Latest news with #DonBeyer
Bloomberg
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Democrats Urge Rubio to Not Fire Diplomats, End Hiring Freeze
Scores of congressional Democrats are urging Secretary of State Marco Rubio to abandon plans to shrink the State Department workforce, end a hiring freeze and resume offering the Foreign Service Officer Test three times a year. Sixty House lawmakers, led by Representative Don Beyer of Virginia, wrote that reports the Trump administration plans to terminate 700 Foreign Service officers currently assigned within the US would deprive the country of much-needed expertise at a time when diplomats are particularly needed.
Newsweek
17-06-2025
- Health
- Newsweek
Medicare Update: Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Expand Health Care Program
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have reintroduced the Choose Medicare Act, a proposal that would allow individuals and employers to voluntarily enroll in a new, expanded version of Medicare. Democratic Representatives Jimmy Gomez of California and Don Beyer of Virginia led the unveiling of the new version of the bill in the House on Tuesday, while Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Chris Murphy of Connecticut introduced companion legislation in the Senate last week. The proposed legislation would establish "Part E," a self-funded Medicare plan to be offered alongside private insurance in all state and federal marketplaces, giving Americans and businesses a public option for comprehensive health coverage. Why It Matters The move to expand Medicare comes as millions of Americans remain uninsured or face financial instability due to high medical costs. While current Medicare eligibility is primarily for individuals aged 65 and older or those with certain disabilities who are younger, the Choose Medicare Act aims to provide a voluntary public insurance option to anyone, regardless of age or employment status. What To Know Medicare "Part E" would be self-sustaining, funded entirely by premiums, and available through all existing state and federal health exchanges. According to the legislation's sponsors, all employers could choose to offer Medicare Part E as a workplace benefit, in addition to, rather than as a replacement for, existing insurance plans. Individuals not covered by employer insurance could also opt in directly. Part E would provide all of Medicare's traditional benefits, incorporate the Affordable Care Act's ten essential health benefits, guarantee access to reproductive health services (including abortion), and protect patients with pre-existing conditions from discrimination. The legislation caps annual out-of-pocket spending for traditional Medicare recipients, expands premium assistance eligibility without income limitations, and allows existing Affordable Care Act subsidies to be applied to Medicare Part E premiums. Medicare would be required to negotiate drug prices under Part E, a measure intended to lower prescription costs for all enrollees. Representative Jimmy Gomez speaks at a rally outside the U.S. Capitol on April 10, 2025. Representative Jimmy Gomez speaks at a rally outside the U.S. Capitol on April 10, Fair Share America The bill is co-sponsored by Democratic Senators Tammy Baldwin (WI), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Cory Booker (NJ), Tammy Duckworth (IL), Jack Reed (RI), Brian Schatz (HI), Tina Smith (MN), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), and Dick Durbin (IL), as well as Representatives Jared Huffman (CA), LaMonica McIver (NJ), and Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC). Public support has come from groups including Families USA, MoveOn, the American Federation of Teachers, the Center for Medicare Advocacy, and the Center for Health and Democracy. However, some have concerns that the legislation overly romanticizes Medicare, which has widespread issues, still, according to Chris Fong, the CEO of Smile Insurance and a Medicare specialist. "The members of the House and Senate who are proposing the legislation are not considering the inefficiencies of Medicare. They seem to be romanticizing Medicare to be the perfect system, which it is not," Fong told Newsweek. Medicare, on its own, is an 80/20 insurance plan, where members are responsible for about 20 percent, plus deductibles, with no maximum out-of-pocket protection, Fong said. And Medicare also does not cover prescription drugs, which must be covered under an additional private insurance policy. "If something like this were to pass, it would be a very dramatic change to the health insurance of all Americans," Fong said. "It has many positives, but I think the path to passing legislation like this has many challenges and it would be unlikely for this to pass." On the other side of the political aisle, Republicans have pushed for $2 trillion in mandatory spending reductions. For both Medicaid and Medicare, that could translate to major cuts, although Republicans have been vocal about not actively reducing benefits. "The president has said, for example, that he doesn't want to touch Medicare and saying don't cut benefits to beneficiaries," Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy told CNBC in April. "Let's look at Medicare. Is there some way that we Medicare so that benefits stay the same? But that is less expensive, more efficient, I would say that there is, and that's where our opportunity lies," Cassidy said. What People Are Saying Representative Jimmy Gomez, in a statement: "I got pneumonia when I was seven years old, and my family almost went bankrupt because we were uninsured. Today too many families are still one medical emergency away from financial crisis. Our bicameral legislation lets every American opt into Medicare — which is affordable, effective, and trusted — and we're going to keep fighting until everyone has access to the care they need." Representative Don Beyer, in a statement: "Our bill would give all Americans access to Medicare, one of the most popular and successful health care delivery programs in history. Allowing employers and the general public the option to choose Medicare would fill many of the gaps in our health care system, get more people covered, and make the nation healthier. Every American should be able to access affordable, quality health care, and this bill represents the kind of bold action required to make that a reality for all." Chris Fong, the CEO of Smile Insurance and a Medicare specialist, told Newsweek: "An expansion of Medicare with Part E could increase the concerns over the long-term financial sustainability of the Medicare program. The Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund is projected to be depleted by 2036. If Part E were to be approved, then there would need to be additional funding to maintain the current Medicare benefits." Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: "The proposal made in the bill isn't far removed from similar calls for Medicare for all in the past. It would expand Medicare to being an option for all Americans and would allow it to be offered by online marketplaces and through employers as an option. "While the bill may have a hard time gaining traction under current leadership, it is important to note some medical facilities have actually been more supportive of these measures than you would think. "With private insurers becoming harder in some situations to get reimbursement from, some hospitals and clinics would rather work with Medicare as they know the odds are higher of getting paid." What Happens Next The Choose Medicare Act faces consideration in both chambers of Congress, with further debate and potential amendments expected in committee before any possible floor votes. Lawmakers have not announced a date for further action. However, the legislation is unlikely to move forward in the near term, as Republicans control both chambers of Congress. "I think this is still in its early stages of the legislative process," Fong said. "The bill still needs a lot more work to determine feasibility. Also, there would need to be significant increases in federal tax revenue or reappropriation from other federal allocations. I would say this is an interesting development but there is still a lot of work to be done."
The Hill
12-06-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Democrat asks Bessent if US should prepare for sweeping Trump tariffs
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) asked the secretary if Americans should prepare for the kind of sweeping tariffs President Trump threatened earlier this year if trade deals don't come to fruition in the next few weeks.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The AI lobby plants its flag in Washington
Top artificial intelligence companies are rapidly expanding their lobbying footprint in Washington — and so far, Washington is turning out to be a very soft target. Two privately held AI companies, OpenAI and Anthropic — which once positioned themselves as cautious, research-driven counterweights to aggressive Big Tech firms — are now adding Washington staff, ramping up their lobbying spending and chasing contracts from the estimated $75 billion federal IT budget, a significant portion of which now focuses on AI. They have company. Scale AI, a specialist contractor with the Pentagon and other agencies, is also planning to expand its government relations and lobbying teams, a spokesperson told POLITICO. In late March, the AI-focused chipmaking giant Nvidia registered its first in-house lobbyists. AI lobbyists are 'very visible' and 'very present on the hill,' said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) in an interview at the Special Competitive Studies Project AI+ Expo this week. 'They're nurturing relationships with lots of senators and a handful of members [of the House] in Congress. It's really important for their ambitions, their expectations of the future of AI, to have Congress involved, even if it's only to stop us from doing anything.' This lobbying push aims to capitalize on a wave of support from both the Trump administration and the Republican Congress, both of which have pumped up the AI industry as a linchpin of American competitiveness and a means for shrinking the federal workforce. They don't all present a unified front — Anthropic, in particular, has found itself at odds with conservatives, and on Thursday its CEO Dario Amodei broke with other companies by urging Congress to pass a national transparency standard for AI companies — but so far the AI lobby is broadly getting what it wants. 'The overarching ask is for no regulation or for light-touch regulation, and so far, they've gotten that," said Doug Calidas, senior vice president of government affairs for the AI policy nonprofit Americans for Responsible Innovation. In a sign of lawmakers' deference to industry, the House passed a ten-year freeze on enforcing state and local AI regulation as part of its megabill that is currently working through the Senate. Critics, however, worry that the AI conversation in Washington has become an overly tight loop between companies and their GOP supporters — muting important concerns about the growth of a powerful but hard-to-control technology. 'There's been a huge pivot for [AI companies] as the money has gotten closer,' Gary Marcus, an AI and cognitive science expert, said of the leading AI firms. 