Scott campaign defends his record as head of hospital chain - Sun-Sentinel

Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott's campaign motto is simple: "Let's get to work."

It's a job-creation slogan voters can identify with during tough economic times and record unemployment rates.

"I'm the only candidate in this race who has built businesses and helped create tens of thousands of jobs," the Republican says on his campaign website.

Scott's record as the chief executive of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. during the 1990s tells a more complex story.

Under Scott's tenure, Columbia cut more than 5,000 jobs at hospitals nationwide, according to state statistics and a review of news reports on the company's business practices.

Columbia snapped up hospitals from Miami to San Jose. Job losses followed in many markets it entered.

"He would buy hospitals and close them," said Michael Lighty, director of public policy for National Nurses United, a nurses union. "I can't think of a community where his involvement led to a net increase in jobs."

Scott grew his company and became one of Florida's largest private employers largely through acquiring big hospital chains. He picked up independent hospitals and built a handful of others. As the health care industry downsized, Scott earned a reputation for cutting staff, consolidating operations and closing hospitals.

At a campaign stop in Broward last week, Scott dodged a question about Columbia's employee cuts and instead touted his plan to create jobs in Florida, a cornerstone of his campaign.

"As governor, I'll be Florida's Job Creator-in-Chief," his website says. "We won't miss any opportunity to keep or add jobs."

Scott spokesman Brian Burgess said in a statement to the Sun Sentinel that "Columbia closed some hospitals because they were simply not being fully utilized [under capacity, empty beds, etc.]"

"New jobs were created regularly — at individual hospitals, laboratories, surgical centers, regional and national headquarters," Burgess said. Scott also created jobs after he left the company in 1997, the statement said, by investing in private sector businesses and starting a chain of urgent care clinics in Florida that employ 541 people.

Burgess said the campaign had no way of providing any numbers in support of Scott's statement that he created "tens of thousands of jobs" but called it an estimate over his entire career that started with the purchase of doughnut shops while in college.

Calculating a definitive number of jobs lost or added by Scott is difficult. HCA, as his former company is now called, does not have those numbers, nor are they in publicly available annual reports. Layoffs alone do not tell the whole story, Scott's campaign said, and some affected employees were offered other positions in the company.

Scott, 57, started Columbia in El Paso, Texas, in 1987, with the purchase of two hospitals. The young health care attorney bought a third hospital there the following year and shut it down.

It was a pattern that would be repeated as Scott's company aggressively moved into Florida.

'Big uproar'

In the mid-'90s, Columbia/HCA operated more than 50 hospitals throughout the state. Under Scott's leadership, the company consolidated or closed eight Florida hospitals that had employed more than 1,500 people, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration.

He entered the Florida market beginning in 1988 with the purchase of Victoria Hospital in Miami. Columbia later closed Victoria and shifted its operations to another of its hospitals, Cedars Medical Center, where the staff was cut, eliminating roughly 700 jobs, according to news reports at the time.

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The Real Jobs Machine - Newsweek

If you’re interested in job creation—and who isn’t these days?—you should talk to someone like Morris Panner. In 1999, Panner and some others started a Boston software company called OpenAir. By 2008 they sold it for $31 million. The firm had then grown to about 50 workers. It turns out that entrepreneurship (essentially, the founding of new companies) is crucial to job creation. But as Panner’s experience suggests, success is often a slog.

What’s frustrating and perplexing about the present job dearth is that the U.S. economy has long been a phenomenal employment machine. Here’s the record: 83 million jobs added from 1960 to 2007, with only six years of declines (1961, 1975, 1982, 1991, 2002, 2003). Conventional analysis blames today’s poor performance (jobs are 7.6 million below their pre-recession peak) on weak demand. Because people aren’t buying, businesses aren’t hiring. Though true, this omits the vital role of entrepreneurship.

In any given year, employment may reflect the ups and downs of the business cycle. But over longer periods, almost all job growth comes from new businesses. The reason: high death rates among existing firms. Even successful firms succumb to threats: new competition or technologies; mature markets; the death of founders; shifting consumer tastes; poor management and unprofitability. A company founded today has an 80 percent chance of disappearing over the next quarter century, reports a study by Dane Stangler and Paul Kedrosky of the Kauffman Foundation.

True, some blue-chip firms—the Exxons and Procter & Gambles—endure. Four fifths of the Fortune 500 were founded before 1970. But they are exceptions, and many blue chips have died: Pan Am (once the premier international airline), Digital Equipment (once the second-largest computer maker), and Circuit City (once a leading consumer-electronics chain).

The debate over whether small or big firms create more jobs is misleading. The real distinction is between new and old. American workers are roughly split between firms with fewer or more than 500 employees. In healthy times, older companies of all sizes do create lots of jobs. But they also lose jobs, as some businesses shrink or vanish. On balance, job creation and destruction cancel. All the net job increases occur among startups, finds a study of the 1992–2005 period by economists John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland and Ron Jarmin and Javier Miranda of the Census Bureau.

To be sure, entrepreneurship has a downside: booms and busts. Remember the dotcom “bubble.” But more damaging, says Panner, are widespread popular misconceptions about what it is and isn’t.

Start with the Blockbuster Myth: successful entrepreneurship creates huge enterprises à la Google that transform how we live. In reality, “most ventures don’t change the world,” says Panner. They’re unknown companies providing highly specialized goods and services, plus restaurants, auto-repair shops, and many other unromantic businesses. There are more than 500,000 startups annually. The number must be large to make an impact on the 155 million–person labor force.

Second is the Inspiration Myth: most startups spring from some epiphany suggesting a new product or technology. Wrong. Gee-whiz moments are few. Companies constantly change plans. OpenAir ditched its original idea, which didn’t draw customers. “You can’t do anything until you meet someone’s needs,” says Panner. Failure rates are high; half of new firms die within five years.

And finally, the Incentive Myth: it’s necessary to keep tax rates low, so entrepreneurs can reap huge rewards for their time, sweat, and money. Well, this may be true, but it misses a parallel truth: government disincentives to entrepreneurship. Panner, a registered Democrat, criticizes complex accounting, employment and health-care regulations imposed by federal and state agencies that consume scarce investment funds and time. There’s a bureaucratic bias, unintended perhaps, against startups.

It’s all about risk taking. The good news is that the entrepreneurial instinct seems powerful. Americans like to create; they’re ambitious; many want to be their “own bosses”; many crave fame and fortune. (Panner is already involved with a new startup; it has five employees.) The bad news is that venture capital for startups is scarce and that political leaders seem largely oblivious to burdensome government policies. This needs to be addressed. Entrepreneurship won’t instantly cure America’s job deficit, but without it, there will be no strong recovery.

Robert Samuelson is also the author of The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath: The Past and Future of American Affluence and Untruth: Why the Conventional Wisdom Is (Almost Always) Wrong.

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Prescription for success - Albany Times Union

The Census Bureau recently reported that the number of people without health insurance in the United States climbed 10 percent between 2008 and 2009, from 46.3 million to 50.7 million, over 15 percent of the nation's total population. This significant increase reflects the state of our economy, increased joblessness among the general public and, even among those with employment, the continued retreat of many employers from providing health care coverage to their workers.

According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of individuals covered through employer-sponsored plans is now at a record low 56 percent. But stay tuned, because over the next couple of years, this figure will rise further and likely not begin to decrease until 2014, when the country makes affordable health insurance available to many more citizens.

Despite these sobering statistics, some still question the merits of our recent health care reform legislation, which finally put in place a safety net for the millions of Americans without health insurance coverage, and for the millions who lose their coverage suddenly, to get it.

Focusing on the economic arguments, reform was and continues to be a no-brainer. First, there is little doubt of the economic costs to employers and the country at large from having a sicker population. Having health insurance is a key predictive factor in whether or not a person stays healthy in the first place.

More uninsured individuals translate into more lost work time and lower productivity for the nation as a whole. We talk in vague terms about "how much" providing health care insurance may cost the country. But what must be remembered is the hundreds of billions of dollars we save by making sure millions more Americans are healthy enough to go to work each day.

For example, a 2003 Commonwealth Fund study concluded that "labor time lost to health reasons" in the United States amounted to more than $250 billion annually. This same survey found that more than 400 million days of work in a single year were lost as a result of worker illness.

Arguments about how much health reform may cost to implement are incomplete when they do not also consider the productivity gains, economic growth and increased standard of living generated over time by having more people working regularly and moving up in their job titles and earnings as a result of the steady employment that comes from being in good health. One of the little known yet most important reasons for our nation's ascension to world economic power over the past 50 years has been the presence of a strong health insurance system to enable American workers to seek care when they need it.

The second valid economic argument justifying expanded health insurance in this country is that the health care sector represents the second largest spending component of our nation's Gross Domestic Product, behind only the military.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, education and health services provide almost one in every five jobs in the United States. The bureau also reported that in 2009 and thus far in 2010, the health care industry has been adding 20,000 new jobs a month across the United States.

