10:30 am – Examining the Single Payer Health Care Option

House Committee on Education and Labor
Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Hearing

Witnesses:

1. U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI)
2. Marcia Angell, M.D, Senior Lecturer in Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
3. David Gratzer, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute
4. Geri Jenkins, R.N., Co-President
   California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, San Diego, CA
5. Walter Tsou, M.D., M.P.H., National Board Advisor Physicians for a National Health Program, Philadelphia, PA
6. Additional Witnesses TBA

Live coverage is scheduled by committee webstream and C-SPAN Radio (schedule, real player link, more links).

C-SPAN TV is scheduled to cover the hearing and broadcast it later in the day (watch schedule for time and station).

C-SPAN Video Library will archive the hearing for later viewing (link).

For some great background on Single Payer, see the fact sheet from PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Program): Single-Payer National Health Insurance. The short version is:

BILL MOYERS: But then let’s establish what single-payer is. Can you do that succinctly?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: It’s what we used to call national health insurance. So government collects the money for health care from taxes, you don’t pay premiums, instead you pay taxes, and pays all the bills. Hospitals remain privately owned and operated. Doctors remain mostly in private practice. But their bills go to the government insurance program, just as they do today with Medicare, but we’d be able to streamline the payment system if we had only one payer instead of Medicare being one among many.

So a hospital would get paid like a fire department does today. You have one check a month that pays for the entire operation. And that means you can eliminate the huge billing apparatus of the hospitals and the doctors offices where we’re employing many people to do our billing. And fighting with insurance companies. You save $400 billion a year that way.

For an analysis of the three Single Payer bills now before Congress, see BargainCountertenor’s fabulous diary: Single Payer Bills in Congress: First Impressions.

HR 676 was first introduced in 2003 to the 108th Congress by Representative John Conyers and has been introduced to in every Congress since, getting more support each session.

From PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Program), as of last year:

HR-676 has been endorsed by over 417 union organizations in 48 states including 107 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 33 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO,MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA & AK).

It has the vigourous support of the largest Nurse’s Union (CNA/NNOC), and the largest Nurses professional association (ANA). And the National Association of Social Workers.

It was endorsed last year by largest physician specialty group, the American College of Physicians which represents Internists, and in a recent editorial in their professional journal (.pdf).

And of course Physicians for a National Program (PNHP) with organized activists in most States.

It has been recently endorsed by the U..S. Conference of Mayors.

Oh yes… HR-676 has also been endorsed by the Assembly of the Urban Caucus of the Episcopal Church, General Board on Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association of the Presbyterian Church (USA). And most recently Unitarian-Universalist.

More on today’s hearings, what it means and a call to action from National Nurses Movement at Daily Kos: Congressional Hearing to Consider Single-Payer Healthcare:

The official silence on Capitol Hill on single payer — at least in the House — is ending.

Thanks to the ongoing pressure and dedication of single payer activists across the country, who the Washington Post noted this past weekend, "have spent months hounding Democratic lawmakers and organizing demonstrations, including one that resulted in 13 arrests at a Senate hearing last month," a Congressional committee will for the first time in the current proceedings on healthcare reform, hold a public hearing on single payer Wednesday.

… a key priority of the insurance industry throughout this process has been shutting out discussion of single-payer reforms, and their own uselessness…so in that regards this is a real victory for healthcare reform

x-posted at oxdown

Witnesses:

• Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize recipient, 2001; University Professor, Columbia University; former chairman, Council of Economic Advisers
• Simon Johnson, Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship, MIT’s Sloan School of Management; Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute; former Economic Counselor, International Monetary Fund. cofounder of blog The Baseline Scenario
• Thomas M. Hoenig, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

UPDATED with audio archive:
Download audio file (20090421-Too-Big-to-Fail-or-Too-Big-to-Save_.mp3)

(note: The Congressmembers’ voices are louder than the witnesses)

From Stiglitz’s prepared statement (pdf):

A good financial system manages risk and allocates capital, with the intent of increasing the overall efficiency of the economy; it does this with low transaction costs. However, we have a financial system which created risk and misallocated capital, with high transaction costs. While capital was being misallocated to homes beyond people’s ability to pay and in places where homes were not needed, too little capital was being deployed to new start-ups, to create and expand small and medium size enterprises, which are the bases of a dynamic economy.

