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Massachusetts has the most expensive family health insurance premiums in the country, according to a new analysis that highlights the stateâs challenge in trying to rein in medical costs after passage of a landmark 2006 law that mandated coverage for nearly everyone.
via www.boston.com
Looks like that reform just isn't working out.
That's a question that will undoubtedly and forever be answered in the negative, because the goalposts are constantly moving. But it does appear that, here and now, we may need to do more.
In the Everett Herald, Michelle Dunlop reports on a meeting hosted by the Snohomish County Council to consider what steps the state might take to secure the second 787 production line. Ideas covered the waterfront - more marketing, education and infrastructure improvements, training programs and the like.
What's the company want?
For its part, Boeing hasn’t finalized its legislative priorities for 2010, said Dave Schumacher, the company’s director of governmental affairs.
But “it’s very much a business climate agenda,” Schumacher said.
Last year, Boeing pushed the Legislature to consider reducing the burden on businesses in unemployment insurance and workers compensation costs. Like its unions, Boeing also favors improvements in education and transportation.
And in the Puget Sound Business Journal, Deirdre Gregg and Urvaksh Karkaria report on Atlanta's successful wooing of the Seattle biotech firm Dendreon.
Seattle-based Dendreon Corp.’s decision to build a new $70 million facility in Atlanta should serve as a wake-up call to Washington state, the head of the state’s life sciences trade organization says.
Washington leaders did not make the kind of recruitment efforts that Georgia’s did, said Chris Rivera, president of the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association.
This comment by Rivera underscores a critical concern:
Rivera points out that historically, successful Seattle biotech companies have become acquisition targets. And once a company gets acquired, its headquarters might move, but a manufacturing plant is more likely to stay.
PSBJ editor George Erb calls the decision a "teachable moment" for the region, noting that compared to Georgia's "intensely focused" campaign, Washington "seems downright disengaged."
It’s a lesson worth pondering as the recession shakes loose thousands of jobs from Washington’s economy. The possibility that the Boeing Co. could open a second 787 assembly line out of state only adds to our economic uncertainty.
Perhaps we should offer thanks to metro Atlanta and the state of Georgia, for showing us what aggressive business recruitment looks like.
Granted, there are many factors that go into business location decisions, as the must-read story by Gregg and Karkaria point out. But unless you compete, and compete aggressively, you can't expect to win.
The bailout is massively concentrated in just a few states. Total bailout funding, according to the ProPublica data, is $476.5 billion to date. One state, New York, has captured $175 billion of that, more than a third. Michigan is next with $80.7 billion or 17 percent of the total, followed by North Carolina with $56.3 billion, Virginia with $54.9 billion, and California with $34.4 billion. The top three states accounted for 66 percent of bailout spending; the top five 84 percent; and the top two more than 10 percent.
Once again, Rep. Jim McDermott, D- Seattle, has called on Congress to remove four Snake River dams. Here's how Les Blumenthal frames its prospects for McClatchy.
... for the fifth time, the Seattle lawmaker has introduced legislation that likely will go nowhere, put his Democratic colleagues from Washington in an awkward position and sharpen the focus on Snake River dam breaching just as the Obama administration prepares its salmon-recovery plan.
I like that "go nowhere" part. AWB president Don Brunell explains the consequences in his weekly column.
Without the dams, thousands of jobs would evaporate and an important food producing region would dry up, along with state and local government revenues. Power bills would jump again with the loss of additional hydropower facilities, which supply 70 percent of our state's electricity.
Thankfully, Gov. Chris Gregoire opposes McDermott's effort to remove the dams. She realizes that without the Snake River reservoirs, the region would become an arid wasteland.
What a strange distraction as the region continues to struggle with job creation and investment.
In the Puget Sound Business Journal this morning, my column looks at workers' compensation costs in Washington and the myth of the "high benefit, low cost" regime in place here.
It's a theme I explored on the blog before, most recently here and here.
... and some not so good news.
Let's deal first with a misconception common in media reports - the tale of the disappearing manufacturing sector. The NAM blog, ShopFloor, quotes a crisp refutation of the myth by Dan Ikenson at Cato. Click through to more good links. Here's the key, from Ikenson:
... real manufacturing value-added reached a record high level in 2007 (the last year for which final data are available).
... U.S. factories are the world’s most prolific, accounting for 25 percent of global manufacturing value-added. By comparison, Chinese factories account for 10.6 percent.
That productivity has been accompanied by employment decline and relocation, as well as a lot of anxiety in the old industrial strongholds in the Northeast and upper Midwest.
Which leads to the not so good news. KING5 News reports that a major Auburn manufacturer is leaving the state.
Hansen says 2 years ago the state told him he had to start paying a manufacturing tax that is costing the business one to two million dollars a year.
“We just can’t remain competitive with that,” says General Manager Don Routh.
Hansen put out the word that he was looking to move and was courted by states as far away as Wisconsin. He settled on Nevada after buying out a competitor there. About half of his 150 employees are leaving the state with him.
Somewhat reminiscent of this.
Also on the theme of manufacturers hitting the road, Harley-Davidson is looking to possibly moving its York County, Pennsylvania operations, also citing a familiar theme.
