The American Interest: The Sick Man of the States
People are beginning to compare Illinois to a country famous for things beginning with S: Sophocles, Socrates, and sovereign debt. That’s right; according to the Economist, Illinois may be the Greece of America. More:
Illinois is like Greece in one obvious way: it overpromised and underdelivered on pensions and has little appetite for dealing with the problem, says Hal Weitzman of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. This large Midwestern state, with a population of 13m (Greece has 11m, though a far smaller GDP than Illinois), has the most underfunded retirement system of any state and the largest pension burden relative to state revenue. It also has the highest number of public-pension funds close to insolvency, such as the one looking after Chicago’s police and firemen. According to the Civic Federation, a budget watchdog, Illinois has piled up a whopping $111 billion in unfunded pension liabilities (see chart), in addition to $56 billion in debt for health benefits for pensioners. The state devotes one in four of its tax dollars to pensions, which is more than it spends on primary and secondary education.
Will the state’s new Republican governor manage to turn it around? It won’t be easy or painless:
Chicago Tribune: Mayoral challengers call for suspension of red light camera program
Chicago mayoral challengers Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and Ald. Bob Fioretti are calling for an immediate suspension of the city’s red light camera program.
Citing a recent Tribune study that found the cameras fail to deliver safety benefits long claimed by City Hall, Garcia, a Cook County commissioner running against Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the Feb. 24 city election, said on Sunday that the city should stop ticketing drivers “until the red light camera can be justified.”
“The simple fact is that all the money that was received from the red light tickets made this administration blind to their impact on drivers and residents,” Garcia said at a news conferenc
The Telegraph: Another industrial revolution is coming; it’s circular
Welcome to the next industrial revolution – it’s circular. Everyone has heard of the “shared economy” – Uber, Airbnb, and so on. Well this is similar, only its about manufacturing, and it’s getting industrialists excited and alarmed in equal measure. It’s also the subject of at least four major sessions at next month’s World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos.
The so-called “circular economy” is basically about making finite resources go further in an era of ever-increasing consumer demand. Or put another way, it’s about giving the growing ranks of the developing world’s middle classes the American lifestyles they aspire to, but without wrecking the planet or causing commodity prices to go through the roof in the process.
In part, it’s simply another version of the shared economy. What’s the point of owning your own power drill when you use it perhaps as little as four or five times a year? Similarly, is there much to be gained by having a £20,000 hunk of metal parked outside your house when you only drive it once a week?
Washington Times: Obamacare’s Christmas surprise
If you like your health care plan, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has a Christmas surprise for you! When will this new present arrive? December 25th.
In an ongoing effort to keep Obamacare numbers elevated, CMS has embarked on the next step of its government takeover of healthcare.
It seems CMS is taking a page from Jonathan Gruber’s book; rather than allowing the “stupid” masses to make a decision on their own health plan, CMS has proposed a new rule that includes an overly reaching provision allowing CMS to re-enroll anyone who has not made the annual trek back to healthcare.gov in a cheaper plan of CMS’ choosing.
NBC News: Debt Collectors Hound Millions of Retired Americans
It may be hard to imagine Grandma unable to pay her bills or Grandpa being hounded by debt collectors. But for millions of Americans, this is the harsh reality of retirement.
Faced with a fixed income and constantly rising cost of living, many seniors now spend their “golden years” juggling bills and fending off debt collectors.
Chicago Tribune: Infection rate penalties hit Chicago-area hospitals
Nine Chicago hospitals ranked among the nation’s worst on new measures of infection rates and other patient injuries, drawing federal penalties and raising questions about the way the hospitals are assessed.
Northwestern Memorial Hospital and other prominent academic hospitals were among those with the highest rates of conditions — from bedsores and reopened wounds to catheter infections and broken hips — that are considered avoidable, according to newly released federal data. In Illinois, 27 hospitals — about 1 in 5 that Medicare examined — will be penalized.
The federal government is withholding 1 percent of Medicare payments for 721 general hospitals reporting the highest rates of “hospital-acquired conditions.” The penalties, which will be assessed in the fiscal year that runs through September 2015, were created by the Affordable Care Act to improve patient care and save the federal government and taxpayers money. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates the reductions will total $373 million next year.