Paris, France (4E) – President-elect Francoise Hollande on Tuesday flew to Germany for a eurozone debt crisis meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel but his plane was hit by lightning and it returned to Paris. He was unhurt and took another plane to resume his flight to Berlin.

The incident came just hours after his inaugural as the new leader of France at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy formally turned over power to the 57-year-old Hollande.

According to a presidential spokesman, the plane hit by lightning turned back for safety reasons. Planes are usually hit by lightning with the electricity being dispelled through their wingtips, but turning around after a strike is rare, according to a BBC transport correspondent.

Hollande decided to have a dinner meeting with Merkel, his second act as president after naming Jean-Marc Ayrault as his prime minister at 5 p.m., to renegotiate the European Union fiscal pact and make it growth-oriented instead of austerity-oriented as the German leader wanted it to be.

In his televised inaugural speech, Hollande said he will propose to Merkel a plan to reduce public debt while stimulating the economy.

View full post on All Stories

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – U.S. stocks fell on the open Tuesday as political uncertainty in Greece kept investors wary and on edge.

Just after the opening bell on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 83 points, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slid 8 points and the NASDAQ suffered a 20-point drop.

Market participants were keeping a close eye on developments in Europe, one day after Greece’s main central-right party failed to form a coalition government. The left-wing coalition, opposed to austerity measures as a means to close Greece’s mounting debt gap, has just three days to form a new government.

These new developments have raised fears that Greece might be forced to drop out of the eurozone and have investors on edge.

While various parties move to form a new coalition government in Greece, new elections will most likely be held come June. The imposing question is whether Greece will be forced to renegotiate its bailout funding.

In world markets Tuesday, European stocks faltered in morning trading and Asian markets ended mixed.

U.S. markets shrugged off early jitters Monday following weekend elections in Greece and France and recovered somewhat. But stocks tumbled Tuesday on the open on renewed European debt fears.

In corporate news, McDonald’s reported same-store sales increased 3.3 percent globally and in the U.S. While the fast food chain’s sales rose 3.5 percent in Europe, it recorded just a 1.1 percent gain in its Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions. Those numbers failed to impress, sending McDonald’s shares lower by 2.6 percent.

Rival Wendy’s also reported and also disappointed, falling short of analysts’ expectations. Shares slipped some 4 percent in morning trading.

After the close Tuesday, Dow component Disney will report,. The studio had a blockbuster weekend with ‘The Avengers,” but also had a major bomb with “John Carter” early in the year.

In currencies and commodities, the dollar gained against the euro and British pound, but dropped against the Japanese yen.

Oil continued its slide, falling 85 cents to $97.09 a barrel.

Gold for June delivery gave back $10.30 to $1,628.80 a troy ounce.

View full post on All Stories

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – On Wednesday, GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is set to suspend his presidential bid and back Mitt Romney.

In an interview Tuesday with USA Today, Gingrich said he will back Romney’s candidacy and is prepared to campaign for his former foe. In return, Romney will help Gingrich pay off some of his millions of dollars of campaign debt.

Gingrich said, “Mitt Romney met the first criteria of being a good candidate: He won. Now, you have to respect that.”

Gingrich will make the official announcement at 3 p.m. Wednesday in Arlington, Va.

Romney is not scheduled to be there.

It has been a rollercoaster ride for Gingrich, who in January sat at the top of the polls. However, in the months that followed it became apparent he was not a GOP favorite.

Gingrich has maintained that he is committed to the Republican party and his goal is to make certain Obama is not re-elected.

View full post on All Stories

Chiang Mai, Thailand (IRIN) – Ethnic minority groups in Myanmar are calling on the international community to set stronger benchmarks or steps in the incremental removal of international sanctions, following this week’s announcement by the European Union (EU) to suspend sanctions for a year, retaining only the embargo on arms sales.

“Now more than ever, it’s important that our voice is heard,” Zipporah Sein, general secretary of the Karen National Union told IRIN on 27 April. “If sanctions are to be lifted, it’s important that specific benchmarks be put in place.” Many argue there can be no real progress towards democracy until the country formerly known as Burma makes peace with all its ethnic groups.

Viewed as key to the development of Myanmar, the suspension of EU sanctions announced on 23 April is seen as another major endorsement of Burmese President U Thein Sein’s recent political reforms, which include the release of hundreds of political prisoners, new laws allowing labor unions and strikes, a gradual easing of media restrictions, and ceasefire agreements with various ethnic rebel groups.

