Latest news with #SB-4
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Florida attorney general loses appeal to overturn order blocking immigration law
A judicial appeals panel has upheld a temporary injunction blocking the enforcement of a new state law criminalizing undocumented immigrants when they arrive in Florida — notching another victory for immigration advocates in a case that has drawn Florida's attorney general into conflict with a Miami federal judge. The Friday afternoon ruling by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta keeps in place a lower court order temporarily preventing police and prosecutors from making arrests and pursuing charges under Florida's SB-4, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in February. The law makes it a crime for immigrants to enter the state of Florida if they have been deported or denied entry into the country, or eluded immigration officers when coming into the United States. 'This is a difficult case, and this order does not finally resolve the issues,' states the order, issued by judges Jill Pryor, Kevin Newsom and Embry Kidd. The unsuccessful appeal at the heart of Friday's ruling was brought by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who sought to stay the temporary injunction. Uthmeier has argued that District Court Judge Kathleen Williams overstepped in April when, responding to a lawsuit brought by several undocumented Florida residents who said the law was unconstitutional, she blocked the enforcement of the law. Williams initially issued a restraining order preventing the enforcement of SB-4, and then ordered a broader temporary injunction after learning that state police had continued to make arrests — including an American citizen. Uthmeier's attorneys argued that while Williams' order had bound them from enforcing the law, it didn't apply to 'independent' law enforcement agencies like the Florida Highway Patrol. The attorney general was so adamant in his position that, days later, he wrote a letter to law enforcement agencies telling them he didn't think Williams' order was legitimate — leading the judge to initiate contempt proceedings. In their Friday ruling, the judges waded into the legal skirmish, writing that Uthmeier 'may well be right that the district court's order is impermissibly broad. But that does not warrant what seems to have been at least a veiled threat not to obey it.' A spokesman for Uthmeier's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The American Civil Liberties Union, whose attorneys have worked on the case, celebrated the ruling as a significant victory, not just in Florida but around the country as red states move to implement strict immigration laws. 'This ruling is not just a legal victory — it's a resounding rejection of cruelty masquerading as policy,' said Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. The case, brought by the Florida Immigrant Coalition, the Farmworker Association of Florida, will continue on before Judge Williams, who has yet to issue her ruling on whether Uthmeier will be held in contempt of court.
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ayotte signs first bill to promote more housing
Feb. 27—A bill that could reduce upfront costs for housing developers by carving out the energy portion with special financing became the first one Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed into law Thursday. New Hampshire will join 36 other states that legally allow developers to deploy Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy and Resiliency agreements (C-PACER). "Housing is our most critical economic issue, and this legislation is another tool in our toolbox to help bring even more housing development to New Hampshire. I was glad to sign SB-4 to create a C-PACER program in our state," Ayotte said in a statement. "By making it easier for private sector partners to finance projects and removing the administrative burden on municipalities, we're taking an important step in the right direction to increase the supply of attainable housing for our growing workforce." State Sen. Dan Innis, R-Bradford, who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, was the lead sponsor of the bill (SB 4). "(C-PACER) is designed to help new housing projects by reducing the upfront costs through financing developments and freeing up capital for other projects," Innis said. Both House Speaker Sherman Packard and Senate President Sharon Carson, both R-Londonderry, joined in on celebrating the legislation becoming law. "This bill is not just about building housing, it's about strengthening our economy and providing long-term solutions that benefit all Granite Staters," Packard said. Eligible spending includes energy-efficient upgrades, building insulation, cost-effective renewable energy and water conservation measures, officials said. While housing is the primary focus, any commercial property can use C-PACER, including manufacturing plants, office buildings, retail buildings and multifamily housing projects. The legislation had universal bipartisan support. It cleared the state Senate, 24-0. The House passed it on a voice vote. Sen. Tara Reardon, D-Concord, a retired executive with the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, joined Innis in writing the bill. "Innovation and creativity in financing is crucial for housing development, particularly in a housing crisis," Reardon said. Starting Jan. 1, C-PACER will replace a law on energy efficiency and clean energy districts that state officials said proved to be unworkable. Energy spending becomes similar to a tax lien James Key-Wallace, executive director of the Business Finance Authority, said the existing law requires every participating town to write its own documents, run its own programs and do its own billing. Under the new reform, the BFA will serve as the central administrator to allow municipalities to take advantage of the voluntary option at no cost. Each city and town must decide to opt in to the program. The existing law required the provider to file a mortgage, Key-Wallace explained. Under thes plan, the financing for the energy part of the project is part of the developer's tax