Despite our economic meltdown, the health employment sector remains strong, and is a vital ingredient to digging ourselves out of the Great Recession. Nowhere is this seen more clearly at a local level than in the Capital Region, which relies on hospitals, large physician practices, several major insurance plans and countless other health-related businesses to provide tens of thousands of jobs. Without a vibrant health care industry in our area, there would be many more individuals out of work, more houses facing foreclosure, more quickly dropping property values and increased taxes levied on everyone.

When we focus on health insurance's contribution to creating a healthy and productive work force, investment in health reform is a sound investment that will more than pay for itself over time. With our national and local economies in shambles and jobs in short supply, we should embrace any policy that will invigorate the second largest sector of our economy.

Do we need additional health reforms?

Absolutely. These additional reforms must focus on the supply-side problems in our health care industry that include the fragmented and duplicative nature of service delivery, the use of unproven diagnostic and therapeutic approaches that cost too much and the continued problems with customer dissatisfaction and poor quality. It is far from a perfect system, and the underlying business model of "get sick, and then get cared for" must be transformed to one that emphasizes "keep us healthy and prevent illness."

But allowing millions of people to have health insurance at a time when the work force is getting older and sicker and becoming increasingly uninsured is a smart strategic move for our region, state and nation, even if we cannot yet agree on the moral imperative of it all.

Unlike the recent federal stimulus and Wall Street bailout, it will produce a multiplier effect for our economy that will last far longer and help pull us out of this mess for good.

Timothy Hoff, Ph.D., is associate professor of health policy and management at the University at Albany School of Public Health, He is the author of "Practice Under Pressure: Primary Care Physicians and Their Medicine in the Twenty-First Century."

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What UPMC affiliation has meant for two Pittsburgh-area hospitals - GoErie.com

Published: October 03. 2010 12:01AMPITTSBURGH -- Phil Pollice, M.D., understands what Hamot Health Foundation's soon-to-be-former neurosurgeons are going through.
The five physicians with Tri State Neurological Surgeons are leaving Hamot later this year to work at Saint Vincent Health Center.
They are switching hospitals for several reasons, Tri State President Brian Dalton, M.D., said. One of their concerns is the effect of Hamot's ongoing affiliation talks with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Pollice, an ear, nose and throat specialist, had just started treating patients at Passavant Hospital in suburban Pittsburgh when it affiliated with UPMC in 1997.
He had no idea what to expect. Some of his fellow Passavant physicians left the hospital before the affiliation took effect.
"There was a lot of fear among the physicians," Pollice said. "The fear was that we were going to be phased out and replaced with UPMC-employed physicians."
Thirteen years later, Pollice is still treating patients as a private physician at UPMC Passavant and UPMC Mercy. He estimated that about half of UPMC Passavant's doctors remain in private practice.
He recently visited Erie to talk with Hamot doctors about what they could expect if Hamot affiliates with UPMC.
"Like I tell people, some doctors did better when UPMC came in," Pollice said. "Others did worse and moved on."
Doctors aren't the only people concerned about Hamot's possible affiliation with UPMC.
Patients are worried they will be sent to Pittsburgh for procedures and surgeries they now undergo at Hamot.
Erie County Executive Barry Grossman has said he fears that Hamot -- Erie County's second-largest employer -- will slash jobs after affiliating with UPMC.
Neither of those scenarios are going to happen, said Liz Concordia, UPMC executive vice president and president of the health system's hospital and community-services division.
"We're looking to invest $300 million in Erie," Concordia said, referring to the amount of money UPMC will give Hamot over the next 10 years if the two health systems affiliate. "So we want Hamot to be successful. We want to bring patients to Erie."
Sending large numbers of patients to Pittsburgh isn't an option simply because there isn't room for them, Concordia said. Most of the UPMC hospitals in Pittsburgh have occupancy rates of more than 90 percent, she said.
"Our hospitals in Pittsburgh are full," Concordia said. "It's to our advantage to have patients stay in Erie, instead of coming down here where there aren't enough beds already."
UPMC plans to do that by sending physician specialists to Erie who will treat patients and perform surgeries currently not done at Hamot.
For example, Hamot cardiologists told Concordia during her visit to Erie that they would like to see a heart surgeon at Hamot who could perform minimally invasive heart-valve surgeries.
"Those surgeries are currently sent to the Cleveland Clinic," Concordia said. "Our goal would be to help Hamot recruit someone to do that surgery in Erie."
As for jobs, UPMC officials are adamant that an affiliation will not result in significant job losses at Hamot, either immediately after an agreement is reached or several years afterward.
"Overall, our history has been net growth in full-time jobs for the hospitals who have affiliated with us," Concordia said. "We tend to see less growth in low-paid back-office jobs and more growth in high-paid clinical jobs."


Concordia pointed to UPMC Passavant and UPMC Shadyside as affiliation success stories.
Both hospitals joined UPMC in 1997. Passavant, located just north of Pittsburgh in McCandless Township, was a 240-bed community hospital that had just begun performing heart surgeries when it joined UPMC.
Shadyside, located in eastern Pittsburgh and one of the city's oldest hospitals, was a 300-bed facility that opened in 1866.
Since affiliating with UPMC, both hospitals have increased by more than 100 beds and hired additional staff, Concordia said. The number of full-time workers has risen by 38 percent at Shadyside and by 79 percent at Passavant.
"Being affiliated with UPMC has really helped us recruit new physicians," said Joel Weinberg, M.D., a UPMC Shadyside pulmonary critical-care physician. "For whatever reason, being part of UPMC is the biggest aphrodisiac to physicians."
One reason could be UPMC's willingness to pump money into each hospital.
The health system has spent $359 million at Shadyside since 2001 and an additional $283 million at Passavant to build cancer centers, expand emergency departments and purchase state-of-the-art diagnostic and surgical equipment.
"Before we affiliated with UPMC, we were a nice, strong community hospital," UPMC Passavant President Terri Petrick said. "Now, we draw patients from a much larger area. We see patients from West Virginia and all along the Interstate 79 corridor."


Not all UPMC hospitals have shared Passavant's and Shadyside's success.
UPMC Braddock closed Jan. 31, almost 14 years after the eastern suburban Pittsburgh hospital merged with UPMC. The hospital had lost more than $27 million over the previous six years.
"There was too much redundancy in terms of service with other hospitals close by," Pollice said. "It's always hard to see a regional community hospital close, but it was the right decision."
UPMC decided in 2008 to convert its financially struggling South Side Hospital into an outpatient center. The urban hospital, which opened in the 1890s, had lost $4 million in operating and total income in fiscal 2008.
In 2005, UPMC sold its Lee Regional Hospital in Johnstown to the rival Conemaugh Health System.
UPMC merged with Lee Memorial in 1998, but couldn't help the 249-bed hospital make money. It sold Lee Memorial to Conemaugh in 2005 for $58 million.
Hamot Chief Executive John Malone said he is aware of how those hospitals have performed but isn't worried that Hamot will suffer their fate.
"Those hospitals had significant problems and issues that Hamot simply doesn't have," Malone said. "Keep in mind that there have also been examples like UPMC Mercy, which was on the verge of bankruptcy and UPMC turned its finances around dramatically."
Mercy Hospital, which opened in 1847 and is Pittsburgh's oldest hospital, merged with UPMC in 2006. It is losing money but has seen its revenue from treating patients increase by 3.2 percent since the merger; operating costs have risen by just 1.17 percent.

Highmark questions affiliation
One of the affiliation's loudest critics has been Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, western Pennsylvania's largest commercial health insurer.
Highmark recently placed advertisements in the Erie Times-News and sent letters to local insurance agents questioning the need for the affiliation and what effect it could have on the cost of health care in Erie.
"Our concern is that this affiliation will cause the cost of health care in northwestern Pennsylvania to increase because more people will be sent out of town for treatment," said Dan O'Malley, Highmark's market president of the western region. "We've had a lot of experience with UPMC throughout western Pennsylvania, and the result of these affiliations is often higher costs. Not all the time, but it has happened."
Malone called Highmark's comments "disingenuous."
"One of their claims is that we didn't spend enough time looking at alternatives," Malone said. "One of the alternatives we did look at was partnering with Highmark. We had a meeting and asked them to put some meat on the bones of their proposal, and they came back to us and said they couldn't go through with it for several reasons."
The truth, Malone said, is that Highmark fears an affiliation between Hamot and UPMC will strengthen UPMC Health Plan. Highmark currently has about 63 percent of the commercial health insurance market in Erie County, compared with 4 percent for UPMC Health Plan.
Hamot employees and their families could switch their health insurance from Highmark to UPMC Health Plan if the affiliation is approved. That's about 9,000 covered lives, Malone said.
"That would give UPMC Health Plan a foot in the door," said Martin Gaynor, a professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. "It could enable them to compete with Highmark for folks who are not Hamot employees."


