Friday, January 10, 2014
CONTACT ME AT: manessmorrison2@yahoo.com


News For The Day


Six questions still lingering in the George Washington Bridge fiasco – NBC

By Erin McClam, Staff Writer

It went on for almost two hours: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he was blindsided, betrayed, embarrassed, heartbroken, humiliated and sad. He said he had lost sleep. He fired a top aide. He called his own staff stupid.

What he did not do is resolve the mystery behind the closing of lanes at the George Washington Bridge in September, creating a monster traffic jam that turned the city of Fort Lee into a parking lot for four days.

State lawmakers say it appears to be an act of political payback but want to know more. They got no help when David Wildstein, a Christie appointee whose emails and texts place him in the middle of the scandal, pleaded the Fifth at an Assembly hearing Thursday.

It all leaves plenty of questions hanging in the bridge fiasco. Here are some of the most pressing:
1. How did this start?
Christie opened a press conference on Thursday by announcing that he had fired Bridget Kelly, his deputy chief of staff, for lying to him before he told the public in December that his staff was not involved in the lane closures.

In an email from August that was made public this week, Kelly appeared to set the process in motion when she wrote to David Wildstein, an executive at the bridge-controlling Port Authority: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
“Got it,” he wrote back.

The mayor of Fort Lee, a Democrat, had failed to endorse Christie for re-election. The exchange reads as if it wasn’t the first time that Kelly or Wildstein had heard or thought of such a plan. But it’s not clear whose idea it was in the first place.
Christie insisted that he had no knowledge of it. Kelly has not spoken publicly since the emails surfaced. And Christie himself said that he didn’t talk to her between learning of the emails on Wednesday morning and firing her on Thursday morning.
Besides the Assembly, investigations have been promised by the Port Authority, a U.S. Senate committee and Christie himself, and the U.S. attorney in Newark has opened an inquiry. The chairman of the Assembly’s transportation committee said Thursday night on MSNBC that the committee planned to subpoena Kelly.

2. What happens to Wildstein?
The attorney for David Wildstein, a former Chris Christie appointee, tells members of a New Jersey State Assembly committee why his client is pleading the Fifth.
Christie appointed Wildstein to his Port Authority job but took pains to distance himself on Thursday, saying that while the two had attended high school together, they were not friends. The governor pointed out that there were 1,800 students there at the time.

Christie said he believed they had reconnected in 2000, when Wildstein was working on a New Jersey Senate campaign, but he said some published accounts have suggested “an emotional relationship and closeness between me and David that doesn’t exist.”
Wildstein, appearing before the transportation committee, wouldn’t even answer basic questions about his employment history, saying he had a constitutional right to silence. The committee disagreed and held him in contempt.

John Wisniewski, the Democratic assemblyman who chairs the committee, said he plans to refer the charge to a county prosecutor. But he made clear that the committee isn’t finished with Wildstein and wants to know what he knows.

“It raises even more questions about what happened with these lane closings when it comes to finding out who knew what and when,” Wisniewski said in a statement Thursday.

3. How could Christie not have known? And if he didn’t, how did his office become so poisonous?

Christie said that he thought of his office as a family: “We work together and we tell each other the truth. We support each other when we need to be supported, and we admonish each other when we need to be admonished.”

His political opponents found it hard to believe that he could have been kept out of the loop about the lane closures. “He runs a paramilitary organization, very strict discipline,” Barbara Buono, the state senator whom Christie trounced in his re-election campaign last fall, said on MSNBC. “People don’t sneeze or go to the bathroom without asking Christie’s permission to.”

Even if Christie didn’t know, there are questions about whether his lieutenants bully his political opponents. Steve Fulop, the Democratic mayor of Jersey City, said again on Thursday that the governor’s office canceled meetings with his people after Fulop failed to endorse Christie’s re-election bid.

That seems to contradict Christie’s representation of the relationship during his press conference: “The fact of the matter is we’ve continued to work with Jersey City over the course of time since he’s been mayor.”

