“Today, we stand on the threshold of delivering historic health care reform,” says Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). “Legislation to fix our broken health care system is successfully working its way through Congress with broad, popular support,” she says. “With 14,000 Americans losing their health care every day, we have no time to lose.” (0:27)
“Secure, high quality, affordable health care is simply out of reach for too many women and their families,” says Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), adding that 64 million women currently lack adequate health insurance. (0:22)
By Mariko Lamb, Talk Radio News Service
Members of the Joint Economic Committee released a report Thursday that revealed 1.4 million women have lost their health insurance during the recession. More than 1 million of those lost were due to a spouse’s job loss.
“Clearly the system is broken when 1 million women lose their health insurance because their spouses lose their jobs,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.)
“Under the status quo, women are more vulnerable to higher health care costs than men and when they lose their coverage the impact is felt heavily on their children and their families,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said.
Sarah Wildman, a self-employed journalist and mother, testified about her experience with what she described as an “inappropriate health care plan”.
“I didn’t realize that my choice to start a family would put us into debt,” Wildman said, after receiving a $22,000 hospital bill from her health insurance company that initially claimed to cover maternity care. “When you buy insurance on your own, there’s no guarantee that what you pay for is what you get,” she said, calling her private sector health insurance “anti-middle class, anti-entrepreneurial, and anti-family.”
“It is so important that the voices of people like Mrs. Wildman not be drowned out,” Rep, Cummings said. “We can not allow the current system to continue to break America’s families, businesses, and economies, and we must not allow it to break American women,” he said, urging Congress to continue promoting health care reform legislation that ensures women access to quality health care without being charged higher premiums than men.
By Michael Combier – Talk Radio News Service
New alternatives of energy needs to be found by the United States to be less dependent on oil and the dictate of political regimes in Venezuela, Russia or in the Middle East. Additionally, US economy will be hit less severely by rising oil prices if other energy options are provided to the population.
The Joint Economic Committee chaired by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) held a hearing this morning entitled “Oil and the Economy: The Impact of Rising Global Demand on the U.S. Recovery”. The hearing dealt with the impact of last year’s impact of oil prices on U.S. economy.
“Last year’s oil shock showed us that right now it takes a very large increase in gasoline prices to reduce our consumption of oil. Part of the reason is because many consumers have no alternatives to their gasoline powered cars”, Maloney said,adding that “in the long run, energy policies that increase alternatives to using a gas-fueled car – whether they are different modes of transportation or alternative fuels for cars – will help minimize the impact to the economy of a rise in the price of oil.”
To explore policy options and alternative energies, Dr. Daniel Yergin and Dr. James D. Hamilton were invited to testify. Yergin pointed out that “oil prices are among others a barometer of the world economy” while also adding that because the U.S. uses 46 million barrels of oil a day, the country can still face difficulties in four or five years when the economy will be totally recover and oil prices will rise to a level experienced in 2008.
The diversification of the country’s energy with wind mills, solar energy, nuclear and new efficient automobiles will protect the country in the future on high oil prices. By changing the country’s habit on oil and by focusing on domestic productions, “it will create jobs in the U.S. and activity here rather than revenues going to the treasury of other countries,” said Dr. Yergin.
By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
Correspondent Michael Ruhl reports on the recent release of the unemployment statistics for March.
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Long Segment [01:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Short Segment [00:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadBy Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Keith Hall testifies before Congress on the nation’s unemployment numbers from March 2009, and how the recession has affected employment.
Hall said that unemployment numbers have climbed from 8.1 percent to 8.5 percent, and that the industries hardest hit are manufacturing, construction, and temporary services.
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By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
A day after President Barack Obama’s budget was passed by a Congress boiling with partisanship, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report showing unemployment at its highest since 1983. There are now 13.2 million Americans out of work.
The pouring rain in Washington mirrored the sobered mood in the room, as the Joint Economic Committee heard the testimony of Keith Hall, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
March was one of the worst Months on record for unemployment, and when asked outright, Hall told the committee that there were no “bright spots” in the report.
National unemployment climbed to 8.5 percent in March, rising from the level of 8.1 percent in February and 7.6 percent in January.
Hall said that two-thirds of the job loss has happened in the past 5 months. Every state is in recession for the first time in 30 years, according to Carolyn Maloney (D-NY).
Official unemployment numbers do not encompass underemployed Americans or those who have officially left the workforce. It is reported that 16 percent of the country is out of work or underemployed. One in four of those unemployed have been out of work for more than six months, and of those, half have been looking for work for over a year, Hall said.
Maloney highlighted that last month, 8,000 jobs were lost in the news publishing industry. Those losses total 70,000 job cuts since Dec. 2007, Hall said, adding that most job losses have been see in the manufacturing, construction, and temporary services industries. The only area to see any growth in March was the Healthcare industry, Hall said.
Ranking Committee member Senator Sam Brownback (R-KA) noted that the impact of the ongoing recession was not severe for almost a year after it began in December 2007. Brownback attributed recent dramatic jumps in job losses over the past five months to the lockup in the credit markets and the government bailouts that followed.
The Federal Reserve believes that unemployment will peak at 8.8 percent this year, but Ranking House Committee Member Kevin Brady (R-TX) said that the unemployment rate is already higher than what the administration anticipated for 2009. Brady said that the Obama Administration’s “optimistic assumptions” would not get the country out of its current mess.
President Obama’s Economic Stimulus package was passed by Congress earlier this year, and saw an unprecedented amount of money placed into public works meant to put people back to work. Obama has pledged the legislation will save or create three to four million jobs over the next two years.
Read the report here: Bureau of Labor Statistics Report
Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) asks Maurice R. Greenberg, former Chairman and CEO of American International Group, whether we could just leave the toxic assets where they are until they mature into their claimed value.
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Today, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released The State of World Population 2008. The UNFPA held a discussion on how to use culturally sensitive approaches that are essential to understanding legal, political, economic and social power relations instrumental to development.
According to a UNFPA press release, the report suggests that partnerships—for example between UNFPA and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—can create effective strategies to promote human rights, such as women’s empowerment and gender equality, and end human rights abuses like female genital mutilation or cutting. The press release said power relations mold gender dynamics and underlie practices such as child marriage (a leading cause of obstetric fistula and maternal death) and female genital mutilation or cutting.
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said “UNFPA will be funded. The president doesn’t have to do anything. He just has to let the will of congress go through.” Maloney was a very strong supporter of this new report that believes by “embracing cultural realities, you can reveal the most effective ways to challenge harmful cultural practices and strengthen beneficial ones.”
Azza Karam, Ph.D., Senior Culture Adviser at UNFPA, brought up an example of this cultural development integration in Ethiopia. International aid organizations spend thousands to millions of dollars on medical clinics in Ethiopia, especially for safeguarding childbirth methods. Yet many NGOs find that the clinics are rarely used. By using what UNFPA calls a “cultural lens,” an NGO would find that many women are choosing to perform home births instead because “they believe it’s a part of their culture.” If the NGO uses UNFPA’s cultural lens method, they could work with a religious leader who performs the teen-marriages that lead to young pregnancy to prevent the marriages from happening in the first place. This is a way of what Pauline Muchina, Ph.D., Senior Partnership Adviser at UNAIDS, called using culture as the fundamental groundwork for development.
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) explains her support for “The State of World Population 2008″ report released today by the United National Population Fund.
