Stock Preacher

The largest expansion of US health care since the creation of Medicare in 1965 may emerge from legislation designed to reshape the medical industry and change how Americans receive and pay for care. Congress today begins crafting legislation that Democratic leaders plan to push through both chambers by their August recess. The measure may require all Americans to get medical insurance, force insurers to accept all patients and end the tax break for employer-paid health benefits. These changes may be hammered out with unprecedented speed at the urging of President Barack Obama who, four days ago, said “this is the moment.” Obama has made a health-care overhaul his top domestic priority, using his February budget proposal to call it a “moral” imperative to extend coverage to the country’s 46 million uninsured. Obama also tied the long-term fiscal soundness of the US to controlling medical costs. Health care consumes 18 percent of the US economy and may rise to 34% by 2040, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported June 2. “I don’t think we’ve ever had anything this large in American history aimed to go this quickly that touches everybody’s lives,” said Robert J. Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a telephone interview. “They’re moving at a pace we’ve never seen before.” The US will spend more than US$2Tthis year on health care, the Health and Human Services department reported in February. Today, the Senate Health committee will begin debating a bill that includes “gateways” where consumers may compare coverage plans. The Senate Finance Committee later this week will unveil a bill that among its provisions will call for taxes on health benefits, and House committees will release a draft of their own comprehensive measure that would create a government-backed plan to compete with private insurance.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Last week, US President Barack Obama thanked everyone from unions to executives for working to keep Chrysler LLC alive while blaming “a small group of speculators” for forcing the automaker into bankruptcy. “A group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout,” Obama said yesterday in Washington before Chrysler filed for bankruptcy protection last Friday. Now, the US government and Chrysler plan to use bankruptcy to compel the dissidents, all secured creditors, to go along with a plan to create a more viable carmaker in partnership with Italy’s Fiat SpA. In lashing out at the holdouts, Obama is attempting to rally the public behind his efforts to rescue the automaker, said Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington-based political analyst. “In the real world, you have good guys and bad guys, and at the moment, auto executives, hedge-fund managers and bankers are all in the bad-guy category,” said Rothenberg. “He wants to be the guy who’s solving the problems and wants to make it clear who’s causing the problems.”

Popularity: 3% [?]

US President Barack Obama warned credit-card issuers they will face new regulations and scrutiny to keep consumers from being hit by “unfair” rate increases and abusive fees and penalties. Obama said he told 13 executives from the industry, including representatives from Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. and New York-based American Express Co. that while credit cards are an important source of finance for families and small businesses, consumers too often must negotiate confusing terms that end up costing them more money than they expected. “The days of any time, any reason rate hikes and late fee traps have to end,” Obama said after meeting with the executives yesterday at the White House. “No more fine print, no more confusing terms and conditions.” Card issuers are under fire for policies that impose large late fees and boost interest rates on delinquent customers amid higher unemployment and a recession. The Federal Reserve already has issued new rules, due to take effect in 2010. Lawmakers in the US House and Senate also are considering legislation to provide more consumer protections. American Bankers Association President Ed Yingling, who was among those at the meeting, said afterward that Obama was “very clear” about his desire to make disclosures easier to understand and about the practices he wants ended.

Popularity: 5% [?]

US President Barack Obama said last week that the recession-hit US economy was showing “glimmers of hope” despite remaining under strain and promised further steps in coming weeks to tackle the financial crisis. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Obama told reporters after a meeting with economic and regulatory teams plus Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke. But he added, “We’re starting to see progress.” Obama spoke a day after encouraging trade and jobless figures pushed stocks higher, and White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers predicted the economy would emerge from a sense of “freefall” by the middle of the year.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis recently said that the US should consider separating commercial lenders from investment banking activities. Lewis made the comment on his way to a meeting with President Barack Obama and other peer US banking chiefs. Asked what he would tell Obama if given the chance, Lewis said it would be that “commercial banks are the fabric of any community in which they operate and we probably need to separate the commercial banks from the investment banking activities.” The remarks may reopen the debate on whether the U.S. should bring back laws put in place after the Great Depression designed to insulate lenders from the risks of investment banking. Bank of America, the biggest US bank by assets, bought Merrill Lynch & Co. in January, helping the largest US brokerage avoid the financial collapse that drove Bear Stearns Cos. out of business.

Popularity: 5% [?]

American citizens have been skeptical of big government since George Washington’s time more than two centuries ago. The Big Q for President Barack Obama is whether that flinty view is softening given the USA’s deep problems. The US Voters who elected Mr. Obama, and now give him a 60 % approval rating are nervous and a climate of fear has spread over the land. More than 4MM people have lost their jobs, and retirement investments have been hammered. Millions of US citizens have no health insurance. Industry icons from carmakers to department stores are in danger of collapse. So, given the desperation of the times, are American citizens now willing to accept big government to the rescue? In some cases, yes, but the inherent skepticism lives on, experts say.”The public disposition has always been to be skeptical about big government,” said pollster Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. “But given the magnitude of the problems we face, my guess is they’re willing to try a bigger role for government than they would if we were living in normal times,” he said.

Popularity: 5% [?]