In a recent column by Sen. Ben Nelson, he said the new health care law is projected to “actually reduce the budget deficit.”

“It will reduce the deficit not by reducing benefits but by reducing the growth in Medicare spending by doing such things as cutting overpayments to Medicare Advantage,” he said.

Only 14 percent of America’s senior citizens are aware of the fact that the health care law will reduce the deficit according to a new survey commissioned by the National Council on Aging.  Nelson said that survey also finds most seniors are confused about many important aspects of the new health reform law, including how it will affect their own Medicare coverage. 

The poll was conducted by Harris Interactive in early July of 636 adults age 65 and over. The Council on Aging identified the top 12 facts that every senior should know about the health reform law. They called it the “Straight Talk” poll and it revealed that only 17% of seniors knew the correct answers to more than half the factual questions, and only 9% knew the correct answers to at least two-thirds of the questions.

Even among seniors who considered themselves “very familiar” (9%) or “familiar” (12%) with the new law, correct answers were few and far between. Specifically the poll points out:

• Only 22% understood that the new law would not cut their basic Medicare benefits
• 14% were aware that the new law is projected to reduce the budget deficit
• 14% knew that the law does not cut Medicare payments to doctors
• 24% of seniors knew that it is projected to extend the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund
• 22% knew about improvements in chronic care
• 28% knew that the law improves the availability of long-term care at home
• 33% knew about the new, free yearly Medicare wellness visit

In response to these findings, Nelson said  the National Council on Aging has launched Straight Talk for Seniors on Health Reform.

“This is a national campaign to help seniors get the facts they need. It includes educational events, downloadable fact sheets, an interactive online quiz, detailed poll results, and presentations to help the aging network share health reform facts with the seniors they serve,” he said.

 All campaign materials can be found at http://www.ncoa.org/straighttalk.

  A key document summarizes 5 important facts that every senior should know about health care reform:

1. The law will not cut your basic Medicare benefits—and it will make some benefits better.
2. The law will reduce Medicare spending growth, extend Medicare solvency, and is projected to reduce the budget deficit.
3. The law will make it easier to receive and pay for long-term care at home.
4. The law will improve care for older adults in other ways.
5. The law will improve health insurance coverage for most younger Americans who don’t have Medicare.

Nelson is encouraging seniors to go on-line and take the survey themselves and find out the correct answers to each of the questions: http://www.ncoa.org/public-policy/health-care-reform/straight-talk/straight-talk-quiz.html.

In a recent story by Elizabeth Willis of the Battle Creek, Michigan Enquirer, she reports that Canadians familiar with North America’s largest oil pipeline operation, Enbridge Inc., say they are not surprised that the company has spilled oil again.

According to the article: “Enbridge, based in Calgary, last week reported that an estimated 819,000 gallons of crude oil had leaked from its 41-year-old pipeline into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. The Line 6B pipe carries crude from Indiana to Ontario.

 “As lawsuits begin to emerge, so has information about the company’s history of failed pipelines.

“Patrick Daniel, Enbridge president and chief executive officer, said Saturday there has “never” been a leak of this “consequence” in the company’s history.

“The spill is the largest for Enbridge in the United States by volume and the company has a history of spills throughout Canada and the U.S., according to the Polaris Institute, an Ottawa-based advocacy group for democratic social change.

“The institute reports that Enbridge was responsible for 610 spills that released more than 5.5 million gallons of oil between 1999 and 2008. The total is about half of what spilled from the Exxon Valdez after it ran aground in the Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989.

“The Michigan spill should be wake-up ca”ll for those who would allow Enbridge to build two 1,170 kilometer pipelines from the Alberta tar sands to the (British Columbia) coast,” the institute said on its website Wednesday. “The question is not ‘if’ a catastrophic spill will occur on this route, but ‘when’.”

As Congress continues to fail at  passing comprehensive national energy policy that adresses global warming, evidence continues to mount that the planet is warming at what some believe an accelerated rate.

Last week NOAA commented on the State of the Climate report that draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: “the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable.”

More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years.

Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, NOAA said the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world.

Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface, according to NOAA.  Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.

“For the first time, and in a single compelling comparison, the analysis brings together multiple observational records from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the ocean,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “The records come from many institutions worldwide. They use data collected from diverse sources, including satellites, weather balloons, weather stations, ships, buoys and field surveys. These independently produced lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion: our planet is warming.”

“Despite the variability caused by short-term changes, the analysis conducted for this report illustrates why we are so confident the world is warming,” said Peter Stott, Ph.D., contributor to the report and head of Climate Monitoring and Attribution of the United Kingdom Met Office Hadley Centre. “When we look at air temperature and other indicators of climate, we see highs and lows in the data from year to year because of natural variability. Understanding climate change requires looking at the longer-term record. When we follow decade-to-decade trends using multiple data sets and independent analyses from around the world, we see clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world.”

While year-to-year changes in temperature often reflect natural climatic variations such as El Niño/La Niña events, the report said changes in average temperature from decade-to-decade reveal long-term trends such as global warming. Each of the last three decades has been much warmer than the decade before. At the time, the 1980s was the hottest decade on record. In the 1990s, every year was warmer than the average of the previous decade. The 2000s were warmer still.

“The temperature increase of one degree Fahrenheit over the past 50 years may seem small, but it has already altered our planet,” said Deke Arndt, co-editor of the report and chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. “Glaciers and sea ice are melting, heavy rainfall is intensifying and heat waves are more common. And, as the new report tells us, there is now evidence that over 90 percent of warming over the past 50 years has gone into our ocean.”

More and more, Americans, according to NOAA, are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives.

To help keep citizens and businesses informed about climate, NOAA created the Climate Portal at http://www.climate.gov. The portal features a short video that summarizes some of the highlights of the State of the Climate Report.

State of the Climate is published as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society and is edited by D.S. Arndt, M.O. Baringer, and M.R. Johnson. The full report and an online media packet with graphics is available online: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate.