Wellpoint's business model is uncommonly concentrated in the individual and small-group markets. Those are the exact markets that health-care reform will drastically change. Those are the markets where people get rejected for preexisting conditions, where insurers spend 30 cents of every premium dollar on administration and where rate hikes are volatile and constant. Health-care reform wants to change all of that, and if it does, Wellpoint's business model will be changed, too.
Wellpoint's "2.2 million individual members do leave it somewhat exposed to the 80% individual [Medical Loss Ration] floor contemplated in the Senate bill and Federal oversight of rating action proposed by the President," continues the analysis. In English, that means the bill will force Wellpoint to spend at least 80 cents of every premium dollar on medical care for its customers, and it means that regulators aren't likely to let Wellpoint jack prices up by 25 percent with no warning or reason. It also means that Wellpoint is not spending that much of premiums on medical care and is not keeping its rates under control now. (It's possible that "rating" is referring to regulations on things like age discrimination and preexisting conditions in this context. It's not clear from the writing, but it doesn't change the point: The bill regulates those practices, too.)
But we still can't have a conversation about actually removing the insurance industry from our health care system, and industry that provides no care and has proven that it cannot control cost increases. We can't have that conversation because we might be called "socialists" by mouthpieces that the insurance industry has bought, mouthpieces in Congress and the media.
Socialists. Some are so worried about being called socialist that they do not want to change the current failed system.
Toyota was forced today to turn over to United States congressional investigators a "smoking gun" memo produced by its own factory workers that warned management as far back as 2006 of systemic threats to car safety.
The two-page memo, which was drafted by a group of long-term Toyota employees and sent directly to Katsuaki Watanabe, the president of the company in 2006, condemns "safety sacrifices" made by the company in pursuit of profit.
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The memo warned that an increasing number of problems that led to vehicle recalls were arising not at the manufacturing level, but in the planning stages.
Despite the strenuous efforts of Toyota's management to convince motorists and congressional investigators that it has now solved the problems that afflict its accelerators and brakes, the company has still not entirely rid itself of the suspicion that there are fundamental flaws in its planning systems.
Bruce Bourgoine pointed to this opinion piece in the WSJ, and I wanted to highlight it here, since one of the chief proponents of the failed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program, Dr. Diane Ravitch, explains why she changed her mind about school reform:
NCLB received overwhelming bipartisan support when it was signed into law by President Bush in 2002. The law requires that schools test all students every year in grades three through eight, and report their scores separately by race, ethnicity, low-income status, disability status and limited-English proficiency. NCLB mandated that 100% of students would reach proficiency in reading and math by 2014, as measured by tests given in each state.
Although this target was generally recognized as utopian, schools faced draconian penalties-eventually including closure or privatization-if every group in the school did not make adequate yearly progress. By 2008, 35% of the nation's public schools were labeled "failing schools," and that number seems sure to grow each year as the deadline nears.
Since the law permitted every state to define "proficiency" as it chose, many states announced impressive gains. But the states' claims of startling improvement were contradicted by the federally sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Eighth grade students improved not at all on the federal test of reading even though they had been tested annually by their states in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Rep. Henry Joy (R-Crystal) renews call for dividing Maine by introducing a bill to create the "state of Northern Massachusetts would include the counties of York, Cumberland, Androscoggin, Sagadahoc, Lincoln, Waldo, Knox and Kennebec. Hancock County would be split in half," adding also a coastal strip of Washington County, leaving the rest to remain "the real" Maine (from a press release).
This is, of course, about local control. I wonder how much of the tax dollars generated in the southern half of the state end up in Northern Maine. Perhaps Rep. Joy would be willing to explain that to us.
The filing deadline for party candidates for Federal, State, and local offices is Monday, 15 March.
Dirigo Blue will run a straw poll for readers to pick the Democratic and Republican nomination, but today's poll asks which candidates will NOT make the filing deadline.
If there are enough participants, perhaps I'll offer a prize for the person that is most accurate and first in - one of those fine Dirigo Blue coffee mugs or something.
So, fill out the poll form, but also list your picks in a comment in order to qualify. I'll close the competition Monday morning at 8:00 a.m.
Update: My apologies - it should read Rosa Scarcelli in the poll. I'll note that she has already turned in petitions, as has Paul LePage.
Israel's decision to approve new East Jerusalem houses effectively prevents any peace negotiations from taking place, the Palestinian Authority said on Tuesday, following an Interior Ministry statement released earlier authorizing 1,600 new housing units.
Earlier Tuesday, the Interior Ministry approved the building of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, with a ministry official saying the plan will expand the ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighborhood to the east and to the south.
