Tag Archives: health care

Vice Taxing

Posted on March 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

Utah’s legislators are about to set the stage for placing a tax on tobacco products.  But what about considering increasing taxes on all “vices”?

HB196 Tobacco Tax Revisions aims to increase the tax rates “on the
sale, use, storage, or distribution of tobacco products in the state for the 2010-11 fiscal year and allowing the rates to fluctuate in subsequent fiscal years”.

SB40 Cigarette and Tobacco Tax Amendments aims to
“increase the tax on cigarettes, moist snuff, and other tobacco products; deposit income from the permanent state trust fund into the General Fund; and
address the deposit of revenues collected from the taxes; make technical and conforming changes”.

HB71 Nicotine Product Restrictions “amends provisions of the Uniform Driver License Act, provisions relating to the state system of public education, the Utah Criminal Code, and the Utah Code of Criminal Procedure to place restrictions on the provision, obtaining, and possession of a nicotine product and to enforce these restrictions”.  Specifically, the bill is aimed to prevent the sale of nicotine laced candy and gum (not including smoking cessation products) in Utah, the products of which are currently not available in the state.

The sponsor of HB71, Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, has been the target by tobacco companies for possible court action should the bill pass, according to a Deseret News Article.

“Now they need to try to keep going by doping candy with the most addictive and deadly substance in tobacco,” he said. “Utah has made a point of protecting our youth from the hazards of tobacco use, and now that they are targeting a new market with lozenges and mints, we think that’s going to far.”

Read the rest of the article here.

In his piece in the Deseret News, Tobacco tax to hit those who can least afford it Lee Benson shares his encounter with folks addicted to tobacco who, despite raising taxes on the products and thus the consideration to stop the addiction, still are not able to stop.

“I know smoking’s not healthy,” he[patron at tobacco shop] says. “But every time I stop smoking, I gain weight — so I have to decide, am I going to die from obesity or from smoking?”

Smokers, he says, are a “scapegoat” for taxation.

“Nine percent of taxpayers smoke. Out of that 9 percent, they’re trying to take care of the majority. It isn’t fair. But what can you do?”

Benson interviews Sy Pham,  a tobacco wholesaler, who complains of the disparity between citizens actually paying for the tax increase:

 

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The Answer to Solving Problems? Criminalize Everything!

Posted on March 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

HB462 Criminal Homicide and Abortion Revisions, the replacement bill for HB12 Criminal Homicide and Abortion Amendments, passed both the House and the Senate yesterday on The Hill.  The bill is headed to the Governor’s desk for signing on Monday.

The news has hit the New York Times and Ms. Magazine (which references Utah Legislature Watch).

The bill’s original language was amended to take out the word “reckless”

…. in reference to behavior but retains “intentional” acts by the woman that cause an abortion as grounds for a charge of aggravated murder.

The measure doesn’t change the state’s legal abortion statutes but establishes Utah as the only state to set parameters on when a woman can be held criminally responsible for causing the end of a pregnancy at her own hand or means outside a doctor’s care.

(Deseret News)

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, expressed that interpretations of the bill’s language were “fabrications”.

Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, said his original bill was designed to go after mothers who recklessly use illegal drugs and lose their fetus and insisted that claims it could extend more broadly were “an absolute farce and a lie.”

“The rumors,” he said, “that this bill allowed women to be charged for slipping on ice or driving down the road without her seat belt and getting in an accident: total fabrication.”

(Salt Lake Tribune)

Wimmer drafted the bill in response to an incident involving a 17 year old pregnant woman who paid a man to beat her until she miscarried (the fetus survived and has been adopted)

Democrats in the legislature are still wary about the bill:

Democrats commended Wimmer for revising his bill, but many remain unconvinced the legislation is needed at all. Democratic Representative Brian King said empowering the state to “poke around in the bedrooms and doctor’s offices” of Utahns runs counter to the Legislature’s conservative nature.

 

“You know, sometimes I think the disconnect between our words, and what we claim are our stated beliefs and what we do are so great that we ought to treat some of our members for whiplash. It’s that, there’s that big a gap,” said King.

(KCPW)

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SB44: Health care for “legal” immigrant children garners approval

Posted on March 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Utah Senators gave their nod of approval yesterday for  SB44 Health Amendements for Legal Immigrant Children.  The bill would lift a 5 year waiting period for immigrant families to obtain health care for their children.

What is puzzling is the sentiment by adults towards children and tax paying workers.

