The recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) has rekindled the heated political debate over the law. As expected, supporters of the law hailed the Supreme Court decision and continue to tout the law as the panacea to America’s healthcare problems, given its appealing provisions such as prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing condition and allowing children to be on parents’ insurance until age twenty six. The opponents argue the law should be repealed because it discourages small businesses from hiring; it imposes the largest tax increase in US history and will serve as a drag on the economy. This call to repeal the law has been heeded by the majority party in the U.S. House of Representatives. Due to election year politics, little is said in the post-ruling healthcare debate about the effect of rising healthcare costs on the national debt and the measures that should be put in place to return our nation to fiscal sanity.
The fact of the matter is healthcare reform is a sensitive issue that has plagued this nation for so long, and many past presidents from Eisenhower to Nixon and Clinton had unsuccessfully tried to address the problem due to strong opposition from special interests. Given the financial might of these special interests and their ability to influence legislation through campaign contributions, it is unlikely that the repeal of ACA will pave way for any new meaningful comprehensive legislation that will make a significant dent in the massive federal deficit. If healthcare reform was that easy, it would have been accomplished long before the current administration took office. Rather than scoring political points on both sides of the isle, lawmakers need to put the interest of the nation first and make the tough choices that will steer the financial ship of our nation to a safety anchorage.
Studies show that the U.S. spends at least twice as much as most industrialized nations on healthcare. The U.S. healthcare spending reached nearly $8,000 per person in 2009, and has outpaced the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) for the past several decades. Certainly, ACA’s goal of providing health insurance for the almost 45 million Americans who do not have coverage while controlling the cost of Medicare and overall healthcare spending is a laudable one. However, from fiscal policy perspective, whether the provisions of the law will make significant contributions to deficit reduction is subject to debate. The federal government currently runs an annual deficit in the neighborhood of $1.2 trillion or about 7 percent of GDP. It is an open secret that Medicare spending contributes significantly toward the federal deficit and the national debt. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) sources indicate in fiscal year 2010, Medicare expenditure totaled $524 billion and accounted for 15 percent of all federal outlays, exceeded only by Social Security benefits and defense spending, each of which accounted for 20 percent.
Since joining the College of Public Health in 1998, Jodi Ray has made it her mission to ensure that children have access to healthcare. Ray is project director of Florida Covering Kids and Families, part of the Lawton & Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies at USF. She offered this perspective on the U.S. Supreme Court upholding President Obama’s health care reform law.
For more information on Florida Covering Kids, click here.
Harry E. Vanden and Steven Tauber are both professors in USF’s Department of Government and International Affairs. Vanden was the founding director of USF’s Institute for Caribbean and Latin American Studies, so by the very nature of their work studying Cuba is very important to understanding the region. But not since 2006, has any Florida public university professor or student been able to travel to Cuba under a state ban. The U.S. Supreme Court last month declined to review the law, letting a lower court ruling stand. So while the U.S. government has eased travel restrictions to Cuba, those trying to study the island nation will not be able to see it for themselves.
In response, Vanden and Tauber write:
Freedom to travel. Freedom to learn, Freedom to experience a very different country and culture and study it. NO, not in Florida.
Street baseball in Cuba as observed in a long-ago trip by USF faculty. Photo by Beverly G. Ward.
That is what the U.S. Supreme court left Florida public universities and colleges with when it declined to grant certiorari for a controversial appeals court decision that overthrew a Florida’s judge’s ruling that a very politicized and highly controversial Florida law that prohibits any university or state monies from being used to travel to or from Cuba, do research there or even bring Cuban scholars to the U.S. It was pushed through the Florida legislature in 2006 by a very narrowly focused group of Cuban-American right wingers who wanted to stop all travel and interaction with Cuba. It would continue and intensify the highly unsuccessful U. S. Cuban embargo policy (all the rest of the countries in the hemisphere have long since abandoned it.) Thus professors and students cannot use state monies or even the proceeds from outside grants run through their institutions to travel, research or even take students to Cuba to see what the island is really like. This is most unfortunate and leaves Florida and its citizens behind the rest of the country and our counterparts in Canada, Mexico, the rest of the Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe, China, and India. They can and do travel there, study there, send their students there, learn how the island really is and works, improve their Spanish and give the Cubans ample contacts with those outside their island and very different sources of information from that supplied by the state run media.