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Meir Margalit, Meretz's representative to the Jerusalem city council, claimed that the statement was meant to disrupt a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, saying that he had "no doubt that the timing isn't coincidental," calling the announcement Interior Minister "Eli Yishai's answer to Netanyahu's willingness to renew indirect peace talks with the Palestinians."
"The fact that Eli Yishai couldn't restrain himself for another two-three days until Biden left Israel means his intention was to slap the U.S. administration in the face," Margalit said, adding that the announcement was "a provocation to the U.S. and to the prime minister."
It really is time for our government to force Israel to stop building on occupied lands. Period.
The alleged mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings is believed to have been killed in a shoot-out with Indonesian police on the outskirts of Jakarta today.
Dulmatin, nicknamed "the Genius", was an explosives expert who was believed to have set off one of the Bali bombs with a mobile phone, as well as helping to assemble the massive car bomb used in the attacks, which killed 202 people.
The shoot-out happened during a morning raid on a house in Pamulang city, west of the Indonesian capital. Police said the raid, which comes two weeks before a visit by President Obama, targeted Dulmatin and two other senior members of the militant Islamist organisation Jemaah Islamiyah.
Proponents of legislation that would require employers to offer workers paid sick days have amended the bill to exempt smaller businesses and to reduce the number of sick days employees can earn each year. AJ Higgins at MPBN had much more on this last night here.
But the fate of the bill remains unclear in the face of strong opposition from the business community and some lawmakers. Members of the Legislature's Labor Committee are expected to vote on the measure, LD 1665, this Thursday.
As originally introduced, the bill would have required businesses with 25 or more employees to offer one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours worked, or up to six days a year. Smaller businesses would be required to offer up to three days of paid sick leave annually.
There is a move "to render God's word into modern English without liberal translation distortions." The Conservative Bible Project is behind it, and this example of the adulteress story (John 8:1 - 11) shows how it's done - simply remove the parts that don't agree with current conservative thinking. Done!
And 25 people have downloaded the Dirigo Blue app to their iPhones; pretty amazing.
Tom Tomorrow reminds us that less than seven months ago, the NYTimes had this to report on negotiations on the health insurance reform bill:
Hospital industry lobbyists, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of alienating the White House, say they negotiated their $155 billion in concessions with Mr. Baucus and the administration in tandem. House staff members were present, including for at least one White House meeting, but their role was peripheral, the lobbyists said.
Several hospital lobbyists involved in the White House deals said it was understood as a condition of their support that the final legislation would not include a government-run health plan paying Medicare rates - generally 80 percent of private sector rates - or controlled by the secretary of health and human services.
"We have an agreement with the White House that I'm very confident will be seen all the way through conference," one of the industry lobbyists, Chip Kahn, director of the Federation of American Hospitals, told a Capitol Hill newsletter.
SARAH!: My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not - this was in the '60s - we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn't that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.
Defying a sustained barrage of mortars and rockets in Baghdad and other cities, Iraqis went to the polls in strength on Sunday to choose a new Parliament meant to outlast the American military presence here.
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The shrugging response of voters could signal a fundamental weakening of the insurgency's potency. At least 38 people were killed in Baghdad. But by day's end, turnout was higher than expected, and certainly higher than in the last parliamentary election in 2005, marred by a similar level of violence.
Official results are not expected for at least a few days.
At issue in the referendum is the £3.48 billion lost by more than 400,000 savers when Icesave failed in October 2008. The British and Dutch governments covered these losses but want the money back from Iceland.
n the eyes of Icelanders facing repayments equivalent to more than £10,000 a head, their economy will be crippled for decades by the burden. But without an agreement, Iceland will be unable to raise loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or succeed in its bid for fast-track membership of the European Union.
The federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contract payments, grants and other benefits over the past decade to foreign and multinational American companies while they were doing business in Iran, despite Washington's efforts to discourage investment there, records show.
That includes nearly $15 billion paid to companies that defied American sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil and gas reserves.
State officials and energy experts argue that the Gulf of Maine is an ideal place for massive wind farms that would be extremely difficult if not impossible to build on land near people's homes.
But hundreds of massive wind turbine platforms and all of the gear-snagging cables that likely would come with them could affect fish and Maine's commercial fishing industry.
George LaPointe, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said the reality is that the industries are going to have to learn to coexist in areas of the gulf.
"It will take a lot of work," LaPointe said, "but we think it is work that needs to be done."
Marcy Wheeler, aka emptywheel, has this great post Clarance Thomas' revenge, in which she not only describes Thomas' views on torture (he approves), but his the list of his former clerks that helped mold the illegal torture policy in the Bush administration, beginning with John Yoo.
