Hi
all – I could have called this the ‘Countdown to Sequester’ edition but
thought better of it. Who knows, maybe they will kick the sequester can
down the road another month or two!
President’s
Day – Fun Facts.
Monday we observed the holiday and this week I ran across this
U.S. Census
tidbit
about how many places are named after presidents. Benjamin Franklin,
while never a president, ranks as second most named after. Interestingly
‘Clinton’ is at #7 however this survey doesn’t identify whether the entity was
named after the actual president (remember our fourth Vice
President George Clinton was also a six term, non-consecutive, Governor of
NY serving a total of 21 years, plus his two stints as VP under different
presidents). For other trivia you can buy a copy of “The
Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia” released last month.
State
of the Union ‘Dumb Down’ The
Guardian took a look at all of the states of the union and gave them a
reading level score. The highest? James Madison at 21.6. The
dumbest? George H.W. Bush at 8.6 with Barack Obama next at 9.2.
George Washington scores pretty well, coming in at 11th highest out
of the 41 addresses.
Mapping
the Human Brain.
President Obama announced
plans for an ambitious program to map the human brain, putting the kind of
muscle needed to achieve results similar to the human genome project.
This effort could provide a significant research boost for diseases like
Parkinson’s, MS and Alzheimer’s to name a few. The human genome project
cost approximately $3.8 billion but in a 2010 study it was found that $800
billion in economic activity had been generated because of the project.
Sequestration
on (everyone’s) mind. At least in DC it is – barring a last minute
deal that doesn’t look forthcoming, automatic spending cuts will start on March
1. Approximately $85 billion in cuts, $46 billion of which will come from
defense spending. Some are saying this is the best of the worst proposals
out there, others predict the cuts will last for a few weeks until the public
anger flares giving Congress the impetus to act. The House GOP doesn’t
fear any blowback on the cuts. In the meantime the president is
ramping up pressure for a ‘sequester
fix.’ This week he said sequester would be like taking a ‘meat
cleaver’ to the budget. NIH Director Collins is mincing no words,
stating that these are just ‘dumb’
cuts.
Obama
Outreach.
The most recent development is that President Obama made
calls to Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader McConnell to discuss
sequestration and what can be done to avoid it. The White House published
its view of the impact of sequestration on its website.
Research
Funding Threat.
Should the sequestration happen, agencies will be directed to cut budgets by a
certain amount. There is a real threat however in that the agencies have
flexibility to choose what to cut so for example, CDMRP programs in the
Department of Defense could be zeroed out in a worst-case scenario. NIH
will be able to choose which of its institutes to trim which will determine
which research projects continue unchanged, or changed.
Retirements. Our 2011
Senator of the Year, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, announced
last weekend that he is not seeking re-election. This is his first term
in the Senate and he previously served as Governor and U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture.
HUD-HHS
Rental Assistance Partnership for Persons with Disabilities. February 12
Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Health and Human
Services (HHS) announcement. The 13 states are California,
Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota,
Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington. Learn more here.
Not
a Cure for Death, but . . . New
research shows that as a person consumes more coffee, he or she puts off
their own mortality. Can’t wait to see the new ad campaigns coming out of
Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, Caribou, etc.!
Public
Policy Conference. The National MS Society Public Policy
Conference is right around the corner and we’re pleased that former Senator
Byron Dorgan, former founding co-chair of the MS Caucus, will join us to
kick it off! Also, nationally renowned pollster Celinda Lake will
be our lunch speaker on March 5. Looking forward to seeing 300+
Activists, and the wave of orange on the Hill March 6!
Health
Reform Implementation News:
- HHS Issues Final
Rule on the Essential Health Benefits: Many MS
activists have been involved in the complex process of defining the ‘essential
health benefits’ that all individual and small group health plans will have to
cover in new plans sold in their state in 2014 and beyond. Tens of
thousands of stakeholders submitted formal comments to HHS as they crafted the
federal regulations outlining them, and clarifying the federal government’s
role vs. the states. With the release of HHS final rule yesterday, it
seems the federal government’s role is nearly complete. Read about it here.
- Confused about
Medicaid and
its role in implementing the Affordable Care Act? You’re not alone!! So,
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid published this new list of Frequently
Asked Questions.
- State
Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Pools No Longer Accepting New Enrollees:
Because the ACA’s requirement that health insurers must accept
applicants regardless of their pre-existing condition doesn’t go into effect
until 2014, the ACA included a special health insurance program for un-insured
people as a stop-gap measure to tie them over. Known as the Pre-Existing
Condition Insurance Program (PCIP) these temporary health plans were always
intended to fade out when their enrollees gained new coverage options in
2014. That phase
out process has now begun with the announcement that the PCIPs are set to
stop accepting new applicants on March 2, 2013. Existing enrollees will
continue to be covered until next year.
Florida in? Governor Rick
Scott of Florida is the most recent governor to announce support for expanding
Medicaid in his state. He was one of the most vocal opponents of
Medicaid expansion and the Florida Attorney General played a key role in the
lawsuit that resulted in the Supreme Court saying that expansion needed to be
optional.
By the next issue
of Federal Fridays, we’ll know whether Congress and the Administration averted
yet another potential
budget/fiscal/economic crisis. I’d ask your opinion
of that however I have a feeling I know what most non-elected people feel already!
