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Newspaper Articles
Walt Pelett, the owner and founder of City Liquidators reads 3 newspapers a day. Below you can find the articles he finds interesting.
Ten GOP Heath Ideas for Obama
Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal - 2010-02-10; Page A19'If you have a better idea, show it to me." That was President Barack Obama's challenge two weeks ago to House Republicans regarding health-care reform. He has since called for a bipartisan forum, not to start over on health reform but to "move forward" on the "best ideas that are out there."
The best ideas out there are not those that were passed by the House and Senate last year, which consist of more spending, more regulations and more bureaucracy. If the president is serious about building a system that delivers more quality choices at lower cost for every American, here's where he should start:
Chad Crowe
• Make insurance affordable. The current taxation of health insurance is arbitrary and unfair, giving lavish subsidies to some, like those who get Cadillac coverage from their employers, and almost no relief to people who have to buy their own. More equitable tax treatment would lower costs for individuals and families. Many health economists conclude that tax relief for health insurance should be a fixed-dollar amount, independent of the amount of insurance purchased. A step in the right direction would be to give Americans the choice of a generous tax credit or the ability to deduct the value of their health insurance up to a certain amount.
• Make health insurance portable. The first step toward genuine portability—and the best way of solving the problems of pre-existing conditions—is to change federal policy. Employers should be encouraged to provide employees with insurance that travels with them from job to job and in and out of the labor market. Also, individuals should have the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines. When insurers compete for consumers, prices will fall and quality will improve.
• Meet the needs of the chronically ill. Most individuals with chronic diseases want to be in charge of their own care. The mother of an asthmatic child, for example, should have a device at home that measures the child's peak airflow and should be taught when to change his medication, rather than going to the doctor each time.
Having the ability to obtain and manage more health dollars in Health Savings Accounts is a start. A good model for self-management is the Cash and Counseling program for the homebound disabled under Medicaid. Individuals in this program are able to manage their own budgets and hire and fire the people who provide them with custodial services and medical care. Satisfaction rates approach 100%, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
We should also encourage health plans to specialize in managing chronic diseases instead of demanding that every plan must be all things to all people. For example, special-needs plans in Medicare Advantage actively compete to enroll and cover the sickest Medicare beneficiaries, and stay in business by meeting their needs. This is the alternative to forcing insurers to take high-cost patients for cut-rate premiums, which guarantees that these patients will be unwanted.
• Allow doctors and patients to control costs. Doctors and patients are currently trapped by government-imposed payment rates. Under Medicare, doctors are not paid if they communicate with their patients by phone or e-mail. Medicare pays by task—there is a list of about 7,500—but doctors do not get paid to advise patients on how to lower their drug costs or how to comparison shop on the Web. In short, they get paid when people are sick, not to keep them healthy.
So long as total cost to the government does not rise and quality of care does not suffer, doctors should have the freedom to repackage and reprice their services. And payment should take into account the quality of the care that is delivered. Once physicians are liberated under Medicare, private insurers will follow.
• Don't cut Medicare. The reform bills passed by the House and Senate cut Medicare by approximately $500 billion. This is wrong. There is no question that Medicare is on an unsustainable course; the government has promised far more than it can deliver. But this problem will not be solved by cutting Medicare in order to create new unfunded liabilities for young people.
• Protect early retirees. More than 80% of the 78 million baby boomers will likely retire before they become eligible for Medicare. This is often the most difficult time for individuals and families to find affordable insurance. A viable bridge to Medicare can be built by allowing employers to obtain individually owned insurance for their retirees at group rates; allowing them to deposit some or all of the premium amount for post-retirement insurance into a retiree's Health Savings Account; and giving employers and younger employees the ability to save tax-free for post-retirement health.
• Inform consumers. Patients need to have clear, reliable data about cost and quality before they make decisions about their care. But finding such information is virtually impossible. Sources like Medicare claims data (stripped of patient information) can help consumers answer important questions about their care. Government data—paid for by the taxpayers—can answer these questions and should be made public.