Ethnic divide

The Burmese government has had contentious relationships with its ethnic minority groups, which account for about a third of the country’s more than 54 million inhabitants, and many have fought for greater autonomy or secession for their regions since the country gained independence from Great Britain in 1948.

At the weekend, leaders of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an umbrella group comprised of 11 of Myanmar’s leading ethnic groups – including the Mon, Shan, Karenni, Chin, and Kachin people – released a statement announcing that they were prepared to meet with Myanmar’s chief negotiator, U Aung Min Aung Min, to present their version of a durable roadmap to peace.

At the end of 2011, the government launched peace initiatives with several of Myanmar’s ethnic armies.

“The UNFC has the same position as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi [leader of the National League for Democracy, Burma's main opposition party],” said KNU Vice President David Tharckabaw, during the meeting in northern Thailand near the Burmese border. “We support the rule of law, the amendment of the constitution, and building internal peace.”

Tharckabaw, along with other members of the UNFC, maintains that political dialogue, not resource development, must be the top priority after a nationwide cease-fire is reached.

Sanctions eased

The EU’s decision to ease sanctions follows an announcement by Washington a week earlier that the US will relax some financial restrictions on the country to support certain humanitarian and development projects.

“These [steps] were… in response to what we viewed as very positive parliamentary elections,” US State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a news briefing on 17 April.

Less than a week later, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced that his government would resume loans to Myanmar, and cancel US$3.7 billion of debt owed by the impoverished nation after by-elections that saw Aung San Suu Kyi’s party win 43 of the 44 contested seats earlier in April.

Some $61 million to assist ethnic minorities, improve medical care and other rural development programs, as well as disaster prevention efforts, were also pledged, the Japan Times reported. Canada suspended most of its sanctions on 24 April.

Benchmarks needed

Nevertheless, there are also calls for caution, particularly in Myanmar’s ethnic minority areas. “The suspension of EU sanctions keeps the pressure on the Burmese government to continue reforms, while also making a strong positive gesture that genuine reforms will be rewarded,” said Anna Roberts, executive director of Burma Campaign UK. “For the threat of re-imposition of sanctions to be credible, the EU must set clear timelines and benchmarks.”

Speaking before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs on 26 April, Joseph Yun, principle deputy assistant secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the US State Department, noted: “In Rakhine State systematic discrimination and denial of human rights against ethnic Rohingya remains deplorable. Overall, the legacy of five decades of military rule – repressive laws, a pervasive security apparatus, a corrupt judiciary, and media censorship – is all too present.”

Fighting continues in Kachin State, in northern Myanmar, as thousands of displaced people in camps brace for the coming monsoon season.

“Right now, the IDP [internally displaced person] number is increasing” along the edge of the areas controlled by the Kachin Independent Organization (KIO), General Secretary La Ja reported.

“There are about 75,000 internally displaced people in Kachin State. Now that the rainy season is setting in, they will be needing shelter, food and medicine.”

Current UN planning figures put the number of displaced at between 50,000 and 55,000, while international access to areas controlled by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the military arm of the KIO, remains limited.

La Ja says the recent armed build-up of government troops, and the escalation in attacks, is out of step with the government’s words of peace.

“We want the first step to be that the government… withdraws, [and] re-positions their… troops. Their troops are very close to the KIA troops – that can spark many problems and a never-ending conflict.”

ss/ds/he

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

View full post on All Stories

Tokyo, Japan (AHN) – Myanmarese President Thein Sein on Friday began his first five-day trip to Japan in 28 years.

During his visit, Sein is expected to meet Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and likely to seek a debt-forgiveness deal that could open way for Tokyo to resume financing impoverished country’s roads, ports and bridges.

“Following the debt waiver, Japan plans to resume full-fledged yen loans to the country for the first time in 25 years,” evening edition of Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun said.

Japan is likely to forgive $3.7 billion as a first step. Japan had previously agreed to waive JPY127.4 billion but suspended because of the military junta. It agreed to forgive remaining JPY 176.1 billion on condition that it would continue the democratization process.

 

View full post on All Stories

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Mortgage rates fell in the week ending April 12.

Fixed mortgage rates slid a full tenth of a percent in the latest week, and mark the third consecutive week of declines, mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday

The 15-year fixed rate average hit a new record low of 3.11 percent. That was down from 3.21 percent last week, and way lower than the 4.12 percent one year ago. The previous low for the 15-year was set in March when the average hit 3.13 percent.

