Tag: Utah

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politics State

Performance Pay – Round 1

The Legislature approved funds and loose guidelines for merit pay for teachers earlier this year. I really like the first news I have heard about the issue since then:

Each district and charter school that wanted money had to come up with its own plan following broad guidelines lawmakers set earlier this year. . . .

Lawmakers have referred to the law that provided $20 million for performance pay as an experiment they hope will inform future efforts to create a long-term, statewide system. . . .

Some states have taken years to create pay-for-performance plans, but Utah districts and charters had only a few months after lawmakers passed a bill appropriating the $20 million earlier this year.

I think the Legislature was exactly right to avoid the temptation (and it probably was tempting) to try to create a central, defined system for merit pay. Instead they put out the money and let the districts provide dozens of differnt plans for how to use the money – within general guidelines. The result will be that within a couple of years we will have found a dozen approaches that are not very effective and a few approaches that look very promising.

Odds are that if the Legislature had spent money studying the issue for years to come up with The One True Approach™ they would have spent as much money as they end up losing on the plans that will end up failing from this experiement. The real difference is that they will have a higher chance of identifying good ways to implement merit pay.

Anyone who grumbles that $20 Million is not enough can be reminded that this is seed money that can show us the best aproaches and it can be increased in the future as appropriate to foster the most effective merit pay schemes.

Categories
politics State

Congestion Tolls

The Deseret News is recommending congestion tolls to help pay for our transportation needs. I have previously stated my generic approval of tolling while recognizing that there are issues of fairness to be addressed. (Toll roads on the west side, but not the east side is not fair.) One comment on the editorial suggested a possible approach to the fairness issue and also the issue of leaving the roads free for those who can’t pay a toll:

. . . one possible solution is only impose congestion pricing in certain lanes, leaving other lanes open to general use. We could eliminate the current HOT lane on I-15 and do two lanes of congestion priced expressway instead. Do a lane or two congestion priced on I-215 as well. And do a lane or two congestion priced on the MVC while leaving a lane or two open for general use.

(unfortunately you have to scroll down for the comment – they should provide anchors to individual comments)

The suggestion of congestion pricing on some lanes but not all is illustrated in a Reason.tv video by Drew Carey that discusses traffic congestion. (The video showing congestion pricing is between 4 and 5 minutes into the video.) I think that idea deserves to be explored.

Categories
politics State

Toll Roads and MVC

Nobody should be surprised that some west-side cities don’t like the idea of tolling on the Mountain View Corridor. Some are suggesting that it is unfair. I think tolling generally is not a bad idea but I think I would agree that tolling on MVC while leaving I-15 free would be unfair to the growing west-side.

A state study found the tolls would pay for about $1.1 billion of Mountain View’s $1.8 billion price tag. But council members worry about long-term costs.

They fear some residents may have to cough up $200 a month to use the road. They also worry about fee-dodging commuters bypassing the highway altogether, clogging up and wearing down other routes.

While the Utah Department of Transportation has not selected a toll road as its preferred funding option – it’s being considered along with sales or gas taxes and car-registration fees – the council members want to kill the idea for good.

It would make more sense to me to toll I-15 if we wanted to toll only one of those roads. It is the more direct route for the majority of commuters and would be likely to generate higher revenue and have fewer people trying to go around the toll road. Personally, I think the best plan would be to add congestion pricing to both roads. That would be fair to both sides of the valley and revenue would be more reflective of actual usage on the roads because the higher usage roads would generate the most revenue for maintenance and future expansion.

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culture politics State

Changing the System

The Ogden Standard Examiner had a great guest commentary by the chairwoman of the Weber County Democratic Party. LaFray Kelley asks a good question:

Why should the presence or absence of an ex-Massachusetts governor on the ballot for president have any influence on your judgment over how well your local state legislators have done in representing your interests? It’s obvious when you think about it: Who’s on the ballot for president has nothing at all to do with how your state and local elected representatives are doing.

Unfortunately she fails to recognize that there is an answer to her question that is worth considering about our political culture. The presence or absence of an ex-Massachussetts governor may have no bearing on how our local or state elected officials are doing, but because of our high interest in Utah regarding this particular ex-governor his presence or absence does effect our general interest in casting a ballot at all in November. The problem is that our political culture is biased towards the highest levels of government when it comes time to perform our civic duties.

Ms. Kelley quite accurately states that our votes are more likely to affect the outcome of local and state races and that those races have a greater impact on our lives.

The message here is simple: Exercise your right to vote for whomever you want for president, but recognize your votes for state and local candidates are far more important — and have far more impact. These are the votes where you have a civic duty to closely examine the issues and the candidates. It is especially important to find out about nonincumbent candidates, so you understand what your choices are. This admittedly will take extra effort, but that effort is perhaps the most important duty you will exercise as a citizen.