Fulop said on his Facebook page that it “couldn't have been a more distorted representation of the facts.” He added: “And just the start of it.”
A former New Jersey governor, Tom Kean, a Republican, questioned how it was possible that Kelly could have ordered the Port Authority to close the lanes with only a few people involved in the discussion.

On MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” he wondered “how that atmosphere was allowed to exist.”
“I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this,” he said.

4. What else is in the documents?
The emails and texts released so far are plenty damning — Wildstein referred to the Fort Lee mayor as “this little Serbian” and suggested he wasn’t bothered by schoolchildren caught in the jam because they belonged to Buono voters.
But what has been released publicly is only a small fraction of the thousands of pages of documents that the state Assembly is reviewing, and Wisniewski, the committee chair, said Thursday that he’s looking for more.

“We intend to continue our investigation, but this would all be made easier if Gov. Christie did the right thing and voluntarily released all communications so everyone could find out with certainty what happened,” he said.

It is still not publicly known, for example, whom Wildstein was texting with when he made the crack about the Buono voters.

5. What traffic study?
Bill Baroni, a top Christie appointee at the Port Authority, first told lawmakers that the lanes were closed as part of a traffic study. Police and the public were never told of such a study. Baroni later resigned.

On Thursday, Christie seemed to keep alive the possibility that a traffic study had something to do with it.
“I don’t know whether this was some type of rogue political operation that morphed into a traffic study or a traffic study that morphed into an additional rogue political — I don’t know,” he said.
He also said: “There still may have been a traffic study that now has political overtones to it as well.”

But the head of the Port Authority, who is not a Christie appointee, told state lawmakers in December that he knew of no such study, and no one has come forward with evidence of one.

6. What’s the damage for Christie among Republicans?
Christie is widely believed to be considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. But it remains to be seen how party leaders will judge his handling of the crisis.

House Speaker John Boehner was asked whether Christie’s response was sufficient and said: “I think so. I think so.” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was less charitable: He said it “reinforces a narrative that’s troublesome about the guy, he’s kind of a bully.”

Two possible opponents for Christie in the Republican primaries, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, both dodged questions about the New Jersey governor on Thursday. But Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, another potential candidate, offered this as he left a White House event:
“I don’t know who emailed who and who works for whom. I have been in traffic before, though, and I know how angry I am when I’m in traffic, and I’ve always wondered, ‘Who did this to me?’”

When a reporter asked whether the episode said anything about Christie’s leadership style, Paul took a pass. “Other people have to judge that,” he said. 


Key Players in the George Washington Bridge Scandal – NBC
A look at the main characters in the fiasco that began with the closing of two lanes in September


Chris Christie
At the time of the September 2013 George Washington Bridge toll closures, Christie, a 51-year-old Republican, was on his way to a landslide November re-election victory over Democratic state Sen. Barbara Buono. The eventual 22-point win in a largely Democratic state propelled Christie to the top of the list of potential Republican presidential candidates for 2016. He has framed that appeal as a result of his cooperation with members of the political opposition — and his image as a blunt-talking executive who is unafraid to make difficult decisions. The bridge scandal threatens to damage that reputation.

A former corporate lawyer, Christie first got into politics as a fundraiser for President George H.W. Bush. He ran for state senate and lost, but was later elected to the Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders. He ran for state Assembly and lost, then lost his bid for re-election to the county board.

Christie's political rise began after he returned to private practice and raised money for President George W. Bush, who nominated him to serve as New Jersey's U.S. attorney. He became a modern-day Eliot Ness, taking down dozens of corrupt politicians, including Gov. James McGreevey and Newark Mayor Sharpe James. Even then, he was accused of being a bully, and of awarding friends and allies with public contracts. In 2009, he upset billionaire incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine.
As governor, Christie made a reputation of slashing spending, antagonizing labor unions and attacking critics in town hall meetings, which his staff recorded for his official YouTube page. Those performances burnished his national profile. In 2012, he gave the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention.

