The eye-popping compensation will almost certainly raise cries for a bonus tax.
Posted by InvestorPlace on Friday, January 15, 2010 10:21 AM
The banking industry clearly does not care about the outcry from Congress, the President and taxpayers regarding the extravagant bonuses being paid on the heels of the greatest credit crisis in four generations. The Wall Street Journal reports that it has put together research which shows bankers will make $145 billion this year, which is even higher than the phenomenal amount that they made in 2007.
Most of the money will be paid to the top managements and traders at the blue chip firms which include Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM), which posted a huge increase in fourth-quarter net income early today. Earnings per share rose to $.74 from $.06 in the same period a year ago.
It is clear that the culture clash between Wall Street and Main Street is becoming more violent.
A number of financial company CEOs objected to the new tax proposed by The White House to raise $90 billion over ten years by placing a 0.15% tax on balance sheet liabilities. The top 50 financial companies will bear almost this entire burden. JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon reacted by saying the taxes should not be used as a form of punishment.
Politicians, on the other hand, will seize on the $145 billion number as a sign that bailed out banks used TARP money to survive the crisis and then prosper shortly thereafter. The eye-popping compensation will almost certainly raise cries for a bonus tax similar to the one instituted in the U.K. this year.
Wall Street executives will counter by saying that they already pay high income taxes on their bonuses and that their companies pay high corporate taxes. The Treasury will do just fine by its levies on the financial industry. But, that is a sign that the financial community has a tin ear. The populist reaction to the $145 billion number will drive new legislation to tax Wall Street pay or cap it at levels well below where it was last year.
By ignoring the anger of the average man, Wall Street has put itself in a position to be the government’s whipping boy as it prepares the budget for next year.
Comment
Arrogance such as this needs to be addressed by Congress. They screw up the works, coming close to dropping us into another Depression, we bail them out, and they continue to rob, rape, and plunder the system like it never happened. They use OUR bailout money to reward themselves for this series of fiscal mistakes. Ridiculous.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Biotech: Savior ?
With the battles over genetically engineered (GE) crops quieting down, at least
temporarily, it’s a good time to take stock of a technology that has been portrayed as either the scourge or savior of the world’s food supply. Genetic engineering has been used almost exclusively to make corn, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets resistant to herbicides or to make them produce their own insecticide. Both advances offer real benefits to farmers by increasing yields or farm income.
(Yes, organic farming would be better, but it won’t replace conventional farming
any time soon.)
Don’t bother looking for consumer benefits, though. The current biotech crops have not made any foods more nutritious, tastier, or cheaper. The nutritionally improved crops closest to market:
a novel soybean with omega-3 fats, which may help prevent heart attacks, and a soybean whose oil could replace oils that contain trans fats. But both are still a few years away.
On the other hand, the engineered crops currently being grown are safe and cause less
environmental damage than their conventional cousins. Some GE crops allow farmers to use fewer chemical pesticides. Others support notill farming, which protects topsoil and reduces agricultural runoff into rivers and streams. Meanwhile, in developing nations with millions of poor subsistence farmers, GE crops are proving highly popular. Farmers in India and China who are growing cotton engineered to produce the Bt pesticide benefit because they can use fewer chemical pesticides and enjoy sharply increased yields. That translates into fewer pesticide poisonings and
higher income. In India, cotton production doubled between 2002 and 2007. (Critics
charge that failed harvests of Bt cotton in India have led to farmer suicides, but independent researchers have found no link.)
Consumer benefits probably will come sooner overseas than in the United States.
India soon could market two dietary mainstays from genetically engineered crops: water-conserving mustard and insect-resistant eggplant. And China is becoming
a powerhouse with its own biotech crops, which won’t bear the Monsanto or DuPont logo.
The Gates Foundation is funding projects to boost nutrients in sorghum and cassava,
two staple African crops. And, with the Rockefeller Foundation’s help, Golden Rice may soon move from the lab to fields in Southeast Asia. That long-awaited variety produces betacarotene, which can prevent vitamin A deficiency and blindness. What about future genetically engineered crops (and animals)? Congress should require
the Food and Drug Administration to formally approve new GE foods to ensure that they
are safe for humans. With stronger, but not stifling, regulations, consumers should be able to continue to trust the safety of GE foods.
2 N U T R I T I O N A C T I O N H E A LT H L E T T E R ■ J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 0 9
M E M O F R O M M F J
JULY/AUGUST 2009
Volume 36 Number 6
The contents of NAH are not intended
to provide medical advice, which
should be obtained from a qualified
health professional.
The use of information from
Nutrition Action Healthletter
for commercial purposes is prohibited
without written permission
from CSPI.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is
the nonprofit health-advocacy group that publishes
Nutrition Action Healthletter. CSPI mounts educational
programs and presses for changes in government
and corporate policies.
Design and production by The Page Group
(www.pagegroup.com).
© 2009 by Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Look for Michael
Jacobson’s column on The
Huffington Post Web site
(huffingtonpost.com/living).
Now Blogging...
Congress should require the FDA to formally approve new
genetically engineered foods, to make sure that they’re safe.
Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Photo: © ryasick/fotolia.com.
temporarily, it’s a good time to take stock of a technology that has been portrayed as either the scourge or savior of the world’s food supply. Genetic engineering has been used almost exclusively to make corn, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets resistant to herbicides or to make them produce their own insecticide. Both advances offer real benefits to farmers by increasing yields or farm income.
(Yes, organic farming would be better, but it won’t replace conventional farming
any time soon.)
Don’t bother looking for consumer benefits, though. The current biotech crops have not made any foods more nutritious, tastier, or cheaper. The nutritionally improved crops closest to market:
a novel soybean with omega-3 fats, which may help prevent heart attacks, and a soybean whose oil could replace oils that contain trans fats. But both are still a few years away.
On the other hand, the engineered crops currently being grown are safe and cause less
environmental damage than their conventional cousins. Some GE crops allow farmers to use fewer chemical pesticides. Others support notill farming, which protects topsoil and reduces agricultural runoff into rivers and streams. Meanwhile, in developing nations with millions of poor subsistence farmers, GE crops are proving highly popular. Farmers in India and China who are growing cotton engineered to produce the Bt pesticide benefit because they can use fewer chemical pesticides and enjoy sharply increased yields. That translates into fewer pesticide poisonings and
higher income. In India, cotton production doubled between 2002 and 2007. (Critics
charge that failed harvests of Bt cotton in India have led to farmer suicides, but independent researchers have found no link.)
Consumer benefits probably will come sooner overseas than in the United States.
India soon could market two dietary mainstays from genetically engineered crops: water-conserving mustard and insect-resistant eggplant. And China is becoming
a powerhouse with its own biotech crops, which won’t bear the Monsanto or DuPont logo.
The Gates Foundation is funding projects to boost nutrients in sorghum and cassava,
two staple African crops. And, with the Rockefeller Foundation’s help, Golden Rice may soon move from the lab to fields in Southeast Asia. That long-awaited variety produces betacarotene, which can prevent vitamin A deficiency and blindness. What about future genetically engineered crops (and animals)? Congress should require
the Food and Drug Administration to formally approve new GE foods to ensure that they
are safe for humans. With stronger, but not stifling, regulations, consumers should be able to continue to trust the safety of GE foods.
2 N U T R I T I O N A C T I O N H E A LT H L E T T E R ■ J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 0 9
M E M O F R O M M F J
JULY/AUGUST 2009
Volume 36 Number 6
The contents of NAH are not intended
to provide medical advice, which
should be obtained from a qualified
health professional.
The use of information from
Nutrition Action Healthletter
for commercial purposes is prohibited
without written permission
from CSPI.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is
the nonprofit health-advocacy group that publishes
Nutrition Action Healthletter. CSPI mounts educational
programs and presses for changes in government
and corporate policies.
Design and production by The Page Group
(www.pagegroup.com).
© 2009 by Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Look for Michael
Jacobson’s column on The
Huffington Post Web site
(huffingtonpost.com/living).
Now Blogging...
Congress should require the FDA to formally approve new
genetically engineered foods, to make sure that they’re safe.
Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Photo: © ryasick/fotolia.com.
Healthy Movie Popcorn?
BIG
Ready to sit back and enjoy the movie? Not yet. First, the theater is hoping you’ll stop by the concession stand for a snack. You know, something light…like, say, a bucket of popcorn with the calories of a Hamburger plus a Quarter Pounder plus a Big Mac at McDonald’s. Surely, no one expects you to sit through a two-hour movie
with nothing to eat or drink. After all, you’re burning dozens of calories in there, what with all that leg crossing, shifting around in your seat...and reaching for some popcorn. With all that activity, you can really work up an appetite,
especially if you’re still growing. And, sad to say, many
adults are.