While I fully agree with Ms. Kelley on her conclusions I am forced into skepticism regarding her motives for two reasons. First, the party she represents is the party that most clearly espouses the attitude that promotes the top-down approach to government, especially in social issues. Second, her timing is off. If we really want to change the system we should be starting at the precinct caucus meetings and during the primary season. By putting her commentary out after the state conventions she has assured that there are very few primaries available to consider non-incumbent candidates. For the most part, our only options are for the general election in November and the vast majority of us can choose between an incumbent (not changing the system) who is a Republican, or a non-incumbent (who she has just touted as the avenue for change) who is a Democrat like her.

Such timing undercuts the level application across parties that any argument for change should have because change is not just changing parties, it is changing the political system by examining the candidates and issues before your choices are whittled down to one or two. That truly is “perhaps the most important duty you will exercise as a citizen.”

Categories
National politics State

Fortune 535

Check out the Sunlight Foundation’s Fortune 535. It gives numbers of the net worth of each member of Congress based on congressional reporting requirements. Some of the numbers won’t be very surprising, but others will probably make you take a second look. In any case, make sure you do more than just look at the final number. For example – I looked at the Utah congressional delegation and saw that Sen. Bennett was the richest of the 5 ($5 million) and Rep. Bishop was the poorest ($16,000). Another glance shows that there’s more to the story. Rep. Bishop started his congressional career 6 years ago with a net worth of negative $55,000 and Sen. Bennett has seen his net worth drop by $43 million over the last decade (losing nearly 90% of his original worth).

I’m not trying to argue who is a good guy, or a bad guy. Nor am I trying to stir up pity for either of them. They just make a good illustration of the need to look deeper than any one number to get a better picture of the intersection of money and political figures.

Categories
National politics

Delving Into “Six Steps”

Joe Jarvis is a doctor and a candidate for the Utah legislature. I was very interested in exploring the six steps to bring about true health-care reform in Utah that he outlined in the Salt Lake Tribune. He has been kind enough to answer some of my questions and I want to share what I have learned from him and from digging into his sources.

Health underwriting

Every critically ill or injured person will be treated in our health system whether they have health insurance or not.

The realization that doctors and hospitals are obligated under the law to treat people in need should really change the way we look at the issue of universal coverage and the underwriting process. It deserves to be one of the areas we look at to make fundamental change to improve our health care system.

Unsafe hospital practices

Another cause of inefficiency in the system. Dr. Jarvis pointed me to studies by the Institute of Medicine demonstrating the statistical results of accidents and poor industry practices. (I say statistical to make it clear that the above link does not lead to grotesque images of hospital injuries.)

Inappropriate care

Inappropriate care seems to be the symbol of all that is wrong with our system. It appears to be a direct result of a medical industry that is being controlled by the insurance industry which is more interested in avoiding legal repercussions than in keeping people healthy

Perverse incentives

Dr. Jarvis quoted an article from the Wall Street Journal on April 5. I was unable to find that article to confirm the numbers he quoted (“if everyone in America went to the Mayo Clinic, our annual health-care bill would be 25 percent lower (more than $500 billion) and the average quality of care would improve.”) I did find an article from April 7th in the Wall Street Journal, More Choices Drive Cost of Health Care, that appeared to be the same except that it had different numbers ($50 billion saved over 5 years). (Follow the link here to see more than the free preview.) While I could not verify the numbers he quoted, the concept that we must eliminate the perverse incentives that drive the health care system is sound.

Market-based health policy

Dr. Jarvis argues that “health care is not subject to market forces, such as a lowered price increasing demand. No one ever had an appendectomy because the price was right. The occurrence of illness and injury primarily determine demand for health services.” While I would agree with him in the case of an appendectomy there are services (lasik, orthodontics, or well child checkups for example) where demand will rise as prices fall. Besides that, the WSJ article cited above indicates that many people, fueled by a “more is better” attitude, will indulge in available health services that are unnecessary. This would probably not be the case if they had to pay more than a token amount for those extra procedures. Also, at times when the patient is not the driving force behind extra procedures the findings are that

More office visits, hospital stays and diagnostic procedures likely indicate poor coordination among doctors and facilities that can lead to worse care and outcomes.

So far I am not convinced that real market forces do not have a significant role to play in radically improving our health care system.

Benefit denial

I had never previously considered the cost associated with claim denials, but Dr. Jarvis provided some eye opening data. In his article he stated that “Claims costs are at least 10 percent higher in Utah than would be optimally efficient.” He was gracious enough to allow me to look through the data he used to arrive at that figure and answer my questions to help me understand what I was seeing.