Hamot and UPMC have reached a tentative affiliation agreement and are currently examining each other's finances.
A formal agreement should be finished by December, Malone said. It will then need to be approved by the boards of trustees at both UPMC and Hamot before an affiliation could take effect.
"I believe this affiliation will strengthen Hamot as the area's premier tertiary health-care provider," Concordia said. "For us, it gives UPMC an anchor at the other end of the state, so that patients in your area will go to Hamot instead of going across state lines to hospitals in Ohio and New York state."
DAVID BRUCE can be reached at 870-1736 or by e-mail.

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410000 more jobs by 2018? - Capital Times

Every two years, the state of Wisconsin comes out with its 10-year predictions on job growth.

The report is designed to guide young people into new careers, let business owners know what employment trends are coming and help educators adjust their training programs.

But the timing of the just-released "2008 to 2018 Jobs Outlook" could not have been worse. As economists working with the state Department of Workforce Development were busy reading the tea leaves, real world workers were busy getting pink slips and applying for unemployment benefits.

In the report, the state predicts a record 3.16 million total jobs in Wisconsin by 2018. To get there, Wisconsin will need to add about 410,000 more jobs than existed in August.

Even the two candidates for governor aren't making those kinds of bold promises.

Republican Scott Walker has vowed to create 250,000 new jobs by the end of his first term. Democrat Tom Barrett is slightly more realistic, saying he'll create 180,000 jobs over the next four years or at least enough to replace those lost during the recession.

The state did hit record employment in early 2007, with an estimated 2.88 million jobs. But the employment picture has been dismal since. Wisconsin now counts 80,000 fewer jobs than it did in 2000.

"It's definitely been a tortoise recovery," says Dennis Winters, chief economist with the DWD who helped write the 2018 Jobs Outlook.

The latest issue of "Wisconsin Job Watch" from the liberal Center on Wisconsin Strategy, notes the ongoing problems. After some job gains in the spring, there was zero growth in July and August, leaving the state unemployment rate unchanged at 7.9 percent.

COWS is now warning Wisconsin may have difficulty even creating enough new jobs to match population growth going forward. That could mean systemic high unemployment and workers forced to leave the state to find any kind of career.

"If we assume job growth will be the same as after the 1991 recession, it would take until June 2014 for the number of jobs to catch up to growth in the labor force," says COWS spokeswoman Kari Dickinson. "Furthermore, if we continue a ‘jobless recovery,' the state may never again be able to accommodate the growth of its labor force."

Those sobering statements stand in stark contrast to the widespread optimism many were feeling just two years ago.

State economists in their "2006-2016 Jobs Outlook" had projected state employment would grow by 8 percent over the period, with a record 3.33 million jobs by 2016.

But the latest report appears slightly more realistic, predicting job growth of 2.7 percent over the next 10-year period.

UW-Stevens Point economist Randy Cray helped write the latest Jobs Outlook and says the new projections are well within reason.

"In my opinion the projected net growth of 83,000 jobs over the 10-year period is very anemic and says that we will be in an extended period of very slow job growth," says Cray.

One company actually benefiting from the jobs picture is QTI, the Madison-based temporary staffing firm. QTI has enjoyed double digit growth this year as employers looked to fill openings without doing any hiring.

Marshall Heyworth, chief operating officer of consulting and professional recruiting at QTI, says many companies remain reluctant to add regular staff out of fear the economy isn't recovering fast enough or could slip again in a double dip recession.

"It's clear that many employers are looking at a temporary work force as a permanent feature," he says.

Heyworth says demand has been strong of late for high-skill positions like technical manufacturing, auto mechanics or industrial machining. He says more high school graduates should consider learning tech skills rather than pursuing a four-year degree.

"We've kind of turned our back on those industries but they're still out there," he says.

So what other industries might lead the way in job growth?

Home health aides are projected as the fasting-growing occupation in Wisconsin over the next 10 years, with a projected 38 percent growth rate. Unfortunately, these jobs pay on average just $21,000 a year, according to the DWD report.

Next in line is network systems and data specialists, a sector predicted to grow 37 percent over the next 10 years. These jobs pay on average $64,000.

After that, it's all about health care.

In fact, of the 20 fastest-growing occupations in Wisconsin, all but a handful are related to health services - from dental hygienist to physical therapists. One exception is "gaming dealers," a sector predicted to grow 23 percent over the next 10 years.

Missing from the list of fastest-growing occupations in Wisconsin is biotechnology or life sciences. While there's been a lot of enthusiasm and publicity surrounding the sector, it hasn't yet resulted in major employment gains, as fewer than 1 percent of state jobs are in biotech fields.

But a report last week from BioForward, a Madison-based trade association, says biotechnology could create thousands of new jobs in a variety of fields. The report noted that bioscience employment has grown 3 percent in Wisconsin over the past five years while the state overall has lost 3 percent of its jobs.

"There's so much doom and gloom out there it's nice to have something better to report," says Bryan Renk, executive director of BioForward.

Economist Winters says the problem in measuring the "biotech" sector is that it cuts across so many different fields - from ethanol production to stem cell research.

"The industry itself just isn't that well-defined," he says.

One thing that is well-defined is the need for the overall economy to pick up to get companies hiring. Winters says things won't improve until there is growth across major sectors like consumer consumption, private investment and exports.

"We are in a quandary as to what will get the economy jump-started," he says. "Will more stimulus help? Tax cuts? Both? What about the budget deficit? This is, indeed, a sticky wicket."

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Secondary Sources: Small Business Job Creation, Fiscal State of the Union ... - Wall Street Journal (blog)

A roundup of economic news from around the Web.

–Small Business Job Creation: John Robertson looks at the connection between small businesses and job creation. “Economic research published last month by John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and Javier Miranda provides some compelling evidence on the relationship between firm size and job growth. It turns out that the age of a firm is important independent of its size. In particular, the paper finds no systematic relationship between net job growth rates and firm size after controlling for firm age? This finding doesn’t imply that firm size is irrelevant, but size matters mainly because, conditional on survival, young firms grow faster than older firms and tend to be small. In other words, because start-ups tend to be small, most of the truth to the popular perception that small businesses create the most jobs is driven by the contribution of start-ups to net job growth.”

–Fiscal State of the Union: Len Burman says the president should be give an annual explanation of the fiscal health of the nation. “The problem with our fiscal challenges is that they aren?t news. We have a large unsustainable debt burden, just like we did yesterday and the day before and will have tomorrow. It?s news when we run exceptionally high deficits, as we have for the last couple of years, or when we achieve surpluses, as we did briefly at the end of the Clinton Administration. But there?s no event that captures the media?s and the public?s attention, and the problem will only grow worse as giant deficits become old news. There?s little chance for the media to educate the public about the debt and possible solutions. An annual Fiscal State of the Union Address would change that. There would be news coverage. There would be serious discussion of the causes, consequences, and possible remedies to the problem of too much debt. There would be pressure on the president to have some good news to announce as part of the speech, and enough media scrutiny to guarantee that it wasn?t just smoke and mirrors. There would be pressure on the opposition to put forward a coherent plan to do better than the president, not just warmed over rhetoric and platitudes.”

–Economics of Lobbying: Jordi Blanes i Vidal, Mirko Draca and Christian Fons-Rosen examine how political connections are valued for lobbyists. “Lobbying in the US, as well as other democracies, is big business. This column investigates the extent to which former government officials ?cash in? on their political connections when working as lobbyists. It finds that once the politician for whom they worked leaves office, their revenue falls 20%, or $177,000 per year, suggesting that lobbyists are paid more for ?who they know? than ?what they know?.

Compiled by Phil Izzo

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Progress Being Made on 'Green' Health Center - Inside INdiana Business (press release)

September 30, 2010

News Release

INDIANAPOLIS - More than 30 contractors, architects, and city officials will get a preview of the latest in green infrastructure techniques being used in the construction of the Near-Eastside?s new HealthNet People?s Health & Dental Center when the first completed phase ? a 9,000 sq. ft. permeable paver parking lot ? opens at 10 a.m. on Friday, October 1, 2010 at 2340 E. 10th St.

The highlight will be at 11 a.m. when officials simulate a flash flood to demonstrate how the permeable paver parking lot works. A water truck will dump more than 4,000 gallons of water on the lot in a matter of 15 minutes ? equivalent to 9 inches of rain ? and is expected to produce no run-off.

The new center serves as a demonstration project for the City of Indianapolis? Office of Sustainability in its use of green building techniques and materials, many of which haven?t been tested in this climate area before. As an innovative stormwater management strategy, permeable pavers allow water from rain or snowmelt to flow through the pavers, into a stone base, and then filter into the soil below. This eliminates stormwater runoff and protects nearby surface waters from stormwater pollution.

From 10 a.m. to noon, representatives from the engineering and design community will be on hand to answer questions about the center?s energy-efficient heating, ventilating and air-conditioning system and comprehensive storm water management system, which includes the parking lot composed of permeable pavers, a bioswale and an energy efficient roof. Event participants include City of Indianapolis Office of Sustainability, Belgard Environmental, Axis Architects, Halstead Architects, Roger Ward Engineering, Inc., EMHT, John Oberlies Consulting Engineers, Inc.

