It’s time to shop for Christmas gifts, and it’s also time to shop for health insurance. It’s open enrollment again for Obamacare, this time for 2015 coverage. Analysts will carefully count the new enrollments, and the number will become another talking point for proponents of the law who promised that it would significantly expand private health insurance coverage.

Yet that’s not how the law is shaping up in reality. Rather than helping those who lack insurance, the law’s far greater impact has been to shift already-insured people into lower-quality, government-controlled health plans by massively expanding Medicaid (the dysfunctional insurance program meant for those with the lowest incomes) and by offering Obamacare plans through exchanges, which mimic the worst characteristics of the Medicaid program.

Consider the numbers: In the first two quarters of 2014, 6.1 million people were added to the Medicaid program. Another net 2.5 million people enrolled in private health insurance during that time, but the new plans available in the Obamacare exchanges – while technically private – look and function more like Medicaid plans with limited networks, low physician reimbursement, and high public costs.

The U.S. Mint has some good news and bad news in its latest biennial report to Congress. The good news is that we’re wasting less money on pennies and nickels. The bad news is we’re still wasting money on pennies and nickels.

Production costs for all four major coin types fell in fiscal year 2014 due to the falling price of copper, one of the primary metals used to make coins. The Mint estimates it saved $29 million this year compared to last year on account of lower copper prices.

But it continues to lose money on pennies and nickels. It now costs $1.62 to make a dollar’s worth of nickels, and $1.66 to make a dollar’s worth of pennies. By contrast it costs only 36 cents to make a dollar’s worth of quarters, and 40 cents for a buck of dimes. Paper dollar bills are even more cost-effective.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has paid back the city $7,000 more in travel expenses following Chicago Tribune questions about why he spent taxpayer money to have Chicago police officers accompany him to the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

It’s the third check Emanuel has cut to taxpayers — a tab that’s reached nearly $22,000 — in response to Tribune stories that showed how the mayor has used city funds to pay for trips during which he solicited campaign contributions and attended political events that included little or no official city business.

This time, Emanuel has reimbursed the city for the cost of bringing three members of his security detail to a political convention where he gave a speech in support of President Barack Obama’s re-election.

A measure included in Congress’s mammoth spending bill permits benefit cuts for retirees in one kind of pension plan, a big shift that lawmakers and others believe could set a precedent for other troubled retirement programs.

The legislation is aimed at defusing a potentially explosive problem—the deteriorating condition of what are known as multiemployer plans, jointly run by unions and employers. The bill cleared by the Senate late Saturday would allow troubled funds to cut benefits for current retirees in some circumstances. That is an exception to a long-standing federal rule against cutbacks in private-pension benefits.

Lawmakers and experts, while divided over the merits of the change, largely agreed that it could well be the first of many.

Here’s a fitting tribute to Topinka

When the shock finally wore off after learning that Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka had died, I started wondering what she’d want to happen next.

Who would she want to replace her? How would she want this transition handled? How would she want to be remembered?

Already facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines for violations of campaign-finance law, a longtime adviser to Cook County Assessor and Democratic Party chairman Joseph Berrios now also faces a possible criminal investigation regarding more than $135,000 in political cash he hasn’t accounted for.

A state hearing officer is recommending that the Illinois State Board of Elections send the case of Jesse Ruben Juarez to the Cook County state’s attorney and the Illinois attorney general “for review of possible criminal violations.”
Juarez plans to fight that.

The board is set to consider hearing officer James Tenuto’s recommendation Jan. 20.