Here’s what I learned; the claims cost is the percentage of the insurance company’s revenue that is spent in evaluating and denying claims – it does not count the cost of claims paid, just the cost of processing the claims. The 10% figure is a bit misleading. Let me try to clarify the numbers. The most efficient insurance provider in Utah is apparently the Public Employees Health Plan (PEHP) which spends nearly 4% of revenue in processing claims. The data from the other major health insurance providers (IHC, Blue Cross, Altius, and UHC) shows that they spend between 12% and 19% of revenue on the processing of claims. To put that in perspective, PEHP spends 1 of every 25 dollars in claims processing while the other providers spend between 1 in 8 and 1 in 5 dollars. That is 3 to 5 times higher than optimal. It is a difference of 10% of their revenue but it is not evidence that they spend 1.1 times the optimal amount on claims processing.

Conclusion

Even where I do not fully agree with the details of Dr. Jarvis’ claims about these six steps I do agree that all six of these steps are important issues to address if we are to come up with a decent approach to improving health care in our state. I also agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Jarvis that the system requires a major overhaul, not just some tinkering if we are to avoid the looming crisis in the health care system.

Categories
politics State

House Members on the Task Force

I wrote to the co-chairs of the HB133 Task Force asking for a full list of the task force members. David Clark responded with a list of all the task force members from the House. My current list of task force members is now:

Now if Senator Killback would respond with the last two senators I would have a full list.

Categories
politics State

High Priced Entertainment

I have to say that SUPERDELL events sound very entertaining.

Fear not, my fundraising events will be worth their ticket if merely for entertainment value to the sceptics:). We are going to have some serious fun in Utah. I’m already working on my first event. I’m looking for acrobatic aircraft, base jumpers, powered skydiving pilots, helicopters, race cars, monster trucks, pyrotechnics . . .

For anyone who would go for the entertainment value, just remember the cost of admission is going to fund a political campaign so you’ll probably get an earful from the radio and an eyeful from the TV for your investment. And these would come from a candidate who has not said one word about an issue in his campaign.

Categories
culture politics State

Secular Theocracy

Sometimes the truth stings – and Jeremy nailed it:

“We’ll soon have a new law (because you know that our big-government-loving governor will sign it) that will make us feel good, will give us a new source of revenue via law enforcement, and will give the finger-waggers another reason to rag on parents.”

Its not just the governor…it is all of our Republicans. These jokers stick us with more and more nanny government year in and year out yet Utahns keep going back to them.

Sorry Reach but any Republican who complains about too much paternalism in our government isn’t assigning the guy in the mirror enough of the blame. We need more libertarian minded leaders in both parties.

It used to be that I would hear people suggest that Utah is a theocracy and I would think they were just bitter because Utah is so politically resistant to secularism. Tonight I have concluded that what we have would qualify as a theocracy. It’s not a theocracy dictated by the LDS church as many would suggest (that’s what made me resist the idea for so long). Instead it is a theocracy based on an informal secular religion focused on enforcing kid- and family-friendly laws lest anyone face the possibility of making a wrong choice. While it is not dictated by the dominant faith of the state it is very palatable to many followers of that faith.

As I have watched our big-government Republican legislature I have clung to the notion that the state Republican party was out of touch with the residents of Utah and that they stayed in power because the state Democrats were too closely tied to the DNC to approach the majority of Utah citizens on some crucial issues. My new theory is that I am out of touch with the majority of Utah citizens and that most of them actually want the kind of government we have here – one that will do anything possible to “prevent” anyone from making any really bad choices (especially where children are involved), one that will solve our health care crisis since the LDS governor of Massachusetts has shown that it can be done, and one that will lead the way in fixing the global warming crisis so that they can drive everywhere they go knowing that the crisis has been averted by their wonderful government regulations.

  • RJ: That is an S.U.V; Humans ride in them because they are slowly losing their ability to walk.
  • Penny: Jeepers, its so big!
  • Lou: How many humans fit in there?
  • RJ: Usually, one.

(from Over the Hedge)

Categories
politics State

Face to Face

I was privileged to attend a meeting with our Lieutenant Governor this morning and I enjoyed meeting a few of those who have provided ideas to blog about as well as valuable feedback. It was quite enjoyable.

While we were talking with Lieutenant Governor Herbert (is there any legitimate way to shorten that title?) I came to appreciate even more the crucial need to keep the lines of communication open between government officials and voters. One thing that I really liked the sound of is a program called Be Ready Utah. The whole premise of the program is to be prepared to address emergency situations effectively at the ground level before larger levels of government (county, state, federal) are able to organize and lend a hand. I like that idea – in fact that should be the basic premise behind most of the functions that we expect of the government (think education).

What disappointed me was that I had never heard of this valuable program. I even went to website of the state government and discovered that there are no apparent links to the program (I found it by searching for the title of the program and close wasn’t good enough). Other issues we discussed, such as transportation and education, illustrated how we can suffer from poor communication between government and citizens (think back to the voucher debate).

I think that serious bloggers (meaning those who are blogging about serious topics of public interest) have the potential to enhance those lines of communication at every level of government – especially if we can come together in promoting a robust discussion of the important issues being addressed by our civic leaders.