Florida may be stuck with the appeals court ruling for some time. The certiorari process is the way in which Supreme Court justices prioritize which cases they will hear in an upcoming term. Of the 8,000 to 10,000 cases appealed to the Supreme Court each year, the Court only has the time and resources to hear about 80 to 100 cases; therefore only one percent of certiorari petitions are granted each year and 99 percent are denied. Generally, cases that the justices believe to be especially salient or cases in which there are conflicting opinions in different U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal are most likely to be granted cert. It takes a vote of four justices to grant certiorari, although in most cases, as in this one, the opinion to deny certiorari was unanimous. Moreover, as is often the case, the justices have not offered an opinion explaining their reasoning for this particular denial of certiorari.
It is, however, important to note that a denial of certiorari in one year does not necessary mean the end of the issue. In subsequent years there could be a conflict on this question, or this issue could rise in prominence and the Court may decide to grant cert on the legality of states banning public money from being used for academic research in certain nations. But for now we must abide by this decision.
Previously I (Vanden) took students to Cuba three times and allowed them the opportunity to see how the island, culture and Communist government were. They visited the important sites, interacted with fellow students and professors, and most of all, constantly used their free time to go off on their own and visit family or friends, or just ordinary people they met along the way or in their nocturnal forays into Cuban society. The USF programs even took many students, business people and active duty members of the U.S. Armed Forces who were connected to the university, all of whom learned a great deal from ordinary Cubans and gave a multitude of the residents of the island the opportunity to learn about them, our country and state directly from Floridians—uncensored and unvarnished.
Jason Bittner, director of USF’s Center for Urban Transportation Research, has been following Congress’ action on the federal highway bill. Even though most of us fight traffic everyday, we don’t think much about how this type of legislation shapes our daily lives. Bittner explains:
Legislative compromise lives! Today’s details on congressional agreement to authorize our surface transportation programs for three years highlights that transportation once is a bi-partisan issue. There are wins for each side. There are losses too. But all in all, this is an opportunity to bring certainty to the transportation system and the jobs it creates and carries. Our economy can remain in motion. While this authorization won’t address the serious funding and infrastructure challenges we face, it at least doesn’t delay action. While it won’t advance connected vehicle technology and seamless intermodal systems to the maximum extent possible, it will ensure that road, bridge, and transit projects move ahead. This isn’t a vision for the future, but it won’t stifle development.
The bill offers up prominence for freight like never before. It requires a National Freight Policy that will define a national freight network – critical for funding and investment decisions. It will also prioritize projects to improve freight movement by increasing the federal portion of such projects (up to 95 percent for projects on Interstate system; 90 percent for other projects). The old approach of a disproportionate and increased burden on states like Florida and other critical ports of entry for the nation’s products is gone. Construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, and operational improvements directly relating to improving freight mobility will be built recognizing that freight doesn’t stop at state boundaries. We might, for a change, actually have regional discussions of what is important for our transportation network.
Congress also finally recognized that intelligent transportation systems and other technology to improve the flow of freight, efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of freight movement on the primary freight network, and real-time traffic, truck parking, roadway condition, and multimodal transportation information systems demand federal funding. Addressing truck bottlenecks will also be a priority for federal programs. The conference report places further emphasis on State Freight Advisory Committees to make transportation decisions that are critical to job creators. A comprehensive truck size and weight study will ensure global competitiveness for our manufacturers and agricultural exporters.
While bicycle and pedestrian advocates cannot point to many wins in the bill, the programs at least remain viable. An opt-out provision was included rather than outright removal of funding for transportation enhancements like bike lanes, pedestrian overpasses, and the like. Florida can take advantage of this provision and make targeted improvements for bicyclists and pedestrians while recognizing the need for highway widening to accommodate population and economic growth.
There are programs to help transit new starts and provide operating assistance to smaller agencies. Streamlining permitting will mean that projects can be built more rapidly. Programs to improve workforce development and require electronic on board recorders also are there. A host of new initiatives and opportunities for cleaning up the Gulf are included. It represents a three year commitment to putting America back on track – now if only this bipartisanship can spill over into other government investments!
Follow Jason Bittner on Twitter: @CUTRBittner
“It’s a short-term strategy the Republicans have,” McKee said. “They can’t grow their base, which, demographically, is an overwhelmingly white party. So they’re doing what they can to whittle down the voters most likely to support the other party through the legal process.” – USF St. Petersburg Political Science Professor Seth McKee in interview to the Tampa Bay Times on Florida’s voter roll purge.
Read the complete story here.
USF Political Science Professor Susan MacManus understands what makes Florida politics tick. This column originally written for The Sayfie Review breaks the complex political picture down and shows why Florida is going to be a battleground for a long, long time.
Read her column: So You Think You Know Florida Voters May 2012
