» Labor, Military and Veterans Affairs
African Americans Remain Most Unemployed Among NationThe U.S. Department of Labor released the November 2011 Employment Situation showing a total number of 13.3 million Americans unemployed, representing 8.6% of the population. While there have been decreases to the national unemployment rate over the past months, the fact remains that many Americans are still struggling to secure jobs.
States across the nation have enacted job training programs and provided workforce services to connect job seekers with potential employers. As of October, 36 states have seen drops in unemployment rates. Mixed signals from economic indicators, such as unemployment rates, Gross Domestic Product, and retail sales are common during recovery. Fluctuations in rates of unemployment and job growth are typical examples of starts and stops while the economy rebounds. The puzzling question for economists and labor officials is the disparity of unemployment figures between whites and minorities. According to the November 2011 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate among Caucasian Americans continues to be significantly lower (7.6%) compared to African Americans (15.5%) and Hispanic or Latinos (11.4%). These latest figures show an overwhelming disparity between whites and minorities. The onus falls on Congress and the White House to address the gap with a well-crafted jobs and economic development bill. The House of Representatives has passed bi-partisan legislation related to access to financing for small businesses. The Senate, however, has yet to pass legislation mostly due to dissent from Democrats who have openly opposed tax increases and spending measures. The White House continues to push for passage of the President’s jobs bill, even if it is broken into pieces, making it more palatable for the Republican-led House.
For more information on the November 2011 Employment Situation please visit:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
“House Chamber Passes White-House Supported Financing for Small Businesses”
On November 3rd, the House passed H.R. 2930 “the Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act.” The legislation passed with broad bipartisan support, by a vote of 407 to 17 and received a supportive Statement of Administration Policy from the President:
The Administration supports House passage of H.R. 2930. In the President’s September 8th address to a Joint Session of Congress on jobs and the economy, he called for cutting away the red tape that prevents many rapidly growing startup companies from raising needed capital, including through a 'crowdfunding' exemption from the requirement to register public securities offerings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. … This bill will make it easier for entrepreneurs to raise capital and create jobs.
The bill aims to create a crowdfunding exemption so that entrepreneurs can raise funds and donations to finance their businesses without registering with SEC. Crowdfunding is an innovative way to finance new businesses.
Fiscal Year 2012
We are now almost three months into FY2012 and the federal government is partially under a Continuing Resolution (CR). Congress just finished work on what is being referred to as mini-bus (instead of an omnibus), which contains three of the twelve spending bills (an omnibus would be all or most of the spending bills together). The current CR will last the government until December 16th, at which time the government will need either to pass full year spending bills for the remaining nine funding bills or enact another continuing resolution. The hope is to pass smaller packages of Appropriations bills rather than one large omnibus to avoid the appearance of gigantic spending, even though these bills contain significant reductions from last year’s levels. Congress will not likely pass all of the spending bills prior to the December 16th deadline; the likely result will be enactment of a CR to continue to keep the government running.
The first three spending bills that were bundled together are the Agriculture Appropriations bill; the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriation bill; and the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Appropriation bill. Programs in the mini-bus saw large cuts. With grant programs that benefit state and local law enforcement, we will see a cut of about $570 million in FY2012 as compared to the previous fiscal year. The Department of Transportation has received $4.1 billion more than last year including a $515 million increase for the Federal Transit Administration. The Department of Housing Development will receive a cut of $3.8 billion as compared to FY2011; and the Community Development Block Grant program was cut by $192 million.
Deficit Committee Fails
The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction also known as the “Super Committee” failed to reach an agreement that would cut at least $1.2 trillion from the deficit over the next ten years, which will now trigger cuts across the entire federal budget over the next 10 years. The cuts will be divided evenly between defense and non-defense spending which will be undoubtedly difficult on programs that benefit state and local government. Further complicating the situation is the extension of long-term unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts, which were supposed to be included in the package. This means that Congress will need to find another vehicle to pay for these items. The President has already issued a veto threat to any legislation that would seek to circumvent the mandatory cuts that will be implemented now that the Super Committee has failed. Had the Super Committee succeeded and implemented cuts on mandatory programs as well as revenue increases, state and local programs on the federal level would have been in a far more favorable position.
» Health and Human Services
“HHS Announces Refined Survey Standards to Eliminate Differences in Care Based on Race, Ethnicity, Sex, Primary Language, or Disability”In October, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released standards that would consistently measure race, ethnicity, sex, primary language, and disability status, thereby improving the ability to highlight disparities in health status while creating targeted interventions that reduce such disparities.
“It is our job to get a better understanding of why disparities occur and how to eliminate them. Improving the breadth and quality of our data collection and analysis on key areas, like race, ethnicity, sex, primary language and disability status, is critical to better understanding who we are serving,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "Today, through these new standards, we are providing a new set of powerful tools to help us achieve our vision of a nation free of disparities in health and health care.”
The Affordable Care Act requires new standards for the collection and reporting of health care information based on race, ethnicity, sex, and primary language. Making data standards consistent will help identify the significant health differences that often exist between and within ethnic groups, particularly among Asian, Hispanic/Latino, and Pacific Islander populations.
For example, a study showed that the diabetes-related mortality rate for Mexican Americans (251 per 100, 000) and Puerto Ricans (204 deaths per 100,000) was twice as high as the diabetes-related mortality rate for Cuban Americans (101 deaths per 100,000). However, this information would have remained unknown if only the umbrella terms of “Hispanic” or “Latino” had been used.
