This pattern appears to be working for WellPoint. Recently, a major Wall Street analysis found that WellPoint would be a “primary beneficiary” if reform fails.

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that WellPoint officials are doing everything they can to stop reform. WellPoint is a part of the coalition that has financed millions of dollars television ads against reform. And they are continuing to spread misinformation about what will happen when we make comprehensive reform a reality.

The latest attack came from WellPoint’s CFO, who addressed a group of investors and wrongly claimed that reform would increase costs and drive up premiums. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

What WellPoint may not want you to know is that reform will shift power from insurance companies and into the hands of consumers. It will lower your premiums, not increase them, according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office. The CBO has examined reform and determined that customers who buy their health insurance on the individual market would pay 14 to 20 percent less for the same levels of coverage that they received before. If you get insurance through your job, CBO found that your premiums would likely decrease. In fact, the Business Roundtable recently issued a study that found that reform could reduce costs by as much as $3,000 per employee.

Reform will also create a new marketplace where Americans can purchase affordable, quality health benefits. And Americans buying in the new marketplaces will be eligible for tax credits that can reduce their premiums by up to 60 percent.

The criticism from WellPoint also ignores the many provisions in reform that will bring down the cost of health care. The health policy experts and economists who have looked at this bill have said we are doing everything possible to reduce health care costs.  Some of the steps we’re taking include:

These are just a few of the provisions in reform that will bring premiums down for consumers. And we know what will happen if these provisions and health reform are not enacted. Premiums will rise, companies like WellPoint will thrive and families will suffer. Health insurance reform will lower your costs and give you more control over your health care:  that is why the insurance companies are spending millions of dollars trying to stop it.

Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director 

Losing insurance – it can happen to anyone.  We’ve all heard stories – maybe you know someone who’s recently lost their insurance, maybe that someone is you.  President Obama has heard those stories too:

There's the father I met in Colorado whose child was diagnosed with severe hemophilia the day after he was born.  Now, they had insurance, but there was a cap on their coverage.  So once the child's medical bills began to pile up, the father was left to frantically search for another option, or face tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills.... Small business people -- I got a letter just this week from a small businessman.  He said, "I don't know what to do.  I've always provided health insurance for my families, but here, the attached bill, shows that the premiums have gone up 48 percent in the last year, and I think that I'm probably going to have to stop providing health insurance for my employees.  I don't want to, but I don't have a choice."

These stories are wrong.  They are heartbreaking.  Nobody should be treated that way in the United States of America…

You can learn more about the family from Colorado in this video:

Click here to see the video.

It’s time to reform our broken health care system so that American families and businesses can get the stability and security they deserve.

Today’s number – 625 – is the third in our ‘Health Reform by the Numbers’ series, an online campaign to raise awareness about how we just can’t wait any longer for health insurance reform.  You can follow the campaign on Whitehouse.gov and social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn.

To help spread the word, share this blog post with your family, friends and online networks using the ‘Share/Bookmark’ feature below.

Previous Numbers:

The Obama Administration is committed to making the Federal Government work better for the American people.  Closing the technology gap between the private and public sectors is essential to delivering the best results possible.  That is why I returned to the West Coast to continue to meet with leaders who have taken innovative steps and implemented bold strategies to drive progress and productivity.

The power of raw data to provide consumers with relevant information and inform their decisions is already being realized. For example, as I was heading to the airport, I used “FlyOnTime.us” to check if my flight was on time and to see what the wait in line would be. This innovative website was created by a group of independent developers using Data.gov. 

My first stop was San Francisco, where I joined Mayor Gavin Newsom and city CIO Chris Vein for the launch of the nationwide Open311 API (Application Programming Interface) initiative, which will open up access to local government services across the country. Open311 will enable people to track the status of repairs or improvements, while also allowing them to make new requests for services. For example, I can use the same application when I am home in Washington, DC to report a broken parking meter as I would in San Francisco. I also spoke to CIOs from Boston, Chicago, DC, Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco about accelerating the development of applications that the American people can use in their everyday lives.

From downtown San Francisco, it was out to Silicon Valley to meet with venture capitalists and technology innovators, including Mint.com, Mozilla, and Facebook, at IDEO Labs to discuss how government can improve how it is delivering services to the American people. We used a visual storyboard concept to capture our conversation, which you can see here.

Later that afternoon, I met with companies like Apple and Google to learn how innovation is happening in the consumer space, through new platforms such as Apple’s online App Store.

On Thursday, I travelled to the “other” Washington, where I started the day with CIOs from organizations such as Weyerhaeuser and Microsoft to hear about how they successfully manage large-scale IT projects. I also had the opportunity to look at some of the impressive investments in next generation technologies being made by companies like Microsoft and Amazon.

I then delivered a speech at the University of Washington titled “Making Government Work: Closing the Technology Gap to Deliver for the American People.” I was very encouraged by the response and was pleasantly surprised when following my speech, dozens of professors and students lined up to ask questions and continue the dialogue. 

At the end of the day, I attended an industry awards celebration for local technology entrepreneurs, hosted by the Washington Technology Industry Association. It was great to see entrepreneurs from the “other” Washington talk to me about their ideas for helping us change the way Washington, DC works.