Thanks to capital campaign donors and $5.3 million in federal stimulus funds, the $6.6 million environmentally ?green? health center serving the uninsured and underinsured will create jobs and set a new standard for patient care, delivering 42,000 patient visits per year. Scheduled to open in early 2011, the health center is located along the East 10th Street business corridor, which is already undergoing many improvements as a part of the 2012 Super Bowl Legacy Project.

###

Since 1968, HealthNet (www.indyhealthnet.org) has been a mainstay in the Indianapolis community. Through its network of five community-based health centers, an OB/GYN care center, a pediatric and adolescent care center, and eight school-based clinics, HealthNet annually serves over 50,000 individuals and families. Many of them are uninsured or underinsured and live below the federal poverty level. HealthNet services include: primary and preventive health care; OB-GYN support and coaching for expectant mothers; Healthy Families and Better Indy Babies; dental services; Homeless Initiative Program; counseling, outreach and social service programs. HealthNet?s health centers include Martindale-Brightwood Health & Dental Center, People?s Health & Dental Center, Southeast Health & Dental Center, Southwest Health & Dental Center, Barrington Health Center, the Care Center at the Tower, the Pediatric and Adolescent Care Center and the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Center.

Source: HealthNet Inc.

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Kohl's Creates More than 4000 New Jobs - MarketWatch (press release)

MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis., Sep 29, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, Kohl's Department Stores /quotes/comstock/13*!kss/quotes/nls/kss (KSS 52.64, -0.04, -0.08%) announces the grand opening of 21 new stores across the nation and celebrates the opening of the new customer service and operations center in San Antonio, Texas that will serve Kohl's Charge and Kohls.com customers nationwide. The new stores will bring nearly 3,000 jobs to communities across 15 states, and the new customer service and operations center in San Antonio, which recently hired approximately 200 associates, expects to create more than 1,000 jobs over the next three years.

"We're pleased to be in a position to create more than 4,000 jobs as Kohl's continues to build market share in a challenging economy," said Kevin Mansell, Kohl's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "We continue to bring customers new stores where they can enjoy Kohl's great brands and tremendous values. Additionally, we have invested in our existing store base by remodeling 85 stores, 66 percent more stores than last year, to keep the customer experience fresh and exciting."

Growth and Expansion

This year marks another year of growth for Kohl's as the company opens 21 stores today in 15 states -- Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania -- and opened a total of 30 new stores in 2010. The company now operates 1,089 stores in 49 states. Kohl's also invested in its current store base and remodeled 85 stores this year, a 66 percent increase from 2009.

In addition to investing in new and existing stores, the new San Antonio customer service and operations center supports the growth of Kohl's Charge business. The center also supports the growth of the company's Kohls.com sales, which experienced 48 and 38 percent revenue increases in 2008 and 2009, respectively and continues to experience significant growth this year. The facility is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified at the Silver level, and in keeping with Kohl's ongoing commitment to environmental responsibility, Kohl's will seek to maintain or expand the LEED designation for the finished building.

With this facility, Kohl's now operates three customer service and operations centers, including locations in Corsicana, Texas and Menomonee Falls, Wis.

World--Class National and Exclusive Brands to Stretch Your Budget

Kohl's stores nationwide and Kohls.com help shoppers stretch their budgets with world-class national and exclusive brands at a value they can appreciate. Some of the brands offered at Kohl's include: Levi's, Carter's, Nike, adidas, Bali, Simply Vera Vera Wang, Food Network, LC Lauren Conrad, ELLE Contemporary Collection, ELLE Decor, Dana Buchman, Candie's, Tony Hawk, apt.9, Jumping Beans, SONOMA life + style, Cuisinart, KitchenAid and more.

The More You Know, The More You Kohl's

Kohl's offers shoppers a variety of ways to get incredible values on the brands they love. There are no brand exclusions when using offers like Kohl's Cash coupons or Kohl's Charge card discounts. Additionally, these offers can be used in conjunction with sales events to maximize savings.

Every Kohl's store also offers a unique shopping experience which includes an industry-leading return policy, gift cards, gift registries, convenient store hours, centralized checkouts, the Kohl's Cares(R) cause program and a commitment to environmental responsibility.

Shoppers can take advantage of the company's key differentiators, including:

Power Hours, Early Birds and Night Owls -- During limited hours, Kohl's offers the lowest prices of the week on select items or categories. The amount of extra savings varies, but the Power Hours price is the absolute best price for that week. Kohl's Charge -- Kohl's Charge customers receive a number of exclusive benefits. In addition to receiving extra savings on their first purchase, shoppers also receive Pick-Your-Day shopping passes and special event discounts throughout the year. Kohl's Cash -- During a Kohl's Cash promotion, shoppers get $10 for every $50 they spend, which can be used toward a future purchase. It's like getting paid to shop! No Exclusions -- There are no brand exclusions when using offers like Kohl's Cash coupons or Kohl's Charge card discounts. An Industry-Leading, Hassle-Free Return Policy -- Kohl's has an industry-leading return policy that offers a quick, convenient and "no questions asked" experience. Customers returning merchandise with receipts or items purchased with Kohl's Charge cards are eligible to receive full refunds, while customers without a receipt will receive Kohl's merchandise credit.

Kohl's commitment to customer service has been recognized by the National Retail Federation, which for the past five years has listed Kohl's among retailers that offer the best customer service*. In addition, Kohl's has ranked among the top retailers in the University of Michigan's customer satisfaction survey for eight consecutive years**.

Kohl's Cares for the Communities We Serve

As a family focused, value-oriented company, Kohl's strives to be an active member of each community where it does business. Through charitable giving and volunteer programs for kids' health and education and environmental initiatives, Kohl's makes our neighborhoods happier, healthier, greener places to live and work. Kohl's supports local communities through its Kohl's Cares philanthropic programs which include:

Kohl's Cares Cause Merchandise Program, which sells special merchandise including books and plush toys for $5 each, and donates 100 percent of the net profit to benefit children's health and education initiatives nationwide. This year, the program celebrates its tenth anniversary, and since its inception in 2000, has raised more than $150 million. New this fall, special Kohl's Carescause merchandise supporting women's health is available online at Kohls.com. The net profit from the sale of this merchandise will benefit the fight against breast cancer. In recognition of the tenth anniversary of the Kohl's Cares philanthropic program, Kohl's Cares will give half a million dollars to 20 schools each this year, a total of $10 million. Kohl's Scholarship Program, which recognizes and rewards youth volunteerism. In 2010, the Kohl's scholarship program awarded more than $410,000 in scholarships and prizes to more than 2,100 kids across the country. Kohl's Associates in Action, a program where associates volunteer for local, youth-focused nonprofit organizations and Kohl's then matches their volunteer efforts with corporate grants. Last year, as a result of our associates' volunteer efforts, Kohl's donated more than $10 million to nonprofits across the country under this program. Kohl's Cares Fundraising Gift Cards, which provide an opportunity for schools and youth-serving organizations to raise money. The gift cards are sold by nonprofit groups and up to five percent of the total card purchase price goes to the nonprofit. Kohl's Cares Advancing Environmental Solutions Kohl's is also committed to being a leading environmentally responsible retailer. In December 2009, the company became the first retailer to announce a commitment to reach net zero U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2010 as part of its partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Climate Leaders program. To achieve this goal of being carbon neutral, Kohl's will continue to invest in projects to reduce the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions that the company emits into the atmosphere. The company was ranked as the number one green retailer on Newsweek's list of The Greenest Big Companies in America*** and was named one of the EPA's 2009 Green Power Partners of the Year. Kohl's is also proud to be the largest retail host of solar power in North America, with 100 solar locations nationwide. Key environmental initiatives for Kohl's include energy management, recycling and green building programs. To date, Kohl's has 84 stores nationwide built according to a prototype that received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) initial certification at the Silver level from the U.S. Green Building Council. In fact, 12 of the 21 new stores Kohl's is opening today are being built according to LEED Silver guidelines. Characteristics of these stores include: water-efficient landscaping, water-conserving plumbing, carefully managed construction waste and use of recycled and regionally sourced building materials.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Kohl's intends forward-looking terminology such as "believes," "expects," "may," "will," "should," "anticipates," "plans," or similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause Kohl's actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to those described in Item 1A in Kohl's Annual Report on Form 10-K, which is expressly incorporated herein by reference, and other factors as may periodically be described in Kohl's filings with the SEC.

About Kohl's Department Stores

Based in Menomonee Falls, Wis., Kohl's /quotes/comstock/13*!kss/quotes/nls/kss (KSS 52.64, -0.04, -0.08%) is a family-focused, value-oriented specialty department store offering moderately priced, exclusive and national brand apparel, shoes, accessories, beauty and home products in an exciting shopping environment. Kohl's operates its 1,089 stores in 49 states with a commitment to environmental leadership. In support of the communities it serves, Kohl's has raised more than $150 million for children's initiatives nationwide through its Kohl's Cares(R) cause merchandise program, which operates under Kohl's Cares, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kohl's Department Stores, Inc. For a list of store locations and information, or for the added convenience of shopping online, visit www.kohls.com.

