Brown to unveil revised California budget, tax proposal

May 16, 2011 · Posted in high blood pressure and cholesterol · Comment 
Kris Alingod – AHN News Contributor

Sacramento, CA, United States (AHN) – California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday was set to unveil an updated budget plan to close a record $26.6 billion deficit while taking into account better-than-expected April tax receipts and Republican opposition to a June ballot on tax extensions.

The announcement will come as the end of the fiscal year looms, and teachers and students in the state, which has the nation’s largest university system and the world’s eighth-largest economy, protest further cuts.

Brown early this year proposed a plan reducing spending by $12.5 billion, including $1.4 billion in cuts to higher education, and generating $12 billion from an extension of taxes that are due to expire this summer.

The tax extensions require a June ballot that in turn, must first be approved by two Republicans from the Assembly and two from the state Senate. The deadline for including the extensions in the ballot has passed, and unions have asked lawmakers to instead pass a bill allowing the ballot.

The governor’s revised budget plan is expected to seek at least some of his revenue-generating tax hikes even as Republicans point out the state’s more than $2 billion in unanticipated April tax revenue.

Last week, Brown announced drastic measures such as eliminating the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and shuttering 70 of 278 state parks, including the governor’s mansion.

Eliminating the appeals board, which is composed of appointees who preside over appeals on disputes about jobless and disability claims, would save the state $1.2 million.

The closure of parks would reduced spending by $11 million in the fiscal year starting in July, and another $22 million the following year. Parks with the least attendance and cultural and environmental significance were chosen for the closure, which will not affect 92 percent of public attendance in parks.

Brown, who served as governor for two terms nearly three decades ago, also plans to merge the state’s two personnel agencies into a single human resources department to save at least $5.8 million.

Previously, he ordered a hiring freeze and slashed the number of state cars and cell phones by 50 percent.

Republicans, who released an alternative budget plan last week, have railed against the latest proposals as “posturing” and ” misguided threats.”

State GOP spokesman Mark Standriff called the planned closure of parks “a ‘Washington Monument Strategy’ that is both cynical and manipulative, and shows little respect for the taxpayers.”

The Republican plan relies on the higher April revenue to prevent cuts to education and law enforcement. It does not raise taxes and calls on state workers to “do their part” with a 10 percent reduction in pay, benefits and other employee costs, which the GOP says would provide the government with $1.1 billion in savings.

The California Teachers Association, which held statewide protests last week, said the GOP’s alternative proposal would leave a $14.7 billion budget gap and fails to provide “real solutions.”

The San Francisco Chronicle said in its editorial on Monday that the GOP plan “should be dismissed as a nonstarter,” because it “included a heavy dose of borrowing and reliance on ‘savings.’ ” The newspaper also blasted Republicans for pushing “a ridiculously long wish list that strayed far from the subject of the budget.”

In March, Brown ended negotiations with Republicans after what he said was “an ever changing list of collateral demands” in return for support for a special election, such as giving a $1 billion tax break to out-of-state corporations so the companies would bring jobs to California.

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American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown Says CDC Report On Children’s Food Environment Underscores Need For Strong Public Policies

April 27, 2011 · Posted in cholesterol · Comment 

Our nation’s youth face major roadblocks to good health with easy access to calorie-laden snacks, sugary beverages and other unhealthy foods in their schools and communities. With about 1 out of every 6 children in the U.S. considered obese, we are condemning our kids to a bleak future of premature health problems such as type-2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease…

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Medical Device Industry Lobbies IRS and Congress To Dodge Health Law Tax

April 18, 2011 · Posted in high blood pressure and cholesterol · Comment 

Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – Like many other interest groups, the medical device industry met with White House officials in the run-up to the health care battle in Congress. But while insurers, pharmaceutical firms and even the American Medical Association made agreements trading their support for specific concessions, the device makers were not able to close a similar deal.

As a result, the final health care reform bill included a 2.3 percent excise tax on device makers that’s expected to produce $20 billion over a decade to help pay for expanded health coverage.

That’s the law, or so it would seem.

But in Washington, it’s never over until it’s over. And like other medical interests who are scrambling to influence the implementation of health care reform, medical device makers are showering cash on friends in Congress and working the halls, hoping that one of five bills that would overturn the excise tax might actually make it into law.

Veteran Hill watchers say that may be a long shot, so to hedge its bets, the industry is also lobbying the Internal Revenue Service to write rules exempting hundreds of devices from the excise tax — even though the health law says the exemption should be limited to items widely purchased by the public from retailers. The outcome of that under-the-radar battle is far from certain.

