The San Diego Union Tribune

Immigrants and What's Good for Society

adminn — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 23:10:00 -0500

There's a rule that politicians are reminded of: “do no harm.” In recent months, politicians have implicitly amended the rule to say “do no harm -- unless immigration is involved.” The rancor sparked by a failed New York plan to permit illegal immigrants access to driver's licenses and the fallen federal and state versions of the DREAM Act highlight a dangerous obsession with keeping illegal immigrants from accessing the supposed privileges of citizenship at any cost.

In today's debates, considerations of public goods are too easily cast aside in an effort to draw bright lines around citizenship. A better way of… more

San Diego Union Tribune Quotes Stephen Burd on Preferred Lender List

Communications — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:54:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Get rich with no risk.

The classic business pitch is usually too good to be true – unless you're talking about the student loan business. Student loans, which banks and other lenders avoided in decades past, have become a creditor's dream...

This month, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo disclosed that the financial aid directors of three universities had held stock in Student Loan Xpress. Earlier, five other universities agreed to pay a $3.2 million settlement after an investigation by Cuomo's office revealed that the institutions were receiving payments from lenders...

And, as Cuomo's investigation revealed, some companies can gain an unfair advantage by cultivating relationships with financial aid officers at colleges and universities.

When students seek the advice of a financial aid office, they are often led to a list of “preferred lenders” that financial aid offices have presumably determined to be the best deals in terms of cost and service...

At many colleges, 99 percent of loans go to the first company on the preferred list, according to Stephan Burd, a fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based New America Foundation who has reported on the industry for 15 years...

For the complete article, please visit The San Diego Union Tribune website.

San Diego Union Tribune Cites New America Health Report

Communications — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:17:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Gov. Schwarzenegger has successfully called attention to California's ongoing health care crisis by proposing a comprehensive plan that calls for shared responsibility in finding a solution to our state's broken health care system.

And make no mistake, it is a broken system. Hospitals and physicians have been living with the effects of this crisis for some time now demonstrated by hospital closures and relocation of providers. For example, in the past decade, more than 65 emergency rooms and more than 70 acute-care hospitals have closed statewide. San Diego County has lost seven hospitals since 1996.

The hidden tax the governor refers to as a result of cost-shifting is real as are the effects of consistent and growing unfunded mandates. As the governor accurately indicates in his plan, care for the uninsured and underinsured comes at a price to all of us. When medical bills go unpaid, hospitals must shift the costs onto those who can -- those with health insurance. This hidden tax -- in the form of higher-priced premiums, deductibles and co-pays -- costs each insured Californian $455 a year, according to a study released in December by the New America Foundation...

For the complete article, please visit The San Diego Union Tribune website.

To view the New America study, please click here.

Phillip Longman on Implications of Mexico's Birth Rate in San Diego Union Tribune

Communications — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:19:00 -0500

New America in the News:

MEXICO CITY – Mexicans living abroad sent home a record $23 billion last year, raising new questions about whether the government of President Felipe Calderón can afford to slow migration.

In just one year, the amount of money migrants wired their families jumped 15 percent, according to Mexico's central bank, overtaking tourism to become the nation's second-biggest source of foreign income after oil.

“This is a river of gold that flows into Latin America and Mexico. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. It never stops,” said Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen & Associates, a public opinion research firm in Coral Gables, Fla., that surveyed Mexicans on both sides of the border for the Inter-American Development Bank.

Bendixen's study highlights a basic fact about immigration: Mexicans who migrate to the United States are key to the economies of both countries...

As Mexican government and business leaders contemplate ways to deal with migrants' increasing economic power, the United States may face an entirely different immigration challenge in the next few decades: a decreasing supply of unskilled labor from Mexico.

“The rate of growth in Mexico's population is headed downward” at an unprecedented rate, said Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C., research group, and the author of a book on shifting demographics titled, “The Empty Cradle.”

“From the mid-'70s until now, Mexico has gone from an average of six children per woman to two,” he said. “That's going to lead to much less pressure to immigrate to the United States.”

Eventually, Longman said, “we may actually find ourselves competing to attract workers.”

For the complete article, please visit The San Diego Union Tribune website.

Len Nichols on Schwarzenegger's Fees in the San Diego Union-Tribune

Communications — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:25:00 -0500

New America in the News:

SACRAMENTO – It was a watershed moment in his campaign for re-election. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger turned to Democratic challenger Phil Angelides during their one and only debate and said: “I can tell by the joy I see in your eyes that you love to raise taxes. Why don't you just say right now, 'I love increasing your taxes?' ”

These days, Schwarzenegger certainly isn't shy about asking taxpayers for more, but it's hard to tell if he gets any joy out of it.

