HIGGINS APPLAUDS PASSAGE OF TAX CUT FOR MILLIONS OF MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES
Bill to Protect 23 Million Middle-Class Families From Being Hit by the Alternative Minimum Tax
Washington, D.C.- Today Congressman Higgins (NY-27) voted to pass H.R. 4351, Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) Relief. The bill provides a one-year patch intended to prevent the AMT from affecting up to 23 million families on their 2007 tax returns. The legislation also expands the child tax credit to help 12 million children.
“This legislation would ensure that millions of middle-class Americans will not be burdened with a tax that was never supposed to affect them in the first place,” Higgins said.
The AMT was originally enacted to ensure that the wealthiest families did not escape paying taxes altogether. However, because it was not indexed for inflation, over time the AMT has started to hit middle class Americans. In 2005, 448,735 New Yorkers were subject to the AMT. In 2007, the AMT was set to hit an additional 1,296,064 New Yorkers, a 289 percent increase. In New York’s 27th District, the AMT was set to hit an additional 35,141 taxpayers, a 770 percent increase in the number of affected taxpayers. For example, this bill would provide a married couple with two kids making $80,000 with tax savings of $1,500, or a married couple with three kids making $70,000 tax saving of more than $900.
The tax relief is revenue neutral, paid for by closing the tax loophole used by hedge fund managers and corporate CEOs to escape income taxes by using offshore tax havens as unlimited retirement accounts, cracking down on questionable tax shelters by codifying the economic substance doctrine into law, and delaying a questionable tax break enacted in 2004that permits companies to reduce their U.S. taxes by allocating their worldwide interest between their U.S. and foreign source income to gain a higher foreign tax credit limitation.
“This bill will save millions of Americans from being unfairly taxed while maintaining fiscal responsibility,” Higgins said.
CHARITY’S SHARE FROM SHOPPING RAISES CONCERN
Tis’ the season of giving and many companies claim that when you purchase a certain product part of your purchase price will go to a charity. Does it really? It’s not that clear cut.
“Shopping has become virtuous, especially at this time of year. Buy a “Better World” scarf at American Eagle Outfitters, and the retailer says $10 of the $19.95 price will go to one of three charities. Buy or lease a BMW this month, and participating dealers say they will give $25 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.”
“Consumers these days can benefit a variety of charities with their purchases. Or can they?”
[read whole story]
IMMIGRATION, AND ITS POLITICS, SHAKE RURAL IOWA
The Iowa caucus is next month and one might think that middle America issues would be about farming and subsidies for crops not grown and things like that. Well include illegal immigration in their concerns.
“The nation’s struggle over immigration may seem distant in states like Iowa, hundreds of miles from any border, but the debate is part of daily life here, more than ever now as residents prepare to pick a president. Nearly all of more than two dozen people interviewed here last week said they considered immigration policy at or near the top of their lists of concerns as they look to the presidential caucuses next month.”
“And yet, nearly everyone interviewed said that none of the political candidates had arrived at a position on immigration that fully satisfied them. In real life, they said, the issues surrounding immigration, both legal and illegal, were far more complicated than bumper sticker slogans or jabs on a debate stage or even the carefully picked language of campaign policy papers.”
[read whole story]
A CHAPTER OF ‘JACKASS’ AS WEB TEST
I guess it depends on whether you want to watch a movie while sitting in front of your computer. Perhaps we’ll have to think about getting our computers hooked up to a big screen TV in our family room. Seems Paramount Pictures has made a connection with Blockbuster’s Movielink service and on Dec. 19, the studio will make “Jackass 2.5” available online.
“The hour-plus film has original material and previously unseen outtakes from the second “Jackass” movie in 2006. The new movie, made for less than $2 million, will stream for free but will have 15- or 30-second commercials before and after it plays.”
“At the same time, the studio’s fellow subsidiary of Viacom, MTV Networks, and the creators of the “Jackass” franchise are using the new film to attract traffic to jackassworld.com, now under construction.”
[read whole story]
ATTORNEY GENERAL CUOMO ANNOUNCES DOCTOR RANKING AGREEMENT WITH
Western New York Health Insurer Adopts Model Code Developed with
National Physician and Consumer Groups
BUFFALO, NY (December 12, 2007) – Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo
today announced an agreement with Buffalo-based Independent Health
Association, Inc., in which the company has adopted Cuomo’s Model Code
for doctor ranking programs.
With this agreement signed today, a total of seven state, regional and
national insurers have adopted Attorney General Cuomo’s Doctor Ranking
Model Code.
