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Labels: Health care
Where There's a Healthcare Policy Sickness, There's a Solution. Or Two. Or Three.
One feature of being something of an expert is that you occasionally get unsolicited advice. Sort of like the company that is approached by someone with the newest mousetrap. In my case, it's health care policy.
I haven't written on the subject in a while, but I am listed in a few references, and of course there are some entries on this site on the subject. So last month I received a note for a mish-mash of a universal plan from someone I had never heard of. It looks like he has printed the same note on another blog that permits comments.
I don't have time to give it a review, so I'd say, "Get your own blog, sir." Same to the gentleman who sent me his 4 page proposal (single space, few paragraphs) to me via the USPS.
Managing Drought Through Economic Incentives.
Will the simple truth that the more something costs the less of it people will buy actually catch up with water policy?
The seems to be the case in Longmont, Colorado. A panel of water experts went to the town, and the local paper offered a brief write-up of the meeting of the Geological Society of America.
But first, there are some serious numbers associated with drought:
Drought affects 30 percent of the nation and has an annual economic impact of $6 billion to $8 billion, according to Don Wilhite, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center in Nebraska. Since 1988, Congress has appropriated $30 billion for drought relief, he added.
Droughts are usually addressed through command-and-control measures: bans on washing cars, bans on irrigating lawns, and so forth. But there's a role for prices, as we read:
In case of a drought, the city will implement different levels of water restrictions depending on the condition, he said.
In the most extreme case, the city restricts the use of water by residents and increases water rates. At the lowest level, the city restricts its municipal and school use only, and residents are not required to restrict their water use.
The account doesn't say what qualifies as "the most extreme case."
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More Information, Please.
"Don't underestimate the intelligence or overestimate the knowledge of the voter." -- Newt Gingrich (nearly exact quote)
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States Should Develop Web Site for Financial Disclosure.
Who would have thunk it? A solid reform proposal to come out of this Congress.
Looking to the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Brandon Dutcher (vice president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs) call for a state-level database.
Writing in the October 18 edition of The Oklahoman, the two argue that "Taxpayers deserve to know the name of every recipient of state dollars, as well as the amount received in each of the past 10 years, and an itemized breakdown of each transaction, including the state agency dispensing the money and a description of the purpose of the funding."
Sounds like an idea that should be replicated across the states.
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Is Football a Metaphor for Governance?
From a fundraising letter I've seen: American football "with its incessant meetings on the field, its time outs, and its perpetual governing from the sidelines is perhaps good preparation for a life of government interference in everything you do."
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Labels: Education
Just when you thought Detroit Public Schools Couldn't Get Worse . . .
The man whose poor record of managing the Detroit Public Schools led to his departure, and the state of Michigan's taking over the system is now a candidate ... for the job of superintendent.
Labels: Charter schools, Education
Ohio Charter Schools are Safe, For Now.
In Ohio, charter schools turned back a constitutional challenge. See State ex rel. Ohio Congress of Parents & Teachers v. State Bd. of Edn (PDF), in which the plaintiffs alleged four complaints:
(in the summation of the law firm Jones Day, which defended charter schools)
"1) [charter schools] are not part of the 'common system' of public education,
(2) render the public school system less than 'thorough and efficient,'
(3) take local property taxes from traditional school districts, and
(4) may not be supported by the state due to the fact that the schools are operated by private individuals."
Labels: Charter schools, Education
Are Public School Districts Constitutionally Protected from Charter Schools?
That's the question that is posed in Ohio, where community schools, as they are known, face legal challenges.
A challenge on the grounds of the state constitution was rejected on a close vote early last month.
See (PDF) State ex rel. Ohio Congress of Parents & Teachers v. State Bd. of Edn
Labels: Education, School choice
No Child Left Behind on a Big Scale.
In theory, under No Child Left Behind, a student who attends a school with persistently lousy performance will eventually get the chance to attend another school, even a private one. I don't know if that's actually happened, however.
On the other hand, Ohio has taken steps to allow students, now, to take advantage of school choice. Under the Educational Choice Scholarship Program, students who attend failing schools have an out. They must attend a school building that has been in "academic emergency" or "academic watch" for three years.
Of course, the program has been opposed by the teachers union, which is all for protecting jobs, even if it means denying opportunities to students. You might not know, however, that the state's association of school boards also opposes EdChoice.
No Speech for Pharma?
First it was getting price-controlled drugs from Canada. Now, notes the Twin Cities blog Speed Gibson, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minnesota) wants a two-year ban on pharmaceutical advertising.
Pawlenty's press release notes that "The United States is the only industrialized country that permits drug companies to advertise directly to consumers."
Yes, and the United States is also the leading country in the world in drug development.
Speed Gibson's blogger asks a good question: "And by the way, what happens at the end of two years? It might as well be made permanent now, unless the Courts find the courage to invoke the First Amendment."
With the various rights that have been "discovered" in recent years, I would be surprised if "the right to information" doesn't trump Pawlenty's ill-advised idea.
(This is old news that got lost in the publishing queue. Given Governor Pawlenty's recent movement towards a government-centered health care system, it's as timely as ever.)
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"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve
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