Today’s Deseret News:

“These kids are kids, and they’re playing by the rules as best they can,” he[Sen. Chris Buttars R-West Jordan] reasoned. “So while I’m totally against illegals, these kids aren’t illegals.”

As if any children had control over their lives.

But while those kids might follow the rules, Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, who opposed the bill, said the five-year wait is there for a reason: Legal immigrants are expected to take care of themselves for that time.

“They need to play by the rules, the rules are set up, and you’re asking us to change the rules,” Christensen said.

Well, yes, because no human should be without health care and children in particular have no choice over their circumstances.  Legal or not, when someone needs health care they should be able to get it. Further, immigrants who have legal status pay taxes into our system and therefore should, without question, have access to, among other things, the health care system.

Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake City, bill sponsor says that this not about immigration:

SB44 isn’t about immigration, Robles said, but health care policy, and it opens access to preventative care that is more cost-efficient than letting problems grow until they end up in emergency rooms.

This is very sensible.  While it wouldn’t take effect until 2012, this bill is a giant step in the right direction for opening the health care access door for all.

(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)

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“Unless you have been in our wheelchairs, you don’t know what it’s like….”

Posted on February 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

This is the message that  disabled citizens wanted to get across to legislators as they rallied yesterdayat the Utah Capitol in protest of the cuts being made to health care in Utah as part of HB67 Health System Amendments and the budget cuts being made this year.  The bill is before the Senate after passing the House on February 11th. (See previous post on this issue here.)

The Deseret News reported on the rally in today’s news.

“….[the legislators] are compounding the problem by supporting bills against health care reform,” said Stevie Edwards, a West Jordan resident who said he came to the Capitol to “do what I can to make sure that they understand that their positions have real-life consequences for those of us who depend on a little assistance just to get by.”

Several attending the rally, which was organized by the Disabled Rights Action Committee and the Anti-Hunger Action Committee, said the bill is premature, likely unconstitutional and makes outlandish claims without any convincing evidence to back them up.

“And they are compounding the problem by supporting bills against health care reform,” said Stevie Edwards, a West Jordan resident who said he came to the Capitol to “do what I can to make sure that they understand that their positions have real-life consequences for those of us who depend on a little assistance just to get by.”

Organizers of the rally had these things to say:

The coalition’s chairwoman, Barbara Toomer, who has been a wheelchair-bound disabled rights activist for years, said….”By bringing health care reform into this new push for state sovereignty, lawmakers should know they are reaching for that high ideal by standing on the backs of the disabled and the 258,000 uninsured citizens who would finally have coverage under federal reforms,” Toomer said.

Utah lawmakers pride themselves on being health care reform leaders in their own right, said Bill Tibbetts, head of the anti-hunger coalition. “So far, the main health care reform solution is to do less every year.”

Participants in the event are tired of fighting this issue year after year.

“This is not national health care reform leadership, and HB67 is a lie,” said protestor Jason Weeks, a disabled local keyboard player and Web-based music promoter.

“I’m just here to be part of the group that has to constantly fight tooth and nail to keep on being able to fight tooth and nail their whole lives,” Weeks said. “The federal options are not the obscenity some lawmakers are trying to make them out to be. Besides that, it hasn’t even happened yet, and who knows if it will.”

In an effort to avoid raising taxes, the legislators have proposed deep cuts to many services as part of this year’s budget balancing act.  (View post about budget proposal here.)

(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)

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Health Care Crisis: Groups Organize to Ask Important Questions

Posted on February 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

The Disabled Rights Action Committee (DRAC) and the Anti-Hunger Action Committee (AHAC) have together organized a rally at the Utah Capitol for Tuesday to confront legislators on the HB67 Substitute Health System Amendments in advocacy for the rights to adequate and equitable health care for all, particularly addressing the current crisis of those who are without insurance.  This announcement was recently distributed via Facebook ((links to organizations and the bill added by this post’s author):

Utah Legislature Action/Press Conference
Whereas the legislature continues to deny that there is a health care crisis we need to set the record straight!

