dkf
dkf's JournalBofA Give-Away Has Few Takers Among Homeowners: Mortgages
When Bank of America Corp. sent letters to 60,000 struggling homeowners offering to slice an average $150,000 off their loans, the lender got an unusual response from most of them: silence.
Homeowners who fell behind on their payments began receiving the mailings in May, part of the bank’s effort to meet terms of the $25 billion industry settlement over foreclosure abuses. More than half haven’t responded as “borrower fatigue” causes them to tune out the offers, said Dan Frahm, a spokesman for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank.
“The number of customers responding is lower than we expected, given the significant assistance available,” Frahm said in an interview. “We are working very hard to determine why response rates are lower than expectations.”
Bank of America, which pledged almost half of the fines and assistance in the February settlement with state and federal officials, is critical to determining how many U.S. homeowners are helped by the landmark deal. Housing advocates say that relying on the same companies that committed loan servicing abuses to avert foreclosures may result in yet another program that helps fewer people than intended.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-11/bofa-give-away-has-few-takers-among-homeowners-mortgages.html
Texas rejects key provisions of Obama's health law
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Governor Rick Perry said on Monday Texas will not implement an expansion of the Medicaid program or create a health insurance exchange, placing the state with the highest percentage of people without insurance outside key parts of President Barack Obama's signature law.
The announcement makes Texas the most populous state that has rejected the provisions. Some 6.2 million people are without health insurance in Texas, or 24.6 percent of the state population, the highest percentage in the nation. California has more people without insurance but a lower percentage.
Perry joined fellow Republican governors of Florida, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Mississippi and Louisiana in rejecting the two provisions of the law, according to americanhealthline.com. They hope that November elections will result in Republicans winning the White House and enough seats in Congress to repeal the law.
"I will not be party to socializing healthcare and bankrupting my state in direct contradiction to our Constitution and our founding principles of limited government," Perry said in a statement.
http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/texas-governor-rejects-two-provisions-health-law-141205128.html?orig_host_hdr=news.yahoo.com&.intl=US&.lang=en-US
"Taxes are penalties" works against "taxes are fair"
It doesn't do Democrats any good to keep bashing Romney on this one. If that gets crystallized because it gets repeated endlessly then "raising taxes on the rich" translates into "penalizing success" which is right in the Republican wheelhouse.
I don't think we realize how Roberts really messed with us yet.
Public hospitals wary of ruling on Medicaid
Public hospital representatives voiced concern about part of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, saying the ruling could stymie the Medicaid expansion that is essential to safety net hospitals.
The high court's decision said the government could not restrict existing Medicaid funding to a state if the state does not expand its Medicaid program to the levels dictated by the law. “We're still studying it; we think it may be a big issue,” said Dr. Bruce Siegel, president and CEO of the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems. “At first read, it seems to give the states the ability not to do the expansion.”
If states are not going to be required to expand Medicaid, that would hurt safety net providers, which as part of the ACA are going to see reduced payments from the disproportionate-share hospital program, Siegel said. The expansion of Medicaid would have presumably removed the need for the DSH program, but now that trade-off is put into question, he said.
The NAPH wants Congress to avert what it says would be a potentially disastrous outcome for vulnerable populations by immediately re-evaluating safety net funding in light of the decision, according to a news release.
Read more: Public hospitals wary of ruling on Medicaid | Modern Healthcare http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20120628/NEWS/306289980#ixzz1zlz5tohy
?trk=tynt
LA: Medicaid expansion rejection could cost state billions, may hurt hospitals
Gov. Bobby Jindal's decision to reject the Affordable Care Act provision that calls for expanding Medicaid may end up hurting Louisiana hospitals that treat uninsured patients. John Matessino, president of the Louisiana Hospital Association, says beginning in 2014, the federal government plans to cut the Disproportionate Share Hospital program, which is an important revenue stream for hospitals that treat large numbers of uninsured patients.
The thinking at the time was that many of those patients would be covered by an expansion of Medicaid. But if Louisiana refuses to expand Medicaid, hospitals may suffer the DSH cut without the extra Medicaid help.
"I think [the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services], and the federal government, and perhaps the courts, will ultimately have to decide that," Matessino says. "I'm not saying the governor's wrong. What I'm saying is there are a lot of questions that need to be answered."
http://www.businessreport.com/article/20120703/BUSINESSREPORT0112/120709950/0/reprint-request-form
States Bucking ‘Obamacare’ Are Among Those With Highest Rates Of Uninsured
Many of the governors threatening to stymie implementation of the Affordable Care Act preside over states with high uninsurance rates, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Kaiser data breaks down each state’s population by source of insurance, and by percent uninsured. Unsurprisingly, Massachusetts has the lowest uninsurance rate in the country, thanks to the universal health care bill Mitt Romney signed, and which ultimately became the model for the Affordable Care Act.
But many of the states with high-profile conservative governors vowing to stand athwart the ACA’s progress, by refusing to expand their Medicaid programs and erecting hurdles to establishing insurance marketplaces, would stand to gain the most from successful implementation of the law.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/many-states-bucking-obamacare-after-scotus-ruling-have-high-uninsured-populations.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
If Romney wins, he can repeal health reform.