Vivek Kundra is U.S. Chief Information Officer
 

He also announced his support for the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act, a bipartisan bill to expand the government’s ability to perform such audits and prevent waste. The administration is working to cut programs that are not needed, increase accountability, and eliminate high-risk contracts. The President explained that by saving billions of dollars, government-run health care programs like Medicare can work better and provide better care.

On the other side of the spectrum there are those who believe that the answer is to simply unleash the insurance industry, and provide less oversight and fewer rules. And that somehow that's going to drive down prices for everybody.  This is called the “putting the foxes in charge of the hen house” approach to health care reform. So whatever state regulations were in place, we’d get rid of those and so insurance companies could basically find a state that had the worst regulations and then from there sell insurance everywhere.  And that somehow that was going to be helpful to you.  All this would do would give insurance companies more leeway to raise premiums and deny care.

So I don’t believe we should give either the government or the insurance companies more control over health care in America.  I want to give you more control over health care in America.

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on Medicaid fraud and health care reform at St. Charles High School in St. Charles, Missouri,

The President also explained that his health care proposal would have three core reforms: ending the worst practices of insurance companies, creating a marketplace that allows for affordable health care options, and reducing costs for families, businesses, and the government. As a result, the government would reduce the deficit by $1 trillion dollars. Businesses have also conducted a study that shows the reforms are expected to reduce premiums by as much as $3000 per employee.

So here’s the bottom line, St. Charles.  There’s no government takeover, unless you consider reining in insurance companies a government takeover -- and I think that’s the right thing to do.  There’s no cutting of Medicare benefits.  There’s just cutting out fraud and waste in Medicare to make it stronger. 

What we’re proposing is a common-sense approach to protecting you from insurance company abuses and saving you money.  That’s the proposal, and it is paid for.  And I believe that Congress owes the American people a final up or down vote on health care reform.  The time for talk is over; it’s time to vote.
 

For instance, consider the following facts:

With this in mind, my talk focused on President Obama’s unwavering commitment to reforming health insurance. He is determined to give Americans, not government or insurers, more control over their care. He has kept fighting against insurance companies that discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. He has kept fighting to reduce the costs of health care for families, businesses and government. He has kept fighting. He has kept fighting for people who are uninsured and small businesses to give them the same coverage as Members of Congress. And now it is time for an up-or-down vote in Congress, because that’s what the people deserve -- people like Leslie Banks and Natoma Canfield.

The President met Leslie at a recent event in Philadelphia after she had written him a letter describing her frustrations with her insurance. Leslie is a self-employed, African-American single mother, whose daughter is a sophomore in college at Temple University. Leslie has type 2 diabetes. She can no longer afford her coverage after the insurer recently notified her of a 100% across the board rate hike and told her that the only way to stay at her previous rate would mean increasing her deductible from $500 to $5,000. Leslie is not available for coverage through her HMO because of her pre-existing condition.

Leslie’s story is not that different from the one I told about Natoma Canfield, who also wrote the President about an incredible increase in her rates, which forced her to drop her coverage. President Obama read the letter at a meeting of insurance industry leaders to show them why he continues to push for reform. Since then, Natoma has been hospitalized with a serious blood disorder and she has no health insurance.

As I related these stories, I couldn’t help but notice a lot of head-nodding in the audience. While nobody at today’s Summit knew Leslie or Natoma, the reality is we all know somebody whose life has been touched by the worst practices of the health insurance industry. That’s why it’s so important that we all work together to tackle this problem for the African American community and for all communities across America.

Valerie Jarrett is Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement

Grand Teton, Snake River, Wyoming, National Archives no. 79-AAG-1 Ansel Adams

On display in the main hallways of the first and second floors of the main Interior building, these stunning black-and-white photos convey the beauty Adams’ saw in our Department’s diverse mission, and include: a pair of Native American children; the eruption of Old Faithful; and the intricate network of power lines at Boulder Dam.

Ickes and Adams first met in 1936, while attending a conference on the future of national and state parks.  Ickes was secretary of the Interior under President Franklin Roosevelt; Adams, a renowned photographer and president of the Sierra Club. The two immediately found a common bond in a deep love for the beauty of our nation’s land and a desire to see it conserve that land for future generations.

In fact, Adams used his photographic talent to lead a successful campaign to save the Kings River area of the Sierra Nevada and have Congress designate it as Kings Canyon National Park.

Ickes believed that the Interior building, which was completed in 1936, should be symbolic of the Department’s mission to manage and conserve our nation’s vast resources. So in 1941, he hired Adams to create a photographic mural for display in this building that reflected the Department’s mission: the beautiful land, the proper stewardship of our resources, and the people we serve.

The attack on Pearl Harbor and our nation’s entry into World War II brought the project to a halt.  The more than 200 photographs that Adams took have been stored in the National Archives, but never printed or hung as murals.

Now, with our installation of the murals, we are able to share with visitors from across the nation Ickes and Adams’ timeless vision for this Department — and how we are in the business of fulfilling that vision today.