On Thursday, seeking to tamp down the bridge scandal, Christie held a press conference in which he was uncharacteristically contrite and apologetic, saying he'd known nothing in advance about the toll closures, and had been misled about the involvement of members of his staff. Later in the day, he visited Fort Lee to apologize personally.

Bridget Anne Kelly
Kelly, 41, is the author of the most infamous email from the bridge scandal: "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

She lives in suburban Bergen County, where Fort Lee is located. At the time of the scandal, she served as Christie's deputy chief of staff for legislative and intergovernmental affairs, earning $114,000 a year. The governor fired her this week.
Christie appointed Kelly to the post in April, promoting her from an administration position in which she served as his liaison to local elected officials. Before that, Kelly handled outreach between Christie's office and the state legislature. Her prior government jobs were assisting state lawmakers.

David Wildstein
Wildstein, the official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who frequently corresponded with Kelly about the Fort Lee traffic problem, wrote in a text message that the students unable to get to school during the traffic jam "are the children of Buono voters," a reference to the Democratic lawmaker who ran against Christie last year.

Wildstein attended Livingston High School with Christie in the late 1970s. He briefly served as Livingston's mayor a decade later, then went into private business. He was not well known in New Jersey politics until the bridge scandal unfolded; he joined the Port Authority soon after Christie's first election — hired by Bill Baroni, a top Christie adviser who served as the agency's deputy executive director. When the $215,000-a-year appointment was announced, Wildstein was outed as the long-anonymous man behind a popular political gossip site called PolitickerNJ.

Wildstein's title was director of interstate capital projects, a position that drew little public scrutiny — until the scandal exposed him. Although he resigned in December from the Port Authority, Wildstein was called Thursday to testify to a state legislative committee, where he refused to answer questions.

Bill Baroni
Baroni, 42, one of Christie's most trusted confidantes, earned $289,667 a year as the Port Authority's deputy executive director until he stepped down last month amid the escalating bridge scandal. Christie had given Baroni the job soon after taking office in 2010.

Baroni arrived at the agency after seven years in the state Legislature, where he represented parts of central New Jersey. He is a Republican, but had a reputation for bipartisan dealmaking, and was popular among members of both parties.

He met Christie in the mid-1990s, when Christie was running for a spot on a county freeholder board. They became friends and by the time Christie was elected governor, Baroni was one of his highest-profile and most loyal aides.


Bill Stepien
Stepien, Christie's campaign manager, participated in the email and text-message chains that exposed the toll closures as politically motivated. At one point, he emailed Wildstein to call the mayor of Fort Lee "an idiot."

When he wasn't running Christie's campaigns, Stepien served as a deputy chief of staff in Trenton, and is credited for the idea of Christie's highly popular series of town-hall meetings.

Before joining Christie, Stepien worked on the presidential campaigns of Sen. John McCain and former Mayor Giuliani. He also managed several local New Jersey races, including Baroni's successful campaign for state Senate. Until this week, Stepien was in line to head the state Republican Party.

That opportunity vanished this week, after the emails became public, and Christie asked Stepien to withdraw himself from consideration. He also said he asked Stepien to withdraw from his position as a consultant to the Republican Governors Association, which Christie chairs.

Mark Sokolich
Sokolich, 49, is the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, the town on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge.

As trafficked stalled for hours at the bridge when the lanes were closed, it also clogged the streets of his tiny municipality. On Sept. 10, Sokolich, a lawyer, pleaded for help from Baroni in a text message. A couple days later, Sokolich asserted that the lane closures were "punitive." That claim marked the beginnings of a scandal that would grow over the next several weeks.

After the emails became public, Sokolich told MSNBC that Wildstein "deserves an a-- kicking."