bill that is repaid over time. Currently, 22 states have active programs converting hundreds of millions a year in energy spending into capital investments to make projects more affordable, Key-Wallace said. Steve Duprey, a former Republican state chairman and Concord developer, said during a recent hearing that this will make projects more feasible for builders. With a $10 million project, Duprey said a lender might ask the developer to come up with $3 million as a down payment and finance the other $7 million in a first mortgage. With a $2 million energy portion of the project separated out, this would lower that mortgage to $5 million and make the energy spending like a tax lien, Duprey said. "As a result, a builder may only need to put down 15 to 20 percent," Duprey told Innis's committee. Duprey called it the "best tool to increase the amount of housing" and both profit and non-profit developers could make good use of it. A broad coalition of groups backed the bill, including the New Hampshire Homebuilders, New Hampshire Realtors, Clean Energy N.H., the N.H. Lodging & Restaurant Association, the N.H. Municipal Association and the New Hampshire Business and Industry Association (BIA). BIA officials announced a press conference for Tuesday to unveil the Housing Supply Coalition of 20 member groups that will outline their issue agenda for the 2025 legislative session. klandrigan@
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Bill could clear the way for doctors who sign up patients by subscription
Dr. Wendy Molaska of Fitchburg testifies on Feb. 12 in support of legislation to clarify that doctors charging patients under a monthly subscription program are not in the insurance business. (Screenshot/WisEye) Dr. Wendy Molaska is a Wisconsin family practice doctor, but her patients don't use their health insurance — if they have it — when under her care. Instead, Molaska's patients have a subscription for her services, paying $70 a month. They go to Molaska's office when they feel sick, need a checkup, or have some other routine medical concern. She'll see them as often as they need, she says — no extra charge. Molaska is a direct primary care practitioner. Direct primary care, DPC for short, is prepaid outpatient health care. While both the doctors who practice it and their patients are just a drop in the health care ocean, their numbers are growing. In back-to-back meetings last week, the health committees in both the Assembly and the Senate considered legislation to make it legally explicit that the subscription programs used by DPC doctors are not insurance plans and don't have to be regulated like insurance. The identical bills, AB-8 and SB-4, spell out some definitions, along with rights and standards, for direct primary care agreements and state that they are exempt from insurance law. More than half of states in the U.S. have similar laws. The concept won bipartisan support in the 2023-24 session of the Legislature but failed to make it to the governor's desk. 'In insurance, you risk-share,' said Dr. Nicole Hemkes, owner of a group of direct primary care clinics, Advocate MD, testifying at the Assembly hearing Wednesday. 'You're paying a bunch of money into a [pool] and then the insurance is paying out on claims.' Direct primary care is 'basically a transactional relationship where you're paying a monthly membership,' Hemkes said. 'This is the old school medicine of being able to actually take care of your patients the way they need to be taken care of,' Molaska told the Assembly Committee on Health, Aging and Long-Term Care. She testified that neither she nor patients have to deal with the question of what insurance covers and what it doesn't. The $70 monthly fee covers a broad range of in-office procedures and visits as frequent as a patient requires, she said. Prescriptions, which she can dispense, and lab tests are extra, but Molaska said in an interview that they are often much less expensive when paid for out of pocket rather than as part of an insurance plan. Molaska said there are about 100 direct primary care providers in Wisconsin, a number that has grown markedly starting in the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic. If each provider has 500 patients, a typical DPC caseload, that would mean 50,000 Wisconsin people have joined the trend from the patient side. In an interview, Molaska said that removing the uncertainty over whether regulators would try to apply the state's insurance law to their operation could help motivate more doctors to provide direct primary care. DPC practitioners say their approach is both cost-effective and patient-friendly. Hemkes said patients with high-deductible health insurance plans might forgo a routine visit to the doctor to avoid an out-of-pocket expense they can't afford. 'We are not trying to replace insurance,' Hemkes told Assembly members. Direct primary care '[is] meant to make health care more accessible to more people.' Some people opt for DPC as an alternative to a more expensive, comprehensive health plan, however. Molaska testified that in the Madison suburb of Fitchburg, where she practices, 'the number of people without health insurance is 7.4%. At my clinic, 41.3% don't have other health insurance.' Many low-wage service workers have employers who don't cover health care, and their own incomes are too high for Medicaid but not high enough for them to buy their own insurance, Molaska told the Wisconsin Examiner. With a direct primary care subscription, 'at least they're able to access primary care,' she said. For specialty care and hospitalization, patients are still likely to need health insurance or alternative forms of coverage of some kind. Nevertheless, Molaska said, her fixed fee covers as many non-specialist visits to her office as a patient might need to make, as well as being able to call or text for consultation. Molaska said the system has allowed her to limit the number of patients to about 500 people, in contrast to conventional medical groups where a single doctor's caseload can be two, three or even four times that many. Molaska said she calculated her monthly fee based on what existing DPC doctors were charging, the size that