Boulder Dam Power Units, Colorado River, Nevada / Arizona Border, National Archives no. 79-AAB-5 Ansel Adams

Ken Salazar is the Secretary of the Interior

Throw a rock in a still pond and you will observe many ripples.

Throw a Recovery Act program in a stagnant economy and you will observe many jobs.

Therein lies the lesson from our latest entry of the Recovery Act in Action, thanks to some truly thorough journalism by Robert Gavin of the Boston Globe.

Gavin looked at the ripple effects, or—if you want to be boring—multipliers, from $77 million in Recovery Act contracts awarded to Reveal Imaging Technologies (RIT), a manufacturer of airport security equipment in Bedford, MA.

RIT reports that thanks to the Recovery Act-funded contracts from the Transportation Security Administration, they’ve added nearly 40 jobs over the past year and they’re still hiring.  They’ve expanded their plant capacity, more than doubling the size of their facility.

But what Gavin’s article shows is that beyond these direct hiring effects, there’s a lot more upstream and downstream job creation generated by this type of activity.  So far, RIT has subcontracted parts of its Recovery Act projects to 21 other companies in 12 states “that make components or provide services for its advanced scanning machines.”

For example, an RIT subcontract helped reduce planned layoffs at a firm that assembles conveyor systems.  Same with a machine tool shop, whose “metal cutting machines, silent several months ago, are humming again” thanks largely to another RIT subcontract.

I spoke to the owner of that machine shop, Jack McGrail.  He told me that most of 2009 was pretty dismal and that if things didn’t improve he was going to have to let some folks go.  Then, in November, the RIT order generated by the Recovery Act came in, and, as Jack said, “it saved me from laying two guys off and I was able to add one more.”

That’s one type of multiplier effect—the jobs created by firms providing inputs to the final product.  But there’s another type that’s also important: the activity caused when people earn more and go out and spend it.  Gavin picked up this kind of activity too by visiting Rebecca’s Café, a restaurant near RIT that reports a 15% increase in sales since RIT expanded its workforce.

The evidence around the RIT case supports something economists have known since Keynes taught it to us: the jobs you directly create through government spending at a time of recession are just the tip of the iceberg. 

Thanks to the Recovery Act, there are hundreds of thousands of teachers in classrooms and police on the beat, construction workers fixing roads, weatherizing and rehabbing buildings, engineers building out the smart grid and planning new high-speed rail lines, and much more.  But as with RIT, for each one of these jobs, there are many others helping to supply materials and services to these firms and workers.

We’ll be throwing a lot more stones in the water in coming months, and I’ll be sure to keep posted on both the splash and the ripples.

Jared Bernstein is Chief Economic Advisor to the Vice President

Developer or not, we want to hear your ideas. This week, the White House is teaming up with GOOD to ask:

What kind of healthy kid app would you like to see developed?

Tell us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Some of the most interesting responses will be featured on the White House blog and on the GOOD blog, so stay tuned. And in case you missed it, take a look at your responses to last week’s question about a 21st century education.

Learn more about the challenge and submit an application by visiting AppsforHealthyKids.com.

Please note that the username, personal identifier or icon affiliated with responses may be posted.

(Left to right) Moderator Rosie Perez, Dr. Howard Koh (HHS), Tina Tchen (White House Council on Women and Girls), Janet Cleveland (CDC) and Amna Osma (Michigan Department of Community Health) participate in a briefing on HIV/AIDS and women,

The statistics are sobering:  Every 35 minutes, a woman tests positive for HIV in the United States.  While women in the U.S. represented 8 percent of AIDS diagnoses in the 1980’s, they now account for 27 percent.  The HIV epidemic in the U.S. disproportionately impacts women of color:  HIV/AIDS is one of the leading causes of death among black women and Latinas.  Compared to white women, the AIDS case rate is 5 times higher for Latinas and 20 times higher for black women.  Clearly, we must redouble our prevention efforts as well as improve care and treatment for women living with HIV. 

It is imperative that HIV prevention efforts take into account the way in which many women in the U.S. become infected with HIV, as more than 80 percent of HIV/AIDS cases among women and teenage girls are attributable to heterosexual contact.  It is also important to increase access to female-controlled prevention methods, such as the female condom, and to develop effective microbicides and vaccines.

The Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) is leading a team of Federal Agency partners to develop a National HIV/AIDS Strategy and strengthen our nation’s response to the domestic epidemic.  Working with a wide range of stakeholders such as state and local governments, businesses, faith communities, service providers, and others will be critical to implementing the national strategy.  

Since the beginning of the epidemic, there have been significant reductions in mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the U.S. Research has also shown that progress is possible through targeted prevention programs that are effective in reducing risky behaviors among HIV-positive and HIV-negative women.  But there is still work to be done, a major piece of which is enacting reforms to our health insurance system that will expand access to care. Key to these reforms are making preventive care accessible and ensuring that Americans, including women living with HIV, are not excluded from being insured due to a preexisting condition.

As we move forward, it is not only crucial to increase the number of women and girls who know their status, but also, through interventions that increase self-esteem, the number of women and girls who know their self-worth and have tools to make healthy decisions.
 
Tina Tchen is the Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Executive Director of the Council on Women and Girls