Hospital fees are the wrong answer

The revelation that Colorado Governor Ritter is conspiring with the Colorado Hospital Association to levy fees on hospitals to fulfill his political campaign promise to deal with the uninsured is a massively badidea. It falls short on three points.

First, there is no proof that hospitals have excess profits. Such fees would be internally cost shifted to patients and represent a hidden and covert tax. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements are fixed and insurance companies negotiate discounts. That means only the sick, self-pay patient, who is already billed 27% more than the average would bear the brunt. It's regressive. We are trying to reduce cost shifting, not increase it.

Second, any extraction of additional monies so as to channel it back to pay for the costs of care of the uninsured is inflationary. Health care hyper-inflation is directly related to the steroidal injections of financial subsidies for various "needy" groups. It has distorted and destroyed any semblance of a marketplace in health care.

Finally, either mandates forcing people to buy health insurance or tax-based subsidies avoids the real need in health care reform. We need to re-institute disciplining forces, be-it competition or regulation, take your pick, to reverse the seemingly never-ending upward trend of health care inflation. In a time of recession we need the health care system to become more productive and efficient. Their costs need to decline, not superficially inflate.

The political establishment and the trade association lobby, continually obfuscate and avoid the real need in health care. There is no magic bullet. It is old fashioned efficiency improvement and quality. Maybe we should be consulting Toyota on health care.

Speaker Carroll's startling religiosity

"In ministry"? "Saving lost souls"? Come again, Mr. Speaker? State Rep. Terrance Carroll (D-Denver), who officially became Speaker of the Colorado House today, is quoted to startling effect by Rocky Mountain News columnist Bill Johnson about the continuity of these new responsibilities with his previous life as a Christian minister. "It's all the same thing," he said of the church and [a stint in CU] police work, "saving lost souls." Next would come a law degree from the University of Denver and associate pastor stints at both New Hope and Macedonia Baptist churches. "I still consider myself in ministry, even here," Terrance Carroll said, pointing to the House chamber. "We feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give sight to the blind, care for widows and orphans. Yes, that's a big function of what we do here."

Leaving aside the debatable (but for a liberal Democrat like Carroll, predictable) assumption that welfare is government's main job, the evangelical overtones here clash with the proper stance of government in our state and country as pluralistic and religiously neutral.

I like the new Speaker and expect good things from him, but this statement is ill-judged and highly inappropriate from someone in his position.

My own faith in Christ is central in all that I do, and while in the legislature I tried (with imperfect success, as many would tell you) to live it daily. But if I had ever talked this way while serving as Senate President in 2003-2005, I would have been barbecued to a crisp by Democrats and the media -- and deservedly so.

It will be interesting to see if a correction is forthcoming from Terrance Carroll, and if political watchdogs call upon him for the same strict separation between lawmaking and soul-saving that they would have demanded from me or any Republican.

Teacher's journal: Dollar dilemma

Individualizing the Colorado education dollar for each student, kindergarten through undergrad, deserves a hard look in 2009. Difficult? Yes, but so liberating if we could ever do it. A friend on Gov. Ritter’s P-20 Commission for education reform discussed with me what the next reform step will be from the legislature and ouch, alas, it will be a funding problem that may pit higher ed against K-12 interests. The same was reported today, January 2, in the Rocky Mountain News. (not on-line yet at http://rockymountainnews.com/news/news/education)

Rep. Keith King (R-Colo. Springs) ran a bill years ago, requiring that state K-12 school funds follow the student, rather than go to the district to be divided up. It didn’t pass because many, mostly liberals, felt that this was the elephant’s nose under the tent for voucher spending. King returns this year as a state senator. Let's hope he tries the idea again.

While attending graduate school to become an administrator, we learned a great deal about school funding, how it differs from state-to-state, and unfortunately, that it truly is an equity fight between the haves and have nots. States like Colorado attempt to equalize funding between wealthier communities and poorer districts, but a survey to the state legislature by me and a school colleague found that the majority of legislators in Colorado for the 2003 session, did not know the difference between equal and equity. Equal funding is exactly that. Each district receives the same per student funding across the board. Equity in funding takes a look at the individual districts and the students who are enrolled and pays the district based on student needs.

