Most Recent Posts

What might have been a routine update on the state of the federal budget Tuesday instead became the newest front in the ongoing political war over President Obama's signature health care law.

At issue: a revised estimate about how many people would voluntarily leave the workforce because they can get health care without necessarily holding down a job.

The Congressional Budget Office originally predicted that the availability of subsidies for low-income Americans to buy health insurance would result in about 800,000 people leaving full-time work by 2023. The revised estimate increases that number to about 2.5 million.

Republicans pounced, pointing at the nonpartisan office's estimate as proof of the Affordable Care Act's damaging effects on the economy. In a statement, House Speaker John Boehner said: "The middle class is getting squeezed in this economy, and this CBO report confirms that Obamacare is making it worse."

Texas Republican John Cornyn took to the Senate floor with the same message. "The president's own health care policy ... is killing full-time work, and putting people in part-time work," he said.

Obama's White House wasted little time responding, sending Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman to the daily press briefing. There, Furman turned Cornyn's charge on its head, arguing that if some people are able to work part time and spend more time with their children, or if others can leave a job to start a business of their own without fear of losing health insurance, then these are good things happening because of the Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act, Explained

Saying it is "the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health," the CEO of CVS Caremark announced Wednesday that the company's 7,600 pharmacies will stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products by Oct. 1.

Larry Merlo also said CVS will try to help those who want to quit smoking with a "robust national smoking cessation program" at its locations.

CVS says the decision will trim about $2 billion in annual revenue — out of what Forbes reports is $125 billion in sales each year. But as Forbes adds, Merlo believes that "continuing to sell cigarettes, which the Surgeon General blames for 480,000 deaths every year from heart disease, lung cancer, and stroke, was anathema to CVS' long-term plan to become a central player in the U.S. health care system."

The news has already won praise from President Obama. Shortly after the announcement from CVS (which had been expected), the White House released a statement from the president which says, in part:

"As one of the largest retailers and pharmacies in America, CVS Caremark sets a powerful example, and today's decision will help advance my administration's efforts to reduce tobacco-related deaths, cancer, and heart disease, as well as bring down health care costs — ultimately saving lives and protecting untold numbers of families from pain and heartbreak for years to come."

Do you approve of CVS Caremark's decision to stop selling tobacco products?

The nation's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., will pay $614 million and improve mortgage lending practices under a deal announced Tuesday to settle claims it approved thousands of unqualified home mortgage loans for government insurance and refinancing since 2002, costing the government millions of dollars when the loans defaulted.

U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken in Manhattan approved the deal, which calls for JPMorgan to pay the money within a month and install an improved quality control program to review loans it underwrites using a federally maintained software application that determines if a loan qualifies for government insurance.

JPMorgan said in a statement that its deal with federal prosecutors, the Federal Housing Administration, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs "represents another significant step in the firm's efforts to put historical mortgage-related issues behind it."

The New York-based company said it had already reserved the money for the settlement and any financial impact from exposure to future claims wasn't expected to be significant.

In a release, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the company had for years participated in federally subsidized programs meant to make homes more affordable for millions of Americans.

"Yet, for more than a decade, it abused that privilege," he said. "JPMorgan Chase put profits ahead of responsibility by recklessly churning out thousands of defective mortgage loans, failing to inform the government of known problems with those loans and leaving the government to cover the losses when the loans defaulted."

The prosecutor acknowledged, however, that the company had accepted responsibility and promised to reform the flawed practices.

The government said the bank approved thousands of loans for government insurance or refinancing that didn't meet the requirements of federal programs and failed to self-report hundreds of loans it identified as having been affected by fraud or other deficiencies. It also regularly submitted loan data that lacked integrity because it was not based on documents or other information it possessed when employees submitted the data, the government said.

Associate Attorney General Tony West said the deal "recovers wrongfully claimed funds for vital government programs that give millions of Americans the opportunity to own a home and sends a clear message that we will take appropriately aggressive action against financial institutions that knowingly engage in improper mortgage lending practices."

In November, JPMorgan agreed to pay $13 billion to settle a civil inquiry into its sales of low-quality mortgage-backed securities that collapsed in value in the 2008 financial crisis. It also announced it had reached a $4.5 billion settlement with 21 major institutional investors over mortgage-backed securities issued by it and Bear Stearns between 2005 and 2008.

Last month, it agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion for ignoring obvious warning signs of Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence after admitting the fraud, squandered nearly $20 billion from thousands of investors over several decades.

JPMorgan set aside $23 billion last year to cover the settlements and other costs related to its legal troubles.

The good news, Stewart says, is that the lessons learned in the West — especially about early screening and prevention — could help to stem the expansion of cancer in other parts of the world.

i i