Leading Public Health Official Says Impact Fee Law Violates Medical Ethics

Scott LaMar / WITF

Pennsylvania’s Capi­tol

Pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als say the impact fee law signed by Gov­er­nor Cor­bett this week could hurt the deliv­ery of health ser­vices to injured work­ers or res­i­dents liv­ing near gas drilling sites. The leg­is­la­tion allows drillers to with­hold infor­ma­tion on the chem­i­cals used to frack nat­ural gas wells if the com­pany deems them pro­pri­etary, or a trade secret. This would include the chemical’s iden­tity and the con­cen­tra­tion level.

A pro­vi­sion does allow health providers access to the infor­ma­tion in order to treat a patient, but requires the health­care worker to sign a con­fi­den­tial­ity agree­ment, that oblig­ates the med­ical pro­fes­sional to use the infor­ma­tion only to treat an indi­vid­ual patient. Dr. Jerome Paul­son, Pro­fes­sor of Pedi­atrics & Pub­lic Health at George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity, says the law runs counter to med­ical ethics.

“All of the oaths (of the med­ical pro­fes­sion) require us to work for the good of the pub­lic in addi­tion to the indi­vid­ual patients,” said Paul­son in a phone inter­view. “So block­ing our abil­ity to col­lect and share infor­ma­tion, or make the col­lec­tion and shar­ing of infor­ma­tion more cum­ber­some, means we wont be able to ful­fill our responsibilities.”

Continue reading Republican Gas Law Violates Medical Ethics →

Democrats Will Choose Nominee for US Congress from New 12^th District

by Randy Shannon

February 20, 2012

The April 24^th primary election in Pennsylvania will see two incumbent Democrats, Rep. Jason Altmire and Rep. Mark Critz, competing for the Democratic nomination to represent the new 12^th District in the 113th United States Congress.

Critz has been endorsed by a number of labor unions. The following unions have endorsed Critz:

United Mine Workers

United Steelworkers

Utility Workers Union

Service Employees International Union

United Food and Commercial Workers

Laborers’ District Council of Western PA

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1279

International Association of Firefighters

United Transportation Union

Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 354

The Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR) and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare have also endorsed Critz.

Continue reading Democrats Will Choose Nominee for US Congress from New 12th District →

Bill Black on Financial Fraud Investigations

Photo by Robin Holland

Comments on the Mortgage Fraud Settlement

by Bill Barclay

Progressive Democrats of America, Chicago Political Economy Group, DSA
February  9,2012

According to press accounts, there will be a deal between the banks and the state AGs over housing/foreclosures, etc.  A bubble in housing prices (driven by finance) got us into the Lesser Depression and it could get us out.  But I don’t think this deal is it.

The banks are going to fork over $25 billion, plus access to refi by 300,000 homeowners now shut out and perhaps some payments to 750,000 people who lost homes to foreclosure.  This may sound like a lot of money – until you remember the scope of the problem.

The Fed issued a study in Jan 2012 that reported:

(a) 12 million households with negative equity (“underwater”), almost 1/4 of total households with mortgages;

(b) total negative equity of these 12 million is about $700 billion;

(c) 8.6 million of these households were current in their mortgage
payments, accounting for $425 billion of the negative equity;

(d) the remaining 3.6 million households are all at least 30 days delinquent in payments and

(e) 1.4 million of them are in foreclosure – that is on top of the 4 million or so that have lost homes to foreclosure over the past 4 years.

Another way to put this in perspective is to remember that, in current dollars, in 1933 Congress authorized the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) to issue debt amounting to almost $50 billion that was then used to buy mortgages from lenders, in essence becoming their refinancing lender on about 21% of all 1 – 4 family dwelling units that existed in the 1930s.  (The equivalent number of households today would be about 10 million).

All in all, we have along way to go – and failure to solve the housing/foreclosure mess means it will continue to act as a drag on aggregate demand and getting the economy restarted.

January 27, 2012

by Tina Shannon

You might think it depressing to stand in a parking lot in a cold blowing rain on a Saturday afternoon to protest for our voting rights.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Over fifty people, black & white, young and old, stood together outside State Senator Elder Vogel’s office last Saturday at noon. We let him know we don’t like the PA Republican legislators trying to make it harder to vote.

HB 934, which would create obstacles to voting, was rushed through the State House of Representatives. We want to make sure Senator Vogel doesn’t allow the same thing to happen in the State Senate.

Members of the Beaver County Minority Coalition, the Beaver- Lawrence Central Labor Council, the Beaver County Chapter of the NAACP and many local area Unions were present. Local Progressive Democrats turned out in large numbers.

USW International Vice-President Carl Redmond addressed the crowd, after being introduced by Minority Coalition Chair Linwood Alford. He pointed out that the Republican Governor was slashing the budgets for education, child care, community services, environmental protection, worker safety and local governments. Curtailing the right to vote is part of their plan to silence the voice of the working people of our state.

NAACP President Willie Sallis and Beaver County Commissioner Joe Spanik also spoke. The theme of the day was unity in defense of our rights and the gains we’ve made over the years.

Unity was not only in the words spoken, but also in the comradery of the crowd. As we work together to make Beaver County and our country a better more fair society, we are getting to know one another. We are beginning to trust one another and understand each other’s motivations. This is the way forward.

You can get a glimpse of this when you look at the faces in these pictures. It was great to stand in the rain with so many people who are committed to democracy. It gave us all hope for the future.

Help defend our right to vote by calling Senator Vogel next week and ask him to stop the Senate version of HB 934 for coming to a vote.

‘Right-to-Work’ and the Jim Crow Legacy That Affronts King’s Memory

By John Nichols

How the New Indefinite Detention Provisions can be used on Americans

Congress just passed, and the President just signed, a bill that gives legal authority to the President to kidnap and perpetually imprison persons, including American citizens, without the benefit of due process.

Members of Congress, in the days leading up to the vote, tried to assure their constituents that they have nothing to fear — that the bill doesn’t apply to Americans.

Some were lying. Most were deceived.

Now, I don’t want to imply that Barack Obama plans to sweep up every one of his critics (or even a select few) because of statements they’ve uttered publicly. That is overstatement. The law doesn’t permit that. But consider the following scenario…

You object to the way the Federal Leviathan State is run. You gather, every other Tuesday, with others who share your values. We’ll call your fictional group the Constitution League (CL).

Continue reading Pres. Obama Signs Law Cancelling Habeus Corpus and Right to Trial for US Citizens →