“I applaud Independent Health for embracing the Model Code,” said
Cuomo. “My Model Code, which was based on input from the nation’s
leading physician and consumer advocacy groups, gives New Yorkers added
confidence when choosing a physician. All insurers should adopt these
principles of accuracy, transparency, and oversight as Independent
Health has done. The Model Code helps protect consumers from being
directed to certain ‘preferred’ physicians based solely on cost, and
gives them access to clear and meaningful measurements of quality of
care to help them make well-informed decisions.”
Independent Health has more than 360,000 customers, most of whom are
located in western New York.
Michael W. Cropp, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of
Independent Health, said, “As a nationally recognized health plan,
Independent Health has always focused on the needs of our members.
Although we do not have a physician tiering program currently, we have
signed the agreement because we share the Attorney General’s goal of
maintaining accuracy, accountability and transparency in the information
we provide to our members and physicians. Independent Health is a
physician-led organization with longstanding partnerships with
physicians in our community. We look forward to working with the
Attorney General’s office and our physician partners so we can provide
our members with necessary information about the quality of care they
receive.”
New York’s legislative leaders recently announced plans to pass
legislation codifying Cuomo’s Doctor Ranking Model Code.
Cuomo’s Model Code was created in consultation with the American
Medical Association and the Medical Society of the State of New York,
along with a host of consumer advocacy groups including Consumers Union
and the National Partnership for Women & Families. The North Shore
Physician Organization also provided key assistance to the Attorney
General’s doctor rankings initiative.
American Medical Association President-elect Nancy Nielsen, M.D., said,
“The AMA commends Independent Health for voluntarily joining the ongoing
shift in the health insurance industry’s stance on physician profiling.
Although Independent Health does not profile physicians, its agreement
with the Attorney General indicates that a primary commitment to quality
improvement already exists within the company.”
Chuck Bell, Programs Director for Consumers Union, the nonprofit
publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said, “Consumers Union
strongly supports the core principles of the agreement that Attorney
General Cuomo has concluded with Independent Health – disclosure, use
of nationally-recognized quality measures, and independent oversight.
These principles will help ensure that information about physician
performance is collected and reported in a fair way. We congratulate
Independent Health for embracing this model, which will help ensure that
consumers receive accurate and reliable information.”
Lois Aronstein, AARP New York State Director, said, “For too long,
consumers have had to rely on word of mouth recommendations without
being able to see specific, objective information about how well their
doctors perform. AARP strongly supports efforts to give consumers this
type of information as well as publicly disclosing the methods used to
determine rankings and making those rankings fully transparent.”
The Model Code reforms doctor ranking programs by compelling insurers
to fully disclose to consumers and physicians all aspects of their
ranking system. Additionally, under this model, the insurer must retain
an oversight monitor, known as a Ratings Examiner (“Rx”), who will
oversee compliance with all aspects of the agreement and report to the
Attorney General every six months.
Under the national model, insurers will:
● Ensure that rankings for doctors are not based solely on cost
and clearly identify the degree to which any ranking is based on cost;
● Use established national standards to measure quality and cost
efficiency, including measures endorsed by the National Quality Forum
(NQF) and other generally accepted national standards;
● Employ several measures to foster more accurate physician
comparisons, including risk adjustment and valid sampling;
● Disclose to consumers how the program is designed and how
doctors are ranked, and provide a process for consumers to register
complaints about the system;
● Disclose to physicians how rankings are designed, and provide a
process to appeal disputed ratings;
● Nominate and pay for the Ratings Examiner, subject to the
approval of the Attorney General, who will oversee compliance with all
aspects of the new ranking model and report to the Attorney General’s
office every six months; the Ratings Examiner must be a “national
standard setting organization” and will be national in scope,
independent, and an Internal Revenue Code § 501(c)(3) organization.
Doctor ranking programs are a rapidly growing practice within the
healthcare industry. Major insurers nationwide either operate or are in
the process of developing these programs.
Other companies to adopt the Model Code are: CIGNA Healthcare, Aetna,
Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, UnitedHealthcare, GHI/HIP and MVP Health
Care/Preferred Care. CIGNA, Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and Empire’s
parent, WellPoint, will also apply the principles of the Attorney
General’s Doctor Ranking Model Code nationwide.
The Attorney General’s industry-wide investigation of doctor ranking
programs is ongoing and is being handled by Linda Lacewell, the head of
the Attorney General’s Healthcare Industry Taskforce.