*NRF Foundation/American Express(R) Customer Service survey, NRF Foundation/National Retail Federation

**American Customer Satisfaction Index, University of Michigan Ross School of Business

*** "The Greenest Big Companies in America," Newsweek, September 28, 2009.

Editor's Note----------------------------------------------New store locations opening this fall include:September 29 Store Openings:----------------------------------------------Hoover, Ala. Collinsville, Ill.Prattville, Ala. Kansas City, Kan.Hanford, Calif. Louisville, Ky.Clovis, Calif. Blue Springs, Mo.Carson City, Nev. Covington, La.Porterville, Calif. Forest Hill, Md.Riverside, Calif. Cambridge, Minn.Sonora, Calif. Albuquerque, N.M.Lake Wales, Fla. Valley Stream, N.Y.Kent, OhioLancaster, Pa.York, Pa.Re-opening Store Location:----------------------------------------------Midlothian, Va.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6447284&lang=en

SOURCE: Kohl's Department Stores

Kohl's Investor Relations: Wes McDonald, 262-703-1893 or Media Relations: Vicki Shamion, 262-703-1464 vicki.shamion@kohls.com

Copyright Business Wire 2010

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VIDEO/PHOTOS The Alex Sink story: Humble start, business career, Florida governor? - Naples Daily News

Photo by LEXEY SWALL // Buy this photo

Chief Financial Officer for the State of Florida and Democratic candidate for Florida governor Alex Sink, center, is swarmed by journalists asking questions about the race for governor as she leaves the Cabinet meeting Tuesday, September 28, 2010 in Tallahassee. Lexey Swall/Staff

“I never in my life thought I would be a candidate,” Sink said in an interview with the Daily News. “I’ve always been interested in policy and the political process, and I’ve just been one of those who have supported my favorite candidates.”

TALLAHASSEE — This candidate has humble beginnings.

Coming up from nothing, with a family that struggled to balance the checkbooks, finally reaching the top of the business world, now the candidate wants to be Florida’s next governor.

By now, a lot of voters probably recognize that narrative as belonging to Republican candidate Rick Scott, but it turns out his Democratic rival, Alex Sink, shares a similar story of hard work and hitting the big time.

But while Sink, 62, the state’s current Chief Financial Officer, is working to make herself visible through statewide television commercials, many people are still in the dark about who she is.

“In Florida, we generally don’t know much about Cabinet-level officials when they’re in office, except for the governor,” said Daniel Smith, a University of Florida political science professor who specializes in elections. “Alex Sink is a newcomer to politics. She’s not a newcomer to the political scene, however, with her husband having run for governor himself in 2002.”

Her husband, Bill McBride, a Tampa attorney, lost a bid for governor to Jeb Bush, who won a second term in 2002.

Smith points to polls showing that some voters don’t even know whether Sink is a man or a woman. Alex is short for Adelaide, and for the record, yes, she is a woman.

Not just that, but if elected, she would be Florida’s first-ever female governor.

“I never in my life thought I would be a candidate,” Sink said in an interview with the Daily News. “I’ve always been interested in policy and the political process, and I’ve just been one of those who have supported my favorite candidates.”

* * * * *

Alex Sink was born in Mount Airy, N.C., where she grew up on the family farm. The Sink family grew corn, tobacco and soybeans, and raised hogs and cattle — “whatever my dad could make money at,” Sink said.

She attended Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, N.C., majored in mathematics, and spent three years teaching in West African schools after graduation.

Together, those experiences of helping her father run the farm and teaching overseas became two of what she calls the most formative experiences of her young life.

Every month, she said, she sat with her father to write checks for the fertilizer bill, the gas bill, the machine shop bill.

Alex Sink Rick Scott Governor of Florida

“Then, he would have me add up all of the checks we had written to make sure we had enough money in the bank,” she said. “I thought I was learning about farming, but what I was really learning, is I was learning about small business.”

Fast forward 40 years or so, and Sink was the bank.

After moving to Florida 26 years ago, she rose to the top position in Bank of America’s Florida operations. She retired from banking roughly 10 years ago, and settled with her family in Thonotosassa, a rural area outside Tampa.

As Chief Financial Officer of the state, she draws a $111,000 annual salary, and in December, she reported her net worth at $9.2 million.

Smith, at the University of Florida, said this part of Sink’s narrative might not ring so true with voters.

“You know, being a millionaire banker is not something that’s going to allow voters to feel warm and fuzzy toward,” Smith said.

Then again, Sink is going up against a self-made businessman who listed more than $200 million in assets at the outset of the campaign.

* * * * *

Sink said she finally considered a run as Chief Financial Officer when several friends approached her five years ago and told her Florida was in desperate need of someone “looking out for our money.”

Much like her rival, Scott, she said she saw problems with the political system in Florida, and wanted to jump in and fix things.

¦ CLICK HERE FOR RELATED PROFILE Rick Scott: Get to work as Florida governor or go home to Naples?

¦ VIDEO Transcript: Daily News interview of Florida governor candidate Rick Scott

Coming from the business world, Sink said she was more than a little surprised to see just how state government runs.

She recalls when a glitch was discovered in the state’s accounting department early in her tenure. She said she asked to see the department’s last audit, in order to find out if the glitch had been caught previously.

It turned out the department hadn’t undergone an audit in 10 years, Sink said.

“Well, coming from a financial background like I did, I was stunned,” she said. “I could not believe there had been so little oversight over a department that, you know, wrote so many checks every year.”

David Clark, who has worked extensively with Sink’s staff as a Cabinet aide in the Department of Environmental Protection, said Sink brings a CEO’s mentality to running the state’s finances. Meanwhile, she has brought together a staff with diverse backgrounds, said Clark, who is set to enter Officer Candidate School with the U.S. Army.

“The staff she has around her epitomize her,” Clark said. “She’s brought in many different types of people from not only the public, but the private sectors, many different realms of business, from finance to communications. She’s surrounded herself with a very diverse group of people and it’s worked well for her.”

Candidate for Florida governor Alex Sink addresses attendees during a town-hall style meeting at the Ritz Carlton in Sarasota, FL. on Thursday, June 17, 2010 at the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors/Florida Press Association annual conference. BRIAN BLANCO/Special to the Daily News

“She really does proscribe to that economic perspective, from the stimulus, health care, these higher taxes, she’s very much in line with Obama, (Speaker of the House Nancy) Pelosi, Washington Democrats,” Scott campaign spokesman Joe Kildea said.

At the same time, said state Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, Sink has been able to bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats. It is something he has seen firsthand, particularly through his work as a ranking member on the Government Operations and Appropriations Committee, he said. It would be an important skill, given the fact that Sink would be working with a Republican-controlled Legislature, if elected.

“On a number of occasions, CFO Sink brought proposals to the table that Republicans supported,” he said.

It is this sensibility — an eye for business and a dexterity in state politics — that Sink promises to bring to bear if she is elected governor.

However, it is Sink’s experience in state government that Scott’s campaign wants to use against her. While it is hard to describe Sink as a career politician — a label that doomed Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, Scott’s opponent in the Republican primary — the Scott campaign is trying to tag her as a longtime insider who is in lock-step with President Barack Obama.

“She really does proscribe to that economic perspective, from the stimulus, health care, these higher taxes, she’s very much in line with Obama, (Speaker of the House Nancy) Pelosi, Washington Democrats,” Scott campaign spokesman Joe Kildea said.

In order to connect with independents and moderates, the Scott campaign believes Sink is trying to distance herself from Obama. She skipped a joint appearance with him at an August fundraiser in Miami. A pledge on her website to “work with President Obama’s administration” on Everglades restoration was changed to “Alex will provide the strong leadership that’s needed to expedite federal approval of restoration projects,” the St. Petersburg Times reported.

AP Photo/ Phil Coale

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum, left, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, attend the opening day ceremonies of the Florida Legislature, Tuesday, March 2, 2010, in Tallahassee, Fla. McCollum is Florida Attorney General and Sink is Florida's chief financial officer.

Sink has tried to turn around those efforts by Scott’s campaign, firing back with her own commercial accusing Scott of being fixated on Obama.

“You know what I’m doing? I’m running to be the governor of the state of Florida,” she said in an interview. “And so, that’s why when you look on my website, there’s nothing intentional (about the absence of Obama.) ... Florida desperately needs a governor that’s going to attack our Florida challenges, and think about Florida solutions as opposed to a candidate who seems to be obsessed just by Washington.”

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Sink’s campaign wants to frame her as one of the good guys who already came into state government as an outsider, and managed to shake things up.

They tout accomplishments such as her office’s shut-down of an annuity fraud scam that returned more than $1.2 million to seniors. As part of the same Safeguard Our Seniors initiative, she pushed for the passage of bipartisan legislation that would increase penalties for people convicted of annuity fraud.

And having a spouse who ran for state office — the same state office she is seeking — has some benefits, too.

