Oil Speculation

CNN's Jack Cafferty asks, "Should price controls be imposed on gasoline?"

My answer is that it is not just Wall Street that is the problem. Crude oil prices are determined on a “futures” market at the NYMEX or ICE (Intercontinental Exchange). Traders need only put down a small fraction of the price to control a larger amount of futures contracts (leverage). The oil futures market is now dominated by speculators (70% versus 30% a decade ago) who never intend to take delivery of any crude oil. Not only should speculators be required to put at least 50% down, but there should also be limits on the amount of oil that speculators could trade in the energy futures market. Time was that prices were determined by supply and demand. Trading futures and allowing speculation has added an expensive middleman which costs consumers (both here and worldwide) dearly.

See Sen. Bernie Sanders' post, "Crack Down on Oil Speculators".

Medicare "Improvement Standard" Improperly Applied

The Center for Medicare Advocacy talks about the improper interpretation and erroneous implementation of an "improvement standard." Basically, treatment under Medicare should not be denied on the grounds that a patient's underlying condition will not improve. From their self-help packet:

As an overarching principle, the Medicare Act states that no payment will be made except for items and services that are "reasonable and necessary for the diagnosis or treatment of an illness or injury, or to improve the functioning of a malformed body member." 42 USC §1395y(a)(1)(A). While it is not clear what a "malformed body member" is, clearly this language does not limit Medicare coverage only to services, diagnoses or treatments that will improve illness or injury. Yet, in practice, beneficiaries are often denied coverage on the grounds that they are not likely to improve, or are "stable," or "chronic," or require long-term care, or "maintenance services only." These are not legitimate reasons for Medicare denials.

Also from the Center for Medicare Advocacy is an article about the improper denial of coverage:

Neither the Medicare statute nor its implementing regulations mentions or suggests an improvement standard in the context of diagnosis or treatment of illness or injury...The general statutory standard for Medicare coverage is one of medical necessity; that is, the standard is whether a given service is 'reasonable and necessary.' The same subsection of the law does use the word 'improve,' but only in the specific and limited context of authorizing Medicare coverage 'to improve the functioning of a malformed body member.' This use of 'improve' is the only reference to improvement in the statute...[T]here is no overarching improvement standard in the Medicare statute."

From the self-help packet, your first step after a denial would be to ask that a claim be submitted:

Submit a Claim: If a Medicare beneficiary is told that Medicare coverage for therapy is not available.... ask the health care provider to submit a claim to Medicare. The submission of a claim to Medicare is the only way to obtain a formal Medicare coverage determination and to access the Medicare appeals process if coverage is denied. The provider must submit a Medicare claim at the patient’s or representative’s request.

I did send letters to my representatives, including Obama, about this issue, a copy of which I posted elsewhere on my website. Also, there is a lawsuit about this improvement standard underway, with an update posted here.

What Should Jesus Do?

The protester, a bearded guy in sandals, says that the moneyed interests are exerting too much influence on the government. He thinks that it is time for those who are holding aloft the banner of God and righteousness look at how they are treating their fellow citizens.

Under the guise of liberty and morality, today's conservatives argue that minimum wage laws are anti-growth, that they harm businesses, and that they are mandates by a government that does not want the free market to determine the price of labor. They argue that child labor laws should be repealed in order to provide children work experience and money in their pockets. The conservative claim is that individuals are responsible for providing for themselves and their families, and government should not be rewarding failure and punishing success. But arguing that basic protections be denied to workers in America in order to protect or increase the incomes and profits of big business and of the wealthy is arguing that employees have complete control of their own wages and working conditions. It is arguing that any failure to earn living wages is the fault of the worker, and not of any employer.

Conservatives view taxes on corporations to be anti-business, and taxes on the wealthy to be part of a redistribution scheme designed to take money from those who have earned it in order to give it to people who have not earned it. They end up arguing that a tax rate of 15% on the wealthy, along with a cap on how much (or little) of their income is subjected to payroll taxes, is confiscatory, while subjecting middle income wages earned by working people to a 25% federal tax plus Social Security taxes plus Medicare taxes plus unemployment taxes is somehow fair.

Social Security is (or was until the payroll tax holiday) entirely self-funded by payroll taxes, yet the conservative view is that it is an unearned benefit. Social Security recipients are seen as living off of the government, and people receiving Social Security are counted along with veterans as getting mandated charity paid for by other taxpayers.