The 30-year also headed near its record low of 3.87 percent (set in February), averaging 3.88 percent this week. It has lingered just below 4 percent the last two weeks. At this same period a year earlier, the 30-year averaged 4.91 percent.

The 5-year and 1-year hybrid adjustable rate averages remained relatively unchanged from last week at 2.85 percent and 2.80 percent respectfully.

The drop in mortgage rates was spurred by a disappointing report on jobs growth for the month of March. News that the U.S. economy added just 120,000 jobs renewed fears of whether the economic recovery has legs.

Worries over the mounting and ongoing European debt crisis, coupled with warnings for slowing growth in corporate earnings, also helped push mortgage rates down.

View full post on All Stories

Kansas City, KS, United States (KaiserHealth) – In an ongoing disagreement over how to solve dental care access problems in Kansas, there is one thing no one disputes: the great need.

That need was on display in February when the Kansas Dental Charitable Foundation held its eleventh free clinic of the past decade. Known as the Kansas Mission of Mercy, the clinic was staffed by volunteer dentists in a vacant Walmart store in Kansas City.

Organizer Greg Hill said that patients began arriving at 8 p.m. the night before the clinic opened. They were able to spend the night inside the store. “By 5:30 a.m., there were 1,200 people in the building,” Hill said.

At that point, the parking lot had to be closed, because no more patients could be treated in a single day— even with 165 volunteer dentists and many more hygienists and other support staff from all across the state. By the end of the two-day clinic 2,144 patients had been treated, adding to the total of approximately 20,000 patients served since Mission of Mercy began in 2002.

Analysts have known for years that Kansas has a severe shortage of dentists, and that shortage is getting worse. The problem is greatest in rural Kansas, especially in the western part of the state.

To deal with the shortage, Fort Hays State University President Ed Hammond backs the idea of creating a mid-level dental provider — a person whose training and skills fall somewhere between those of a hygienist and a full-fledged dentist.

Hammond is keen to begin training those providers at Fort Hays State, but the proposal faces strong opposition from the Kansas Dental Association and has bogged down in the state legislature.

Hammond points out that it is not just the poor or uninsured who have trouble accessing dental care in western Kansas. Even a college president can have trouble.

“I can’t get dental services where they accept our Delta Dental Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan,” said Hammond. “As a state employee, I get — and pay for — dental insurance, but the dentists in western Kansas don’t accept it.”

Hammond says he’s had to switch dentists three times to find someone who would accept his dental insurance. There are 13 primary care dentists in the Hays area, but Hammond says only a few accept Delta Dental.

“The shortage is impacting not just the indigent, not just the children. It’s impacting all of Kansans in western part of the state,” he said.

A report published last fall by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the University of Kansas Medical Center counted 1,159 primary care dentists in the 105 counties of Kansas. However, roughly half of them are located in metropolitan Kansas City and Wichita. Add in Topeka and Lawrence, and more than 700 of the state’s dentists are in just four communities.

Most counties in the western half of the state have only one or two dentists, if any. A dozen western counties, plus three more in eastern Kansas, have no dentist at all. Hammond said it’s not hard to understand why dentists are reluctant to set up shop in frontier counties.

“The problem is, the people graduating from dental school are coming out with tremendous debt, and then they have to get a lot of equipment,” Hammond said. “That raises the bar that their practice has to generate a certain amount of resources in order for it to make sense, and so they don’t go to western Kansas and the smaller towns.”

Hammond compared the so-called mid-level dental providers to mid-level medical providers who are already helping meet the need for primary care in rural Kansas.

“We train nurse practitioners that go out to the Hill Citys, the Atwoods, the various different communities throughout the state, and provide medical services. We’re proposing to do the same thing with a mid-level professional in the area of dentistry,” he said.

Hammond said Fort Hays State University is prepared to begin training this new class of dental providers as soon as the legislature approves the proposal. A coalition called the Kansas Dental Project submitted a plan last year. It would create a new type of provider with more training than a dental hygienist, but not as much as a dentist, called a Registered Dental Practitioner, or RDP. The new practitioners would be allowed to fill cavities and do simple extractions of children’s primary teeth.

But the Kansas Dental Association has fought this idea all the way. “The overwhelming majority of dentists are opposed to the registered practitioner model, and it’s not like 99 percent. It’s 99.9 percent,” said Kevin Robertson, who heads the association.

Robertson said the proposal goes too far by allowing RDPs to perform procedures which are, by definition, considered surgery.

“Anything that includes the cutting of the hard surfaces of the tooth is considered surgery,” said Robertson. “The bill is written to allow the extraction of all primary teeth, or meaning baby teeth. Now, a lot of listeners might think, well, baby teeth, I’ve pulled out my son’s or my daughter’s baby teeth. Well, there’s nothing in the proposal that says it has to already be loose.”

And Robertson says what sounds like a simple procedure can suddenly become more than a registered dental practitioner is trained, or licensed, to handle.

“Maybe you’ve snapped off a tooth. You’ve broken it. Maybe the root’s wrapped around the nerve that runs through the jaw, or something like that, and you didn’t know it at the time,” said Robertson. “Those are the types of things that we think could occur and that we’re concerned about.”

Robertson predicted that mid-level providers would actually make it more difficult for dentists to make ends meet in rural areas. He said it would create a two-tiered system of dental care in Kansas: dentists for those in the more-populated areas, and mid-level providers with a lower level of training for rural Kansans.

But others counter that even that scenario would be better than the status quo.

“I would describe no care as second-class care, and that’s the system we have in place now for many Kansans,” said Shannon Cotsoradis, who heads the advocacy group Kansas Action for Children. Cotsoradis is spearheading the Kansas Dental Project, the effort to create licensed, mid-level dental providers.

“Many Kansans, whether they’re low-income, uninsured, or insured through the public health coverage system, can’t access dental care,” Cotsoradis said. ” Our goal is to make sure that all Kansans, regardless of what kind of insurance they may have or whether or not they have insurance at all, can access care, and we believe that adding another member to the Kansas dental team will help ensure that.”

Cotsoradis said the opposition to registered dental practitioners is based on fear and misinformation.

“The research that’s out there says very clearly that mid-level dental providers can provide the same quality and the same level of safety in the care they deliver as a dentist, within their scope of practice, and I would challenge the Kansas Dental Association to produce research that demonstrates something to the contrary,” she said.

Melinda Miner, a dentist in Hays, holds the opposite view of most of her DDS colleagues: She would like to start working with registered dental practitioners.

One of the so-called “dental deserts” identified in the state dental workforce report is just to the south and west of Hays. It’s an area of approximately 500 square miles, where there are no primary care dentists at all. Miner envisions being able to use registered dental practitioners to bring dental care to nearby Trego and Ness counties, which currently have no dentists.

“Our goal would be to open outreach clinics in the surrounding communities for preventive — for cleanings, for check-ups, for small fillings,” Miner said.

Miner said people will drive long distances for major dental problems, but they’re less likely to do so for the kind of routine care that can prevent more serious issues.

“You know, having to take your child out of school, take half a day off work, drive 30 minutes or more to go to the dentist for a routine checkup or preventive care is a lot less likely to happen than if you have a preventive person in your town,” said Miner.

The proposed law would require registered dental practitioners to spend their first 500 hours of practice under the direct supervision of a licensed dentist. That means they’d start out in the Hays clinic, just down the hall from Miner and her husband, who is also a dentist. Once they’re placed in the outreach clinics, they’d be under “general supervision.” Miner said telemedicine would make it possible to supervise a practitioner work without being at the same location.

“All of our x-rays are on the computer. They can call at any time and ask a question. They can send us a photograph or an x-ray, and ask us our opinion. You don’t have to be there in person to watch over somebody,” she said.

Miner sees mid-level providers not as a threat to her practice, but as a way to make it more efficient and to expand her patient base.

“Every dentist can run their practice how they want to, and I don’t want to tell a dentist, ‘Hey, you have to take Medicaid or you have to see people for free, or you have to use a hygienist,’” she said. “There are dentists who don’t want to use hygienists. That’s fine for their practice, but I would prefer if they don’t tell me I can’t do something that would help my practice to be better.”