'The Trump administration is too chummy with the big tech companies, and basically ignoring what the American people want, which is protection from the many risks of AI.' Anthropic declined to comment for this story, referring POLITICO to its March submission to the AI Action Plan that the White House is crafting after President Donald Trump repealed a sprawling AI executive order issued by the Biden administration. OpenAI, too, declined to comment. This week several AI firms, including OpenAI, co-sponsored the Special Competitive Studies Project's AI+ Expo, an annual Washington trade show that has quickly emerged as a kind of bazaar for companies trying to sell services to the government. (Disclosure: POLITICO was a media partner of the conference.) They're jostling for influence against more established government contractors like Palantir, which has been steadily building up its lobbying presence in D.C. for years, while Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft — major tech platforms with AI as part of their pitch — already have dozens of lobbyists in their employ. What the AI lobby wants is a classic Washington twofer: fewer regulations to limit its growth, and more government contracts. The government budget for AI has been growing. Federal agencies across the board — from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to the IRS and the Department of Veterans Affairs — are looking to build AI capacity. The Trump administration's staff cuts and automation push is expected to accelerate the demand for private firms to fill the gap with AI. For AI, 'growth' also demands energy and, on the policy front, AI companies have been a key driver of the recent push in Congress and the White House to open up new energy sources, streamline permitting for building new data centers and funnel private investment into the construction of these sites. Late last year, OpenAI released an infrastructure blueprint for the U.S. urging the federal government to prepare for a massive spike in demand for computational infrastructure and energy supply. Among its recommendations: creating special AI zones to fast-track permits for energy and data centers, expanding the national power grid and boosting government support for private investment in major energy projects. Those recommendations are now being very closely echoed by Trump administration figures. Last month, at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas, David Sacks — Trump's AI and crypto czar — laid out a sweeping vision that mirrored the AI industry's lobbying goals. Speaking to a crowd of 35,000, Sacks stressed the foundational role of energy for both AI and cryptocurrency, saying bluntly: 'You need power.' He applauded President Donald Trump's push to expand domestic oil and gas production, framing it as essential to keeping the U.S. ahead in the global AI and crypto race. This is a huge turnaround from a year ago, when AI companies faced a very different landscape in Washington. The Biden administration, and many congressional Democrats, wanted to regulate the industry to guard against bias, job loss and existential risk. No longer. Since Trump's election, AI has become central to the conversation about global competition with China, with Silicon Valley venture capitalists like Sacks and Marc Andreessen now in positions of influence within the Trump orbit. Trump's director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy is Michael Kratsios, former managing director at Scale AI. Trump himself has proudly announced a series of massive Gulf investment deals in AI. Sacks, in his Las Vegas speech, pointed to those recent deal announcements as evidence of what he called a 'total comprehensive shift' in Washington's approach to emerging technologies. But as the U.S. throws its weight behind AI as a strategic asset, critics warn that the enthusiasm is muffling one of the most important conversations about AI: its ability to wreak unforeseen harm on the populace, from fairness to existential risk concerns. Among those concerns: bias embedded in algorithmic decisions that affect housing, policing, and hiring; surveillance that could threaten civil liberties; the erosion of copyright protections, as AI models hoover up data and labor protections as automation replaces human work. Kevin De Liban, founder of TechTonic Justice, a nonprofit that focuses on the impact of AI on low income communities, worries that Washington has abandoned its concerns for AI's impact on citizens. 'Big Tech gets fat government contracts, a testing ground for their technologies, and a liability-free regulatory environment,' he said, of Washington's current AI policy environment. 'Everyday people are left behind to deal with the fallout.' There's a much larger question, too, which dominated the early AI debate: whether cutting-edge AI systems can be controlled at all. These risks, long documented by researchers, are now taking a back seat in Washington as the conversation turns to economic advantage and global competition. There's also the very real concern that if an AI company does bring up the technology's worst-case scenarios, it may find itself at odds with the White House itself. Anthropic CEO Amodei said in a May interview that labor force disruptions due to AI would be severe — which triggered a direct attack from Sacks, Trump's AI czar, on his podcast, who said that line of thinking led to 'woke AI.' Still, both Anthropic and OpenAI are going full steam ahead. Anthropic hired nearly a dozen policy staffers in the last two months, while OpenAI similarly grew its policy office over the past year. They're also pushing to become more important federal contractors by getting critical FedRAMP authorizations — a federal program that certifies cloud services for use across government — which could unlock billions of dollars in contracts. As tech companies grow increasingly cozy with the government, the political will to regulate them is fading — and in fact, Congress appears hostile to any efforts to regulate them at all. In a public comment in March, OpenAI specifically asked the Trump administration for a voluntary federal framework that overrides state AI laws, seeking 'private sector relief' from a patchwork of state AI bills. Two months later, the House added language to its reconciliation bill that would have done exactly that — and more. The provision to impose a 10 year moratorium on state AI regulations passed the House but is expected to be knocked out by the Senate parliamentarian. (Breaking ranks again, Anthropic is lobbying against the moratorium.) Still, the provision has widespread support amongst Republicans and is likely to make a comeback.