Harley-Davidson told employees at its Springettsbury Township plant in May that it was considering moving the operations, which would affect more than 2,000 production workers.
Primary reasons that have emerged include inefficiencies at the site in both work rules and infrastructure.
I'll wrap up by pointing to a very good piece by Joel Kotkin and Bill Watkins in New Geography. Entitled "California Disease: Oregon at Risk of Economic Malady." It's a cautionary tale for Washington. They cite California's high taxes, unpredictable regulation, and deteriorating infrastructure, which have led Californians - and jobs and investment - to flee the state. Often, the people leaving end up in Oregon, without jobs but seeking a nice quality of life and lower cost of living.
Oregon may be at a crossroads. The state is richly endowed with many of the components of a high quality of life. People want to live in Oregon, and they are moving to Oregon even in hard times. Yet as the population swells, there's no concurrent growth in businesses and employment. Over time, this could pose serious problems. Remember, quality of life begins with a job, preferably a rewarding, well-paying job.
Right.
But let's stick with the positive. The state's unemployment rate dropped from 9.2 percent to 9.1 percent last month. The Employment Security Department's press release has this from the governor.
“While today’s news is reassuring and indicates that the economy may be stabilizing, this does not mean the national recession is over,” Gov. Chris Gregoire said.
Job growth came in areas that benefit directly from public spending.
Industries with the most job growth included education and health services, with 4,400 new jobs, professional and business services, which added 2,100, and government, up 1,300. Most of the government additions were in local education and tribal employment, while state government employment fell by about 1,300.
And, unsurprisingly...
Industries with the largest declines were in construction, which cut 3,200 jobs, financial activities, down 1,900, and manufacturing, which lost 900 jobs.
Still a lot of work to do.
"Seattle's Lost Decade," a new report by the Washington Research Council, came in for some favorable comment in an editorial by Puget Sound Business Journal editor George Erb.
A new report by the Washington Research Council should be required reading for policymakers in Seattle’s City Hall.
Here's why.
The report stopped short of saying that Seattle’s high business taxes are driving out employers.
But it’s easy to argue — and we’re happy to do so — that Seattle’s business-tax burden is hurting the city’s competitiveness.
As the "location is a choice" mantra resonates when we discuss interstate and global competition, sometimes the competitive edge can be found much closer to home.
Seattle's Lost Decade is a good reminder of that.
Whether health care reform must include the so-called public option - a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private firms - remains an open question. Over the weekend, the White House signaled that it no longer considered the option a must-include. Whatever they gained with conservatives (possibly not much), they appear to have lost with liberals.
Some links:
The Seattle Times editorial board thinks a public insurance plan remains the standard by which other options should be measured.
The News Tribune recognizes the obstacles, prominent among them a long-standing cultural suspicion of government programs. The editorial board thinks a co-op alternative deserves a respectful hearing.
The Washington Post reports key Congressional Democrats cling to the public option. And the Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti writes "liberals are in full revolt" over the announcement that the public option might be negotiatable. (Follow the link to a poll from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.)
Two Washington legislators weigh in on the reform debate. Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, contends in seattlepi.com that health reform without a public option isn't health reform. In the opposite corner is Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee, has an op-ed in the Wenatchee World calling for
a balanced, common-sense approach that contains costs, provides assistance to those who truly need it, and keeps health care patient-centered, rather than government-centered, for everyone.
And with the debate swirling, Robert Reich uses the flap to ask: How tough is our president?
Really.
UPDATE More public opinion: The seattlepi.com links to an NBC News survey showing voters oppose the public option, 43-47. The Wall Street Journal looks at the poll in depth.
Peter Callaghan writes in The News Tribune that the League of Education Voters thinks the state should apply for the chunk of stimulus money set aside for education. In this op-ed Education Secretary Arne Duncan writes about the program.
... states seeking funds will be pressed to implement four core interconnected reforms.
• To reverse the pervasive dumbing-down of academic standards and assessments by states, Race to the Top winners need to work toward adopting common, internationally benchmarked K-12 standards that prepare students for success in college and careers.
• To close the data gap — which now handcuffs districts from tracking growth in student learning and improving classroom instruction — states will need to monitor advances in student achievement and identify effective instructional practices.
• To boost the quality of teachers and principals, especially in high-poverty schools and hard-to-staff subjects, states and districts should be able to identify effective teachers and principals — and have strategies for rewarding and retaining more top-notch teachers and improving or replacing ones who aren’t up to the job.
• Finally, to turn around the lowest-performing schools, states and districts must be ready to institute far-reaching reforms, from replacing staff and leadership to changing the school culture.
As Callaghan writes, the governor has said Washington may have difficulty meeting the criteria.
The Partnership for Learning links to an assessment by The New Teacher Project placing Washington in "the slow lane in the race to the top."
I don't know whether we have a shot at it or not. But it's good to see education reform again getting the attention it deserves.
MORE See also this editorial in the Herald of Everett, which cites the LEV report, and this AP story pointing out being one of the eleven states that do not permit charter schools puts us at the end of the line for the federal money. It's past time for Washington to get on board.
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