On Thursday, Christie apologized to Sokolich and Fort Lee and said he would visit the town that day to deliver the message personally. Sokolich said he appreciated it, but the visit would be premature because there are so many outstanding questions. Christie went anyway.

David Samson

Samson, 74, Christie's handpicked chairman of the Port Authority, is a former New Jersey attorney general, having served in the administration of Democratic Gov. James McGreevey. He was Christie's 2009 campaign lawyer, and headed the governor-elect's transition committee.

Samson was pulled into the bridge scandal by an Wildstein email to Kelly that was made public this week. In the email, Wildstein mentioned the lifting of the toll closures after five days by a New York appointee to the Port Authority. "The New York side gave Fort Lee back all three lanes this morning," Wildstein wrote Kelly on Sept. 13. "We are appropriately going nuts. Samson helping us to retaliate."

In response, Samson said he was "extremely upset and distressed" over the emails. He denied having any knowledge of the closures until they were lifted.


Both of these articles, plus two others, are in the NBC website today. The way this scandal is unfolding does remind me of Watergate in the '70s. I will comment relatively little, but present all the articles that come out for your reading until the questions are all answered.

“That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.” Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 105–109. Chris Christie has a very disarming smile and forthright manner. I am hoping that he may possibly have been unaware of this long-planned dirty trick, but it doesn't look good so far. I will post other articles as they appear.





Tyson Foods changes pig care policies after NBC shows undercover video – NBC

By Anna Schecter


The nation’s largest meat producer has announced new animal care guidelines for its pork suppliers a month and a half after NBC News showed the company undercover video of workers on one of its farms kicking and hitting pigs and slamming piglets into the ground.

On Wednesday, Tyson Foods sent a letter to suppliers requiring that some farms stop using blunt force euthanasia to kill piglets and urging that all its suppliers keep sows in larger cages, install video cameras in sow farms, and adopt “pain mitigation” methods when castrating piglets or docking their tails.

In its letter, Tyson said it recognized that killing piglets with blunt force “has been historically acceptable” to the meat industry, “but may not match the expectations of today’s customers or consumers.”

“We’re trying to balance the expectations of consumers with the realities of today’s hog farming business,” said the letter, which was signed by a senior vice president and the vice president who runs the company’s Animal Well-Being Programs. “We look forward to working with you on our current challenges.”

Though the letter encourages all suppliers to adopt a different form of euthanasia, its order to end blunt force euthanasia applies only to contract farms, meaning farms where Tyson owns the animals and the farm owner supplies meat to the company under contract. All other guidelines in the letter are recommendations.

The head of the animal rights group that shot the undercover video applauded the company’s change in policy. "It’s heartening that Tyson has finally begun to address the rampant and horrific cruelty uncovered at its factory farm facilities by Mercy For Animals," said Nathan Runkle, executive director of the group.

Mercy for Animals
Undercover video shot by the advocacy group Mercy for Animals at West Coast Farms in Henryetta, Okla., allegedly shows workers hitting, throwing and kicking pigs.
“The announcement that Tyson is making significant animal welfare improvements, including urging its pork producers to move away from inherently cruel and restrictive gestation crates, signals an important new era and direction for the company,” said Runkle. “We urge Tyson to add more teeth to the new guidelines by making them a mandate for all of its pork producers, rather than a mere recommendation.”

Gestation crates are metal enclosures two feet wide and six-and-a-half feet long widely used by pig farmers to house sows during pregnancy. Gary Mickelson, director of public relations for Tyson Foods, said the company had “tried to make it clear that we have not taken a position against any particular type of sow housing, including gestation stalls.” Asked whether the new set of animal care policies was spurred by the MFA video, he said the timing “was not due to any one incident or organization.”

In November, Tyson Foods terminated its contract with West Coast Farms of Okfuskee County, Okla., after NBC showed the company video shot by an activist from Mercy for Animals. The activist worked undercover as a farmhand from mid-September to mid-October.