The Kansas Dental Association does support expanding the role of dental hygienists. They’ve endorsed a bill to create what’s called an Extended Care Permit 3. It would allow specially-trained hygienists, under the sponsorship of a dentist, to provide temporary fillings, adjust dentures, and remove very loose baby teeth. Their services would be aimed at underserved children, senior citizens, and people in various forms of state care or custody. Those favoring creation of Registered Dental Practitioners say this bill would help, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Kansas is among 15 states where advocates are working to expand the dental workforce with mid-level dental providers. So far, Alaska and Minnesota are the only states where these providers have been authorized.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

View full post on All Stories

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) – Bangladesh will feel the impact of the economic slowdown in Europe, its major export destination for clothing and textile goods. Visiting World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director General Pascal Lamy said he feared that the volume of world trade this year would be below what markets saw in 2011 because of sluggish growth.

“Bangladesh is at a low level of trade and economic integration,” Lamy said Monday in Dhaka.

Lamy believes that despite its short-term problems, Bangladesh has the potential to develop quickly. He recommended that Bangladesh integrate its economy into the global value chain, and become a trade and transportation hub in South Asia, like Singapore.

“Macroeconomic development is not looking very good, especially for countries like Bangladesh, whose two-thirds of exports are to Europe. For the moment, the European economy has a major problem – it will grow very slowly in the year to come,” Lamy said.

Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) President A.K. Azad said that the country is passing through difficult times and are concerns over the fallout in the European sovereign debt crisis.

Azad cautioned that the availability of trade finance is too low, especially for poor countries and small businesses catering to the low-end of the market.

The clothing industry is the life line for the Bangladeshi economy, the least developed country exports a bulk of its products – garments – to Europe and the U.S. and caters to the low-priced segment of the global clothing market.

View full post on All Stories

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – U.S. stocks were little changed on the open Wednesday after a dismal report on durable goods orders. Investors are hoping for big quarterly gains three days before the close of the first quarter of 2012.

Just after 10 a.m. on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up less than a point, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was lower by 1 point and the NASDAQ was up about 3 points.

Markets in the U.S. finished lower Tuesday after disappointing news showed that home prices in 20 major cities fell to the lowest levels since 2002. A disheartening report on consumer confidence further rattled already shaky investors.

Tuesday’s decline came after a big run-up Monday after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made comments on the job market and hinted that low interest rates will be around for some time.

Stocks have rallied in 2012 on improving economic data and easing concerns about the sovereign debt crisis that has plagued the eurozone region. As the first quarter of the year winds down, the Dow has climbed 18 percent, the S&P 500 has gained almost 13 percent and the NASDAQ is better by more than 20 percent.

In world markets Wednesday, Asia ended lower and European markets were down in afternoon trading.

Weighing on investors’ minds is the price of gas. The price of an average gallon of regular gas surpassed the $3.90 mark on Wednesday, according to AAA. Prices are now within a dime of the $4 threshold after 19 consecutive increases.

Making its debut on Wednesday is organic food maker Annie’s Inc. Known particularly for its mac & cheese, the company will trade under the ticker BNNY. The IPO was priced at $19, above the estimated range of $16 to $18. Annie’s sold 5 million shares for its initial public offering.

In currencies and commodities, the dollar lost ground against the euro and the yen, but strengthened against the pound.

Oil for May delivery slumped $1.24 to $106.09 a barrel, and gold futures for April delivery gave back $11.30 to $1,673.60 a troy ounce.

View full post on All Stories

Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – The Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee surprised no one today when he released a spending blueprint that would drastically reshape the Medicare and Medicaid programs for the elderly and poor in an attempt to rein in their soaring costs.

Democrats predictably pounced on the proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, making clear they would make it a major campaign issue.

The GOP document projects an estimated $205 billion in Medicare savings over President Barack Obama’s proposed budget over ten years.

The plan, which the committee will consider over the next couple of weeks, would cap Medicare spending at Gross Domestic Product plus 0.5 percent. It would turn Medicaid over to the states in the form of a federal block grant, “constraining Medicaid’s growing cost trajectory by $810 billion over ten years,” according to the document, which said:

“If Congress wants to avoid defaulting on federal health and retirement programs, it must adopt a program of gradual adjustment now – one that frees the nation from the shadow of debt, strengthens its health and retirement safety net, protects those in or near retirement from any disruptions in their benefits, and supports robust economic growth and job creation. Otherwise, the nation will face more significant, unpopular and immediate overhauls later.”

In Ryan’s 2012 budget resolution, which the House approved, federal spending on Medicare would have been limited to GDP plus 1 percent. Since then, President Barack Obama proposed a tighter cap, at GDP plus 0.5 percent, which is the same as Ryan’s plan today.

