Or will I choke on that $1200 custom cake we just HAD to have? It might be better to put down the aspirational marketing magazine and plan something that won't break the bank, so you can think more about your loving spouse than say, a collection agency. Who would you rather have own you?

There are plenty of affordable ways to have a great wedding--we’ll go into some of those in future posts, and how to have Spendy big ones too!--but for now just remember: going into debt for Your Special Day will not only ruin your wedding, it’s likely to wreck a good long chunk of your life and credit rating and relationship. Mortgaging your future is no way to start a marriage.

And who wants to be average, anyway?



Elizabeth Oakes can be reached at weddingexaminer@gmail.com

Labour agreements build productive businesses

HCM CITY — More than 70 per cent of HCM City’s 2,743 enterprises have signed collective labour agreements with their workers, according to statistics provided by the city’s Labour Federation.

Collective labour agreements specify things such as salaries and bonuses, health and safety, working hours and breaks, social insurance, and employees’ rights to strike.

The Government’s Labour Code states that a collective labour agreement must be signed by a trade union official and the head of a company or organisation. Negotiations between these two parties set down the rights of workers in the collective agreement.

This process often proves more effective in establishing workers’ rights than labour contract negotiations between individuals and their employer.

Each enterprise must set up its own trade union, which is in charge of protecting that enterprise’s workers’ rights.

Employer stake

"We signal a collective labour agreement with our workers because we are aware of its importance," Alexandre Lemoalle, chairman of Sanofi Aventis Viet Nam told Viet Nam Net. "Our employees work hard and contribute to the development of the company, so they deserve to be treated well."

The company’s agreement gives its employees family health insurance and up to 30 months paid absence in the event of an accident. The employees have also recently had their meal allowances increased.

Long-term relationships between our employees and the company are created by treating them well, said Lemoalle.

"Collective labour agreements establish workers’ rights and benefit enterprises," said Truong Lam Danh, vice chairman of HCM City’s Labour Federation. "They’re core for enterprises’ stability."

Workers only go on strike if their rights are violated or their needs are not met. Enterprises that sign and respect collective labour agreements are less likely to see worker discontent mushrooming into strike action.

Conflict between workers and their employers will still arise, however, if an enterprise fails to fulfil its obligations specified in a signed agreement, or if it will only agree to provide the minimum Labour Code requirements.

Collective agreements require a huge effort by trade union staff. The trade union has to convince an enterprise of the benefit of such agreements, said Danh.

As of the end of May, 330 collective strikes had broken out across the country this year, of which 118 were in HCM City.

To deal with the problem, the Labour General Federation’s chairman Dang Ngoc Tung has asked enterprise trade unions to push for the implementation of the Labour Code and union regulations. In particular, trade unions should focus on raising wages and developing insurance coverage.—VNS