Romney won’t have 60 votes in the Senate. But if he has 51, he can use the budget reconciliation process, which is filibuster-proof, to get rid of the law’s spending. One objection to that is that budget reconciliation is supposed to be used for laws that reduce the deficit, and the Congressional Budget Office would score repeal of the Affordable Care Act as increasing the deficit by about $300 billion.
--
Getting rid of the law’s spending does not get rid of the law. As Lizza writes:
The process can only be used for policies that have budgetary effects and a C.B.O. score. Much of the A.C.A., such as the insurance exchanges and subsidies, would fall under these categories. But a lot of it, including the hated individual mandate, does not. Repealing the exchanges and subsides without repealing the mandate and the other regulations and cost controls in the law would create a health-care Frankenstein that a President Romney would be rather nuts to support.
Sure, but Romney wouldn’t be the one supporting this health-care Frankenstein. He and other Republicans would be working to repeal it. And are Democrats really going to stand together on the floor of the United States Senate and filibuster in order to keep the individual mandate in place, which will now be forcing people to buy insurance they can’t afford without the subsidies that made the whole thing work? They’d have to be suicidal to do that.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/06/29/if-romney-wins-he-can-repeal-health-reform-and-he-should/
"Tax" vs. "penalty" debate hurts both Obama and Romney
Chief Justice Roberts saved the Affordable Care Act by finding that its individual mandate was constitutional under Congress' power to tax. "Hurray!," said White House aides, but also: Don't you dare call it a tax. The enforcement mechanism that pushes people to buy insurance should be called a penalty. It only acts as a tax on those who don't buy insurance. That's likely to be only 1 percent of the public, so it shouldn't be considered a tax.
Republican leaders reacted to this line of reasoning: Nuts to that. Even if the distinction between penalty and tax were legally valid enough to convince a majority of five justices, the argument could never survive in the political arena. If John Roberts conveyed legitimacy of the law by upholding it, then surely he conveyed the same legitimacy upon the idea that the Affordable Care Act was a secret tax increase, despite the president's insistence to the contrary (here, here, and here).
Republican super PACs such as American Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity launched million-dollar campaigns hitting Obama on the tax. "Now it's official: Obama increased taxes on struggling families," one ad says. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, arguing that the president's health care law was one long string of deceptions, said that the court's decision about taxation was:
... powerful confirmation of what may have been the biggest deception of all. For years, the President and his Democrat allies in Congress have sworn up and down that failing to comply with the individual mandate did not result in a tax on individuals or families. And the reason was obvious: if Americans knew that failure to comply resulted in a tax hike, it never would have passed. And the President wouldn't be able to claim his health care bill didn't raise taxes on the middle class, as he did, again, and again, and again. Well, yesterday the court blew the President's cover. It narrowly upheld this law on one basis only: that the penalty associated with the individual mandate is a tax.
On Sunday, the clever McConnell offered one more strategic benefit to the tax interpretation. Since Roberts had upheld the law on tax grounds, it meant that repealing the dreaded individual mandate would be easier. Under Senate rules for reconciliation, only 51 votes are required to pass a vote if it has budgetary impact. A mere penalty would not have such impact and require 60 votes. But now that Roberts had ruled, the lower threshold to overturning the legislation could now be used.
http://m.cbsnews.com/fullstory.rbml?catid=57465581&feed_id=3&videofeed=39p
Casa.com is having a made in the US sale.
Not to tout great prices or anything but I thought it was interesting to see what things we still make here. I've been looking for non-China food prep items just for the safety aspect and it's frustrating to have to dig through so much just to find things made here. I wish all sites had a button we could check off to screen for made in the US products.
France Faces Major Test as It Enters 'Danger Zone'
Having been in power for less than two months Francois Hollande is facing the first major test of his pro-growth election (related: 10 Game-Changing Elections) commitments after a warning from the national audit office that France’s economy is in the “danger zone” and risks falling into a “debt spiral.”
Late on Monday the national audit office said the French budget deficit will overshoot by 6-10 billion euros ($7.56-12.6 billion) this year and by 33 billion euros in 2013. In order to bring the budget in-line with EU rules, Hollande is going to have to make difficult decisions on spending and taxes that could draw criticism from his own party and unions who supported the pro-growth message that saw him beat Nicolas Sarkozy to the presidency in May.
"The country is in the danger zone in terms of its economy and public finances. We cannot rule out the possibility of a debt spiral," Didier Migaud, head of the Court of Auditors said in a news conference reported by Reuters. "2013 is a crucial year. The budgetary equation is going to be very hard, much harder than expected due to the worsening of the economic picture."
French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault will outline the new Socialist government’s economic policy plans in a speech to parliament at 3 p.m. in Paris (9 a.m. ET) with a draft budget from the finance ministry expected to be unveiled on Wednesday. With growth estimates expected to be cut by the French finance minister, getting France’s public finances under control is going to be a challenge, though analysts at Barclays say it won't be insurmountable.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48054565
Profile Information
Member since: 2003 before July 6thNumber of posts: 37,305