While in graduate school, I wrote that we not only need equity in funding, but we need to devise a method so that we base student funding on student needs. A special education student with mild dyslexia has additional funds from the federal government sent to the state, and a special education student with multiple disabilities should have much more. Federal funds are sent to state departments of education and are funneled to districts for poor students, students who parents are migrant workers, English language learners, and students performing significantly below grade level (Title I) to name a few. If state, local, and federal funding for each student followed the student to the student’s school, then we would have equity in funding. But let’s do one better. Schools are funded based on the October 1 count. If a student leaves the school after October 1, the new school does not receive funding for that student. We need to develop a system whereby the student’s school is paid every six weeks so that it can accurately follow students. In migrant and urban communities, student transience is a real issue.

Now, if we figure out how much we fund each student kindergarten through grade 12 with state funds, then we can do the same with the higher education spreading the four year funding over six years beginning at the eleventh grade level if needed. This will allow students who need remediation or who need to take little steps with special programs to get the funding they should be given, and usually do not get. Success breeds success and some students are capable of taking on more post-secondary responsibilities than others. This will give hope to many who have none and allow the brightest to move at an appropriate pace. While other students may decide to take a more traditional route, waiting to attend college after their senior years, they will have more to spend over four years.

I know a little about taking college classes early. If I had stayed in high school for a boring fourth year, I would have graduated in 1971. Instead, before my seventeenth birthday, I attended classes at a local community college. Back in the day, my tuition for a full-time class load was $225.00 per semester plus books! Who knew? It gave me a start and by the time I turned 18, I earned 30 credits. (It is kind of a pain these days getting my transcript, though, from this school since its on microfiche)

To repeat: We need to think outside of the box when it comes to education funding, and truly put student needs first. Individualizing K-16 funding would be a huge step.

Colorado GOP in legislative ethics mess

The GOP ethical dustup over who would succeed House Minority Leader Mike May, now rendered moot by May deciding he will stay, makes you want to say a number of things, some of them printable. You could say that the actions of a few have brought shame on many; you could say that those involved, if found to have committed ethical violations, should be condemned in no uncertain terms; you could say that this sordid stuff is not representative of the Republican party in general, and all of that would be true. But mostly what you want to say is that this HAS to be parody.

Following an electoral defeat of the worst magnitude, a continuing decline of the party, and a skeptical public begging for change - this scandal has highlighted much of what is wrong with the party. It has opened the door for criticism of the business as usual, unethical, and dirty perception folks have of politicians.

At this particular moment in history, it is the Republican party that is seen as out of touch, uncaring and responsible for an inefficient, and ineffective - at best, government. The whole party is saddled with the failures associated with Katrina. While Democrats, in practice, are often as inept, uncaring, opportunistic and embarrassing as the Republicans have been, they have won the perception war - and now wear the mantle of change and reform and progress. This is part of the reason they swept into office here and nation wide.

To be so brazenly unethical as to attempt a trade votes for cash, and at a level so small that it would hardly make Rod Blagojevich even notice-- an out-party leadership race -- the Republicans involved (if any... we await the facts) traded the ethical upper hand for nothing. Political ethics was necessary to regaining public confidence - and that required politicians who were about the public business and not about their own interests. It may be true that the Republicans currently accused -- one House member and one lobbyist, for starters -- are true and honorable public servants, but they are not perceived as such - and they will not be either, not now.

Tactically it was stupid, politically it was ridiculous, in execution it was mismanaged and in terms of reaching out to voters and the public it was disastrous. It was everything that has killed the party in a microcosm, and just when the "brand" was beginning to recover from it's recent bout of scandals that cost it so dearly in 2006 and 2008.

Stupid.

In light of the ongoing scandal surrounding Gov. Blagojevich in Illinois, it seems clear that we have learned nothing – and in fact have thrown away a golden opportunity to stand as a party on the fundamentals of clean government and ethical reform.

This will now play out in the ethics panel created to to police the interaction of lobbyists and politicians – and anyone found complicit in this wrongdoing deserves to be publically flayed. As soon as guilt is established, party leaders and politicians should disavow the action and condemn immediately the actions of a few. This will not quickly go away. In an era where the media looks with far more scrutiny at the actions of Republicans this incident will further depress the standing – what little there was – of the Republican Party.