A small part of our financial system, the venture capital firms, is responsible for a large part of our economy’s economic growth. While our big banks have not been at the center of this dynamic growth, they have been at the center of this tempest; they have created risk to our country, without any offsetting rewards—though to be sure those in the industry have been rewarded well.

Other parts of our financial system have done a good job—community banks, credit unions and local banks—in supplying consumers, small and medium sized enterprises with the finance they need.

But we should also be aware of the inadequacies of our financial system—beyond the failures in risk management and capital allocation that led to this crisis. Our financial system discovered that there was money at the bottom of the pyramid and made a concerted effort to make sure that they money did not remain there. They engaged in predatory lending; it is ironic that they were hoisted by their own petard in the sub-prime mortgages.

…we need to admit that those that predicted dire consequences to come from the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act were correct. They warned about conflicts of interest, the increase in concentration of the banking system, with increasing risks of too-big-to-fail institutions—and increasing systemic risk as a result. They warned about the consequences of transferring the investment banking culture to the commercial banks, who are entrusted with the management of the payment system and ordinary individuals’ savings—insured by the government. The critics suggested that the benefits from economies of scope and scale were exaggerated, and, if present at all, these were almost surely outweighed by the costs. As painful as it may be, we need to revisit these questions. Depression-era regulations may not be appropriate for the twenty-first century, but what was needed was not stripping away regulations but adapting the regulatory system to the new realities, e.g. the enhanced risk posed by derivatives and securitization.

The process of breaking them up may be slow; there may be political resistance—even if the shareholders have not done well, their officers have, and their political contributions have not gone unnoticed.

In environmental economics there is the basic principle of the polluter pays. Those who pollute must pay the cost of clean-up. It is a matter of efficiency and equity. The too- big-to-fail institutions have contributed to the pollution of the global economy with toxic mortgages; they should now pay for the cost of clean-up.

We should recognize that, in a sense, the too-big-to fail institutions have succeeded in managing their risk well—but not in the way advertised. A relatively small investment in campaign contributions (the combined campaign contributions of U.S. financial, insurance, and real-estate firms has been estimated at around $5 billion over the past decade) has succeeded in transferring losses to the public, estimated well in excess of a trillion dollars.

Yes, apparently the too-big-to fail institutions have succeeded in managing their risk — by transferring it, with the help of both the Bush and Obama administrations, onto the rest of us.

(thanks to cbl2 who alerted me of this hearing)

x-posted at oxdown.

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…

9:30 am – Senate Indian Affairs
An oversight hearing to examine matters relating to Indian affairs.

• The Honorable Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, United States Department of the Interior, Washington, DC

9:30 am – Senate Armed Services
Organizational business meeting

9:30 am – Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Organizational business meeting

9:30 am – House Foreign Affairs
Gaza After the War: What Can Be Built on the Wreckage?

Witnesses

• Mr. David Makovsky, Director, Project on the Middle East Peace Process, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
• Ziad J. Asali, M.D., President & Founder, The American Task Force on Palestine
• Michele Dunne, Ph.D., Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Ms. Danielle Pletka, Vice President, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

10:00 am – Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Hearings to examine consumer protection in the financial regulatory system, focusing on strengthening credit card protections.

Witnesses:

• Mr. Travis B. Plunkett , Legislative Director, Consumer Federation of America
• Mr. James C. Sturdevant , Esq., The Sturdevant Law Firm
• Mr. Kenneth J. Clayton , Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Card Policy Council, American Bankers Association
• Mr. Lawrence M. Ausubel , Professor of Economics, University of Maryland
• Mr. Todd Zywicki , Professor, George Mason University School of Law
• Mr. Adam J. Levitin , Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

10:00 am – Senate Budget
Hearings to examine Senate procedures for consideration of the budget resolution/reconciliation.