Conservatives argue that investment banks should not have to be separate from commercial banks, even though speculation by banks threatened massive losses in the last year of Bush's presidency and even resulted in the loss of more than a billion dollars in American farmer's capital accounts.

Taxes have been slashed drastically for the wealthy and for large corporations, but blame for deficits is placed on social spending, and the only adjustments being made are cuts to programs which benefit those whose incomes are low. Social spending is labelled evil because it supposedly is spending on people who have not earned it.

Conservatives claim moral failings on the part of Americans being left behind. They claim that there is a loss of traditional values. We have become a society in which less-educated men have great difficulty finding jobs with decent wages and good benefits, yet we are asked to believe that a lack of morals are behind rising unemployment, falling marriage rates, and unhappy marriages. The unemployed are told to just get a job, as if full-time jobs with living wages were available to anyone who asked.

Conservatives argue for capitalism without regulations, as if pollution never happens, people are never exploited, products never harm anyone, and politicians are never given money for legislation which favors one group or one corporation or one industry over others.

Moral law has for 3000 years condemned people who make excess profits from money without contributing to society. Yet people protesting against sharply rising inequalities, the loss of economic opportunities for American workers, and the slashing of help for those less well off, are labelled and dismissed.

What should Jesus do?

Regarding Contraception Funding and Religion

If hospitals and universities should be exempted from a law if they have ties to religious organizations, then either those organizations should divest themselves of those ties, or the law should be written so that it is not the religious organizations themselves which enforce the law. But are those hospitals and universities also exempted from anti-discrimination laws, or laws regarding labor practices?

The founding fathers purposely mentioned neither God nor religion in the original Constitution, preferring instead to mention religion only in an amendment. The establishment clause in the first amendment prohibits the government from preferring one religion over another, but also prohibits preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion. At the same time, the amendment bans Congress from making laws "prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Exempting churches, temples and synagogues from laws regarding contraception gives those organizations the free exercise of their religions demanded by the first amendment. But institutions which serve secular purposes (health care or education), and which employ people without regard to religion, cannot be treated differently depending on whether or not they have religious ties. Shifting funding for contraception onto a third party satisfies the establishment clause as well as the free exercise clause. Removing the requirement for contraception funding altogether would be establishing a preference for religion; that requirement was put in to serve both the interests of citizens and of the state, and was not put in to establish a religious or non-religious preference.

Keeping Medicare Safe and Solvent

Members of the Democratic Party should encourage the repeal of the prohibition clause of the Federal 2003 Medicare prescription drug law which bans the Secretary of Health and Human Services from negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies.

Other changes to Medicare which should be supported include provisions to stop paying private Medicare plans anything more than traditional Medicare, to include a drug benefit in traditional Medicare, and to lowering the age of Medicare eligibility.

In addition, we should support a clarification by CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) with regard to improper interpretation and erroneous implementation of an "improvement standard." This misinterpretation results in improper denial of coverage to Medicare patients with chronic conditions, including "people with Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), spinal cord injuries, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, hypertension, arthritis, heart disease, and stroke. Further, the erroneous standard disproportionately affects people who have low-incomes, as well as African-Americans and Hispanics." [1]

"Neither the Medicare statute nor its implementing regulations mentions or suggests an improvement standard in the context of diagnosis or treatment of illness or injury...The general statutory standard for Medicare coverage is one of medical necessity; that is, the standard is whether a given service is 'reasonable and necessary.' The same subsection of the law does use the word 'improve,' but only in the specific and limited context of authorizing Medicare coverage 'to improve the functioning of a malformed body member.' This use of 'improve' is the only reference to improvement in the statute...[T]here is no overarching improvement standard in the Medicare statute." [2]

In the absence of CMS action, the President should be encouraged to issue an Executive Order directing CMS to take appropriate steps.


1. Removing a Major Barrier to Necessary Care: The Medicare "Improvement Standard" Advocacy & Education Initiative

2. How the 'Improvement Standard' Improperly Denies Coverage to Medicare Patients with Chronic Conditions

Copies of this posting were sent as e-mails using Congress.org to President Barack Obama (D), Senator Al Franken (D-MN), Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Representative Collin C. Peterson (D-MN 7th).