HIGGINS SUPPORTS MOVING FORWARD ON WATERFRONT PARKWAY
Congressman Brian Higgins released the following statement today regarding the construction of a new tree-lined parkway on Buffalo’s Outer Harbor Waterfront:
“Buffalo has been waiting for fifty years for access to the Outer Harbor waterfront, and in the 2008 construction season they will see the construction of an easy-to-navigate, two-way, tree-lined parkway which will provide this access for the first time. This project has been the subject of fifteen years of study and public comment, is fully permitted and fully funded at $55 million, and Buffalonians will not tolerate delay in the construction of the waterfront parkway they deserve.
The Parkway which will be constructed next year provides better linkages to the surface-level bridge for which I will seek funding in the coming years to link downtown directly to the Outer Harbor. This bridge will work well if it is linked to a two-way parkway, rather than a disjointed system of one-way road segments called for in the boulevard alternative.”
REPORT FINDS BETTER SCORES IN NEW CROP OF TEACHERS
A few years ago there was great concern that teaching was not attracting the best qualified people. According to a report released Tuesday by the Educational Testing Service that has changed. Today teaching is attracting better qualified people than it did just a few years ago.
“Prospective teachers who took state teacher licensing exams from 2002 to 2005 scored higher on SATs in high school and earned higher grades in college than their counterparts who took the exams in the mid-1990s, the report said.”
“On the other hand, the report found that those attracted to the profession continued to make up a strikingly homogeneous group — prospective teachers were overwhelmingly white and female — at a time when the proportion of public school students nationwide who are black, Hispanic or other minorities was nearly half and rising.”
[read whole story]
SEEKING LEADERS, U.S. COMPANIES THINK GLOBALLY
Ever stop and wonder just who is running the show? I don’t mean our government. We see their photos and listen to their sound bites night after night on the news. No, I mean the real economy of our land. The top Fortune 100 companies. Well, it’s not who you might think. The corner offices of corporate America’s largest companies are increasingly being filled from every corner of the world.
“Citigroup, the world’s largest bank, named Vikram S. Pandit, a native of Nagpur, India, as its chief executive on Tuesday. Mr. Pandit joins 14 other foreign-born chiefs who are running Fortune 100 companies.”
“The head of the Altria Group was born in Egypt, for example. PepsiCo’s is from India, the Liberty Mutual Group’s is a native of Ireland and Alcoa’s was born in Morocco.”
“Their numbers have jumped from roughly a decade ago; there were nine foreign-born chief executives on Fortune’s list of the 100 largest companies in 1996. But the size of the new group does not reflect a noteworthy change — they come from more far-flung countries now than then, when they were more likely to hail from Canada or Europe.”
[read whole story]
MICHAEL VICK IS SENTENCED UP TO 23 MONTHS
Michael Vick was sentenced to prison Monday for running a dogfighting operation and will stay up to 23 months, because he lied about his involvement when he was supposed to be coming clean to the judge who would decide his fate.
The disgraced NFL star received a harsher sentence than the others in the federal conspiracy case because of “less than truthful” statements about killing pit bulls.
Vick said he accepted responsibility for his actions, but U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson said he wasn’t so sure.
“I’m not convinced you’ve fully accepted responsibility,” Hudson told Vick, who arrived in court wearing the black-and-white striped prison uniform he was issued when he voluntarily surrendered Nov. 19 to begin serving his sentence early.
Despite the early surrender, a public apology and participation in an animal sensitivity training course, Vick was denied an “acceptance of responsibility” credit that would have reduced his sentence. Federal prosecutors opposed awarding Vick the credit.
Dogs that did not perform up to expectations were killed by electrocution, hanging, drowning and other violent means by the dogfighting ring. Hudson said evidence, including statements by the co-defendants, showed Vick was more directly involved than he admitted. Hudson also mentioned that Vick had been deceptive on a polygraph test. Though that evidence was not admissible in court, the results were discussed.
“He did more than fund it,” prosecutor Michael Gill said, referring to the “Bad Newz Kennels” dogfighting operation. “He was in this thing up to his neck with the other defendants.”
WEGMANS RECALLS WREATH KUCHEN
Wegman’s Wreath Kuchens, in the shape of a wreath with red and green candied cherries on top, have been recalled.
The kuchen (coffeecake), with a ‘Best if Used By’ date up to and including Dec. 12, contains pecans that are not declared on the label. This recalled is a concern for those people who may have an allergic reaction to pecans.
These Kuchens have been on sale from Sunday November 25th through Thursday, December 6th.
Customers can return the product to Wegmans for a full refund or customers with questions about the recall can contact the company at 1-800-934-6267, extension 4760.