Witnesses:

• The Honorable Arlen Specter — United States Senator
• G. William Hoagland — Former Staff Director, Senate Budget Committee

10:00 am – Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Organizational business meeting to consider an original resolution authorizing expenditures for committee operations, and committee’s rules of procedure for the 111th Congress; followed by a nomination hearing:

• Jane Lubchenco, of Oregon, to be Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, Department of Commerce
• John P. Holdren, of Massachusetts, to be Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Department of Commerce

10:00 am – Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Hearings to examine the Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program, authorized under Title 17 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and how the delivery of services to support the deployment of clean energy technologies might be improved.

Witnesses:

• David Frantz , Director of Loan Guarantee Program, Department of Energy
• The Honorable Andy Karsner , Distinguished Fellow, Council on Competitiveness
• Kevin Book , Senior Vice President, Energy Policy, Oil & Alternative Energy , Friedman Billings Ramsey & Company, Inc.
• James Asselstine , Managing Director, Barclays Capital

10:00 am – Senate Environment and Public Works
Organizational business meeting.

10:00 am – Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Hearings to examine structuring national security and homeland security at the White House.

Witnesses:

• The Honorable Thomas J. Ridge , Former Secretary , United States Department of Homeland Security
• Frances Fragos Townsend , Former Assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
• Christine E. Wormuth , Senior Fellow, International Security Program , Center for Strategic and International Studies
• The Honorable James R. Locher III , Executive Director , Project on National Security Reform

10:00 am – Senate Judiciary
Organizational business meeting to consider subcommittee assignments.

10 am – House Education and Labor
Examining Workers’ Rights and Violence against Labor Union Leaders in Colombia

10 am – House Energy and Commerce
The Climate Crisis: National Security, Economic, and Public Health Threats

10 am – House Budget
Building a Foundation for Families: Fighting Hunger, Investing in Children

• Sharon Parrott, Director of the Welfare Reform and Income Support Division, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Deborah A. Frank, M.D., Founder and Principal Investigator of the Children’s Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program and the Growth and Development Program, Boston Medical Center
• Leon Lott, Sheriff, Richland County, South Carolina
• Douglas J. Besharov, Senior Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

10 am – House Natural Resources
Legislative Hearing on H.R. 493: To direct the Secretary of the Interior to promulgate regulations concerning the storage and disposal of matter referred to as ‘other wastes’ in the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, and for other purposes. Coal Ash Reclamation, Environment, and Safety Act of 2009"

Witnesses:

• Mr. John R. Craynon, Chief, Division of Regulatory Support, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Department of the Interior
• Ms. Sandy Gruzesky, Director, Division of Water, Department for Environmental Protection, State of Kentucky
• Mr. Tom FitzGerald, Director, Kentucky Resources Council
• Mr. Davitt McAteer, Vice President for Sponsored Programs, CEO of the Center for Educational Technologies & National Technology Transfer Center, Wheeling Jesuit University
• Mr. Nick Akins, Executive Vice President for Generation, American Electric Power Service Corporation

10 am – House Science and Technology
An Overview of Transportation R&D: Priorities for Reauthorization

10 am – House Appropriations
On Army contracting.

Witness:Ross Thompson, Military Deputy to Assistant Secretary of the Army, Acquisition, Logistics & Technology.

10 am – House Oversight and Government Reform
On U.S. efforts to train and equip the Afghan army and police.

10:30 am – House Armed Services
On Addressing U.S. Strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan: Balancing Interests and Resources.