Like most districts in Maine, RSU 13 (the consolidation of SAD 5 and 50 - Rockland, Thomsaston, and other coastal towns), has a shortfall is the upcoming budget - of $3 million, we are told. And to meet that, massive cuts are proposed, in order to cap property tax increases at 3 percent:
More than 21 teaching positions, more than 20 support staff positions, several administrative posts and 24 stipend jobs would be eliminated under a budget being developed by the Regional School Unit 13 administration.
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The proposed administrative cuts include the elimination of the Gilford Butler School principal. Under the proposal, the principal of the St. George School would also be principal for Gilford Butler. The elimination of the MacDougal School principal post was already expected with the decision by the board and public to close the Rockland elementary school. One of two district business manager positions would be eliminated but it has been vacant since the retirement of John Spear.
One administrative assistant to the superintendent would also be eliminated. Lucarelli announced that Sharon Spaulding, who has served every superintendent in SAD 5 and now RSU 13 for 35 years, is retiring and her position would be the post eliminated. Josephine Talbot, secretary at the high school, is also retiring and her position would be eliminated.
The teaching positions that would be eliminated include ones in kindergarten, second grade, third grade and fourth grade at the South School in Rockland. Art, English and math teaching positions at Rockland District High School are also on the cutting block.
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A gifted and talented district-wide teaching post would be eliminated as would positions for an alternative education teacher at the middle school, an elementary librarian and a social worker -- all in the former SAD 5 schools.
There is little question that public education in Maine is expensive. For most communities, between 65 and 75 percent of the school budget is tied to personnel. The logical conclusion is to look at personnel costs for relief.
It is true that if Maine's policy-makers are truly serious about reducing the cost of public education, they need to make significant changes in today's public school mission. Our contemporary school mission includes a wide range of mandated social and educational services not present 50 years ago.
The cost of education is directly related to mandates from all branches of government. In addition, local school boards have contributed, too.
What programs or services are we willing to give up in an effort to reduce costs? The answer to this question is extremely difficult for policy-makers. For every program addition, there is an advocacy group supporting "what is best for children."
For example, are we prepared to give up social workers in schools who provide a population of students with critical support? Do we need to provide students with comprehensive health education? What about industrial arts or the visual and performing arts? Should education's mission be limited to the core subjects of reading, writing, math, science and social studies?
In 1818, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
"The objects of... primary education [which] determine its character and limits [are]: To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; to enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts in writing; to improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; to understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; to know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains, to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment; and in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed."
A good education is the foundation on which life's decisions are made. As Richards noted in his opinion piece, and which anyone who has spent time in an average school in Maine knows, the burdens placed on public schools have increased tremendously in the last 50 years (or in my case, 43 years since I enter Kindergarten). This, at a time when there has been a dramatic shift in the types of employment available to graduates - long gone are the jobs where below average reading and reasoning skills were acceptable.
So where does that leave us? Will we find the resources to prepare today's children for the 21st Century, a global marketplace?
The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tonnes of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13 million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 3m hectares of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world's most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.
The 1,000 hectares of land which contain the Awassa greenhouses are leased for 99 years to a Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, one of the 50 richest men in the world. His Saudi Star company plans to spend up to $2bn acquiring and developing 500,000 hectares of land in Ethiopia in the next few years. So far, it has bought four farms and is already growing wheat, rice, vegetables and flowers for the Saudi market. It expects eventually to employ more than 10,000 people.
But Ethiopia is only one of 20 or more African countries where land is being bought or leased for intensive agriculture on an immense scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.
CHARLIE ROSE: Commercial real estate, what are we looking at.
ELIZABETH WARREN: Oh golly -- 2,988 banks that by the terms of their own regulators are too concentrated in commercial real estate. These are the medium size banks. By the end of this year, half of all commercial real estate loans will be underwater, and they are coming in '11, '12 and '13.
The reason this is such a bad problem anyway -- think about that, nearly 3,000 banks out of a total of 8,000 -- it's the very banks that do
small business lending who are about to get socked in the nose on real estate, commercial real estate losses.
ROSE: So we'll see banks going under because they've got too many loans out there are not being repaid?
WARREN: We're seeing banks that don't want to lend because they see every dollar that comes in the door and say I've got to hold on to it to try to fill my commercial real estate hole or else I will be gone.
Watch the whole thing. And how nice is it to watch an interview on a set with nothing in the background but black? No need for flashing lights and graphics, and no crawl along the bottom. Focus.
I have the feeling that those that promote or condone the use of torture think that if they should ever be tortured, that they would have the inner fortitude to withstand it. This belief in their own courage allows them to rationalize that torture is not inhumane, acceptable, even lawful.
But a new, large-scale survey finds that only one in 14 teachers thinks it [standardized testing] is a "very accurate measure" of teacher performance. They give more credence to kids' evaluations, actually.