she chose for her caseload and her overhead costs and staff: two nurses, a certified medical interpreter and an office assistant. With direct care she doesn't have to hire someone for coding insurance claims or billing for visits, she observed. Some patients have health insurance that covers primary care, but choose a DPC provider instead, paying the monthly fee themselves — valuing the short wait time to get in and the longer and less-hurried visits, Molaska said. Evan Danells, a Madison chef and restaurant owner who also testified at the Assembly hearing, told lawmakers that many restaurant operators have profit margins too small to allow them to buy insurance for employees. Direct primary care made it possible for him to cover his employees for basic health care, he said. Danells is one of Molaska's patients. He said her much smaller caseload allowed for more personal care rather than rushed appointments with a doctor who would 'look at me like they're seeing me for the first time over and over again . . . because they just had 2,500 patients last year.' Hemkes said direct primary care doctors aim to make their services broadly affordable — not like medical practitioners who provide 'concierge medicine,' charging wealthy patients five-figure sums for special access. Another misconception, Hemkes said, is that direct primary care 'selects out healthy patients.' The legislation guards against that possibility with a provision stating the direct primary care providers 'may not decline to enter into or terminate a direct primary care agreement with a patient solely because of the patient's health status.' At Advocate MD, which has three clinics in the greater Madison area and one in Janesville, 'our patients in our practice run the spectrum from young, healthy people to older people with multiple chronic medical issues,' Hemkes testified. 'Having an hour-long visit with that patient is very useful to be able to provide comprehensive care to them, to help them navigate all their specialists.' The last time a direct primary care bill was before the state Legislature, in the 2023-24 session, it won unanimous support from Republicans and Democrats and cleared the Assembly on a voice vote. The legislation died in mid-2024, however, when the state Senate adjourned in the spring without taking it up. The 2023-24 session bill included a list of civil-rights protections for patients of DPC providers — one of them forbidding discrimination on the basis of 'gender identity.' Those words led two organizations to lobby against the legislation in 2024 and submit public hearing testimony opposing it. 'We have no objection to the effort to make direct primary care more accessible to Wisconsin residents. We do, however, object to the inclusion of gender identity in the non-discrimination clause,' stated Jack Hoogendyk of Wisconsin Family Action. The organization routinely opposes legislation guaranteeing the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming people and LGBTQ+ rights. The Wisconsin Catholic Conference also opposed the bill on the same grounds. In place of enumerating specific civil rights protections, the 2025 version of the legislation's nondiscrimination section states, 'Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the application of s.106.52 to a health care provider's practice.' The clause refers to Wisconsin's civil rights statute, which does not include specific language protecting gender identity. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Measure to lower Texas property taxes advances at State Capitol
The Brief Senate Bill 4 raising Homestead Exemption from $100,000 to $140,000 passed out Committee unanimously. If approved, the measure would lower School taxes $500 for the average homeowner. SB-4 would completely eliminate school tax bills for most Texas Seniors who own their homes. Funded by $2.9 billion from the state's $24 billion surplus. Headed to full Senate for consideration. AUSTIN, Texas - The continuing cry for relief from ever rising property taxes is fully underway at the State Capitol with particular focus on slashing the burden for seniors. "It is a sad situation that people lose their homes because they can't pay taxes and that is in fact the case," said Susan Spataro, a taxpayer advocate. "A lot of our seniors are moving into the homeless category unfortunately, because of restricted income and the costs and remaining in their home is so important to them," said Charles Scoma with Texas Silver Hair Legislature. The backstory Enter Houston State Senator Paul Bettencourt, author of SB-4, a measure aimed at investing $2.9 billion from the state surplus into elevating the current school tax Homestead "exemption" from $100,000 to $140,000 per year and lowering bills for millions of homeowners by an average of $500 while effectively eliminating the cost altogether for 80% of seniors. "It's part of, I think, the moral responsibility we have to keep seniors in their homes," said Bettencourt. "It allows our especially over 65 (homeowners) to continue to be able to afford to own their family home that they raised their children in, and I hope we are never going to hear those stories again that I'm going to have to sell this house because I can't afford the property taxes," said State Senator Mayes Middleton. What the other side is saying While SB-4 is drawing near unanimous bi-partisan support, some on the left suggested during Tuesday's Committee hearing that the emphasis on tax reduction is shortchanging other areas of profound need. "We think it's time to take a step back and consider whether we should be continuing to do more tax cuts, or should we think about some of the other priorities for our state, namely investing in our public schools, in our state workforce, in our infrastructure and our health care system," said Shannon Halbrook with the advocacy group, Every Texan. Dig deeper In what is labeled the "hold harmless" component, SB-4 reimburses Texas school districts every dollar granted homeowners in tax relief. SB-4 passed out of committee unanimously - and is now headed to a vote by the full Senate. The Source Information provided during a committee hearing held on Tuesday.