The Republican governor has called for raising $4.5 billion in “fees” – though most people consider them taxes – to help finance his sweeping health care plan that would provide coverage for all Californians...

Len Nichols, health policy director for the New America Foundation, a centrist think-tank, called the governor's plan “visionary.” He said Schwarzenegger learned that a credible plan requires new money.

“This is his moment of maximum political capital: He just won re-election. It's the moment when the nation has been derelict in addressing this issue,” Nichols said. “He's started an adult conversation. The nation needs more of it...”

For the complete article, please visit The San Diego Union Tribune website.

Len Nichols on Comprehensive Health Care in San Diego Union Tribune

Communications — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:45:00 -0500

New America in the News:

SACRAMENTO – Comprehensive health care reform was once considered to be part of the electrified third rail of politics, bringing shock and pain to anyone who dared touch it.

Now, promoting major health care changes is getting safer.

Across the nation, governors and state lawmakers are following the lead of Massachusetts and California in proposing plans to cut soaring health care costs and cover many of the 46 million Americans with no insurance.

Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Minnesota are among the 15 states considering major expansions in health care this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures...

From 2000 to 2005, the percentage of businesses in the United States offering health insurance dropped from 69 percent to 60 percent, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study. Significantly, much of that decline took place between 2003 and 2005, at a time when the economy was adding jobs.

“People are worried about this in a way that's quite different from in the early 1990s,” said Len Nichols, health policy director for the New America Foundation, a centrist think tank.

Then a recession caused anxiety among the middle-class about health insurance, Nichols said. Those fears provided early momentum for the push by the administration of President Clinton for universal health care, spearheaded by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1993.

Nichols, who helped shape the plan, said once the economy recovered, people were not as concerned about losing health care coverage. Instead, they feared that an overhaul might force them to give up part of their health coverage...

For the complete article, please visit The San Diego Union Tribune website.

Peter Harbage on Medicare in The San Diego Union Tribune

Communications — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 23:17:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Visits to the doctor often leave Katherine Beatty feeling sicker than when she left home...

Beatty is part of a Medicare experiment to see if old-fashioned house calls can improve the health of some of the agency's sickest beneficiaries while saving taxpayers money.

If the three-year pilot project in California and two other states is successful, Medicare officials likely would try the service on a larger scale before asking Congress to make it a permanent part of the federal government's health care program for the elderly and disabled...

Politics also will play a role in determining the program's fate, said Peter Harbage, a Sacramento health care consultant and former assistant secretary with the California Health and Human Services Agency.

“It fundamentally depends on whether it can get through Congress,” he said. “It has to do with money -- who gets paid and how much. Hospitals, doctors and insurers will aggressively express their point of view...”

For the complete article, please visit The San Diego Union Tribune website.

A New Way to Help California's Poor

Articles — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 08:00:00 -0500

California first lady Maria Shriver, John Edwards and other political luminaries have converged on Los Angeles for a summit on California poverty. The organizers asked speakers to present ways to help California's poor that are "innovative, practical and achievable."

That's a tall order, but it's a timely one. California is at a crossroads in how it assists its less fortunate residents. We can limit ourselves to the old tools and policies. Or California can lead the country in the democratization of financial assets -- which could prove to be the Homestead Act of the 21st century.

In the former, the focus… more

What makes a GOP Congress spend?

Articles — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0400

With members of Congress home for summer recess, the smoke is still clearing over the smoldering ruins of what's left to fiscal restraint and the federal budget. Even a Republican-controlled Congress can't seem to resist spending Americans' tax dollars. The incentive for each district representative and GOP leaders to bring home the bacon is too tempting to resist.

When Democrats were in control of Congress until 1994, Republicans routinely accused Democrats of spending like drunken sailors on a Saturday night binge. But now that the Republicans are in control of the cookie jar, look at the results.

* $277 million… more

Fixing California's Broken Government

Articles — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Prospects for the governor's controversial redistricting initiative have grown appropriately dim. Whatever its ultimate fate, Schwarzenegger has done a good and decent thing in using his considerable bully pulpit power to raise awareness about the relatively obscure, but important issue of political gerrymandering. Without his call to arms, the powers that be in Sacramento almost certainly would have continued ignoring the very obvious problems with our process for drawing legislative districts lines. They're paying attention now.

But political gerrymandering is only one small symptom of a far more deadly disease.Why waste all that energy on something that won't cure us?… more