• Eliminate junk lawsuits. Last year the president pledged to consider civil justice reform. We do not need to study or test medical malpractice any longer: The current system is broken. States across the country—Texas in particular—have already implemented key reforms including liability protection for using health information technology or following clinical standards of care; caps on non-economic damages; loser pays laws; and new alternative dispute resolution where patients get compensated for unexpected, adverse medical outcomes without lawyers, courtrooms, judges and juries.
• Stop health-care fraud. Every year up to $120 billion is stolen by criminals who defraud public programs like Medicare and Medicaid, according to the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association. We can help prevent this by using responsible approaches such as enhanced coordination of benefits, third-party liability verification, and electronic payment.
• Make medical breakthroughs accessible to patients. Breakthrough drugs, innovative devices and new therapies to treat rare, complex diseases as well as chronic conditions should be sped to the market. We can do this by cutting red tape before and during review by the Food and Drug Administration and by deploying information technology to monitor the quality of drugs and devices once they reach the marketplace.
The solutions presented here can be the foundation for a patient-centered system. Let's hope the president has the courage to embrace them.
Mr. Gingrich is former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and founder of the Center for Health Transformation. Mr. Goodman is president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis.
By NEWT GINGRICH AND JOHN C. GOODMAN
Arrogance always gets its comeuppance
Excerpt from The Oregonian - 2010-01-21; Page B5
James Huffman
Democrat determination to ram health care reform through Congress, despite falling voter support (now at 38 percent according to Rasmussen Reports) and the stunning Republican victory in Massachusetts, brings to mind Sen. J. William Fulbright's 1967 book, "The Arrogance of Power." Fulbright, in opposing the Vietnam War, argued that power all too often begets arrogance. Not surprisingly, other authors have borrowed the title to condemn other abuses of power. In 2000, Anthony Summers' book by the same title chronicled President Richard Nixon's path from arrogance to resignation. If the first year of the Obama presidency and Democratic control of Congress is any indication, another book about the arrogance of power is not far off.
The arrogance of the Obama administration is different from that which led America into Vietnam. Our president is anything but arrogant in dealing with foreign nations. To the contrary he's prone to kowtow to dictators and apologize to everyone. On the other hand, there is an arrogance, not unlike that reflected in Nixon's enemies list, in the administration's attack on Fox News and its tendency to disparage those who disagree with its agenda.
But most troubling is the arrogance of power arising from a supreme self-confidence in the president and congressional leadership that they know what is best for the country. In pursuit of its agenda, the Democratic leadership continually offends what Judge Learned Hand called the "spirit of liberty" by being "too sure" of themselves.
First it was unprecedented spending to stimulate the economy. Now it's health care reform that a majority of Americans oppose. Next it will be more stimulus followed by cap and trade without regard for its effects on a still struggling economy. All of this is done on a "trust us" basis, despite promises of unparalleled transparency.
As health care legislation is rushed to meet a purely political deadline, members of Congress don't even know who is negotiating. We are asked to believe that the considerable costs of expanded coverage will be offset by savings in Medicare, though most experts agree it is destined for bankruptcy. We are told the stimulus package has created and saved hundreds of thousands of jobs, while unemployment has worsened. We are promised that cap and trade will result in a bright future of abundant jobs, with no accounting for existing jobs lost or the massive subsidies currently required to make green industry competitive. Implausible claims abound as the national debt soars, but proponents of these economy-killing initiatives are blinded by their new-found power.
From demanding the firing of General Motors' CEO, to forcing company mergers, to buying Senate votes in Louisiana and Nebraska, to mandating that every American purchase health insurance, the president and Democratic leadership have demonstrated no sense of limits. Serious scholars believe much of this is unconstitutional. Such claims are unlikely to prevail in the courts, but constitutional government depends as much on self-restraint as on judicial enforcement of constitutional limits. Sadly, self-restraint is scarce in the Obama administration and Democratic leadership in Congress.
