Morning CheckUp: July 28, 2011
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 28th, 2011 4:36 am by HL
Morning CheckUp: July 28, 2011
Welcome to Morning CheckUp, ThinkProgress Health’s 7:00 AM round-up of the latest in health policy and politics. Here is what we’re reading, what are you? Revised Boehner debt ceiling bill calls for entitlement cuts: “The debt reduction legislation GOP staff scrambled to rewrite on Wednesday after getting a dismal CBO score on its first try […]
Welcome to Morning CheckUp, ThinkProgress Health’s 7:00 AM round-up of the latest in health policy and politics. Here is what we’re reading, what are you?
Revised Boehner debt ceiling bill calls for entitlement cuts: “The debt reduction legislation GOP staff scrambled to rewrite on Wednesday after getting a dismal CBO score on its first try still requires $1.8 trillion in entitlement cuts in the out years, but does not immediately impact the health sector. [Inside Health Policy]
Health costs increase: “A new report by the Medicare Office of the Actuary “estimated that health spending will grow by an average of 5.8 percent a year through 2020, compared to 5.7 percent without the health overhaul. With that growth, the nation is expected to spend $4.6 trillion on health care in 2020, nearly double the $2.6 trillion spent last year.” [Kaiser Health News]
Americans skeptical of health law: “Only 20 percent of people believe consumer protections will get better under the law, while most others think protections will stay the same or get worse, according to the poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.” [Kaiser Health News]
Drug benefit reduces hospital costs: Offering prescription drug coverage to the federal Medicare program’s elderly beneficiaries reduced spending on hospitals and nursing homes, a study found. [Bloomberg]
Calorie labeling doesn’t lead to less calorie consumption: Another study finds no significant change in average calories customers purchased before and after the labeling law took effect: 828 calories before the law, 846 after. [WSJ]
Texas Planned Parenthood clinic vandalized: A Planned Parenthood clinic in McKinney, Texas was attacked with a “Molotov cocktail, consisting of diesel fuel in a glass bottle with a lit rag. Morgan said the device did not penetrate the front of the clinic but did cause damage. [Pegasus News]
Abortions decline in Nebraska: The number is down more than 10 percent so far, for which anti-abortion proponents are crediting a law banning the procedure 20 weeks after fertilization. Others are attributing the decrease to “improvement in birth control, improvement in (the use of) the morning-after pill” and contraception. [Omaha World Herald]
Pawlenty offers prize to anyone who identifies Obama’s plan on entitlement reform: “I will mow your grass, limited to one acre. Or I will cook dinner, menu of my choice. Or if you like hockey, we’ll organize a hockey game and make sure you score,” he said in Iowa. [Des Moines Register]
Global health cut: “House appropriators passed a spending bill that cuts the administration’s Global Health Initiative by $700 billion. AIDS advocates immediately decried the cuts’ potential impact on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.” [The Hill]
First health appeal to the Supreme Court: “The Thomas More Law Center formally asked the Supreme Court Tuesday to reverse an appeals court decision upholding the health care reform law.” [Newshour]
Businesses worry about health costs: “A new survey by Lockton, Inc.’s Health Reform Advisory Practice reports that 80 percent of respondents are concerned about federal health reform’s additional administrative obligations.” [Forbes]
Democrats urge Sebelius to adopt IOM recommendations: “While women’s health is often politicized, the IOM’s recommendations break through politics and focus on the data,” House Democrats wrote in a letter to Sebelius. “They were developed by an expert panel through an exhaustive review of scientific evidence and rigorous research. We encourage you to adopt each of their recommendations in full.” [Sam Baker]
Under Rick Perry, Government Jobs Grew Twice As Much As Private Sector Jobs
Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who has been toying with running for the Republican presidential nomination, likes to brag about Texas’ job growth. But he’s made clear that he doesn’t consider public sector jobs (including his own) to be real jobs. “Government doesn’t create any jobs. They can actually run jobs away,” he told Glenn Beck. […]
Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who has been toying with running for the Republican presidential nomination, likes to brag about Texas’ job growth. But he’s made clear that he doesn’t consider public sector jobs (including his own) to be real jobs. “Government doesn’t create any jobs. They can actually run jobs away,” he told Glenn Beck.
However, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out today, public sector jobs (largely in education) have grown at a much higher rate under Perry’s watch than private sector jobs:
The Lone Star State gained more than a million jobs since the end of 2000, while the U.S. has lost almost 1.5 million, according data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
About 300,000 of the new Texas jobs were in government. Well over half of them, fueled by the surging population, were at public schools. Employment in the state’s public sector has jumped 19% since 2000, compared with a 9% rise in the private sector.
For the most part, Perry’s claims about the booming Texas economy are very much oversold, and its job growth over the past decade is in large part a function of population growth and the availability of housing. As the Austin American-Statesman noted, “While the national unemployment rate is 9.1 percent and the Texas unemployment rate is 8 percent, some 23 states, including New York, have lower unemployment rates.” Between 2008 and 2010, jobs actually grew at a faster pace in Massachusetts than in Texas, and “Texas has done worse than the rest of the country since the peak of national unemployment in October 2009.”
Perry’s state does, however, lead the nation in the highest percentage of minimum wage jobs. And later this year, hundreds of public employees in Texas will be laid off due to the massive spending cuts the Texas legislature authorized to deal with the Lone Star state’s $27 billion budget deficit. But since, according to Perry, those jobs never existed in the first place, will the layoffs actually count as jobs lost?
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