The undercover worker who shot the video, “Pete,” told NBC News that abuse was “commonplace and constant” at West Coast Farms. He said that it included hitting, kicking, throwing, striking animals with the edges of wooden boards, sticking fingers in their eyes, and leaving piglets to die slowly after they were slammed into the ground “in failed euthanasia attempts.” According to Pete, some of the piglets were alive 30 minutes after being slammed into the ground.

The owner of the farm said that the video showed "mistreatment" of animals and said he had taken action of his own. “I was stunned that anyone could be that callous in their treatment of any animal," said Lonnie Herring. "After viewing the video, I immediately returned to my farm and terminated the employees seen in the video."
Herring also said that his farm used approved methods of euthanasia on animals, and that the animals were euthanized in a humane fashion. He also said his workers were “trained and instructed” that they must verify an animal is dead “before [they] leave that animal.”

“It is a part of the business and there are prescribed methods of euthanasia and I follow those to a T,” said Herring.

Tyson Foods owned the sows and boars on the farm, while Herring owns the farm itself and provided meat to Tyson under contract.

More from NBC News Investigations:
Tyson Foods dumps pig farm after NBC shows company video of alleged abuse
Expert panel says undercover video shows abuse at pig farm
DiGiorno dumps dairy farm after NBC shows company video of alleged abuse



Tyson's Food is one owner who has changed its rules on how animals are treated, but I doubt that the whole farming industry will improve their practices unless they are specifically named in similar cases, or a law or ruling that targets all such behavior is made. I hope to see something more on this later.





Google sorry for Adolf Hitler gaffe on German map – NBC
By Andy Eckardt and Henry Austin


MAINZ, Germany -- Google apologized after its Internet mapping service temporarily renamed a popular Berlin square after Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler on Thursday.
Instead of Theodor Heuss Platz, the map named the street along one side of the eponymous square Adolf Hitler Platz after the Fascist leader.

“We were made aware of a wrong and inappropriate Berlin street name on Google Maps and have corrected this as quickly as possible,” the Internet search giant said in an email to NBC News. “We apologize for this error.”

I was at Adolf Hitler Square today—as of GoogleMaps. I thought sb. renamed it before the WWW https://t.co/mT5dal25zz pic.twitter.com/HSxUHZIEEC
— Nico Hagenburger (@Hagenburger) January 9, 2014

It did not say how long the error had been in place but local media reports suggest that it was online for a couple of hours.

The square carried Hitler's name after his rise to power in 1933 until the end of World War II. It had previously been known as Reichskanzlerplatz and the name reverted to that in 1945.

In 1963 it was renamed after the country’s first president, Theodor Heuss, who died that year.   

Google executives told Germany’s BZ newspaper that "they had no explanation for the incident, but are now investigating the error.” 

German Internet expert and blogger Sascha Lobo told NBC News it was probably a simple error caused by the use of the map marker tool. 

"The name Adolf Hitler Platz was then probably approved because it is historically correct," he said. "So in the end it might have been a simple error over the order of the names."


Hopefully no one at Google would have done this purposely. If it was a joke, it wasn't funny. There is too much activity by neo-Nazis in the last decade or so. They have a number of Internet sites. I don't see how anyone could praise Hitler in the light of his campaign against Jews and other minorities during the War. That was an example of true evil, and yet some US citizens rally behind it as they spread their doctrine of hatred.

They have the right to free speech here, of course, and as long as they don't libel anybody, threaten them or commit an assault, they can go on doing it in the US. I read about them and feel angry, but there is nothing to be done about it. I do think the hate crimes laws giving greater punishment for such assaults are a good thing. At least those people can be made to suffer for what they do.






Power play: Utilities want solar users to pay up – NBC
Mark Koba CNBC


The explosive growth of solar power -- a new rooftop system was installed every four minutes in 2013 -- has utility companies pushing in several states to scale back what they call unfair rate advantages that solar users have long received.