Continued on p. 2.
2 N U T R I T I O N A C T I O N H E A LT H L E T T E R ■ D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9
POPCORN
C O V E R S T O R Y
A “medium” (20 cups) or a “large” (also 20 cups) has 60 grams of sat fat. Of course, a large means a free refill (Yay!), so there’s no limit to the damage you can do.
Suggestion: Move your cardiologist’s phone number to your speed dial before
the lights go down. Just kidding. It takes years to clog those arteries…and years for your blood pressure to respond to the salt shock (550 milligrams of sodium—a third of a day’s worth—for a small and 980 mg for a medium or large). The calories, on the other hand, may show up much sooner...and where you least want them.
Budget 670 for a small and 1,200 for a medium or large. You could think of each
small as a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza and each medium or large
as two. But the two pizzas pack “only” a day’s worth of sat fat—nowhere near the
three days’ worth in a medium or large popcorn. How can a medium and large at Regal
each hold the same 20 cups of popcorn? Simple. The taller medium comes in a bag with straight sides, while the squatter large comes in a tapered tub that’s wider at the top (see photo). The tub sure looks like it holds more. Other than for the free refill (shudder), why else would moviegoers pay $8 for a large (a medium is $7)?
What’s the healthiest snack to buy at the movies? You can go for 400 to 1,200
calories’ worth of popcorn that (at many theaters) is essentially fried in one to
three days’ worth of saturated fat. Or you can buy a package of candy with 300
to 1,100 empty calories (plus at least half a day’s sat fat if it’s chocolate). Soft
drinks dispatch another 150 to 500 calories to your thirsty fat cells. The best snack at the movies? No snack at all.
Information compiled by Amy Ramsay, with help from Melissa Pryputniewicz.
“ Did you know that popcorn is among the healthiest—and tastiest—snacks around?” asks the Web site of the Popcorn Board, an industry group. “It’s a whole
grain food that’s low in calories and fat and it’s a complex carbohydrate.”
Maybe that’s one reason people fork over $4 to $8 for a bag or tub of popcorn
when they enter a movie theater. It sounds like they’re munching on a stalk
of broccoli, for goodness sakes.
Turns out the Popcorn Board is right...if you’re talking low-fat popcorn or (fat-free) air-popped. Eating a tub of movie theater popcorn is more like eating an 8 oz. bag of potato chips, and that’s assuming your theater pops in the best oil available and you get it without the “buttery” topping.
Nutrition Action Healthletter (ISSN 0885-7792) is published 10 times a year (monthly except bi-monthly in Jan./Feb. and Jul./Aug.).
POSTMASTER: Send changes to Nutrition Action Healthletter, 1875 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20009-5728.
Application to mail at Periodical postage rates approved at post office of Washington, DC, and at additional offices.
© 2009 by Center for Science in the Public Interest. One-year subscription (10 issues): $24. Two years: $42. - Vol. 36 No. 10
Movie Theaters Fill Buckets …and BELLIES
Here’s what we found when we sent samples of popcorn and toppings from the three largest theater chains to an independent lab for analysis. (Each gave us nutrition facts for its popcorn. But just to be sure, we analyzed samples from three different theaters for each chain. For two of the chains—Regal and AMC—we went to theaters in the Washington, D.C., area. For Cinemark, our samples came from Texas, Illinois, and
Maryland.)
WITH 548 theaters in 39 states plus the District of Columbia, Regal is the largest chain in the United States. It pops in coconut oil, which is 90 percent saturated. (In contrast, lard is 40 percent saturated.) Translation: A “small” popcorn
(that’s about 11 cups’ worth) with no buttery topping has 34 grams of saturated fat. So even if you split it with a friend (unlikely), you each get nearly a day’s worth of artery paste. And it gets worse from there.
At Regal, a medium (left) and a large popcorn each has 1,200 calories and three days’ worth of saturated fat. POPCORN
BIG
Photos: © Valery Potapova/fotolia.com (top), Stephen Schmidt (bottom).
N U T R I T I O N A C T I O N H E A LT H L E T T E R ■ D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 3
C O V E R S T O R Y REGAL
(popped in coconut oil)
AMC
(popped in coconut oil)
CINEMARK
(popped in non-hydrogenated canola oil)
11 cups
20 cups
20 cups
2 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
260 calories 5 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1 Tbs. butter topping adds
130 calories 9 g sat fat 0.4 g trans fat
2 Tbs. butter topping adds
260 calories 18 g sat fat 0.7 g trans fat
9 cups
16 cups
370 calories
420 calories
LARGE MEDIUM Small
210 mg
sodium
690 mg
sodium
550 mg
sodium
670 calories
60 g sat fat
1,200 calories
1,200 calories
980 mg
sodium
980 mg
sodium
1,030 calories
57 g sat fat
580 mg
sodium
760 calories
910 calories
1,240 mg
sodium
1,500 mg
sodium
Another oopsy-daisy: According to Regal, a medium has 720 calories, while a large has 960 calories. Both are lower than our lab results. Oh well. What’s an extra 200 to 500 calories when your snack hovers around the 1,000-calorie mark? They don’t call them tubs for nothing.
Toppings: For customers who think plain popcorn isn’t soaked in enough oil, Regal offers a “buttery” topping. According to Regal and the topping manufacturer, it adds 130 calories to a small, 200 calories to a medium, and 260 calories to a large.
We analyzed the topping to make sure that it had no trans fat. But we didn’t check to see how much topping the concession staff at Regal—or any other chain—adds. Odds are, it varies. And odds are, it’s more than what Regal claims.
> > > > >
590 calories
330 mg
sodium
Notes: Cup estimates based on 11 grams of popcorn per cup. Topping serving sizes for all chains based on Regal numbers. Daily limits for 2,000 cals: Sat Fat: 20 g, Sodium: 1,500 mg.
34 g sat fat
20 g sat fat
2 g sat fat
33 g sat fat
3 g sat fat
60 g sat fat
4 g sat fat
1 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
130 calories 2 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1½ Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
200 calories 3 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
120 calories 2 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1½ Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
180 calories 3 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
2 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
240 calories 4 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
130 calories 2 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
8 cups
17 cups
14 cups
6 cups
1½ Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
200 calories 3 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
2 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
260 calories 4 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1½ Tbs. butter topping adds
200 calories 14 g sat fat 0.6 g trans fat
4 N U T R I T I O N A C T I O N H E A LT H L E T T E R ■ D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9
AMC, the nation’s second-largest chain (with 307 theaters in 30 states and the District of Columbia), also pops in coconut oil. The only good news: AMC’s popcorns aren’t as super-sized as Regal’s. But they’re bigger than the company acknowledges.
According to AMC, a small popcorn contains 225 calories. In fact, the small AMC popcorns that we bought weighed about 50 percent more than the company claimed.
Our AMC smalls contained 370 calories and 20 grams of saturated fat—about what you’d get from that classic healthy snack: eight pats of butter. Based on what we were served, AMC lowballs its other sizes as well. For example, the company’s 430-calorie
medium morphed into 590 calories and 33 grams of saturated fat. And the 660-calorie large became a 1,030-calorie behemoth with 57 grams of sat fat. It’s like eating a pound of baby back ribs topped with a scoop of Häagen-Dazs ice cream (except for the extra day’s worth of sat fat in the popcorn).
What’s next: fun-house mirrors that make you look skinny on your way out of the theater? Toppings: Fake-butter fans must love AMC. The chain lets patrons pump
their own “buttery” topping. No skimpy tablespoon of extra fat on a small or two
tablespoons on a large, like Regal claims to use. With 120 calories per tablespoon,
you should be able to squeeze another 200 to 500 calories into the bucket of fat
cells in your lap.
Cinemark, with 296 theaters in 39 states, deserves some applause. The nation’s third largest chain pops in non-hydrogenated canola oil instead of coconut. Assuming you add no “buttery” topping,your heart can escape a Cinemark popcorn relatively unscathed. Your belly (and blood pressure) won’t be so lucky. If you share an unbuttered (8-cup) small with a fellow moviegoer, each of you will walk away with about 200 calories (seasoned with 340 milligrams of sodium). That’s the best you can expect from movie theater popcorn, unless you ask the theater to pop you a batch without salt. (All the Cinemark, AMC, and Regal locations we called said they would do that.) A medium popcorn (14 cups) at Cinemark reaches 760 calories and a large
(17 cups) hits 910 calories (and 1,500 mg of sodium—an entire day’s quota). Since
when is half-a-day’s-calories’ worth of corn, oil, and salt called a “snack”?
Maybe since America started competing in the Sumo Belly-Lifting Olympics.
