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** Yawn, Nevada Republican Governor Sandoval appoints Republican Representative Dean Heller (R-NV2) to fill out the unexpired term of Sen. John Ensign (R-C Street). [Sebelius has more] More on the “impact” and “ramifications” here.
** Wake up call, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) wants a vote on the oil corporation subsidies in the U.S. Senate. “Reid is backing President Barack Obama’s effort to repeal roughly $4 billion in annual tax incentives for the industry — and potentially move that money toward renewable and clean energy projects.” [Politico] The argument will be all the more attractive after the earnings reports this week. So far, ExxonMobil has reported a 69% increase in quarterly profits, earning approximately $10.7 billion in the first three months of the year. Shell Oil Company reported a 30% increase in quarterly earnings, or $6.3 billion. ConocoPhillips reported a 43% earnings boost, at $3 billion. “BP’s first quarter earnings dipped this year — $5.48 billion compared with $5.60 billion during the first quarter a year ago — including a charge of $384 million related to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.” Texas based Valero reported quarterly earnings of $98 million, based on higher margins for jet and diesel fuel. [ABC] Chevron reports its quarterly earnings Friday.
It’s hard to argue poverty when the following numbers are public knowledge:
Oil and gas companies annual revenue, profit —
Exxon Mobil, $284.7 billion; $19.3 billion Chevron, $163.5 billion; $10.5 billion
ConocoPhillips, $139.5 billion; $4.9 billion
Valero Energy $70.0 billion; $-2.0 billionMarathon Oil, $49.4 billion; $1.5 billion [
ABC]
** Meanwhile the House Republican plan to eliminate Medicare in its current form would “tax” senior citizens about $30 trillion. The Center for Economic and Policy Research says, “The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) projections imply that the Ryan plan would add more than $30 trillion to the cost of providing Medicare equivalent policies over the program’s 75-year planning period. This increase in costs – from waste associated with using a less efficient health care delivery system – has not received the attention that it deserves in the public debate.” [CEPR] (emphasis added)
From the report (pdf): “By 2033, the Ryan plan fails to cover anyone between the ages of 65 and 67. While the Ryan plan would cover less than 30 percent of the cost of a 67-year-old’s private health insurance, it would cover none of that of the 65-year-old. If the Ryan plan’s increase in the age of eligibility goes into effect, a 65-year-old who bought into traditional Medicare plan in 2033 paying the full cost to the government would save more than 43 percent of the cost of buying Medicare-equivalent insurance due to the lower cost of getting insured through Medicare compared with private insurance. Traditional Medicare is almost entirely phased out by 2050.”
“…for every dollar of savings to the government under the Ryan plan, nearly seven dollars is wasted due to the inefficiency of private insurance relative to the traditional health care system.”
More information at TPM, and a warning that Ryan’s proposal (also supported by Congressman/Candidate Dean Heller) requires senior citizens to purchase health care insurance from private corporations, but it doesn’t require that the private health care insurance corporations sell it to them. We’ve seen this show before: “Insurers have successfully demanded funding hikes to other programs even as their clients faced far less dire circumstances than projected under Ryan’s plan, raising the question of whether Ryan’s savings would ever come to pass. Take Medicare+Choice, a private exchange for seniors created in 1997 by the GOP Congress. Under the program, the government paid the equivalent it would use to fund Medicare coverage to reimburse private HMOs instead under the theory that the free market would operate more efficiently and produce better results. Instead, insurers found they were unable to sustain a profit and began pulling out en masse. In 2000, more than 900,000 patients were dropped as HMOs deserted the program, citing inadequate federal backing and a lack of a prescription drug benefit.” [TPM] (emphasis added)
Desert Beacon 