Democrat gubernatorial hopeful Alex Sink, left, and her husband Bill McBride walk in the rain after voting in the state primary election Tuesday morning, Aug 24, 2010 in Thonotosassa, Fla. (AP Photo/Steve Nesius)

“Neither of us had ever run for office, and we sort of created that (2002) campaign at our kitchen table, literally,” her husband said. “Alex was very involved in that campaign. She saw the mistakes — and the good things, too.”

But, McBride also paints his wife as a systematic planner, and someone who makes things happen for herself.

“Her style is very collaborative,” he said. “She seeks a lot of information and a lot of opinions. A lot of collaborative people like that aren’t decisive. But, once she gets all of that information, she’ll make a decision and she’ll move forward.”

At the same time, Sink is still getting the hang of the politics game, it seems. While adept at taking questions in a structured setting, she falters a bit more amid a gaggle of reporters following a Cabinet meeting or press conference. She is still learning the political art of walking and talking, dealing with an onslaught of questions while being ferried from meeting to meeting.

At a press conference inside a Tallahassee job placement firm Tuesday, Sink arrived on a tight schedule between meetings to talk up her plan for tax breaks to new businesses and strengthening education to create more competent graduates. Workforce Plus, a job placement firm, sits in a run-down strip mall two miles outside downtown Tallahassee, where job applicants looking for work line the waiting room chairs.

Sink bypassed the job seekers without a word or a handshake, heading for the room with the television cameras and Republican state Sen. Alex Villalobos, who endorsed Sink the day before. She talked up her plans, before heading back out the door, again passing by the people she is promising to help.

But in an election season in which both candidates admit jobs are the top issue, and polls vary on whether Sink or Scott is ahead, every vote is going to count. It is a race that could turn out to be a matter of who you know, or rather, how well you know a candidate.

* * * *

Staff writer Ryan Mills contributed to this report

Primary Election Coverage:

Elections 2010 Page:

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Census: Child health coverage rises in Illinois - BusinessWeek

By CARLA K. JOHNSON

CHICAGO

In the midst of an economic downturn, Illinois children were slightly more likely to be covered by health insurance in 2009 than the year before, according to newly released U.S. Census Bureau figures.

The numbers suggest government safety net programs, including former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's "All Kids" expansion of coverage, are helping some children when parents lose benefits along with jobs.

The census data released Tuesday show the percentage of Illinois children with health insurance grew between 2008 and 2009, from about 94 percent to about 95 percent.

Macon County had the highest rate of uninsured children of the 23 largest counties in Illinois. The 2009 census data show nearly 14 percent of Macon County children were uninsured that year.

Among Macon County residents of all ages, about 15 percent were uninsured, the census data show, making it one of the highest county rates of uninsurance in the state, along with Cook and Kankakee counties. The overall rate of uninsurance in Illinois was 13.3 percent in 2009.

"We very much live paycheck to paycheck," said school bus driver Kim Bennett, 49, of Decatur in Macon County. "By the time we pay for everything, there isn't enough money left to get insurance."

The loss of manufacturing jobs in Macon County left many families without health coverage, said Barbara Dunn, executive director of the Community Health Improvement Center in Decatur. The county's high uninsurance rate for children will spur her health centers to be more aggressive in urging parents to cover their kids, she said.

"We are going to push them harder," Dunn said. "We're going to ask, why are they uninsured?"

Illinois was the first state to promise health insurance to all children. Blagojevich's expansion of insurance to illegal immigrant children and children whose family income is too high for traditional government insurance cost $70 million last year.

The children added under "All Kids" - about 94,500 children in 2009 - aren't eligible for federal funds, so the program's cost falls on state taxpayers.

The new census data show other states with child insurance rates as high or higher than Illinois. Massachusetts, the model for the new national health law, did the best with 98.5 percent of children insured.

Others with high rates of insurance for kids in 2009 were Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont.

In Illinois, depending on family income, parents can pay from zero to $300 per child per month for coverage under All Kids. A family of four making $72,000 a year can pay $140 a month for two or more children, or $70 a month for one child.

Some parents don't insure their children because they don't want to pay the premiums, said Dunn, who runs several safety net health clinics in central Illinois. Others neglect to do the paperwork or are embarrassed to sign up for a government program, she said.

At about 5 percent, Illinois' rate of uninsured children is far better than the national rate of 9 percent uninsured children in 2009.

"Illinois is proud to be among the top states in covering children, and is thrilled that the new data shows that 95 percent of all Illinois' children have health insurance of some kind," said Illinois Healthcare and Family Services Director Julie Hamos.

The figures come from the American Community Survey, which is sent to about 3 million households each year. The survey started asking about health coverage in 2008.

Nationally, the number of people covered by private health insurance fell from 201.0 million to 194.5 million from 2008 to 2009, according to the Census Bureau. The number covered by government programs climbed from 87.4 million to 93.2 million.

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Ohio adds stimulus jobs, but it's a 'drop in the bucket' - The Morning Journal

By BRANDON C. BAKER
Special to The Morning Journal

Stimulus funds are making jobs, like this road work in Mentor, but the effect has been called only a 'drop in the bucket' for Ohio. (Photo special to The Morning Journal)

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act shares at least two similarities with other large-scale federal undertakings of recent years. Like the war in Iraq or health care provisions, the debate regarding its merit and the justification for its creation will likely never end. And, people will have to wait several years to definitively know whether the stimulus package’s goals will be fully or partially accomplished.

That latter parallel is especially painful for some Ohioans, given the second word of the $800 billion-plus package’s proper name. By far, jobs are the chief concern of citizens tracking the ARRA. Through June, or the end of the quarter with the most recent available data, the number of jobs in Ohio created by the act amounts to a little more than 15 percent of the state’s unemployed population.

Since the stimulus was enacted nearly 20 months ago, Ohio has created 91,726 recipient-reported jobs funded by the contracts, grants and loans awarded to employers. The state’s 25,896 new jobs in the April-through-June quarter of this year were good enough to rank the state seventh behind the likes of California, Georgia, New York and Virginia.

Though Vice President Joe Biden released a report defending the program in recent weeks, many have soured on the stimulus, including 52 percent of Americans polled in a USA Today/Gallup study this summer. Most economist estimates have the ARRA creating at least 2.5 million jobs since last February, but some deem the package less effective here.

In the most recent quarter, Lorain produced 32 new jobs and Elyria had a robust 136 jobs during the three-month period. But the job impact was much lower for many communities west of Cleveland. The same was true east of Cleveland, where Painesville, Euclid and Richmond Heights were the only municipalities with recipients reporting a total greater than a single-digit new job count.

Predictably, most of the jobs, along with the biggest awards, went to agencies near the center of the state’s bigger cities, especially Columbus, with more than 20,000 jobs last quarter. Cleveland created about 830 jobs between April and June with its awards.

“Looking at those numbers, that’s only a drop in the bucket,” said Patricia Hoyt, dean of Workforce Development and Continuing Education at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland. “A lot of those jobs are seasonal, but are any of those jobs sustainable?”

It can’t be much of a surprise that smaller counties like Lake and Geauga would receive $62.6 million and $13.9 million, respectively, compared to Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton counties, which all received $400 million or better. Still, that money has gone toward jobs, infrastructure projects, educational aid, health care and energy and environmental spending that did not previously exist.

Here are a few awards given to public and private entities in Lake and Geauga counties, large and small. In some cases, all of the funds may not have been received yet.

• The Navy awarded Willoughby-based Pinnacle Construction and Development Corp. about $2.5 million for the demolition, minor asbestos abatement, architectural repairs, roofing, plumbing, lighting, HVAC renovation and construction and other modernization work at the Navy’s operational support center in Cincinnati. The firm selected a couple of small area firms for two of its sub-contracts. Russell Flooring Co. of Willoughby will receive $78,500, and Summit Painting in Eastlake will get about $1,000 more than that for its work.

Overall, 33 jobs have been reported for the project. A Pinnacle executive declined to discuss the award.

• The City of Mentor received $512,200 from the Department of Energy to retrofit traffic signals, street and parking lot lighting throughout the city with high-efficiency LED bulbs.

Mentor Public Works Director Matthew S. Schweikert said that money was presented to the city in spring 2009 for any projects it wanted to undertake that would conserve energy. The city has some funds left over to take bids for a boiler at its civic ice arena, but “a good chunk” of the funds went toward energy efficient lighting at the city’s 85 signalized intersections.

The city will do some of the installing but also contract some of the work, Schweikert said.

• The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s ARRA Capital Fund Program paid for the Geauga Metropolitan Housing Authority to renovate the parking lot and road surfaces at its Chardon facility, along with money to make various repairs at low-income housing facilities throughout the county.

The reward totaled about $432,000 and created about four jobs. The work is mostly complete, including replacing the building exit doors at Harris House in Chardon and replacing the exterior electric meter boxes at Cloverdale Estates in Middlefield and Strickland Arms in Bainbridge. The funds also covered concrete driveway and sidewalk replacement at Scranton Woods in Newbury Township and the administrative costs for the ARRA projects.

The projects were on the GMHA’s five-year plan, with some deemed shovel-ready, but the stimulus funding helped to expedite the process, said Mel Kirschnick, the agency’s modernization coordinator.