The debate centers on net metering, which requires utility companies to credit customers for solar energy that they generate in excess of their own usage. The credits were part of financial incentives to invest in solar energy.

Policies for net metering, which is used in 43 states, vary from state to state, but most credits are set at the local retail price for electricity. That bothers utilities, which contend that the retail price is set too high, resulting in excessive credits to solar users. Utilities want credits set by wholesale prices, which are much lower than retail.

"The principal issue is making sure everyone is paying a fair price for what they use," said Ted Carver, CEO and chairman of Edison International, the parent company of utility Southern California Edison. "We don't care where or who we buy the power from, but it should be purchased at the wholesale price."

But some experts say the mere fact that utilities—which generate $360 billion a year in energy sales—are battling with solar indicates the threat it now poses to them.
"The success of solar power is forcing utilities to rethink their business model and push for the changes," said Franc Del Fosse, an energy industry lawyer and partner at Snell & Wilmer. "If you have an individual putting solar panels on the roof, it's easy to suggest that a utility is making less money."

The effort for higher fees on solar panel users could backfire, said Alan Beale, general manager of SolarMax.

If the fees are too high, he said, "it will just delay ... the inevitable, and more companies and individuals will go to the independent energy producers."
According to Carver at Edison International, part of the problem is that many power users, such as apartment renters, lack access to solar energy, which creates a two-tier system that shifts higher costs to nonsolar users.

According to a policy paper from the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association, solar users avoid paying for the system's fixed costs but still take power from the grid when they need it, such as after sunset, when solar panels aren't generating. (Most solar users don't have solar storage capacity, the paper states.)

The solar industry seems willing to accept some changes but stops at what it sees as the utilities' exorbitant price proposals.

"Solar customers give much more valuable peak power to utilities for free during the day than they get back at night," said John Berger, CEO and founder of solar energy provider Sunnova. "Utilities are like socialist monopolies.They don't provide good service or pricing."

Utility companies are having some success getting net metering rules changed.
In California, the No. 1 solar state in panels installed, lawmakers let net metering continue but directed its public utility commission to devise a new program by 2017 to ensure that nonsolar customers aren't burdened unfairly in paying for the grid.
In Arizona, regulators voted in November to allow the largest utility to tack a monthly fee of $5 onto the bill of customers with new solar installations. Arizona Public Service originally sought a $50 surcharge.

Colorado's utility commission is considering a proposal to halve credits for solar energy households. Other states, including Louisiana and Idaho, are also contemplating changes in net metering rates.

Even some solar power users see change as necessary.
"I believe there's a way of restructuring metering rules and rate structures that won't impact the solar industry for the long term," said Karin Corfee, managing director of the energy practice for consulting firm Navigant, who has solar panels on her Danville, Calif., home.

Utility firms have valid cost issues, she said, but she is concerned that big rate increases could affect solar users' ability to pay off their energy investment.
"I figure I can pay it off in seven years," Corfee said. "But if decisions are made to shift the economics of my system ... that will be difficult."
Money is at the heart of solar energy growth.

Since 2008, the price of solar panels has fallen by 75 percent. The cost of installation has also declined as more contractors entered the market. Leasing options for users also fostered growth.

And Wall Street still likes solar. An estimated $13 billion was invested in such projects last year, 10 times as much as in 2007, according to GTM Research,
Even as they push for net metering changes, utilities are jumping on the solar bandwagon.

"We've invested in a solar distribution firm ourselves," said Carver.



This is a success story for alternative power sources. It took a long time for enough houses to put up solar power units on their roofs to make a difference, but it clearly is working now. I hope state governing bodies don't make it so easy on the utilities that the benefits to solar power users are denied. One of the predictable results of homeowners making their own power is to take away some of the monopoly of the utility companies and make them compete fairly. It also should continue to increase the number of homeowners who do invest in their own systems as they see it to be a good investment. "We've invested in a solar distribution firm ourselves," said Carver.” Solar cells are such a good thing, apparently, that some power utilities may begin to use them at least in part to replace coal and therefore reduce the CO2 released. That would be a Win for the environment.