Witnesses:

• Anthony Cordesman, Ph.D.
• Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies
• Stephen Biddle, Ph.D., Senior Fellow for Defense Policy, Council on Foreign Relations
• General Jack Keane (ret.), Former Vice Chief of Staff, United States Army
• Janet St. Laurent, Managing Director, Defense Capabilities and Management Team, Government Accountability Office

11 am – House Judiciary
Hearing on: Libel Tourism

Witness List
Panel 1:

• Hon. Peter King, U.S. House of Representatives, 3rd District, NY

Panel 2:

• Rachel Ehrenfeld, Ph.D., American Center for Democracy
• Bruce D. Brown, Esq., Baker Hostetler
• Laura R. Handman, Esq.
• Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP
• Linda J. Silberman, New York University School of Law

1 pm – House Foreign Affairs
Smart Power: Remaking U.S. Foreign Policy in North Korea

Witnesses
Panel 1:

• Mr. Selig S. Harrison, Asia Director, The Center for International Policy

Panel 2:

• The Honorable Charles L. Pritchard, President, Korea Economic Institute, (Former Ambassador and Special Envoy for Negotiations with North Korea)
• Victor Cha, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Director of Asian Studies and D.S. Song-Korea, Foundation Chair in Asian Studies and Government, Georgetown University

Panel 3:

• Mr. Bruce Klingner, Senior Research Fellow, Northeast Asia, The Heritage Foundation
• Mr. Scott Snyder, Senior Associate, International Relations, The Asia Foundation
• Mr. Peter Beck, Adjunct Professor, American University

1 pm – House Agriculture
Business Meeting to consider H.R. ____, the Derivatives Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2009

1 pm – House Armed Services
The Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee will meet to receive testimony on Strategies for Countering Violent Extremist Ideologies.

Witnesses:

• Mr. Raymond Ibrahim, Associate Director, Middle East Forum and author of The Al Qaeda Reader
• Dr. Michael Doran, Visiting Professor, Wagner School of Public Service, New York University and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Support for Public Diplomacy)

2:00 pm – Senate Foreign Relations
Hearings to examine United States relations with Sudan.

2:30 pm – Senate Intelligence
Hearings to examine the world threat.

2:30 pm – House Education and Labor
New Innovations and Best Practices Under the Workforce Investment Act

Witnesses:

• Ms. Bonnie Gonzalez, Chief Executive Officer, Workforce Solutions, Inc, Lower Rio Grande Valley, McAllen, TX
• Mr. Morton Bahr, President Emeritus, Communications Workers of America, National Commission on Adult Literacy, Washington, D.C.
• Mr. Stephen Wooderson, State Administrator, Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services, Des Moines, IA
• Mr. Bill Camp, Executive Secretary, Sacramento Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, Sacramento, CA
• Ms. Karen R. Elzey, Vice-President and Executive Director, Institute for a Competitive Workforce, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, DC
• Ms. Sherry L. Johnson, Associate Director, Lincoln Trail Area Development District, Elizabethtown, KY

x-posted at oxdown

10 am – Senate Environment and Public Works
Oversight Hearing on the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Recent Major Coal Ash Spill

Witnesses:
Panel 1:

• Tom Kilgore, President and CEO, Tennessee Valley Authority

Panel 2:

• Stephen A. Smith DVM, Executive Director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
• William "Howie" Rose, Director of Emergency Management Services, Roane County, Tennessee

For background, see Kirk Murphy’s posts:

• How Can We Trust The EPA On Coal’s Poisons After Their 9/11 Lies?
• Arsenic from Coal Ash Disaster 100 Times More than Allowed
• Has TVA Been Stockpiling Lies Along With Toxic Coal Wastes?

…

10 am – Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services-Designate, Former Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle

Witness:

• Thomas A. Daschle, Former Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Aberdeen, SD

…

Live streaming expected at committee websites and CSPAN (direct real player links: CSPAN, CSPAN-2, CSPAN-3, CSPAN Radio).

x-posted at oxdown.

10 am – Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Full Committee briefing entitled, “Investing in Green Technology as a Strategy for Economic Recovery.”

Witnesses:

• Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prize winning author
• John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB)

The hearing is not being covered by CSPAN, but will be webcast at the committee website main page.

…. and if this isn’t enough wisdom for you for one day, check out CSPAN (direct realplayer link: CSPAN-3) at 12:10pm to see Henry Paulson’s speech on "Housing and Mortgage Markets Recovery" before the Economic Club of Washington.

x-posted at oxdown