Whereas the State of Utah, embodied in State Representative Carl Wimmer’s HB 67 bill continues to deny that there is a health care crisis in Utah and

Whereas Representative Wimmer asserts in HB 67 that Utah has embarked on… health system reform, that the health system reform efforts for the state … address the unique
circumstances within Utah and to provide solutions that work for Utah and that Utah is a leader in the nation for health system reform, and

Whereas on February 23 Families USA will be releasing a report detailing the number of uninsured Utahns who will die from untreated illnesses as a direct result of their uninsured status,

Now comes the Disabled Rights Action Committee (DRAC) and the Anti-Hunger Action Committee (AHAC) to ask why, in light of the above assertions, dental, vision, physical and other critical aspects of health care have been cut from Medicaid, to ask why critical health care has been cut from children and to ask why consideration is being given to further cutting back on Medicaid eligibility, further increasing the roles of Utah’s uninsured, and

To set the record straight that there is a heath care crisis in Utah—any needless death or suffering is a crisis.

Join us February 23, 2010 at 1:30 PM in the State Capitol Cafeteria to ask why our legislature insists on denying the existence of a health care crisis in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary while continuing to engage in actions that worsen the health care crisis.

(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)

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How the Insurance Industry”incarcerates” the purse strings of lawmakers

Posted on February 3, 2010 | Leave a comment

(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)

It is no secret that medical care is inadequate for inmates.  Legislators have a history of not approving adequate funding for the care of those who are incarcerated.  So when a bill is proposed that would save taxpayers money and still allow for inmates to receive medical care (under the provisions of the bill), you would think that Legislators would be happy, right?

Wrong.  The insurance industry obviously has influence over legislators with this issue.

Yesterday the House shot down a bill that would permit inmates to use their private insurance to pay for their health care while incarcerated.

H.B. 22Inmate Health Insurance Amendments,would require the inmates’ private carrier to serve as the primary insurer while serving time in a state or county facility.

According to an article in the Deseret News,

House members voted against the bill, saying state taxpayers should pick up the cost, even if the inmate is insured.Opponents said during debate that the bill painted insurers as bad guys, when in fact the bad guys are the ones who broke laws that got them arrested and incarcerated. They also argued that the bill was anti-free market and smacked of government takeover of a private enterprise.

Interestingly, the article points out the amount of donations candidates received in the 2008 elections.

In the 2008 election, the insurance industry gave $313,311 to state-level candidates (including the Legislature, governor and attorney general), according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Insurance companies gave the second-most of any industry that year, outdistanced only by the securities and investment industry, which gave $614,207, according to the institute.

And big insurance companies lose few political fights in the Utah Legislature.

The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, points out the cost savings to taxpayers with the passage of this bill.

The bill would save county jails more money than the state, with only a handful of felons in the state prison having outside health insurance. But a number of county jail inmates, who may be sentenced for several months up to a year, have insurance while incarcerated, Ray said.

"Taxpayers are getting hammered, and it’s time for insurance companies to step up and pay for what they’ve contracted for," said Ray just before his bill was voted down on a 30-44 vote.

This is just one example of how lawmakers are"incarcerated" themselves by big corporations….and at the expense of taxpayers and those in need of care.

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Outlining Priorities: Guv’s State of the State

Posted on January 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

Utah Legislature Watch)
Governor Herbert delivered his first State of the State Addre

tonight. His priorities including keeping taxes from being raised, holding public education harmless from budget cuts, transportation, and legislative ethics reform.

For the first time in three years, we are expecting an increase in revenue for the upcoming fiscal year. Housing is beginning to stabilize, the state’s labor market is resilient and our unemployment rate remains below the national average. I know this is of small consolation to those who are out of work, but we will continue to make sound policy decisions to move this state – and your families – back to solid economic ground and toward a more hopeful future. 

First and foremost, we must protect public and higher education. Utah has long been committed to funding our public schools, our colleges and universities, and our technical institutions. In fact, few states in the country spend as much of their overall budgets on education as we do. Our unique demographics – which is a way of saying we have larger families – mean we must continue to increase funding to maintain and enhance the solid education and training our students receive.

In spite of our difficult budget situation, I call upon you, our great legislators, to maintain our current level of commitment to education! Secondly, we must balance our budget responsibly, and in a way that does not stifle an economy that is finally beginning to show signs of recovery. We need to support our hard-working citizens and businesses, not stifle them with new tax burdens. We need to help them succeed, not hamper their success. And we need to think toward the future, not just of today. 

 
 

Read the entire text of Governor Herbert’s State of the State address here.

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Let the Games Begin!

Posted on January 25, 2010 | Leave a comment

(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)

Today’s opening of the Utah Legislature will bring  a variety of  issues in the spotlight, among them being:

The Budget- addressing the “shortfall” and how/if to use the “rainy day” fund and other measures to generate revenue –  and within the budget debate are the hot topics of public and higher education, state retirement system, transportation and taxes on food, as well as the overall raising of taxes issue.