HHS can now better capture challenges that are often found within minority populations. This specificity allows for better measurement and tracking of health differences in these populations to target interventions appropriately.
The new data collection requirements will also improve researchers' ability to consistently monitor more dimensions of health disparities among people with disabilities. Collection of all data will take place under HHS’ longstanding, strict commitment to protecting privacy.
For more information on the final data standards, visit www.minorityhealth.hhs.gov/section4302.
“HHS Announces New Incentives for Providers to Work Together through Accountable Care Organizations when Treating Medicare Populations”
People with Medicare will be able to benefit from a new program designed to encourage primary care doctors, specialists, hospitals, and other health care providers to coordinate their care under a final regulation issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Created by the Affordable Care Act, these final rules on Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) add to the menu of options for providers looking to better coordinate care for patients. The two initiatives launched – the Medicare Shared Savings Program and the Advance Payment model – will help providers form ACOs and reflect the significant input provided by stakeholders as well as lessons learned by innovators in care coordination in the private sector.
- The Medicare Shared Savings Program will provide incentives for participating health care providers who agree to work together and become ACOs for patients. Providers who band together through this model and who meet certain quality standards based upon, among other measures, patient outcomes and care coordination among the provider team, may share in savings they achieve for the Medicare program. The higher the quality of care providers deliver, the more shared savings the providers may keep.
- The Advance Payment model will provide additional support to physician-owned and rural providers participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program who also would benefit from additional start-up resources to build the necessary infrastructure, such as new staff or information technology systems. The advanced payments would be recovered from any future shared savings achieved by the ACO.
Unlike a managed care plan, Medicare beneficiaries will not be locked into a restricted panel of providers. Rather, a determination of whether an ACO was responsible for coordinating care for a beneficiary will be based on whether that person received most of their primary care services from the organization.
» Education
“Flexibility Waivers Offered to States as ESEA Reauthorization Stagnates”In October, the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions (HELP) Committee passed the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (commonly known as No Child Left Behind) through committee by a bipartisan vote of 15 to 7. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Michael Enzi (R-WY), is expected to go to hearing before the HELP committee on November 8, 2011.
There is an effort in Congress to reform NCLB, but the debate has carried on longer than anticipated as both sides present their criticism of accountability provisions for minority students, English-language learners, and students with disabilities. Specifically, lawmakers are considering legislation to safeguard students from bullying and harassment, especially those students who are targeted based on their protected characteristics such as gender or sexual orientation.
Legislators are hoping to reach an agreement and pass legislation before the end of the year, but this seems unlikely given diverging positions on several other spending bills up for fiscal year 2012. Rep. John Kline (MN-R), chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, is taking a different approach by dividing the reauthorization bill into smaller parts to help push measures supported by his colleagues.
In the meantime, 11 states have applied for flexibility waivers from key provisions of No Child Left Behind. States including Indiana, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Oklahoma have developed plans to implement college and career ready standards, with rigorous accountability systems targeted at the lowest performing schools.
According to a press release from the Department of Education, if the plans are approved, the 11 states will
- Set performance targets to graduate students from high school ready for college and career rather than having to meet NCLB 2014 deadlines based on arbitrary measures of proficiency.
- Design locally-tailored interventions for schools instead of one-size-fits-all remedies prescribed at the federal level.
- Be free to measure school progress using multiple measures rather than just test scores.
- Have more flexibility in how they spend Title I dollars.
» Emergency Preparedness/Homeland Security
“Cybersecurity Set as Priority amidst Military Cuts”Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced last week that hackers have “come close” to infiltrating some of the nation’s most critical infrastructure, including financial systems and transportation networks. Both chambers of Congress have expressed a sense of urgency towards investing in cybersecurity. Over the past year, the Senate has worked on legislation that would protect various levels of infrastructure as well as define and clarify DHS’s jurisdiction over them. The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology voted to pass the CyberSecurity Enhancement Act of 2011 this past summer. According to Committee chairman Ralph Hall (R-TX), its aim was to strengthen “agency coordination and cooperation on cybersecurity research and development efforts.” The bill however, never passed through committee.
Additional budget concerns have escalated with the failure of the Super Committee to agree to specific cuts and the automatic triggering budget reduction upon any such failure. Now, the Department of Defense will lose $600 billion in addition to the $450 billion it had agreed to cut previously. The $1 trillion reduction will occur over the next decade. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) the Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee had warned, “It would be the height of irresponsibility for Congress to allow indiscriminate, automatic cuts to take place.”
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and the Administration have both championed the continued support of listing cybersecruity as their top priority. Given the increased dependence on computer systems and networks, and the increased gravity of threats, “government officials believe spending on cybersecurity will continue to grow.”
» Energy, Transportation, and Environment
“Surface Transportation Reauthorization”The Surface Transportation Reauthorization effort is picking up some major steam The Surface Transportation bill is in its 8th extension and is set to expire in March 2012. The Senate has released the long-awaited draft of the Surface Transportation bill and has already reported the bill out of committee.
The Senate bill will consolidate 90 programs into just 30, while maintaining flexibility and placing a greater importance on leveraging current funding. The House also unveiled its own Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill in opposition to the Senate in November. Like most disagreements in Congress, one of the biggest obstacles in advancing bills is how to pay for them. The House will push for funding Reauthorization by expanding oil and gas drilling, a controversial move. The hope was for the “Super Committee” to find money available for the Reauthorization, but the Super Committee’s failure to agree on a plan, Reauthorization has been left unresolved.