Politico
06-06-2025
- Business
- Politico
The AI lobby plants its flag in Washington
Top artificial intelligence companies are rapidly expanding their lobbying footprint in Washington — and so far, Washington is turning out to be a very soft target. Two privately held AI companies, OpenAI and Anthropic — which once positioned themselves as cautious, research-driven counterweights to aggressive Big Tech firms — are now adding Washington staff, ramping up their lobbying spending and chasing contracts from the estimated $75 billion federal IT budget, a significant portion of which now focuses on AI. They have company. Scale AI, a specialist contractor with the Pentagon and other agencies, is also planning to expand its government relations and lobbying teams, a spokesperson told POLITICO. In late March, the AI-focused chipmaking giant Nvidia registered its first in-house lobbyists. AI lobbyists are 'very visible' and 'very present on the hill,' said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) in an interview at the Special Competitive Studies Project AI+ Expo this week. 'They're nurturing relationships with lots of senators and a handful of members [of the House] in Congress. It's really important for their ambitions, their expectations of the future of AI, to have Congress involved, even if it's only to stop us from doing anything.' This lobbying push aims to capitalize on a wave of support from both the Trump administration and the Republican Congress, both of which have pumped up the AI industry as a linchpin of American competitiveness and a means for shrinking the federal workforce. They don't all present a unified front — Anthropic, in particular, has found itself at odds with conservatives, and on Thursday its CEO Dario Amodei broke with other companies by urging Congress to pass a national transparency standard for AI companies — but so far the AI lobby is broadly getting what it wants. 'The overarching ask is for no regulation or for light-touch regulation, and so far, they've gotten that,' said Doug Calidas, senior vice president of government affairs for the AI policy nonprofit Americans for Responsible Innovation. In a sign of lawmakers' deference to industry, the House passed a ten-year freeze on enforcing state and local AI regulation as part of its megabill that is currently working through the Senate. Critics, however, worry that the AI conversation in Washington has become an overly tight loop between companies and their GOP supporters — muting important concerns about the growth of a powerful but hard-to-control technology. 'There's been a huge pivot for [AI companies] as the money has gotten closer,' Gary Marcus, an AI and cognitive science expert, said of the leading AI firms. 'The Trump administration is too chummy with the big tech companies, and basically ignoring what the American people want, which is protection from the many risks of AI.' Anthropic declined to comment for this story, referring POLITICO to its March submission to the AI Action Plan that the White House is crafting after President Donald Trump repealed a sprawling AI executive order issued by the Biden administration. OpenAI, too, declined to comment. This week several AI firms, including OpenAI, co-sponsored the Special Competitive Studies Project's AI+ Expo, an annual Washington trade show that has quickly emerged as a kind of bazaar for companies trying to sell services to the government. (Disclosure: POLITICO was a media partner of the conference.) They're jostling for influence against more established government contractors like Palantir, which has been steadily building up its lobbying presence in D.C. for years, while Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft — major tech platforms with AI as part of their pitch — already have dozens of lobbyists in their employ. What the AI lobby wants is a classic Washington twofer: fewer regulations to limit its growth, and more government contracts. The government budget for AI has been growing. Federal agencies across the board — from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to the IRS and the Department of Veterans Affairs — are looking to build AI capacity. The Trump administration's staff cuts and automation push is expected to accelerate the demand for private firms to fill the gap with AI. For AI, 'growth' also demands energy and, on the policy front, AI companies have been a key driver of the recent push in Congress and the White House to open up new energy sources, streamline permitting for building new data centers and funnel private investment into the construction of these sites. Late last year, OpenAI released an infrastructure blueprint for the U.S. urging the federal