Small at Cinemark
Small at
AMC
Small at Regal ,
Medium at AMC
Medium at CINEMARK
Medium at Regal ,
Large at AMC
Large at CINEMARK
Large at Regal
16 fl. oz.
150 calories
10 tsp.
sugar
Notes: Ice takes up about a quarter of the cup. There are 4 grams of sugar in every teaspoon.
54 fl. oz.
500 calories
33 tsp.
sugar soda
21 fl. oz.
200 calories
13 tsp.
sugar
32 fl. oz.
300 calories
19 tsp.
sugar
44 fl. oz.
400 calories
26 tsp.
sugar
combos
Calories Sat Fat (g)
REGAL
1 medium popcorn, 1 medium soda 1,610 60
1 large popcorn, 2 medium sodas 2,020 60
AMC
1 large popcorn, 1 large soda 1,440 57
1 large popcorn, 2 large sodas 1,850 57
CINEMARK
1 large popcorn, 1 large soda 1,320 4
1 large popcorn, 2 large sodas 1,730 4
A combo at Regal (medium popcorn plus medium soda) has 1,610 calories. That’s like eating six scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, four bacon strips, and four
sausage links before the lights come up. Photo
Comment
I love popcorn and am eating some now, but I never knew the movie popcorn was so bad for us. I just knew that it tasted good.
Ready to sit back and enjoy the movie? Not yet. First, the theater is hoping you’ll stop by the concession stand for a snack. You know, something light…like, say, a bucket of popcorn with the calories of a Hamburger plus a Quarter Pounder plus a Big Mac at McDonald’s. Surely, no one expects you to sit through a two-hour movie
with nothing to eat or drink. After all, you’re burning dozens of calories in there, what with all that leg crossing, shifting around in your seat...and reaching for some popcorn. With all that activity, you can really work up an appetite,
especially if you’re still growing. And, sad to say, many
adults are.
Continued on p. 2.
2 N U T R I T I O N A C T I O N H E A LT H L E T T E R ■ D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9
POPCORN
C O V E R S T O R Y
A “medium” (20 cups) or a “large” (also 20 cups) has 60 grams of sat fat. Of course, a large means a free refill (Yay!), so there’s no limit to the damage you can do.
Suggestion: Move your cardiologist’s phone number to your speed dial before
the lights go down. Just kidding. It takes years to clog those arteries…and years for your blood pressure to respond to the salt shock (550 milligrams of sodium—a third of a day’s worth—for a small and 980 mg for a medium or large). The calories, on the other hand, may show up much sooner...and where you least want them.
Budget 670 for a small and 1,200 for a medium or large. You could think of each
small as a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza and each medium or large
as two. But the two pizzas pack “only” a day’s worth of sat fat—nowhere near the
three days’ worth in a medium or large popcorn. How can a medium and large at Regal
each hold the same 20 cups of popcorn? Simple. The taller medium comes in a bag with straight sides, while the squatter large comes in a tapered tub that’s wider at the top (see photo). The tub sure looks like it holds more. Other than for the free refill (shudder), why else would moviegoers pay $8 for a large (a medium is $7)?
What’s the healthiest snack to buy at the movies? You can go for 400 to 1,200
calories’ worth of popcorn that (at many theaters) is essentially fried in one to
three days’ worth of saturated fat. Or you can buy a package of candy with 300
to 1,100 empty calories (plus at least half a day’s sat fat if it’s chocolate). Soft
drinks dispatch another 150 to 500 calories to your thirsty fat cells. The best snack at the movies? No snack at all.
Information compiled by Amy Ramsay, with help from Melissa Pryputniewicz.
“ Did you know that popcorn is among the healthiest—and tastiest—snacks around?” asks the Web site of the Popcorn Board, an industry group. “It’s a whole
grain food that’s low in calories and fat and it’s a complex carbohydrate.”
Maybe that’s one reason people fork over $4 to $8 for a bag or tub of popcorn
when they enter a movie theater. It sounds like they’re munching on a stalk
of broccoli, for goodness sakes.
Turns out the Popcorn Board is right...if you’re talking low-fat popcorn or (fat-free) air-popped. Eating a tub of movie theater popcorn is more like eating an 8 oz. bag of potato chips, and that’s assuming your theater pops in the best oil available and you get it without the “buttery” topping.
Nutrition Action Healthletter (ISSN 0885-7792) is published 10 times a year (monthly except bi-monthly in Jan./Feb. and Jul./Aug.).
POSTMASTER: Send changes to Nutrition Action Healthletter, 1875 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20009-5728.
Application to mail at Periodical postage rates approved at post office of Washington, DC, and at additional offices.
© 2009 by Center for Science in the Public Interest. One-year subscription (10 issues): $24. Two years: $42. - Vol. 36 No. 10
Movie Theaters Fill Buckets …and BELLIES
Here’s what we found when we sent samples of popcorn and toppings from the three largest theater chains to an independent lab for analysis. (Each gave us nutrition facts for its popcorn. But just to be sure, we analyzed samples from three different theaters for each chain. For two of the chains—Regal and AMC—we went to theaters in the Washington, D.C., area. For Cinemark, our samples came from Texas, Illinois, and
Maryland.)
WITH 548 theaters in 39 states plus the District of Columbia, Regal is the largest chain in the United States. It pops in coconut oil, which is 90 percent saturated. (In contrast, lard is 40 percent saturated.) Translation: A “small” popcorn
(that’s about 11 cups’ worth) with no buttery topping has 34 grams of saturated fat. So even if you split it with a friend (unlikely), you each get nearly a day’s worth of artery paste. And it gets worse from there.
At Regal, a medium (left) and a large popcorn each has 1,200 calories and three days’ worth of saturated fat. POPCORN
BIG
Photos: © Valery Potapova/fotolia.com (top), Stephen Schmidt (bottom).
N U T R I T I O N A C T I O N H E A LT H L E T T E R ■ D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 3
C O V E R S T O R Y REGAL
(popped in coconut oil)
AMC
(popped in coconut oil)
CINEMARK
(popped in non-hydrogenated canola oil)
11 cups
20 cups
20 cups
2 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
260 calories 5 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1 Tbs. butter topping adds
130 calories 9 g sat fat 0.4 g trans fat
2 Tbs. butter topping adds
260 calories 18 g sat fat 0.7 g trans fat
9 cups
16 cups
370 calories
420 calories
LARGE MEDIUM Small
210 mg
sodium
690 mg
sodium
550 mg
sodium
670 calories
60 g sat fat
1,200 calories
1,200 calories
980 mg
sodium
980 mg
sodium
1,030 calories
57 g sat fat
580 mg
sodium
760 calories
910 calories
1,240 mg
sodium
1,500 mg
sodium
Another oopsy-daisy: According to Regal, a medium has 720 calories, while a large has 960 calories. Both are lower than our lab results. Oh well. What’s an extra 200 to 500 calories when your snack hovers around the 1,000-calorie mark? They don’t call them tubs for nothing.
Toppings: For customers who think plain popcorn isn’t soaked in enough oil, Regal offers a “buttery” topping. According to Regal and the topping manufacturer, it adds 130 calories to a small, 200 calories to a medium, and 260 calories to a large.
We analyzed the topping to make sure that it had no trans fat. But we didn’t check to see how much topping the concession staff at Regal—or any other chain—adds. Odds are, it varies. And odds are, it’s more than what Regal claims.
> > > > >
590 calories
330 mg
sodium
Notes: Cup estimates based on 11 grams of popcorn per cup. Topping serving sizes for all chains based on Regal numbers. Daily limits for 2,000 cals: Sat Fat: 20 g, Sodium: 1,500 mg.
34 g sat fat
20 g sat fat
2 g sat fat
33 g sat fat
3 g sat fat
60 g sat fat
4 g sat fat
1 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
130 calories 2 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1½ Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
200 calories 3 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
120 calories 2 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1½ Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
180 calories 3 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
2 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
240 calories 4 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
130 calories 2 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
8 cups
17 cups
14 cups
6 cups
1½ Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
200 calories 3 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
2 Tbs. “buttery” topping adds
260 calories 4 g sat fat 0 g trans fat
1½ Tbs. butter topping adds
200 calories 14 g sat fat 0.6 g trans fat
4 N U T R I T I O N A C T I O N H E A LT H L E T T E R ■ D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9
AMC, the nation’s second-largest chain (with 307 theaters in 30 states and the District of Columbia), also pops in coconut oil. The only good news: AMC’s popcorns aren’t as super-sized as Regal’s. But they’re bigger than the company acknowledges.
According to AMC, a small popcorn contains 225 calories. In fact, the small AMC popcorns that we bought weighed about 50 percent more than the company claimed.