Maryland's Bold Plan To Curb Hospital Costs Gets Federal Blessing – NPR
by Jay Hancock
­
Hospitals in Maryland may soon have an unusual, new way to make money.

Maryland health officials have reached an unprecedented deal to limit medical spending and abandon decades of expensively paying hospitals for each extra procedure they perform.

If the plan works, Maryland hospitals will be financially rewarded for keeping people out of the hospital — a once unimaginable arrangement.
"This is without any question the boldest proposal in the United States in the last half century to grab the problem of cost growth by the horns," said Uwe Reinhardt, a health care economist at Princeton University.

After months of negotiations with state and the federal officials, the hospitals also agreed that their revenue from all sources — private insurance, government and employers — will rise no faster than growth in the overall state economy.

Maryland regulators with the power to cap spending will enforce the agreement, which could serve as a model for other states and eventually the nation.
Enforcement muscle gives Maryland's deal a better chance to succeed than a similar measure passed last year in Massachusetts.

Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, is scheduled to announce the plan on Friday.
Hospital spending in Maryland grew twice as fast as the state's overall economy in the last decade, as hospitals added 18,000 jobs.

Starting this year, hospitals have agreed that their average spending per Maryland resident will grow by no more than half that rate. Specifically, statewide hospital revenue for inpatient as well as outpatient care will rise no more than 3.58 percent annually — the state's rate of per capita economic growth since 2002.

Carmela Coyle, CEO of the Maryland Hospital Association, called the plan "historic" and "a challenge," adding: "We needed to move away from a fee-for-service-driven health care system, where the incentive was to do more to be paid more, and instead move to a system where the incentives are aligned to what we all feel needs to be done."

The agreement had to be blessed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the Medicare program offering coverage to seniors and helps fund Medicaid care for the poor.

In a unique arrangement dating to the 1970s, HHS lets Maryland set prices paid to hospitals by Medicare and Medicaid — as well as by everybody else. While many argue the scheme has saved money, Medicare still pays Maryland hospitals substantially more than what it pays hospitals elsewhere.

To get HHS' approval, Maryland officials promised to slow Medicare spending growth more than in the rest of the country over the next five years, generating $330 million in federal savings.
Hospitals also agreed to sharply cut infections acquired inside the hospital and expensive readmissions of patients discharged up to a month earlier.
The fact that doctors and other community caregivers aren't part of the agreement, however, could hinder coordination, said Joseph Antos, a health economist at the American Enterprise Institute.

"This has some policy objectives, some measurable financial goals, that I think are very difficult to meet," Antos said. "It doesn't necessarily give the hospitals enough tools or the will to make all this work out."
But hospitals may have concluded that the Maryland plan offers more stability than possible alternatives.

Elsewhere, insurers and employers are starting to pit hospitals against each other, presenting the risk of "a fierce price war like the airlines," Princeton's Reinhardt said. "You could tell the hospitals in Maryland, 'Don't bellyache. You're no worse off than everyone else out there.' "


I hope truly needed medical care is not reduced by hospitals trying to rein in their expenditures. Otherwise, maybe it will bring prices down. At any rate, they hopefully will no longer be charging exorbitant prices like ten dollars for an aspirin or a bandage, and adding all those up to set the hospital charge. Putting all the hospitals under the same rules would tend, I think, to regulate costs equally from hospital to hospital, and overall lower the fees to the patient as well as to Medicare and Medicaid. “The fact that doctors and other community caregivers aren't part of the agreement, however, could hinder coordination, said Joseph Antos” This seems to mean that caregivers can still charge unchecked high prices. Hopefully, this plan will spread to other states.