“You want to be a high performer, maintaining that status,” Kirschnick said. “HUD comes out every other year to look at our physical properties, and we get rated on that, and that’s part of a score that determines if we’re high performers or not. This parking lot, it was kind of an embarrassment before. That was really a project we were thankful to get done.”

One doesn’t have to travel far to see physical manifestation of the ARRA, as the familiar green signs with stimulus notation are scattered throughout Ohio’s interstates, routes and bridges.

“In Ohio, we look at the stimulus as something very important,” Ohio Department of Transportation District 12 spokeswoman Jocelynn Clemings said. “The governor and our director always say, where you see orange barrels, you should think jobs. It’s clear we’re putting people to work and folks who wouldn’t otherwise be working because of these dollars — not only people who we have on (construction) sites, but people behind the scenes, like haulers of materials, producers of materials, those who have a hand in fabricating, welding or doing things that you don’t see on a day-to-day basis.”

There were 11 ARRA-funded road projects between Lake and Geauga counties.

They are part of the $44.2 million share that the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency got from ODOT’s ARRA funds, NOACA spokeswoman Cheryl Onesky said.

The most expensive project is easily a Regional Intelligent Transportation System to include seven counties in the greater Cleveland and Akron areas.

The $21 million system will include traffic cameras and the informative, real-time highway message boards motorists have seen in other cities and states.

The cameras and radios provide the information for the boards and Web platforms that will give drivers an idea of congestion before they leave home or work. The system will be completed by the end of 2011.

“The system has been up and running in other cities, but ours is the best of the best, most updated and light years ahead of other systems,” Clemings said of the Dynamic Message Boards, manufactured by Brookings, S.D.-based Daktronics, which produces LED billboards and sports scoreboards.

That project is one of the 388 stimulus-funded transportation construction initiatives in the state, Clemings said. As of mid-September, 146 of those projects have been completed, including the $9.3 million rehabilitation of Interstate 271 from Wilson Mills Road to Interstate 90 and the resurfacing of State Route 700 in Troy and Burton Townships, worth $987,570 of ARRA investment.

Everybody, from the funding agencies to the recipients themselves, is aware of the criticisms of the ARRA and the perception that some of the projects are not important in today’s economically-depressed United States of America.

GMHA Executive Director Nancy Sadler knows those opinions will probably be coming her way as more people learn about the funds her agency received for the parking lot and facility repairs in Geauga County.

She has very different thoughts about the stimulus, at least as it affects her community.

“It’s actually brilliant when you think about it, for HUD, especially,” she said. “They’re actually dumping the money into their own federal assets.

They’re killing two birds with one stone: Supplying jobs and investing in their own properties. I really think that’s smart. It flowed just like it should have.”

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How to find home health aide job listings - Helium

You can find home health aide job listings. 

One good place to find these job listings is at monster.com.  Go to their website.  Type in "home health aide" - for type of work that you are looking for.  Type in the city and state or zip code -where you want the work to be located.  Press "enter."  A list of the available home health aide jobs will appear.  Either submit your resume and cover letter electronically to the companies, or apply in person.

Another good place to find home health aide jobs is at careerbuilder.com.  Go to their website.  Type in "home health aide" - for type of work that you are searching for.  Type in the city and state or the zip code - where you want the work to be located.  Press "enter."  A list of available home health aide jobs will appear.  You can submit your resume and a cover letter electronically to the company, or apply in person.

You can also find home health aide job listings in your local newspaper.  Go to the classified section.  Look under the jobs listing.  Look in the health positions available section.  When home health aide jobs are advertised there, they will state how you can apply for the advertised positions. 

You can also contact home health care agencies in the area where you want to work.  Call and ask human resources if they have an opening for a home health aide.    Nowadays, there are many home health care agencies.  Many of those agencies utilize the services of home health aides. 

Another good way - is to list your own advertisement in the local newspaper - where you want to work.  You can be a self-employed, home health aide worker.  List your advertisement in the newspaper.  Write a short, professional advertisement - stating your qualifications and your services.  Also, list your telephone number, so that people - who are interested in obtaining your services - can contact you. 

These days, there are many home health aide positions available.  This trend will continue for many years to come.  With many people in the U.S. reaching retirement age and living longer lives, home health aides are in demand.  You can work for an agency; or you can be a self-employed, home health aide.   

Learn more about this author, DLayne Lawson.

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Stein says she knows how to help 'ordinary people' - Boston Herald

LEXINGTON - As a physician, Jill Stein says she grew tired of prescribing pills for people who could not afford them, so she left her clinical practice and decided to go into medical research and policy work to help improve the nation’s health care system.

Now, the 60-year-old says she is sick of politicians who promote solutions, such as business tax incentive programs, that only benefit the wealthy.

She says the focus of state government on corporate elites — instead of the working class — is what has motivated her to mount her second run for governor of Massachusetts as a Green-Rainbow candidate.

"Business as usual has not been delivering for ordinary people," she told The Associated Press during a recent interview at her home in suburban Lexington. "We are starving small businesses so that we can give to the big gorillas."

Stein paints her opponents — Democrat Gov. Deval Patrick, Republican Charles Baker, and independent Timothy Cahill — as three political insiders who care more about "arcane policy details" than the real needs of people across the state.

"They tend to spend a lot of time finger-pointing and calling each other liars," she said. "Who could care less?"

Stein is a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Medical School. She has been an internist, medical teacher, author and guitarist. Her husband is a surgeon, and the couple has two sons — 27-year-old Ben and 24-year-old Noah.

In 2003, she helped found the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, a nonprofit focused on health care and the green economy. She has not practiced medicine since 2006, instead becoming something of a perennial candidate.

In 2002, she ran for governor; she ended up receiving 3.5 percent of the vote. She then ran unsuccessfully for state representative in 2004 and secretary of state in 2006, but explained losing did not mean the campaigns were not successful.

"Change does not happen easily," she said.

If she were to be elected, Stein would have the state place more emphasis on creating green jobs. She would support public schools rather than pitting them against charter schools. When she gets to talking about subjects that she feels the most passionate about, like creating more home weatherization programs to reduce energy costs, she moves her hands emphatically and leans in to her audience.

Stein hopes her message connects with voters who are upset with the status quo, including tea party supporters. She says she sometimes refers to her coalition of supporters as the "Green Tea Party."

"We share the same feeling that we have been betrayed," Stein said.

Some political observers believer her campaign can siphon liberal voters from Patrick, since Stein espouses support for the legalization of marijuana and single-payer health care while opposing casino gambling.

So far, Stein has attacked Patrick for what she calls his failure to deliver results for the middle class.

"The governor pretends he is a friend of the ordinary working person," she said. "He is powered by big corporate America."

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USF a partner in gene research lab taking shape near Naples - Tbo.com

By LINDSAY PETERSON

lpeterson@tampatrib.com

Published: October 3, 2010

TAMPA - To the medical school dean at the University of South Florida, the future of health care lies in a big field about 165 miles south of Tampa, along the road from Naples to Immokalee.

It's a vision that started in Collier County, spread to a research lab in Maine, then attracted USF with an ambitious proposition: high-paying biomedical jobs, research breakthroughs and a foothold in the emerging practice of personalized medicine.

"It's about creating a national model for health care for the 21st century," medical dean Stephen Klasko said.

A vice president with the Maine institution, Mike Hyde, let his rhetoric fly higher: "We propose a kind of Manhattan Project for health care," he said, referring to the World War II enterprise that led to the atom bomb.

USF and the private, not-for-profit The Jackson Laboratory have agreed to work together in what they're calling a bioscience village near Naples. Jackson would build it, then devote itself to finding personalized, gene-based treatments for today's most threatening diseases: cancer, Alzheimer's and diabetes.

"This is completely different from the way we deliver health care today," Hyde said. "It's a game-changer."

Manhattan Project

But game-changers, particularly Manhattan Project-style game-changers, are expensive. And the returns are uncertain.

To build and set up its Florida lab and treatment facility, Jackson says it needs at least $260 million, which it expects to get from state and Collier County taxpayers. It plans to raise $120 million for the first few years of operation.

The Legislature has approved $50 million for Jackson, with a promise of $80 million more in the next two years. It hasn't been so easy in Collier County, home to both wealthy retirees in Marco Island and farmworkers in Immokalee.

Jackson is promising high-tech jobs - about 7,000 in 20 years - and a chance for Collier to become nationally known for its bioscience innovation. But some residents question whether that chance is worth the $130 million they're expected to produce.

Who's right is hard to say, said Daniel Vorhaus, a lawyer specializing in genomics research for Robinson Bradshaw in Charlotte, N.C.

"All over the country, all over the world," health care institutes are rushing into genomics and personalized medicine, he said. "Everyone is competing for the same opportunity, for the same investment dollars, for the same business, for the same knowledge."

Some will succeed. Some won't.

"It's not always better to put $130 million into something as long term as personalized medicine," Vorhaus said. "But you don't want to lose sight of what you can do if you take a longer outlook."