Our AMC smalls contained 370 calories and 20 grams of saturated fat—about what you’d get from that classic healthy snack: eight pats of butter. Based on what we were served, AMC lowballs its other sizes as well. For example, the company’s 430-calorie
medium morphed into 590 calories and 33 grams of saturated fat. And the 660-calorie large became a 1,030-calorie behemoth with 57 grams of sat fat. It’s like eating a pound of baby back ribs topped with a scoop of Häagen-Dazs ice cream (except for the extra day’s worth of sat fat in the popcorn).
What’s next: fun-house mirrors that make you look skinny on your way out of the theater? Toppings: Fake-butter fans must love AMC. The chain lets patrons pump
their own “buttery” topping. No skimpy tablespoon of extra fat on a small or two
tablespoons on a large, like Regal claims to use. With 120 calories per tablespoon,
you should be able to squeeze another 200 to 500 calories into the bucket of fat
cells in your lap.
Cinemark, with 296 theaters in 39 states, deserves some applause. The nation’s third largest chain pops in non-hydrogenated canola oil instead of coconut. Assuming you add no “buttery” topping,your heart can escape a Cinemark popcorn relatively unscathed. Your belly (and blood pressure) won’t be so lucky. If you share an unbuttered (8-cup) small with a fellow moviegoer, each of you will walk away with about 200 calories (seasoned with 340 milligrams of sodium). That’s the best you can expect from movie theater popcorn, unless you ask the theater to pop you a batch without salt. (All the Cinemark, AMC, and Regal locations we called said they would do that.) A medium popcorn (14 cups) at Cinemark reaches 760 calories and a large
(17 cups) hits 910 calories (and 1,500 mg of sodium—an entire day’s quota). Since
when is half-a-day’s-calories’ worth of corn, oil, and salt called a “snack”?
Maybe since America started competing in the Sumo Belly-Lifting Olympics.
Small at Cinemark
Small at
AMC
Small at Regal ,
Medium at AMC
Medium at CINEMARK
Medium at Regal ,
Large at AMC
Large at CINEMARK
Large at Regal
16 fl. oz.
150 calories
10 tsp.
sugar
Notes: Ice takes up about a quarter of the cup. There are 4 grams of sugar in every teaspoon.
54 fl. oz.
500 calories
33 tsp.
sugar soda
21 fl. oz.
200 calories
13 tsp.
sugar
32 fl. oz.
300 calories
19 tsp.
sugar
44 fl. oz.
400 calories
26 tsp.
sugar
combos
Calories Sat Fat (g)
REGAL
1 medium popcorn, 1 medium soda 1,610 60
1 large popcorn, 2 medium sodas 2,020 60
AMC
1 large popcorn, 1 large soda 1,440 57
1 large popcorn, 2 large sodas 1,850 57
CINEMARK
1 large popcorn, 1 large soda 1,320 4
1 large popcorn, 2 large sodas 1,730 4
A combo at Regal (medium popcorn plus medium soda) has 1,610 calories. That’s like eating six scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, four bacon strips, and four
sausage links before the lights come up. Photo
Comment
I love popcorn and am eating some now, but I never knew the movie popcorn was so bad for us. I just knew that it tasted good.
Wall Street CEOs defend pay practices
But admit to mistakes in judgment before the financial crisis
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
From left, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein; JPMorgan Chase & Company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James Dimon; Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack, and Bank of America Corporation Chief Executive Officer and President Brian Moynihan, testify on Capitol Hill in Washington before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Financial crisis panel grills Wall Street CEOs
Jan. 13: Heather Murren, a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, questions the chief executives of Wall Street's biggest firms at a hearing to examine the roots of the financial crisis.
More from The Big Money
The Chinese Respond to Google's Move
Google's China Rival Hacked!
Babes in Carland
Electric Cars Need Infrastructure
Who Knows How To Present Digital Content?
(external links)
updated 20 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Top bank executives defended their bonus and compensation practices to a special commission investigating the 2008 financial collapse but the head of the panel asserted on Wednesday that risky financial actions led to devastating consequences for American families.
They also said they underestimated the severity of the 2008 financial crisis and apologized for risky behavior and poor decisions.
Americans are furious and "have a right to be" about the hefty bonuses banks paid out after getting billions of dollars in federal help, the commission's chairman told chief executives of four major banks, all survivors of the deepest and longest recession since the Depression.
As the hearings opened before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, chairman Phil Angelides pledged "a full and fair inquiry into what brought our financial system to its knees."
The panel began its yearlong inquiry amid rising public fury over bailouts and bankers' pay.
"We understand the anger felt by many citizens," said Brian Moynihan, chief executive and president of Bank of America. "We are grateful for the taxpayer assistance we have received."
'Significant cuts'
With Bank of America having repaid its bailout money, he said "the vast majority of our employees played no role in the economic crisis" and do not deserve to be penalized with lower compensation. Moynihan said compensation levels will be higher next year than they were in 2008 — but not at levels before the financial meltdown.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said most of his employees took "significant cuts in compensation" in 2008. He said his company would continue to pay people in a "responsible and disciplined manner" to attract and retain top talent.
Still, Dimon said, "We did make mistakes and there were things we could have done better."
John Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley, said the crisis was "a powerful wake-up call for this firm." He said he didn't take a bonus in 2009 and that his bank has overhauled its compensation practices to discourage "excessive risk-taking."
Angelides, a former Democratic treasurer of California, questioned Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein about packaging soured assets into bond-like securities and selling them to investors — even as Goldman Sachs was "shorting" the same securities, or making bets they would fail. These included risky mortgages that were extended to borrowers with poor credit records and helped cause the home-loan bust.
"It sounds like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on that car," Angelides said.
Responded Blankfein: "I do think the behavior is improper. We regret the consequence that people have lost money in it."
Like the other witnesses, Blankfein acknowledged lapses in judgment in some practices leading up to the crisis.
"Whatever we did, it didn't work out well," he said. "We were going to bed every night with more risk than any responsible manager would want to have."
The commission's vice chairman, former Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., said the inquiry would try "to get to the bottom of what happened and explain it in a way that the American people can understand."
Crucial blunder
Thomas, a former chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said one important question is, "If you knew then what you do now, what would you have done differently?"
Dimon said a crucial blunder was "how we just missed that housing prices don't go up forever." Added Mack: "We did eat our cooking and we choked on it."
Commissioner Heather Murren, a retired Merrill Lynch director, raised questions about banks that insisted on being paid in full by failed insurer American International Group Inc. on financial contracts that went bad.
She asked Blankfein why Goldman Sachs didn't offer to take less than 100 percent in payments from AIG, given the severity of the financial crisis and knowledge of the taxpayers' stake. "It didn't come up in any conversation that I can recall," Blankfein said.
Answer Desk: Don't look for caps on bank bonuses
Obama to announce bank fees Thursday
The bipartisan, 10-member commission was handed the job of writing the official narrative of what went wrong before the financial system nearly collapsed in the fall of 2008.
The commission is modeled on the panel that examined the causes of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But the prototype could be the Pecora Commission, the Senate committee that investigated Wall Street abuses in 1933-34. It was named after Ferdinand Pecora, the committee's chief lawyer.
Congress has instructed the current commission to explore 22 issues, from the effect of monetary policy on terms of credit to bank compensation structures.
Comment
They are paid so well to exercise good judgement. When they dont do that they should take the losses just like the investors. If they dont, they have no motivation to look out for anybody but themselves.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
From left, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein; JPMorgan Chase & Company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James Dimon; Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack, and Bank of America Corporation Chief Executive Officer and President Brian Moynihan, testify on Capitol Hill in Washington before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Financial crisis panel grills Wall Street CEOs
Jan. 13: Heather Murren, a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, questions the chief executives of Wall Street's biggest firms at a hearing to examine the roots of the financial crisis.
More from The Big Money
The Chinese Respond to Google's Move
Google's China Rival Hacked!
Babes in Carland
Electric Cars Need Infrastructure
Who Knows How To Present Digital Content?
(external links)
updated 20 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Top bank executives defended their bonus and compensation practices to a special commission investigating the 2008 financial collapse but the head of the panel asserted on Wednesday that risky financial actions led to devastating consequences for American families.
They also said they underestimated the severity of the 2008 financial crisis and apologized for risky behavior and poor decisions.
Americans are furious and "have a right to be" about the hefty bonuses banks paid out after getting billions of dollars in federal help, the commission's chairman told chief executives of four major banks, all survivors of the deepest and longest recession since the Depression.
As the hearings opened before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, chairman Phil Angelides pledged "a full and fair inquiry into what brought our financial system to its knees."
The panel began its yearlong inquiry amid rising public fury over bailouts and bankers' pay.