The medical device business and its lobbyists have a strong record of winning concessions and at least partially deflecting the costs of health insurance coverage expansion. An early Senate “framework” version of the health bill pushed by Democrat Max Baucus of Montana, for example, would have nailed the industry with a $40 billion excise tax bill over ten years beginning in 2010. Shocked at the price tag, the device manufacturers’ trade group, the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), pushed back, aided by industry giants Medtronic Inc., Johnson & Johnson, 3M Co., and others.

With the help of a bipartisan group of lawmakers, the device makers succeeded in cutting the tax in half in the final health care law, which also delayed the start date for the tax until 2013, three years later than in the Baucus proposal.

Manufacturers, however, maintain that even the smaller tax in the health care law is catastrophic for them. So the industry is targeting Capitol Hill anew and working the regulatory process, searching for concessions.

Five industry-supported bills currently before Congress would completely overturn the excise tax on medical devices, the most widely supported of which are bills introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Minn. Hatch’s bill has- Republican co-sponsors. Paulsen’s House bill has 119 co-sponsors, including three Democrats.

Hatch, who has been one of the health care law’s fiercest opponents, says the tax on medical devices will increase insurance premiums and the cost of care. Relying on an excise tax “to fund Obamacare will cripple an important engine of opportunity, job growth and innovation,” Hatch said in a January news release.

CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM INDUSTRY

In 2009 and 2010, both Hatch and Paulsen were major beneficiaries of medical device industry money.

Hatch was not up for re-election that cycle but received more than $90,000 in campaign donations from the medical supply industry, which made him the trade group’s third largest political beneficiary, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The political action committee of the AdvaMed association alone contributed $10,584 to Hatch’s campaign, and $3,150 to Paulsen’s.

The political action committees of individual companies also chipped in. The PAC of Boston Scientific, a major manufacturer of heart and other medical devices, contributed $7,000 to Paulsen’s campaign and $5,000 to Hatch’s. Medtronic, the world’s largest medical device maker — which is based in Paulsen’s home state — donated $3,000 to Paulsen and $5,000 to Hatch.

Paulsen spokesman Tom Erickson said the bill is a response to job loss fears, not industry campaign donations, and that more than 400 medical device companies are based in Minnesota. A Hatch spokesman said the senator’s bill reflects his political philosophy: “It’s something he has felt strongly about for a long time, that taxes are counterproductive,” spokesman Mark Eddington said.

Hatch and Paulsen are only two of the friends the device industry is counting on for help.

In late March, Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts launched a new Senate medical technology caucus to increase awareness about issues facing the industry. Both represent states with significant medical device manufacturers and have been major beneficiaries of industry money.

Boston Scientific, which in 2010 had $7.8 billion in sales, is based in Brown’s state. In 2010, Brown received more than $30,000 in campaign donations from the medical supply industry, which is dominated by the device makers. Klobuchar received more than $40,000 in contributions.

“These businesses not only spark medical breakthroughs, they save lives,” Klobuchar said in comments released on the day the new caucus was launched. “Every day in every state small medical technology companies are driving the innovation agenda we need to compete in a global economy. I will continue to work to make sure that Minnesota remains a leader in health care innovation by developing innovative products while maintaining patient safety.”

The House medical technology caucus was revamped in February. According to the industry newsletter MedCity, its new website was launched on the same day that Paulsen, who chairs the group together with Anna Eschoo, D-Calif., addressed the Minnesota life sciences trade group LifeScience Alley.

In the halls of Congress, the medical device manufacturers have long pushed the jobs refrain, first to deflect taxes, and second to fend off scrutiny from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates devices. Dr. Josh Makower, the founder of Exploramed, a medical device incubator – who frequently testifies before Congress – said the excise tax will particularly hurt small firms, many of which rely solely on investment capital for years before turning a profit.

“The saddest thing is that these small companies are exactly the ones that are delivering new innovations,” Makower told iWatch News in an e-mail response to questions.

REVOLVING DOOR

In pushing its interests, the device industry benefits from the revolving door connecting K Street with Capitol Hill.

In December, former AdvaMed executive Brett Loper, who lobbied against the excise tax, was named House Speaker John Boehner’s chief policy officer. Elizabeth Kegler, the association’s vice president of government affairs, is a former health policy advisor to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Advamed spent almost $1.5 million lobbying Congress on behalf of its members in 2010. First quarter lobby disclosure records for 2011 will not be available until late April, but medical device industry activity suggests the industry has likely not slowed its spending.

Despite device industry campaign donations, powerful allies, and support for the Paulsen bill in the House, George Schutzer, a tax lobbyist and attorney at the Washington firm Patton Boggs, said he doubts Congress is ready to overturn the device tax. A win for the medical device industry would “open the flood gates” for challenges to the health reform bill by other parts of the medical industry, Schutzer said, and would most likely result in an Obama veto.