What angers Naples lawyer Anthony Pires, a critic of the project, is that the Jackson effort was well down the road before the Collier County Commission began talking about it this summer.

"There's been a lot more going on than was reflected in the public record," Pires said.

Early work was secret

Tammie Nemecek, president of the Economic Development Council of Collier County, conceded that plans have been in the works for a while, but said there was no skullduggery involved.

She has been at the center of the effort from the start, about two years ago, when she attended a meeting organized by a prominent couple in Naples, Leslie and Rainey Norins.

Leslie Norins had worked with Jackson earlier in his career and, in retirement, he and his wife decided to raise money for the lab.

Nemecek said the fundraising presentation she attended "blew me away."

Jackson isn't one of the powerhouse biotech institutes such as Scripps, a California research institute that opened a much-sought-after branch in Palm Beach County last year. But it's well-respected for its efforts to unravel the genetic underpinnings of disease.

Established more than 80 years ago to study the role of heredity in cancer, it has created more than 5,000 strains of mice used around the world to test gene-based treatments.

After the presentation in 2008, Nemecek said, she approached Jackson representatives and told them, "You need to move here."

For years, Collier's economic developers have been working to bring biotech businesses to the county. It became a priority when the Florida real estate market collapsed.

But when she suggested it to the Jackson officials, they "looked at me like I had four heads."

They were trying to raise money for the Maine operation, she said. But as time passed, they talked more with local and state economic development officials, who assured them taxpayers would help them build in Florida.

The money would come from the state's Innovation Incentive Fund, created in 2006 to lure Scripps and other research companies to Florida.

The centerpiece of the Jackson incentives included a donation of 50 acres from Barron Collier Cos., which manages the vast Collier family land holdings. The company has donated hundreds of thousands of acres for parks and schools, so giving land to Jackson is consistent with its practices, spokeswoman Dolly Roberts said.

But the donation isn't all philanthropy.

"We want Jackson Labs," Roberts said.

What Collier Cos. gets

Collier Cos. plans to develop the land around the proposed research and clinic complex, which it envisions will include homes, schools, a hospital and several private biotech spin-off companies.

Also nearby is the town and campus of Ave Maria, developed and controlled by Collier and Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan.

With decades of experience in genetics, Jackson is perfectly placed to help lead the revolution in health care known today as personalized medicine, said Hyde, the vice president in Maine.

Personalized medicine is the practice of tailoring drug treatments to an individual, based on family history and genetics.

"It answers the question of why some people respond to treatment and some people don't," said Klasko, the USF dean.

"This isn't just a fad. It's real," lawyer Vorhaus said. "And it's extremely necessary. With the cost and limits of our health care system today, we really need to deliver medicine in a more efficient, less costly way."

Genetic tests are available for some diseases, such as breast cancer.

"We believe that in the next few years, it will be possible to develop very, very definitive tests based on your particular individual genomic profile," Hyde said. "Our ability to diagnose a disease when symptoms occur and treat it will all be transformed by this."

About the time Naples-area lawmakers were pushing through the bill to fund the Jackson project, word reached Klasko, USF's energetic medical school dean, who encourages entrepreneurial approaches to health care.

"We invited them down for a day," Klasko said. "They had no idea what we had."

USF throws hat in ring

They liked what they saw at USF Health's Byrd Alzheimer's Institute, where professors do basic research in neuroscience in the same building where clinicians work with patients.

"We're looking at a scenario (at Jackson) where USF and Jackson researchers would work side by side," Klasko said. "We could take basic research, translate that into drugs and translate that into clinical trials with humans."

He also envisions partnering with southwest Florida's Edison Community College and Florida Gulf Coast University to offer courses in gene-based health care, from genetic counseling to treatment.

Collier's Roberts said the company is considering additional land donations, possibly for a hospital.

But these ideas remain just that - ideas.

"We're very much at the conceptual stage" of working together, said USF's vice president for research, Karen Holbrook.

"We know we're going to have people on the ground in Collier, but at this point we don't know who or exactly what they'll do," she said.

USF and Jackson have signed a three-page collaboration agreement, but it doesn't include details of the relationship.

That kind of vagueness concerns Janet Vasey, a member of the Collier County Productivity Committee, which sized up the Washington Economic Group's report on Jackson's economic impact.

"They say they'll bring all these jobs, but they don't say exactly how," Vasey said. They say dozens of private biotech companies will relocate to be near Jackson, she said.

"We asked who? And we got no answer."

One company has announced plans to move to the biomedical village. That's California-based Athleticode, which uses genetic testing to identify whether someone is at risk for certain athletic injuries.

"We just have a problem with the rosy projections," Vasey said.

A big price tag

She and others have proposed that the county commission put the $130 million county allocation to a public vote. She also noted that the plan to raise the money with a bond issue means it will ultimately cost taxpayers about twice that much.

The commission voted down the proposal.

Jackson has submitted its proposal to Enterprise Florida, the state's economic development arm that has to sign off on the project, along with the state Office of Tourism and Economic Development, before Jackson can get money from the state.

After that, Collier County has 120 days to approve its $130 million share.

Hyde isn't worried.

"There's little doubt that this is going to happen," he said. "This is a smart investment."

People who question the project might not be happy over the next few years. They won't see much, except for some construction.

"We're not going to cure cancer or transform the economy tomorrow. That's not how this works," Hyde said.

"But my guess is that 10 to 15 years from now, people in Florida will be delighted that this investment was made."

Reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834.

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The best resources for home health aide jobs - Helium

The best resources for home health aide jobs

Home health aides work in the home of patients who are still recuperating from an illness, or for chronically ill people who needs assistant with activities of daily living. It is easier to narrow your search by determining which area of home health you would like to work. In most cases home health aides are responsible for the care of one patient.

The best place to find a home health aide job is to apply with a home health aide agency. There are several different type of agencies with each one addressing different patient needs.

Patient Sitter

A person who wants to work as a patient sitter should apply with an agency that offer sitting services for patients in the hospital. This job is scheduled in twelve hour shifts, and a patient sitter spends most of the time sitting in the patients room. Your job might include, helping nursing staff to turn, and feed patient. This type of work is typically carried out in a hospital or a nursing home.

Provider Care

There are agencies which provide home health aide services to low income individuals which are paid for by Medicaid. These agencies  offer up to twenty eight hours per week. The department of aging and disability will have a list of these agencies for your area.

Referral Agencies

These are agencies that refer home health aides to people needing home health services. These can be live in work or by shifts or week ends only. You will be paid by the patient, and you can find these agencies through your local news paper. They might be listed under the domestic section or they might advertise in any type of senior news paper.

Private Home Health Agencies

Home health agencies that hire and assign care givers to specific patients. These agencies typically pay more, and work with more affluent clients. They are easier to find because they advertise constantly and often have web sites. There are several different franchises in this area of home health.

Group Homes

Group homes hire home health aides to provide care for elderly and mentally challenged individuals. You will be required to care for more than one individual.

Hospice Care

Agencies that specialize in hospice care hire home health aides to assist patients who are in their final stage of life. These can be private agencies who require the patient to pay for the service or other agencies that is paid for by Medicare or Medicaid. Patients can live in their home or in a nursing home. Additionally there are also agencies who hire home health aides to visit patients to assist with baths and meals.

Experienced Home Health Aide

An experienced home health aide can advertise their services in the classifieds. Craigslist is an Internet classifieds where you can place advertisement for free.

Home health aide work is easier to find for people who have Home Health Aide Certification or for a Certified Nursing Assistant. 

Learn more about this author, Jennifer Mcdonald.

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Bound Brook nursing home in bitter fight with labor union - myCentralJersy.com

BOUND BROOK — Somerset Valley Nursing and Rehabilitation Center's parent company and a health-care workers union are embroiled in a battle before the National Labor Relations Board.

The union, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, has filed several National Labor Relations Board complaints against the nursing home, which is owned by Care One, New Jersey's second largest nursing-home company.

The union's charges include that the nursing home owners interfered with the union election, which was held Sept. 2, and "illegally terminated" four employees and disciplined others who supported the union.

Care One spokesman Peter J. Ward said his company filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging campaign misconduct against the union asking for a new election.

"We are vigorously defending the union's baseless allegations and pursuing justice for our employees at the center," Ward said.

United Healthcare Workers East attorney Ellen Dichner said the employees want their jobs back.

"These are all people who had very good employee records until after Sept. 2," Dichner said.

The union filed the first labor charge on Aug. 31 stating that the employees had been unlawfully interrogated.

On Sept. 10 other batch of complaints including that Care One summoned the police to remove a union representative standing on the driveway of the property.

Complaints the union filed Sept. 21 alleged that the company fired two more union supporters and issued disciplinary notices.

Dichner said there reasons were for minor infractions that hadn't been mentioned prior to Sept. 2. For example, one employee was suddenly written up for being a minute or two late 112 times since January, Dichner said.

Shannon Napolitano was dismissed from her position as a Licensed Practical Nurse following the union election.

Napolitano worked at Somerset for two years and for the Care One chain of nursing homes for five years.

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