"We understand the anger felt by many citizens," said Brian Moynihan, chief executive and president of Bank of America. "We are grateful for the taxpayer assistance we have received."
'Significant cuts'
With Bank of America having repaid its bailout money, he said "the vast majority of our employees played no role in the economic crisis" and do not deserve to be penalized with lower compensation. Moynihan said compensation levels will be higher next year than they were in 2008 — but not at levels before the financial meltdown.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said most of his employees took "significant cuts in compensation" in 2008. He said his company would continue to pay people in a "responsible and disciplined manner" to attract and retain top talent.
Still, Dimon said, "We did make mistakes and there were things we could have done better."
John Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley, said the crisis was "a powerful wake-up call for this firm." He said he didn't take a bonus in 2009 and that his bank has overhauled its compensation practices to discourage "excessive risk-taking."
Angelides, a former Democratic treasurer of California, questioned Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein about packaging soured assets into bond-like securities and selling them to investors — even as Goldman Sachs was "shorting" the same securities, or making bets they would fail. These included risky mortgages that were extended to borrowers with poor credit records and helped cause the home-loan bust.
"It sounds like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on that car," Angelides said.
Responded Blankfein: "I do think the behavior is improper. We regret the consequence that people have lost money in it."
Like the other witnesses, Blankfein acknowledged lapses in judgment in some practices leading up to the crisis.
"Whatever we did, it didn't work out well," he said. "We were going to bed every night with more risk than any responsible manager would want to have."
The commission's vice chairman, former Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., said the inquiry would try "to get to the bottom of what happened and explain it in a way that the American people can understand."
Crucial blunder
Thomas, a former chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said one important question is, "If you knew then what you do now, what would you have done differently?"
Dimon said a crucial blunder was "how we just missed that housing prices don't go up forever." Added Mack: "We did eat our cooking and we choked on it."
Commissioner Heather Murren, a retired Merrill Lynch director, raised questions about banks that insisted on being paid in full by failed insurer American International Group Inc. on financial contracts that went bad.
She asked Blankfein why Goldman Sachs didn't offer to take less than 100 percent in payments from AIG, given the severity of the financial crisis and knowledge of the taxpayers' stake. "It didn't come up in any conversation that I can recall," Blankfein said.
Answer Desk: Don't look for caps on bank bonuses
Obama to announce bank fees Thursday
The bipartisan, 10-member commission was handed the job of writing the official narrative of what went wrong before the financial system nearly collapsed in the fall of 2008.
The commission is modeled on the panel that examined the causes of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But the prototype could be the Pecora Commission, the Senate committee that investigated Wall Street abuses in 1933-34. It was named after Ferdinand Pecora, the committee's chief lawyer.
Congress has instructed the current commission to explore 22 issues, from the effect of monetary policy on terms of credit to bank compensation structures.
Comment
They are paid so well to exercise good judgement. When they dont do that they should take the losses just like the investors. If they dont, they have no motivation to look out for anybody but themselves.
Report: Prices of some drugs have doubled
Consolidation, repackaging of some medications may be behind increase
Passing health reform
Jan. 12: The New York Times’ Carl Hulse talks about the latest developments in the health reform debate including comments made by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., that the bill is “hanging by a thread.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will health reform ‘beat up’ California?
Schwarzenegger: Congress was 'buying' votes on health care
Obama touts benefits of health care bill
Paying for reform
Dose of reality
Do health care reform headlines leave you saying “huh?” Visit msnbc.com's guide to health reform and send us claims you'd like fact-checked.
updated 4:53 p.m. ET, Mon., Jan. 11, 2010
WASHINGTON - Prices on a growing number of prescription medications have ballooned in recent years as consolidation in the drug industry leaves fewer companies manufacturing niche medications.
Congressional investigators say the number of extraordinary price hikes on drugs doubled between 2000 and 2008. The drugs affected are mostly specialty medications but also include some popular products like Bayer's antibiotic Cipro and the Eli Lilly schizophrenia treatment Zyprexa.
The Government Accountability Office report issued Monday attributed the rise to a combination of factors, including industry consolidation and price hikes by third-party providers who repackage drugs for patients.
The GAO's findings could put new pressure on drugmakers to contribute billions more to the health care reform effort being finalized by Congressional Democrats.
The drug industry originally pledged $80 billion to defray the costs of covering millions more Americans, but the package being negotiated between the House and Senate is expected to call for well over $100 billion in financing from drug companies.
GAO found more than 400 examples of unusual price jumps on brand name drugs during the eight-year period — most ranged from 100 to 499 percent, but several exceeded 1,000 percent.
But congressional investigators acknowledged that drugmakers often aren't to blame for the steep increases. More than half of the price hikes cited in the GAO report came from suppliers who repackage drugs for use by patients, according to the report.
Repackagers can include HMOs, pharmacies and stand-alone companies.
"Proponents of repackaged drugs believe that they offer convenience to patients and may reduce medication errors," states the report. "However, some experts suggest that repackaging drugs may unnecessarily increase drug prices and profits."
In other cases, GAO said there simply isn't enough competition to drive prices down for certain niche medicines. The group said consolidation in the drug industry means large drugmakers have bought up entire groups of similar drugs, allowing them to charge higher prices.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said the drugs cited by GAO represent a fraction of the overall pharmaceutical market. The group pointed to a government report issued last year showing total drug prices grew just 3.2 percent in 2008, the lowest pace in 50 years as use of low-cost generic drugs increased.
The GAO's report was requested by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.
"It is hard to find a good-faith explanation for why drug prices could go up this much," Schumer said in a statement.
At the request of Senate Democrats, the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general plans to investigate whether drug companies are raising prices of prescription drugs ahead of passage of the health care overhaul plan.
The drug industry lobby says the requested investigation is based on misleading data.
Passing health reform
Jan. 12: The New York Times’ Carl Hulse talks about the latest developments in the health reform debate including comments made by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., that the bill is “hanging by a thread.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will health reform ‘beat up’ California?
Schwarzenegger: Congress was 'buying' votes on health care
Obama touts benefits of health care bill
Paying for reform
Dose of reality
Do health care reform headlines leave you saying “huh?” Visit msnbc.com's guide to health reform and send us claims you'd like fact-checked.
updated 4:53 p.m. ET, Mon., Jan. 11, 2010
WASHINGTON - Prices on a growing number of prescription medications have ballooned in recent years as consolidation in the drug industry leaves fewer companies manufacturing niche medications.
Congressional investigators say the number of extraordinary price hikes on drugs doubled between 2000 and 2008. The drugs affected are mostly specialty medications but also include some popular products like Bayer's antibiotic Cipro and the Eli Lilly schizophrenia treatment Zyprexa.
The Government Accountability Office report issued Monday attributed the rise to a combination of factors, including industry consolidation and price hikes by third-party providers who repackage drugs for patients.
The GAO's findings could put new pressure on drugmakers to contribute billions more to the health care reform effort being finalized by Congressional Democrats.
The drug industry originally pledged $80 billion to defray the costs of covering millions more Americans, but the package being negotiated between the House and Senate is expected to call for well over $100 billion in financing from drug companies.
GAO found more than 400 examples of unusual price jumps on brand name drugs during the eight-year period — most ranged from 100 to 499 percent, but several exceeded 1,000 percent.
But congressional investigators acknowledged that drugmakers often aren't to blame for the steep increases. More than half of the price hikes cited in the GAO report came from suppliers who repackage drugs for use by patients, according to the report.
Repackagers can include HMOs, pharmacies and stand-alone companies.
"Proponents of repackaged drugs believe that they offer convenience to patients and may reduce medication errors," states the report. "However, some experts suggest that repackaging drugs may unnecessarily increase drug prices and profits."
In other cases, GAO said there simply isn't enough competition to drive prices down for certain niche medicines. The group said consolidation in the drug industry means large drugmakers have bought up entire groups of similar drugs, allowing them to charge higher prices.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said the drugs cited by GAO represent a fraction of the overall pharmaceutical market. The group pointed to a government report issued last year showing total drug prices grew just 3.2 percent in 2008, the lowest pace in 50 years as use of low-cost generic drugs increased.
The GAO's report was requested by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.
"It is hard to find a good-faith explanation for why drug prices could go up this much," Schumer said in a statement.
At the request of Senate Democrats, the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general plans to investigate whether drug companies are raising prices of prescription drugs ahead of passage of the health care overhaul plan.
The drug industry lobby says the requested investigation is based on misleading data.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Battling the system: A patient's tale
A cancer patient has saved thousands of dollars by tracking his bills, pleading his case and working the phones, demonstrating how to be a smart medical consumer.