As a result, the medical device industry has taken the fight beyond Congress to the Internal Revenue Service, which will administer the tax.

That part of the struggle appears to be splitting the industry as manufacturers try to protect their market niches. Although the medical device category includes big-ticket items generally sold to hospitals, including artificial hearts, pacemakers, coronary stents and artificial joints, it also includes a wide range of less expensive items ranging from tongue depressors to examination gloves.

The health law exempts from the excise tax eyeglasses, contact lenses, and any device the Treasury Department determines is generally purchased by the general public at retail for individual use. Certain sectors of the device industry, however, contend that devices from wheelchairs and scooters to home oxygen systems fit the exemption criteria.

In written comments to the IRS, which is expected to publish tax guidance for device manufacturers, DJO Global, the largest U.S. supplier of orthopedic devices, asked for an exemption on all items classified by Medicare as durable medical equipment, prosthetics and orthotics, including bone-growth stimulators and electrotherapy devices. The American Association for Home Care, which represents the home medical care industry, wrote that it believes all durable medical equipment, including complex power wheel chairs, should be exempt.

“Durable medical equipment and home medical equipment fit that exemption language to a tee,” said Jay Witter, senior director of government affairs at the American Association for Home Care, in an interview. Witter quoted a 2009 fact sheet released by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi that said wheelchairs would be exempt, and that the excise tax would apply only to sales of medical devices to hospitals and other institutions. The comment period on the exemption ended in late March; the IRS did not respond to questions on when it might decide who gets the exemption and who doesn’t.

Witter said it is unclear whether wheelchairs and other durable medical equipment were included in revenue calculations that projected $20 billion in revenue from the tax over a decade’s time. But since the majority of home health customers are covered by Medicare, which pays set rates, Witter said the cost of the excise tax cannot be passed on to consumers.

Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women & Families, a think tank that focuses on health issues, said the idea that all durable medical equipment should be exempt from the excise tax is absurd and could impair funding for the health care law.

“If they get what they want, the whole health care bill collapses,” said Zuckerman. “There is too much money involved to get rid of the excise tax or to substantially lower it.”

TAX DEDUCTION WINDFALL?

As device manufactures plead for exemptions, hospitals and group purchasing organizations worry that those who remain on the hook for the tax may simply pass it on in higher prices to hospitals and other purchasers. Curtis Rooney, president of the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association, said the excise tax could even wind up being a windfall for medical device manufacturers.

In a letter to the IRS, Rooney’s organization, along with the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals and the Catholic Health Association of the United States, wrote that device manufacturers should be prohibited from passing on the excise tax to consumers, especially if they are allowed to deduct the excise tax when calculating their federal income tax.

Allowing device manufacturers to write off the tax and pass along the cost, the letter says, would “permit a financial ‘double-dip’ that could leave device companies in a better financial position than before the [health law] was enacted.”

Asked if device manufacturers planned to increase the prices charged to hospitals and other consumers to make up for excise tax, an AdvaMed spokeswoman declined to answer. She instead referred to a comment by David Nexon, the association’s senior executive vice president: “Each AdvaMed member company will have to individually decide how to best deal with the damaging effects of the tax. For some, that might mean cutting R&D, reducing staff or other measures. Those are tough business decisions that will have to be made if this tax goes forward and go to the heart of why we opposed the tax in the first place.”

iWatch News is the investigative news report of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit group focused on investigative journalism.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Foods To Lower Cholesterol – Types Of Food To Eat For High Cholesterol, Revealed

July 16, 2010 · Posted in cholesterol · Comment 

If you have been asking yourself about what type of foods to lower cholesterol levels should you consume on a daily basis, I can only assume that you are taking your health very seriously. So here is the good news. There is no need to travel to the jungles of Borneo to seek out a certain, exotic food to eat for high cholesterol. Every list of foods that help to lower cholesterol can be found at your local mart.

Cholesterol reducing diets does not mean liquid diets. You can be assured that there are actually numerous choices of food to eat for high cholesterol. But it is helpful to remember that a daily consumption of cholesterol is usually recommended at or below 100 milligrams per day.

Quite obviously, it is a cumbersome task to keep track of the amount of cholesterol consumed per day, so, here is a handy tip – cholesterol is found in products of animal origin. Knowing this, you can roughly gauge the type of foods that lower your cholesterol (Nutritionists recommend writing down and keeping track of your daily intake of calories, cholesterol, etc.).