"For me, student achievement means performing at levels which will prepare (students) for college and for the real world - it doesn't necessarily mean which band on the standardized test they're performing at," says Cate Dossetti, an English teacher at Fresno, Calif., High School.
But ratings on such tests, she says are "a lot easier to measure."
For the past year, this Bible Belt city of 200,000 has been consumed by a culture clash between Repent Amarillo and their targets, a list that includes everything from gay bars to liberal churches. For the Route 66 swingers, Grisham's "special forces" have been a near-constant presence. Jobs have been lost, families estranged, assault charges filed and businesses shuttered. So far, no public official has stood up to defend these businesses, which operate legally. To the contrary, Repent Amarillo has managed to turn the city's own laws and employees into an effective weapon. Amarillo, it turns out, doesn't have the stomach to stick up for gays, swingers, strippers or even Unitarians. Absent a peacekeeper, the conflict might end up being settled the old-fashioned way, frontier-style. "This will not end until somebody gets hurt, either us or them," one swinger warns.
Last night on All Things Considered there was this story about Word is Out, a film about lesbians and gays in the late 1970's. It's important to review works like this, since it reminds that homosexuals were not able to live openly in most of America like they are today. A fascinating piece.
In the last few elections, Maine has seen a huge influx of money from interest groups from away that have attempted to influence the vote. Two recent examples include Question 1 in 2009, in which the Mormon front group National Organization for Marriage (NOM) dumped nearly $2 million into the successful effort to overturn the law allowing same-sex couples to marry, and also the repeal of the beverage tax, Question 1 in 2008; in that campaign, hundreds of thousands of dollars poured in from the beverage industry, with the Pepsi Bottling Group contributing at least $616,000, while Coca Cola Bottling of New England contributed at least $336,000 (link).
That is all likely to change, especially in light of the recent ruling from the Supreme Court extending rights of personhood to corporations. David Sirota points to this news story from California, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to spend millions to pass Prop. 16:
PG&E Corp. plans to spend $25 million to $35 million on a California ballot initiative that would limit the ability of cities and counties to go into the public power business, the company reported Friday.
PG&E Corp. is the parent company of the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. utility, which is fighting efforts by Marin County and San Francisco to start their own power agencies. Proposition 16, on the June 8 ballot, would force any local governments that want to establish electrical service to win the approval of two-thirds of their voters first.
So far, PG&E has supplied all of the proposition campaign's funding, totaling $6.5 million. On Friday, PG&E took the unusual step of telling its investors that funding for the campaign would affect the company's 2010 profits, lowering them by 6 to 9 cents per share. PG&E Corp. provided the information while reporting its 2009 profit ($1.22 billion, down from $1.34 billion in 2008) and giving its forecast for 2010.
PG&E describes the ballot initiative as a matter of fairness.
See this link for more information on Prop 16. That PG&E is backing Prop 16 can only be described as chutzpah, since California tax payers bailed the public utility out of bankruptcy in 2001 (a bankruptcy brought about by Enron).
All Mainers should take note of this move by a corporate giant to influence how the people of California govern themselves.
One of the worst massacres of the 20th-century came back to haunt international politics yesterday when a powerful Washington panel voted to call the murder of about 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey "genocide".
After more than three hours of debate, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs narrowly approved a resolution calling on President Obama to "characterise the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide".
The vote went ahead despite last-minute pleas from the White House and State Department and triggered a furious reaction from Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister.
The BBC has this story on the disturbing birth defects now found in Fallujah, which may be caused by the remnants of spent U.S. ordinance from the battle there. This report is not for those easily bothered (h/t Harry Shearer).
The ship's owner and operator, Louis Cruise Lines, said the vessel was struck on Wednesday by three "abnormally high" waves more than 10 metres (33ft) high that broke glass windshields in the forward section. Two people died and 14 were hurt, the company said.
Marta de Alfonso, an oceanographer with the Spanish government, said large waves were common in the Mediterranean but ones that size occurred only once or twice a year.
Cremex said he did not see the waves himself but later viewed the damage. "It was spectacular," he told Associated Press as passengers sunned themselves on deck in Barcelona's port the day after the accident.
The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on "fear" of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."
The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how "ego-driven" wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and "tchochkes."
The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.
You can watch the power point presentation here. Page 19 shows that the RNC is targeting Maine's open gubernatorial seat.
We'll be live blogging tonight's Democratic Gubernatorial Forum hosted by the South Portland Dems. If you can't make it there, you can live stream it here: click on SP-TV Live, the last item in the menu blue box.
The Forum begins at 7:00. Make some popcorn, pour a beverage, and join in with your comments.
Update: Pat McGowan had a prior commitment, and so is not there. Hopefully, since the next So Po Forum is a month off, he can make it then.
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