For Minority Leader May to have withdrawn his resignation was one sensible step to stop the bleeding -- by taking a succession struggle off the table for now -- and a laudable action on his part given the personal factors he cited earlier for a January departure from office. But much more must be done to accomplish both the reality and the perception of official Republican repudiation of this type of activity.

We are recovering from at least two elections where the soiled reputation of Republican politicians has been a drumbeat of the opposition. Already activists are calling for criminal investigations and questioning the integrity of those appointed to sort through this whole mess. To begin to connect again, with voters and restore the confidence necessary to win again, the party had to do embody integrity and ethics in government. Becoming the scandal du jour is not the way to begin.

Merrifield bedevils parental hopes

Writing from a special place in Hell where I rent a small office, I’d like to congratulate state Rep. Mike Merrifield on his reappointment to chair the House Education Committee. Why the soon-to-be-Speaker of the House, Rep. Terrance Carroll, himself a school choice advocate, would allow Merrifield to remain in this powerful position is a good question. Carroll has been critical of Merrifield’s attempts to weaken the Charter School Institute and his notorious email claiming “There must be a special place in Hell for these Privatizers, Charterizers, and Voucherizers! They deserve it!”

Perhaps Carroll thinks the Manitou Springs Democrat has reformed his ways. After all, he has managed to stay out of the papers. After Face The State exposed the infamous email in March 2007, Merrifield stepped down from the chairmanship. He resumed his leadership position in the 2008 session and the year went by quietly. I guess Merrifield learned a lesson; if you want to condemn your opponents to the fires of Hell, don't do it over email.

Fellow proponents of school choice, us denizens of brimstone acres, have reason to be concerned about Merrifield’s continued leadership. Emboldened by the last election, liberal politicians have no reason to feign moderation. Last year’s attacks on charter schools will be nothing compared to this year’s. As long as Merrifield is at the helm, we can expect anti-school choice legislation to pass through the committee while pro-school choice legislation languishes.

As both a charterizer and a voucherizer (no doubt doomed to the inferno’s ninth circle), I feel compelled to define the terms of parental choice in education for the reader who may not know what’s at stake. When I was a kid, parents had one choice—send their kids to a designated neighborhood school or pony up for a private school. Parents who could not afford a home in a desirable neighborhood or private school tuition simply had no other options. Thanks to untiring grassroots advocates and a courageous bipartisan group of leaders, today’s parents have a few more options than we had growing up.

Colorado parents can choose any public school that has seats available. They can educate their children at home. Families can also choose from over 140 public charter schools. Like other public schools, charter schools are free public schools open to all students. Unlike other public schools, charter schools have their own governing boards and may adopt their own curriculum and personnel procedures. No two charter schools are the same. There are college preparatory schools, schools that emphasize the arts, on-line schools, schools that encourage hands-on learning, and back-to-basics schools, to name but a few. Charter schools can be authorized by school districts or by the Charter School Institute, a statewide public authorizer.

Making a choice has become easier thanks to school report cards and parent-friendly Web sites that provide information about schools. Even so there are still too many families in areas without good public schools either traditional or charter. Even though private schools typically operate at a fraction of the public per-pupil funding level, for some families, even modest tuition is still out of their reach. In 14 states and the District of Columbia, parents can choose from among private schools with the help of a scholarship or tax credit/deduction. In Colorado, parents do not have this option. Tenacious school choice proponents in Colorado have tried to try to expand options for parents but as long as politicians like Merrifield remain in leadership, their efforts will be blocked every time.

How can the Speaker-to-Be believe Merrifield will act any differently in 2009? How likely is it that we’ll see a kinder, gentler chairman? About a snowball’s chance, I’d say. According to Colorado Capitol Watch, Merrifield received thousands of dollars from unions and other anti-school choice advocacy groups this past election. He isn’t likely to bite the hand that feeds. This is bad news for families seeking new school options and even those trying to hold on to the ones they have. It is difficult to predict exactly where the school choice movement will go next session, but I’m certain Merrifield has a special place in mind.