Foods to lower cholesterol – Meat, Rice, Vegetables and Potatoes

As alluded to earlier, going on a cholesterol reducing diet does not mean starving yourself of the good stuff. Take meat for example. Though cholesterol is found in products of animal origin, this does not mean you have to become a vegetarian. You can reduce cholesterol levels simply by removing the fats from meat, throwing in a couple of vegetables and stir-fry them.

“But, isn’t oil bad for my cholesterol,” you ask? Not vegetable oils like, canola, safflower and olive oils. But, a better alternative would be cooking sprays. You can save on fats and calories with such sprays. It would be a good idea to use cooking sprays instead of oils and they do come in a variety of flavors as well.

Rice and potatoes go great with that meat and vegetable dish but why don’t you substitute white rice for brown rice? Brown rice contains more nutrients. And try yams or sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes for better nutritional value as well. While you are at it, keep an eye out on your portion size. If you really want your food to help lower cholesterol, then monitor your intake of food per serving. You can be guilty of eating too much of the right foods.

Keep consumption of red meat like beef, to about once a week. Make it a habit to eat more fish, or even shellfish. You would have probably heard that shellfish is high in cholesterol but in fact, shellfish are far less rich in cholesterol and contains less fat than red meat. Chicken makes for a good addition to foods that reduce cholesterol too (just remove the skin and fats).

When you are removing saturated fat from your diet, you are not just lowering your bad cholesterol, but you are also reducing your risk of getting diabetes, digestive disorders and even certain kinds of cancer.

Foods to lower cholesterol – Soup

So many folks underestimate the power of soup when it comes to health. Soup should really be added to the list of foods that help to lower cholesterol. It is a great example of moderating your food portions as soup is usually taken with a spoon (unless you are from certain parts of Asia where drinking soup from a bowl is a sign of respect). Minestrone soup is a good way to go. Be creative with what you add to it. You can make soup a main meal by taking it with wholegrain bread.

And when it comes to vegetables, there is no shortage of variety. Nutritionists usually recommend eating vegetables of a different variety as often as possible to extract the best possible nutritional value from them. So, look up on all the different kinds of vegetables available and add them to your list of foods. If you are ever stuck on what kind of food to eat to lower cholesterol, you will never go wrong with vegetables.

Foods to lower cholesterol – Sandwiches and Salads

Who can resist a tuna or chicken sandwich? Almost everybody loves a good sandwich and it is another fantastic addition to – food to eat for high cholesterol. What will make a good sandwich even better for health is to lay that tuna or chicken in whole grain bread. Replace regular mayonnaise with low-fat mayonnaise. Sandwiches are ideal for a low-fat meal and it is so quick and easy to make. Do not overlook its simplicity. You can create a great-tasting cholesterol reducing sandwich in as little as five minutes for all the nutritional value you can get for a day.

Salads are another fantastic addition to your diet, but you should keep in mind that regular dressing and croutons are high in fat and calories. Go for the low-fat options to reap the benefits of a salad dish. Again, add a variety of vegetables with chicken or fish. Like soups, salads can be made into a main dish.

Food to eat for high cholesterol – Fibrous Food

Here is something else to think about – recent studies have shown that we need to consume at least 35 grams of fiber a day to reduce the risk of suffering from heart disease. This proves you need to consume fiber found in certain types of foods – to reduce bad cholesterol. There are so many benefits you reap from a fiber-rich diet that it is impossible to list all of them here. But, know that grabbing an apple instead of a bag of chips is a very wise choice for someone trying to eat to lower cholesterol!

How you can get more fiber into your day

  • Start your day off with whole-grain cereal topped with bananas, raisins and berries.
  • Fit more vegetables into your main meals as mentioned earlier. But to gain more fiber out of vegetables, try eating them raw, microwave or steaming vegetables instead of frying them.
  • Instead of juicing fruits, eat them as they are with the skin on where possible. You are extracting every bit of fiber from fruits this way. Snack on fruits instead of the usual chemically laden products. This is a great way to curb your appetite and lose weight at the same time because fiber-rich foods, such as fruits are more filling than other types of food.
  • Throw in beans where you can – like into soups, salads and stews.

A powerful natural source to reduce cholesterol – Garlic

Such a common spice but yet one of the most powerful natural medicines for lowering cholesterol could already be lying about in your kitchen. Studies have been proven to show that garlic has the properties to ease the damaging effects of cholesterol on your artery walls, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, stop the growth of cancer cells, fight infections and prevent heart attacks. Add to that, garlic has been proven to stop the heart from aging.

Garlic is such a powerful source of medication for lowering cholesterol and maintaining a healthy heart that it would be silly not to include this common yet wonderful spice to your daily diet. Work garlic into soups, pastas, stews whole-wheat French bread, vegetables, etc. Sometimes the most common types of food are the best types of cure.

Author: Rafael Todorini
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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