­ Franklin McCain, One Of 'Greensboro Four,' Dies – NPR
by Mark Memmott
­
Franklin McCain, one of the "Greensboro Four" who in 1960 sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in North Carolina and launched a sit-in movement that would soon spread to cities across the nation, has died.

North Carolina A&T State University said Friday morning that McCain died Thursday "after a brief illness at Moses Cone Hospital in Greensboro."
Our colleagues at WUNC report that McCain had just turned 73. Other news outlets are reporting he was 71.

As the Winston-Salem Journal reminds its readers, "McCain was joined by Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr. (later known as Jibreel Khazan) and David Richmond" at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro on Feb. 1, 1960. They were there "to protest the chain's policy of refusing to serve food to blacks."
All four were freshmen at North Carolina A&T.

"The building," the Journal notes, "is now the site of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. The street south of the site has been named February One Place in commemoration of the event. A portion of the lunch counter where they sat is on exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C."
On its webpage about that counter, the Smithsonian writes that:
"On February 1, 1960, four African American college students sat down at a lunch counter at Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, and politely asked for service. Their request was refused. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. Their passive resistance and peaceful sit-down demand helped ignite a youth-led movement to challenge racial inequality throughout the South."

McCain once told NPR, as WUNC says, about how he overcame any fear about being arrested — or having something worse happen:
"I certainly wasn't afraid. And I wasn't afraid because I was too angry to be afraid. If I were lucky I would be carted off to jail for a long, long time. And if I were not so lucky, then I would be going back to my campus, in a pine box."

In it remembrance of McCain, the station adds this account of the historic day in 1960:
"McCain and his classmates walked into the store, purchased some items and then walked over to the segregated counter. McCain recalls:
" 'Fifteen seconds after I sat on that stool, I had the most wonderful feeling. I had a feeling of liberation, restored manhood; I had a natural high. And I truly felt almost invincible.'

"He hadn't even asked for service. When McCain and the others did, they were denied. A manager told them they weren't welcome, a police officer patted his hand with his night stick. The tension grew but it never turned violent.

"As McCain and the others continued to sit at the counter, an older white woman who had been observing the scene walked up behind him:
" 'And she whispered in a calm voice, boys, I'm so proud of you.'

"McCain says he was stunned:
" 'What I learned from that little incident was don't you ever, ever stereotype anybody in this life until you at least experience them and have the opportunity to talk to them."

"Woolworth's closed early and the four men returned to campus with empty stomachs and no idea about what they had just started. The next day another 20 students joined them and 300 came out by the end of the week. Word of the sit-ins spread by newspapers and demonstrations began in Winston-Salem, Durham, Asheville and Wilmington; within 2 months of the initial sit-in, 54 cities in nine different states had movements of their own.

"The Greensboro lunch counter desegregated six months later."
The Observer says that "McCain went on to graduate from N.C. A&T with degrees in chemistry and biology and worked for nearly 35 years as a chemist and sales representative at the Celanese Corporation in Charlotte. ... He also remained active in civil rights efforts."

According to Civil Rights Greensboro, a website devoted to the history of the civil rights movement in that city, Richmond died in 1990.


Despite the conflicts that continue among some people to this day, the Civil Rights Movement was a cultural war that was needed, and whose time had come. I was in the ninth grade in school and reading the newspapers already, when this lunch counter sit in occurred, so I was both frightened and excited. I had nothing against black people and thought that the Jim Crow south was totally unfair to them, so I empathized with their actions.

The times of my growing up were times of great change, and as such were destabilizing, but I sympathized with those who wanted to make our democracy more fully free and fair, and as a college student watched the progress of events. My years at the University of North Carolina opened my eyes further, and I became a full-blown Liberal, joining the National Organization For Women and the Democratic Party. I have never missed voting in a national election. I consider that to be my duty as a citizen. I'm proud to have lived through these events.

At this time these early crusaders are one by one coming to the end of their lives. I believe we should honor them as we continue to support progress between the whites and other races. There are still changes to be made.