[Related content: insurance, health insurance, health care, insurance companies, bills]
By The Wall Street Journal
James Mannett rarely thought about medical bills or insurance during 41 years of near-perfect health. Then he got cancer and became an expert.
Mannett was a fitness buff during his decades as a sales executive for General Electric and other companies. He owned a four-bedroom home in Southern California's tony Laguna Niguel, three cars and a Cessna plane that he flew for fun. After moving to Phoenix, he quit GE in early 2004 and used his savings to get into real-estate investment.
The next year, he was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of cancer that affected his small intestine and liver. Mannett, now 45, has so far had six surgeries and dozens of pricey lab tests and imaging scans. He's been to three hospitals and seen experts at several more. He estimates that his treatment so far has cost around $600,000, including travel and other expenses, with about $100,000 of that coming from his own pocket. Mannett, who now lives in a recreational vehicle and is supported mainly by federal disability benefits, continues to receive periodic chemotherapy to contain the cancer in his liver.
The ordeal has given Mannett an education on navigating the financial straits of being treated for a major disease. It's an experience that can provide lessons for all of us about how to defend our own interests, even when we're at our most vulnerable. The bottom line: Smart medical consumers can save money if they track their bills as closely as they monitor their health.
For instance:
When his insurer disputed some doctors' bills, Mannett got both parties together on a conference call to work out a compromise.
By getting acquainted with a case worker at his insurance company, he learned how to negotiate lower fees from surgeons before an operation took place.
And by becoming friendly with financial clerks at doctors' offices, he has been able to secure discounts on some services.
Mannett has cajoled and pleaded his way to more-affordable treatment.
"Unless you go through something like this, you don't understand this stuff," says Mannett, whose computer contains dozens of his appeal and complaint letters about health care charges and coverage decisions. Before, "I just assumed that when you have insurance and you have a bill, they pay it," he says.
What he didn't notice about his insurance
After becoming self-employed in 2004, Mannett decided he needed health insurance. He chose a policy from Assurant that an agent said would cover all his expenses after he met an annual deductible of $4,950. Mannett, who had never bought his own insurance before, says he didn't notice that the plan included an additional $500 annual deductible for seeing doctors out of the insurer's network, or that its payments for such doctors would add up to only 80% of what Assurant deemed customary charges, not the actual billed amount.
In September 2005, Mannett felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. At the emergency room of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, a scan revealed a 5-centimeter tumor on his small intestine, and three tennis-ball-size tumors in his liver. The doctor told him he likely had only two years to live. "It was very surreal. I couldn't believe I was hearing what I was hearing," says Mannett.
Doctors removed the tumor on his small intestine and a third of his colon. He went home a week later, accompanied by his mother and a cousin, a nurse, who had come to care for him.
Insurance company demands proof
As Mannett recovered, the bills stacked up. Assurant wasn't making any payments, he says. Instead, the insurer demanded from him the names and addresses of every doctor he'd seen for the previous five years, so it could verify that he hadn't concealed his cancer when he bought the policy. The investigation dragged on for months until, according to Mannett, he called the insurer and warned that the next contact would be from his lawyer. Soon after, he says, Assurant paid the hospital more than $29,000, as well as several other bills.
Assurant said it couldn't comment on Mannett's case due to privacy concerns.
Still, Mannett spent more out of pocket than he expected. Beyond his deductible, he owed several hundred dollars to some doctors who charged more than his insurer paid. He hadn't realized that even though the hospital was in his insurer's medical-provider network, some physicians working there were not.
In a statement, St. Joseph's said, "We have been working hard to provide additional information to patients to try and make our charges (and how people pay for them) more understandable."
A move that saved thousands
Mannett spent the next few months seeking doctors' opinions about how to treat the cancer in his liver. During this time, he also became familiar with the intricacies of the medical billing system:
Before writing any checks, he double-checked calculations on his insurer's explanations of benefits.
He also learned that, before Assurant would pay for expensive medication to control his digestive problems and other symptoms, he needed to obtain letters from his doctors explaining the need for the drug and pre-authorization from the insurer.
He says he found a helpful case worker at Assurant, whom he began consulting about coverage.
In early 2006, Mannett settled on a dramatic surgical procedure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The surgeon would remove half of his diseased liver, hoping the organ would regenerate itself.
On the advice of the insurance case worker, Mannett got the offices of the Cedars oncologist and surgeon, who weren't in the insurer's network, to agree in advance to accept Assurant's usual rate as their full payment. He believes the move saved him thousands of dollars.
Surprise charges roll in
But when Mannett awoke in the recovery room, he learned his liver had proved too damaged for the surgery. The incision then became infected and had to be reopened and cleaned. He went home a week later, and a nurse came regularly to dress the open wound.
Then the bills started arriving. Mannett says he was surprised to learn that his agreements with the oncologist's and surgeon's offices didn't include the cost of imaging scans and lab exams.
When his head cleared between doses of painkillers, he convened three-way conference calls among those doctors' billers and his insurer to hash out some disputed fees. He also got a few charges reduced by appealing to a friendly staffer in one of the billing offices. And he wrote letters asking for other charges to be waived because of "severe financial hardship." Mannett estimates his efforts saved him more than $10,000 on the cost of the scans and lab exams.
Cedars-Sinai said it couldn't comment about Mannett because of privacy laws. Generally, the hospital has a variety of programs to help patients in financial need, it said.
A risky procedure, a personal plea
Once his surgical wound healed, Mannett decided on a risky procedure that would pump chemotherapy drugs directly into his liver. The goal was to blast the cancer, but it risked destroying Mannett's liver or causing a heart attack from the shock. Aubrey Palestrant, an interventional radiologist in Phoenix, agreed to do the surgery, which would have to be performed more than once.
Desperate to get a treatment that he figured was his last chance to survive, Mannett chose to not raise the billing issues in advance with Palestrant, who wasn't in Assurant's network. After two rounds of treatment in 2006, Mannett was told that all of his visible tumors appeared dead or dying, though the cancer was likely to reappear. Since then, he has had two more chemo treatments, for a total of four.
Later in 2006, he got a bill from the radiologist's office that said he owed nearly $8,200 after insurance payments of about $1,100. Additional bills followed. A financial-hardship letter to the doctor's office didn't win a discount.
Mannett says he then called Palestrant personally to plead his case and the doctor agreed to accept the insurer's rate as his full payment, forgiving Mannett's portion. Relieved and grateful, Mannett says he choked back tears.
Palestrant didn't return calls seeking comment.
This article was reported by Anna Wilde Matthews for The Wall Street Journal.
Published Jan. 11, 2010
[Related content: insurance, health insurance, health care, insurance companies, bills]
By The Wall Street Journal
James Mannett rarely thought about medical bills or insurance during 41 years of near-perfect health. Then he got cancer and became an expert.
Mannett was a fitness buff during his decades as a sales executive for General Electric and other companies. He owned a four-bedroom home in Southern California's tony Laguna Niguel, three cars and a Cessna plane that he flew for fun. After moving to Phoenix, he quit GE in early 2004 and used his savings to get into real-estate investment.
The next year, he was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of cancer that affected his small intestine and liver. Mannett, now 45, has so far had six surgeries and dozens of pricey lab tests and imaging scans. He's been to three hospitals and seen experts at several more. He estimates that his treatment so far has cost around $600,000, including travel and other expenses, with about $100,000 of that coming from his own pocket. Mannett, who now lives in a recreational vehicle and is supported mainly by federal disability benefits, continues to receive periodic chemotherapy to contain the cancer in his liver.
The ordeal has given Mannett an education on navigating the financial straits of being treated for a major disease. It's an experience that can provide lessons for all of us about how to defend our own interests, even when we're at our most vulnerable. The bottom line: Smart medical consumers can save money if they track their bills as closely as they monitor their health.
For instance:
When his insurer disputed some doctors' bills, Mannett got both parties together on a conference call to work out a compromise.
By getting acquainted with a case worker at his insurance company, he learned how to negotiate lower fees from surgeons before an operation took place.
And by becoming friendly with financial clerks at doctors' offices, he has been able to secure discounts on some services.
Mannett has cajoled and pleaded his way to more-affordable treatment.
"Unless you go through something like this, you don't understand this stuff," says Mannett, whose computer contains dozens of his appeal and complaint letters about health care charges and coverage decisions. Before, "I just assumed that when you have insurance and you have a bill, they pay it," he says.
What he didn't notice about his insurance
After becoming self-employed in 2004, Mannett decided he needed health insurance. He chose a policy from Assurant that an agent said would cover all his expenses after he met an annual deductible of $4,950. Mannett, who had never bought his own insurance before, says he didn't notice that the plan included an additional $500 annual deductible for seeing doctors out of the insurer's network, or that its payments for such doctors would add up to only 80% of what Assurant deemed customary charges, not the actual billed amount.