This is the arrogance of power of which Fulbright warned. But there is good news. The people can revoke power from the arrogant. They did in ending the Vietnam War. They did in forcing Nixon to resign. They did in the Democratic victory of 2008. And they did two days ago in electing a Republican to fill a Senate seat many assumed to be a Democratic entitlement. The arrogance of power does real harm to real people. But it dooms itself in a country where the people still believe that liberty matters and the powers of government are limited.
By James Huffman
James Huffman is the Erskine Wood Sr. Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School.
A Paulson Tries to Cement Portland Stadium Deals
Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal - 2009-10-23; Page A8Former Treasury Secretary's Son Is Pitching Plans for Soccer and Baseball Facilities in a Region That Has Balked Before
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Henry Merritt Paulson III has bought the sports teams. Now he needs to sell the stadium ideas.
The 36-year-old son of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came to Portland two years ago after marketing jobs with HBO on Demand and the National Basketball Association. He bought a home in the city's swank Lake Oswego district. He bought two minor-league franchises -- soccer's Portland Timbers and baseball's Portland Beavers -- in a 2007 package deal that people in the industry valued at about $16 million. His father is a minority shareholder.
From left, Merritt Paulson III, his father, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella before a game in Washington in 2008.
The two teams have been sharing downtown Portland's cozy PGE Park, built in 1926, which the Beavers first called home in 1956. Now, Mr. Paulson is trying to button down a deal to turn the park into a full-time soccer venue after next year's baseball season, and a separate deal with the neighboring city of Beaverton for a new baseball stadium.
The stadium deals' combined price tag of $90 million could be a tough sell in a state with 12.2% unemployment and in a city that has never been generous with financing for sports teams. Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen was on his own -- to the tune of $233 million -- in 1993, when building Portland's Rose Garden, home of the city's sole big-league team, the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers. Nor did the city lend a hand when the Rose Garden filed for bankruptcy in 2004. Mr. Allen eventually bought the arena out of bankruptcy, again without assistance from any public entity.
Against that backdrop, the drama of Mr. Paulson's stitching together two stadium deals has been unfolding in regular installments in the Portland media.
In July, Portland's City Council signed off on a $31 million deal to renovate the Beavers' stadium. Mr. Paulson's real-estate-development firm, Peregrine LLC, will make an $8 million cash contribution, plus prepay some $11 million in rent and anticipated ticket taxes over the life of a 25-year lease from the city.
Meanwhile, after Mr. Paulson unsuccessfully pitched various plans for the new baseball stadium in two Portland neighborhoods, he has moved on to the suburbs. Last week, Beaverton pledged to back a $59 million deal for a new ballpark, offering to cover 60% of the cost. Mr. Paulson is contributing the rest.
"While the public will pay 60% of the stadium, the public will own 100% of the stadium -- forever," Mr. Paulson told a gathering at Beaverton's City Hall last week. His commitment, he explained, would come from a combination of $9 million paid upfront for initial construction, plus annual payments totaling at least $13.8 million over 25 years, which he said would be "personally guaranteed." Mr. Paulson also pledged to pay for any cost overruns in excess of $2 million and commit to keep the Beavers in Beaverton through 2035.
Beaverton says it will raise property taxes and fees on electricity and natural gas to meet obligations to finance the new stadium. Mayor Denny Doyle calculated that would cost the average Beaverton property owner less than $60 a year to finance $50 million in revenue bonds, while providing hundreds of new jobs. He said that would stimulate the local economy by roughly $17 million annually.
Time may not be on the Beavers' side, however. Mr. Paulson, who declined to comment through a spokesman, says he needs to start construction by February to have a stadium ready for the team's 2011 season.
Opponents of the Beaverton plan have 60 days to raise just more than 2,000 signatures on a petition that would force a vote authorizing the city council to float revenue bonds for a stadium. It isn't clear how long beyond that it would take to hold a referendum.
"This is not a good deal for Beaverton," said Russ Draper, a member of the group called LOVV, for Let Our Voters Vote. "Mr. Paulson's group gets the profits and all the taxpayers get is the bill."
By JOEL MILLMAN