government to prepare for a massive spike in demand for computational infrastructure and energy supply. Among its recommendations: creating special AI zones to fast-track permits for energy and data centers, expanding the national power grid and boosting government support for private investment in major energy projects. Those recommendations are now being very closely echoed by Trump administration figures. Last month, at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas, David Sacks — Trump's AI and crypto czar — laid out a sweeping vision that mirrored the AI industry's lobbying goals. Speaking to a crowd of 35,000, Sacks stressed the foundational role of energy for both AI and cryptocurrency, saying bluntly: 'You need power.' He applauded President Donald Trump's push to expand domestic oil and gas production, framing it as essential to keeping the U.S. ahead in the global AI and crypto race. This is a huge turnaround from a year ago, when AI companies faced a very different landscape in Washington. The Biden administration, and many congressional Democrats, wanted to regulate the industry to guard against bias, job loss and existential risk. No longer. Since Trump's election, AI has become central to the conversation about global competition with China, with Silicon Valley venture capitalists like Sacks and Marc Andreessen now in positions of influence within the Trump orbit. Trump's director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy is Michael Kratsios, former managing director at Scale AI. Trump himself has proudly announced a series of massive Gulf investment deals in AI. Sacks, in his Las Vegas speech, pointed to those recent deal announcements as evidence of what he called a 'total comprehensive shift' in Washington's approach to emerging technologies. But as the U.S. throws its weight behind AI as a strategic asset, critics warn that the enthusiasm is muffling one of the most important conversations about AI: its ability to wreak unforeseen harm on the populace, from fairness to existential risk concerns. Among those concerns: bias embedded in algorithmic decisions that affect housing, policing, and hiring; surveillance that could threaten civil liberties; the erosion of copyright protections, as AI models hoover up data and labor protections as automation replaces human work. Kevin De Liban, founder of TechTonic Justice, a nonprofit that focuses on the impact of AI on low income communities, worries that Washington has abandoned its concerns for AI's impact on citizens. 'Big Tech gets fat government contracts, a testing ground for their technologies, and a liability-free regulatory environment,' he said, of Washington's current AI policy environment. 'Everyday people are left behind to deal with the fallout.' There's a much larger question, too, which dominated the early AI debate: whether cutting-edge AI systems can be controlled at all. These risks, long documented by researchers, are now taking a back seat in Washington as the conversation turns to economic advantage and global competition. There's also the very real concern that if an AI company does bring up the technology's worst-case scenarios, it may find itself at odds with the White House itself. Anthropic CEO Amodei said in a May interview that labor force disruptions due to AI would be severe — which triggered a direct attack from Sacks, Trump's AI czar, on his podcast, who said that line of thinking led to 'woke AI.' Still, both Anthropic and OpenAI are going full steam ahead. Anthropic hired nearly a dozen policy staffers in the last two months, while OpenAI similarly grew its policy office over the past year. They're also pushing to become more important federal contractors by getting critical FedRAMP authorizations — a federal program that certifies cloud services for use across government — which could unlock billions of dollars in contracts. As tech companies grow increasingly cozy with the government, the political will to regulate them is fading — and in fact, Congress appears hostile to any efforts to regulate them at all. In a public comment in March, OpenAI specifically asked the Trump administration for a voluntary federal framework that overrides state AI laws, seeking 'private sector relief' from a patchwork of state AI bills. Two months later, the House added language to its reconciliation bill that would have done exactly that — and more. The provision to impose a 10 year moratorium on state AI regulations passed the House but is expected to be knocked out by the Senate parliamentarian. (Breaking ranks again, Anthropic is lobbying against the moratorium.) Still, the provision has widespread support amongst Republicans and is likely to make a comeback.