In September 2005, Mannett felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. At the emergency room of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, a scan revealed a 5-centimeter tumor on his small intestine, and three tennis-ball-size tumors in his liver. The doctor told him he likely had only two years to live. "It was very surreal. I couldn't believe I was hearing what I was hearing," says Mannett.
Doctors removed the tumor on his small intestine and a third of his colon. He went home a week later, accompanied by his mother and a cousin, a nurse, who had come to care for him.
Insurance company demands proof
As Mannett recovered, the bills stacked up. Assurant wasn't making any payments, he says. Instead, the insurer demanded from him the names and addresses of every doctor he'd seen for the previous five years, so it could verify that he hadn't concealed his cancer when he bought the policy. The investigation dragged on for months until, according to Mannett, he called the insurer and warned that the next contact would be from his lawyer. Soon after, he says, Assurant paid the hospital more than $29,000, as well as several other bills.
Assurant said it couldn't comment on Mannett's case due to privacy concerns.
Still, Mannett spent more out of pocket than he expected. Beyond his deductible, he owed several hundred dollars to some doctors who charged more than his insurer paid. He hadn't realized that even though the hospital was in his insurer's medical-provider network, some physicians working there were not.
In a statement, St. Joseph's said, "We have been working hard to provide additional information to patients to try and make our charges (and how people pay for them) more understandable."
A move that saved thousands
Mannett spent the next few months seeking doctors' opinions about how to treat the cancer in his liver. During this time, he also became familiar with the intricacies of the medical billing system:
Before writing any checks, he double-checked calculations on his insurer's explanations of benefits.
He also learned that, before Assurant would pay for expensive medication to control his digestive problems and other symptoms, he needed to obtain letters from his doctors explaining the need for the drug and pre-authorization from the insurer.
He says he found a helpful case worker at Assurant, whom he began consulting about coverage.
In early 2006, Mannett settled on a dramatic surgical procedure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The surgeon would remove half of his diseased liver, hoping the organ would regenerate itself.
On the advice of the insurance case worker, Mannett got the offices of the Cedars oncologist and surgeon, who weren't in the insurer's network, to agree in advance to accept Assurant's usual rate as their full payment. He believes the move saved him thousands of dollars.
Surprise charges roll in
But when Mannett awoke in the recovery room, he learned his liver had proved too damaged for the surgery. The incision then became infected and had to be reopened and cleaned. He went home a week later, and a nurse came regularly to dress the open wound.
Then the bills started arriving. Mannett says he was surprised to learn that his agreements with the oncologist's and surgeon's offices didn't include the cost of imaging scans and lab exams.
When his head cleared between doses of painkillers, he convened three-way conference calls among those doctors' billers and his insurer to hash out some disputed fees. He also got a few charges reduced by appealing to a friendly staffer in one of the billing offices. And he wrote letters asking for other charges to be waived because of "severe financial hardship." Mannett estimates his efforts saved him more than $10,000 on the cost of the scans and lab exams.
Cedars-Sinai said it couldn't comment about Mannett because of privacy laws. Generally, the hospital has a variety of programs to help patients in financial need, it said.
A risky procedure, a personal plea
Once his surgical wound healed, Mannett decided on a risky procedure that would pump chemotherapy drugs directly into his liver. The goal was to blast the cancer, but it risked destroying Mannett's liver or causing a heart attack from the shock. Aubrey Palestrant, an interventional radiologist in Phoenix, agreed to do the surgery, which would have to be performed more than once.
Desperate to get a treatment that he figured was his last chance to survive, Mannett chose to not raise the billing issues in advance with Palestrant, who wasn't in Assurant's network. After two rounds of treatment in 2006, Mannett was told that all of his visible tumors appeared dead or dying, though the cancer was likely to reappear. Since then, he has had two more chemo treatments, for a total of four.
Later in 2006, he got a bill from the radiologist's office that said he owed nearly $8,200 after insurance payments of about $1,100. Additional bills followed. A financial-hardship letter to the doctor's office didn't win a discount.
Mannett says he then called Palestrant personally to plead his case and the doctor agreed to accept the insurer's rate as his full payment, forgiving Mannett's portion. Relieved and grateful, Mannett says he choked back tears.
Palestrant didn't return calls seeking comment.
This article was reported by Anna Wilde Matthews for The Wall Street Journal.
Published Jan. 11, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Stimulus for roads no path to help joblessness
Analysis comes as Obama urges another bill funding more transit projects
Ten months into President Barack Obama's first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis found.
Market update
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• DJIA 10629.08 +10.89 +0.10%
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• S&P 500 1143.60 -1.38 -0.12%
updated 9:01 a.m. ET, Mon., Jan. 11, 2010
WASHINGTON - Ten months into President Barack Obama's first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an AP analysis has found.
Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn't matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama's argument that more road money would address an "urgent need to accelerate job growth."
Obama wants a second stimulus bill from Congress that relies in part on more road and bridge spending, projects the president said are "at the heart of our effort to accelerate job growth."
Construction spending would be a key part of the Jobs for Main Street Act, a $75 billion second stimulus to revive the nation's lethargic unemployment rate and improve the dismal job market for construction workers. The House approved the bill 217-212 last month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., worked the floor for an hour; the Senate is expected to consider it later in January.
AP's analysis, which was reviewed by independent economists at five universities, showed that strategy hasn't affected unemployment rates so far. And there's concern it won't work the second time. For its analysis, the AP examined the effects of road and bridge spending in communities on local unemployment; it did not try to measure results of the broader aid that also was in the first stimulus like tax cuts, unemployment benefits or money for states.
"My bottom line is, I'd be skeptical about putting too much more money into a second stimulus until we've seen broader effects from the first stimulus," said Aaron Jackson, a Bentley University economist who reviewed AP's analysis.
Even within the construction industry, which stood to benefit most from transportation money, the AP's analysis found there was nearly no connection between stimulus money and the number of construction workers hired or fired since Congress passed the recovery program. The effect was so small, one economist compared it to trying to move the Empire State Building by pushing against it.
"As a policy tool for creating jobs, this doesn't seem to have much bite," said Emory University economist Thomas Smith, who supported the stimulus and reviewed AP's analysis. "In terms of creating jobs, it doesn't seem like it's created very many. It may well be employing lots of people but those two things are very different."
Too small of a pebble
Transportation spending is too small of a pebble to quickly create waves in the nation's $14 trillion economy. And starting a road project, even one considered "shovel ready," can take many months, meaning any modest effects of a second burst of transportation spending are unlikely to be felt for some time.
"It would be unlikely that even $20 billion spent all at once would be enough to move the needle of the huge decline we've seen, even in construction, much less the economy. The job destruction is way too big," said Kenneth D. Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America.
Click for related content
For unemployed, new job often means a pay cut
In ‘Foreclosureville,’ hope that worst has passed
Future of America’s workforce: permatemps
Few counties, for example, received more road money per capita than Marshall County, Tenn., about 90 minutes south of Nashville.
Obama's stimulus is paying the salaries of dozens of workers, but local officials said the unemployment rate continues to rise and is expected to top 20 percent soon. The new money for road projects isn't enough to offset the thousands of local jobs lost from the closing of manufacturing plants and automotive parts suppliers.
"The stimulus has not benefited the working-class people of Marshall County at all," said Isaac Zimmerle, a local contractor who has seen his construction business slowly dry up since 2008. That year, he built 30 homes. But prospects this year look grim.
Projects going to a few heavy hitters
Construction contractors like Zimmerle would seem to be in line to benefit from the stimulus spending. But money for road construction offers little relief to most contractors who don't work on transportation projects, a niche that requires expensive, heavy equipment that most residential and commercial builders don't own. Residential and commercial building make up the bulk of the nation's construction industry.
"The problem we're seeing is, unfortunately, when they put those projects out to bid, there are only a handful of companies able to compete for it," Zimmerle said.
Do you think the nation needs another stimulus bill?
The Obama administration has argued that it's unfair to count construction jobs in any one county because workers travel between counties for jobs. So, the AP looked at a much larger universe: The more than 700 counties that got the most stimulus money per capita for road construction, and the more than 700 counties that received no money at all.
For its analysis, the AP reviewed Transportation Department data on more than $21 billion in stimulus projects in every state and Washington, D.C., and the Labor Department's monthly unemployment data. Working with economists and statisticians, the AP performed statistical tests to gauge the effect of transportation spending on employment activity.
There was no difference in unemployment trends between the group of counties that received the most stimulus money and the group that received none, the analysis found.