Ryan’s Medicare proposal is nearly identical to a premium support idea that he put forward in December with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and to one that GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney crafted a month earlier in November. Ryan’s new budget would provide a set amount of money for future Medicare beneficiaries – those currently under the age of 55 – to purchase either a private health plan or the traditional government-administered program through a newly created Medicare exchange. That would begin in 2023.

All plans, including traditional Medicare, would submit bids for how much they would charge to cover a beneficiary’s health care costs. The government would pay the full premium for the private plan with the second lowest bid, or for traditional Medicare, whichever is lower. Beneficiaries would have to pay the difference if they chose a plan that set rates higher. There could be one less expensive plan option, and beneficiaries who chose it would get a rebate for the difference.

Private health plans would have to be at least actuarially equivalent to the coverage offered in the traditional, government-administered option. That means that the benefits could vary, but the value of the plan would have to remain the same.

In a presidential election year, proponents welcomed the Ryan-Wyden promise of traditional Medicare as more politically palatable than Ryan’s proposal from last year, which would have allowed only private plan options. And they expected that Ryan would include it in the 2013 budget.

But some critics are already arguing that the government-administered option would not be affordable and that it could cause doctors to leave the program. Critics have argued that the government-run plan would attract the sickest people, driving up its costs, while private plans would lure the healthiest.

Ryan makes it clear in his proposal that the cost to beneficiaries would be determined solely by competitive bidding between the private and public plans. If Medicare spending exceeded GDP plus 0.5 percent, then, other savings would have to be found in the program, and politicians have a long history of cutting payments to doctors, hospitals and other medical providers.

Democrats – ignoring Wyden’s role – vowed to launch a sweeping campaign against the Medicare proposal. A “Medicare Madness” graphic topped the website of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Tuesday, which in a memo said it would “hold targeted Republicans accountable with automated and patch-through phone calls, citizen phone banks, earned media events, op-eds, letters to the editor, a new online Medicare Action Center, and paid advertising to be announced later in the Medicare March campaign.”

The White House criticized the budget blueprint as providing tax breaks for wealthy Americans, oil companies and Wall Street on the backs of seniors. “All of these tax breaks would be paid for by undermining Medicare and the very things we need to grow our economy and the middle class – things like education, basic research, and new sources of energy,” said White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. “And instead of strengthening Medicare, the House budget would end Medicare as we know it, turning the guarantee of retirement security into a voucher that will shift higher and higher costs to seniors over time.”

Wyden, anticipating backlash from his own party, defended his partnership with Ryan in a column on Huffington Post Monday even as he distanced himself from the overall GOP budget proposal – “I can’t imagine a scenario where I would vote for it.”

He said “unless Congress enacts meaningful Medicare reform in the near future, seniors will be faced with inevitable cost-shifting and eventual benefit cuts until Medicare doesn’t look anything like the program does today.”

Even if the House passes the budget resolution, the Senate is unlikely to follow suit. And even if it did, budget resolutions are non-binding and don’t establish law. However, the process lays an important foundation for positioning over Medicare, which is already proving contentious in presidential and congressional campaigns.

Both houses of Congress are unlikely to consider legislation to overhaul Medicare or Medicaid until a new Congress – and possibly a new president – are seated in 2013. But Congress is expected to return to Washington after the election to consider major deficit reduction legislation. If lawmakers fail to reach agreement, automatic spending decreases will take effect starting in 2013, and Medicare spending would be cut by 2 percent – all from payments to hospitals and other care providers.

Today’s budget proposal also would prohibit Congress from using spending reductions in Medicare for other purposes. That would “stop the raid on the Medicare trust fund that was going to be used to pay for the new health care law. Any current-law Medicare savings must go to saving Medicare, not the creation of new open-ended health care entitlements,” according to the document.

Ryan would attempt to lower health care costs by capping non-economic damages (pain and suffering) awards in medical malpractice law suits.

The proposal also would repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board that the health law created to hold Medicare spending to GDP plus 1 percent. Ryan calls it “the unaccountable panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats empowered by the President’s health care law to cut Medicare in ways that would lead to denied care for seniors.”

Marilyn Werber Serafini is the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Robin Toner Distinguished Fellow based at Kaiser Health News. The fellowship honors the late Robin Toner, The New York Times’ long-time health and politics reporter whose work often framed the public debate on health issues. KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

View full post on All Stories