Ethics Reform – including a controversial citizen’s initiative and a package of proposed ethics bills by legislators, inlcuding establishing an independent commission to hear complaints from citizens and putting limits on campaign contributions.

Fair Housing and Employment practice for gays and lesbians – a bill proposed that will afford the GLBT population protection from discrimination in employment and housing

Health Care Reform – an overhaul of Utah’s health care system through a package of bills that intend to divert the current sick care system to a more preventative health care system.

Sex Education – measures to determine how much information students should have access to when it comes to using contraception

Be sure to connect to the Utah Legislature’s website which has a multitude of resources including bill tracking, archived videos of the various sessions and a children’s page.  See also Utah Legislature Watch’s post on resources and the various news feeds along the sidebars of our site.

And awaayy we go!

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A Bill That Makes Sense? C’mon!

Posted on January 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)

Rep. Jen Seelig, D-Salt Lake City has a piece of legislation in store for this year’s session that will assist women on Medicaid with family planning.

Rep. Jen Seelig, D-Salt Lake City, says she will sponsor legislation in the upcoming session of the Utah Legislature to extend family planning services, including birth control, to two years following childbirth for women on Medicaid. The federal government would pay 90 percent of the cost. The bill may include a provision to extend the service to all families with annual incomes up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level.

The article points out that private insurance pays for similar services to women and that women on Medicaid should also benefit.  Further, since most unwanted pregnancies occur with teens due to Utah’s archaic law that prohibits teens from obtaining birth control, teen women should also benefit from such services.

The CDC cites statistics about pregnancy at its page,  Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS)

babies born as a result of unplanned pregnancies are more likely to be unhealthy at birth, more often are below-normal birth weight and have to be cared for in costly intensive-care hospital units.

Rep. Seelig’s bill makes sense.  This population of women are in need of family planning services and should be able to receive them.

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“Free Market” Health Care

Posted on December 23, 2009 | Leave a comment

There is a lot of talk these days around health care in our country.  Utah is no exception.  David Clark, House Speaker R-Santa Clara, UT, has drafted a bill for  the upcoming Utah Legislative session.

An article in Monday’s Salt Lake Tribune describes the failed “Health Exchange” for insurers and Clark’s bill:

Insurers can sell plans through the exchange or on the open market. But because they calculate premiums differently “inside” and “outside” the exchange, disparities of up to 130 percent appeared.

Clark has drafted a bill that would merge the two small-group markets into one. Starting in July, insurers could only offer their small-group health benefit plans through the exchange. And they could no longer take into account employees’ pre-existing health conditions when calculating their premiums.

Instead, insurers would have to base a group’s rates on a modified community rating — factors such as employees’ ages and geographic location. Clark has added tobacco usage, body mass index (BMI) and management of blood pressure and diabetes to encourage better lifestyle choices.

The Exchange proved to be inefficient, with cumbersome application processes and purchased plans resulting in higher premiums which, passed on the employees and their familes, is not an option for improved health care insurance.

For sure Utah’s small businesses and individuals are still being hit hard and the “fixes” to date have not offered assurances for better health care insurance.

In coming years, the exchange will be open to individuals, but the initial focus has been on small businesses hit hard by rising premiums. The state’s plan is to eventually allow all Utahns to choose their own plan, and use contributions from employers and other groups to pay for it.

“We are migrating the market,” Clark said. “We’ve already made the decision legislatively and policy wise. We are moving from a defined benefit to a defined contribution market. We’re doing this incrementally, but the finish line is the entire insurance market migrates to that model.”

Take a look at the Utah Health Policy Project’s statistics published on its website about Utah’s uninsured (with “new data coming soon”).   The bottom line is that no matter what source you are examining, there are still too many people uninsured and unable to access health care.  Further, Utah’s children are being hit hard.  According to the published statistics,

Between 2001-06 the uninsured rate among Utah children grew by 63.3%. It grew even faster, by 90.4%, for low-income (<200% poverty level) Utah children.

UHPP also has a page of stories and testimonials from Utahns abuot health care.

Health care story – Eric Spencer from Lehi, Utah

When will the health care of people stop being talked about in the “market”?  Health care is a basic human right that has no place in the “market”.   Everyone should have access to health care and should not have to be faced with the decision of choosing between other essential issues such as food, rent, and job/career and education when considering how to obtain the care needed.

(Cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)

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