Despite the disconnect, Congress is moving quickly to give Obama the road money he requested. The Senate will soon consider a proposal that would direct nearly $28 billion more on roads and bridges, programs that are popular with politicians, lobbyists and voters. The overall price tag on the bill, which also would pay for water projects, school repairs and jobs for teachers, firefighters and police officers, would be $75 billion.
"We have a ton of need for repairing our national infrastructure and a ton of unemployed workers to do it. Marrying those two concepts strikes me as good stimulus and good policy," White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein said. "When you invest in this kind of infrastructure, you're creating good jobs for people who need them."
Highway projects have been the public face of the president's recovery efforts, providing the backdrop for news conferences with workers who owe their paychecks to the stimulus. But those anecdotes have not added up to a national trend and have not markedly improved the country's broad employment picture.
Some parts of first stimulus worked
The stimulus has produced jobs. A growing body of economic evidence suggests that government programs, including Obama's $700 billion bank bailout program and his $787billion stimulus, have helped ease the recession. A Rutgers University study on Friday, for instance, found that all stimulus efforts have slowed the rise in unemployment in many states.
But the 400-page stimulus law contains so many provisions — tax cuts, unemployment benefits, food stamps, state aid, military spending — economists agree that it's nearly impossible to determine what worked best and replicate it. It's also impossible to quantify exactly what effect the stimulus has had on job creation, although Obama points to estimates that credit the recovery program for creating or saving 1.6 million jobs.
Click for related content
For unemployed, new job often means a pay cut
In ‘Foreclosureville,’ hope that worst has passed
Future of America’s workforce: permatemps
Politically, singling out transportation for another round of spending is an easier sell than many of the other programs in the stimulus. The money can be spent quickly and provides a tangible payoff. Even some Republicans who have criticized the stimulus have said they want more transportation spending.
Spending money on roads also ripples through the economy better than other spending because it improves the nation's infrastructure, said Bernstein, the White House economist.
But that's a policy argument, not a stimulus argument, said Daniel Seiver, an economist at San Diego State University who reviewed AP's analysis.
"Infrastructure spending does have a long-term payoff, but in terms of an immediate impact on construction jobs it doesn't seem to be showing up," Seiver said. "A program like this may be justified but it's not going to have an immediate effect of putting people back to work."
Ten months into President Barack Obama's first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis found.
Market update
Index Last Change % change
• DJIA 10629.08 +10.89 +0.10%
• NASDAQ 2306.18 -10.99 -0.47%
• S&P 500 1143.60 -1.38 -0.12%
updated 9:01 a.m. ET, Mon., Jan. 11, 2010
WASHINGTON - Ten months into President Barack Obama's first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an AP analysis has found.
Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn't matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama's argument that more road money would address an "urgent need to accelerate job growth."
Obama wants a second stimulus bill from Congress that relies in part on more road and bridge spending, projects the president said are "at the heart of our effort to accelerate job growth."
Construction spending would be a key part of the Jobs for Main Street Act, a $75 billion second stimulus to revive the nation's lethargic unemployment rate and improve the dismal job market for construction workers. The House approved the bill 217-212 last month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., worked the floor for an hour; the Senate is expected to consider it later in January.
AP's analysis, which was reviewed by independent economists at five universities, showed that strategy hasn't affected unemployment rates so far. And there's concern it won't work the second time. For its analysis, the AP examined the effects of road and bridge spending in communities on local unemployment; it did not try to measure results of the broader aid that also was in the first stimulus like tax cuts, unemployment benefits or money for states.
"My bottom line is, I'd be skeptical about putting too much more money into a second stimulus until we've seen broader effects from the first stimulus," said Aaron Jackson, a Bentley University economist who reviewed AP's analysis.
Even within the construction industry, which stood to benefit most from transportation money, the AP's analysis found there was nearly no connection between stimulus money and the number of construction workers hired or fired since Congress passed the recovery program. The effect was so small, one economist compared it to trying to move the Empire State Building by pushing against it.
"As a policy tool for creating jobs, this doesn't seem to have much bite," said Emory University economist Thomas Smith, who supported the stimulus and reviewed AP's analysis. "In terms of creating jobs, it doesn't seem like it's created very many. It may well be employing lots of people but those two things are very different."
Too small of a pebble
Transportation spending is too small of a pebble to quickly create waves in the nation's $14 trillion economy. And starting a road project, even one considered "shovel ready," can take many months, meaning any modest effects of a second burst of transportation spending are unlikely to be felt for some time.
"It would be unlikely that even $20 billion spent all at once would be enough to move the needle of the huge decline we've seen, even in construction, much less the economy. The job destruction is way too big," said Kenneth D. Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America.
Click for related content
For unemployed, new job often means a pay cut
In ‘Foreclosureville,’ hope that worst has passed
Future of America’s workforce: permatemps
Few counties, for example, received more road money per capita than Marshall County, Tenn., about 90 minutes south of Nashville.
Obama's stimulus is paying the salaries of dozens of workers, but local officials said the unemployment rate continues to rise and is expected to top 20 percent soon. The new money for road projects isn't enough to offset the thousands of local jobs lost from the closing of manufacturing plants and automotive parts suppliers.
"The stimulus has not benefited the working-class people of Marshall County at all," said Isaac Zimmerle, a local contractor who has seen his construction business slowly dry up since 2008. That year, he built 30 homes. But prospects this year look grim.
Projects going to a few heavy hitters
Construction contractors like Zimmerle would seem to be in line to benefit from the stimulus spending. But money for road construction offers little relief to most contractors who don't work on transportation projects, a niche that requires expensive, heavy equipment that most residential and commercial builders don't own. Residential and commercial building make up the bulk of the nation's construction industry.
"The problem we're seeing is, unfortunately, when they put those projects out to bid, there are only a handful of companies able to compete for it," Zimmerle said.
Do you think the nation needs another stimulus bill?
The Obama administration has argued that it's unfair to count construction jobs in any one county because workers travel between counties for jobs. So, the AP looked at a much larger universe: The more than 700 counties that got the most stimulus money per capita for road construction, and the more than 700 counties that received no money at all.
For its analysis, the AP reviewed Transportation Department data on more than $21 billion in stimulus projects in every state and Washington, D.C., and the Labor Department's monthly unemployment data. Working with economists and statisticians, the AP performed statistical tests to gauge the effect of transportation spending on employment activity.
There was no difference in unemployment trends between the group of counties that received the most stimulus money and the group that received none, the analysis found.
Despite the disconnect, Congress is moving quickly to give Obama the road money he requested. The Senate will soon consider a proposal that would direct nearly $28 billion more on roads and bridges, programs that are popular with politicians, lobbyists and voters. The overall price tag on the bill, which also would pay for water projects, school repairs and jobs for teachers, firefighters and police officers, would be $75 billion.
"We have a ton of need for repairing our national infrastructure and a ton of unemployed workers to do it. Marrying those two concepts strikes me as good stimulus and good policy," White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein said. "When you invest in this kind of infrastructure, you're creating good jobs for people who need them."
Highway projects have been the public face of the president's recovery efforts, providing the backdrop for news conferences with workers who owe their paychecks to the stimulus. But those anecdotes have not added up to a national trend and have not markedly improved the country's broad employment picture.
Some parts of first stimulus worked
The stimulus has produced jobs. A growing body of economic evidence suggests that government programs, including Obama's $700 billion bank bailout program and his $787billion stimulus, have helped ease the recession. A Rutgers University study on Friday, for instance, found that all stimulus efforts have slowed the rise in unemployment in many states.
But the 400-page stimulus law contains so many provisions — tax cuts, unemployment benefits, food stamps, state aid, military spending — economists agree that it's nearly impossible to determine what worked best and replicate it. It's also impossible to quantify exactly what effect the stimulus has had on job creation, although Obama points to estimates that credit the recovery program for creating or saving 1.6 million jobs.
Click for related content
For unemployed, new job often means a pay cut
In ‘Foreclosureville,’ hope that worst has passed
Future of America’s workforce: permatemps
Politically, singling out transportation for another round of spending is an easier sell than many of the other programs in the stimulus. The money can be spent quickly and provides a tangible payoff. Even some Republicans who have criticized the stimulus have said they want more transportation spending.
Spending money on roads also ripples through the economy better than other spending because it improves the nation's infrastructure, said Bernstein, the White House economist.
But that's a policy argument, not a stimulus argument, said Daniel Seiver, an economist at San Diego State University who reviewed AP's analysis.
"Infrastructure spending does have a long-term payoff, but in terms of an immediate impact on construction jobs it doesn't seem to be showing up," Seiver said. "A program like this may be justified but it's not going to have an immediate effect of putting people back to work."
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