Unions Suffer Latest Defeat in Midwest With Signing of Wisconsin Measure

Abstract: MADISON, Wis. — For decades, states across the South, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains enacted policies that prevented organized labor from forcing all workers to pay union dues or fees. But the industrial Midwest resisted. Those days are gone. After a wave of Republican victories across the region in 2010, Indiana and then Michigan enacted so-called right-to-work laws that supporters said strengthened those states economically, but that labor leaders asserted left behind a trail of weakened unions. Now it is Wisconsin’s turn. On Monday, Gov. Scott Walker — who in 2011 succeeded in slashing collective bargaining rights for most public sector workers — signed a bill that makes his state the 25th to adopt the policy and has given new momentum to the business-led movement, its supporters say. “This freedom-to-work legislation will give workers the freedom to choose whether or not they want to join a union, and employers another compelling reason to consider expanding or moving their business to Wisconsin,” Mr. Walker said. Even before the Legislature passed the measure on Friday in a fast-track process, Mr. Walker’s political backers were raising money on the issue, saying of the bill in an email pitch to donors, “You know how it is: It threatens the power the Big Government Labor Bosses crave and they are going to come after him with everything they’ve got.” Democrats assert that Mr. Walker’s real motivation is more about politics than job creation: breaking a dwindling union movement in Wisconsin and boosting his standing as the conservative choice for the Republican presidential nomination next year. And beyond Mr. Walker’s prospects, they say, the new laws throughout the region are intended to help Republicans build a favorable electoral map for 2016, by weakening the labor groups that have traditionally provided muscle and money to Democratic candidates in crucial swing states. “It’s designed to depress wages and to help them win elections in the future,” Michael Sargeant, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee , said of passage of the measure , almost entirely on party lines, in Wisconsin. “That’s what this is about.” Image Union members and supporters held multiple demonstrations in the rotunda of the Wisconsin State Capitol last month. Credit Ben Brewer for The New York Times President Obama issued a statement calling the measure “a new anti-worker law,” and criticizing Mr. Walker directly. “Wisconsin is a state built by labor, with a proud pro-worker past,” he said. "So even as its governor claims victory over working Americans, I’d encourage him to try and score a victory for working Americans — by taking meaningful action to raise their wages and offer them the security of paid leave." Battles over union fees are also emerging in other states. Republican legislators in Missouri and New Mexico are weighing similar measures. In Kentucky, where a split Legislature and a Democratic governor pose obstacles to a statewide bill, leaders in more than a dozen counties have approved or are weighing measures , officials there said on Saturday, and efforts in six other counties are awaiting final approval. And in Illinois, a long-held Democratic territory with Democratic supermajorities in the legislature, the new Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, announced an executive order barring state workers who opt out of unions from being forced to pay fees based on a constitutional argument, offering a new model for states where split partisan politics have slowed right-to-work policies. Federal law already permits workers not to join unions. But these laws go further, permitting workers to not pay fees to them. Unions argue that the fees are fair for nonunion members who still benefit from the contracts they negotiate, and that without a requirement, their membership, financial support and very existence are threatened. The effects of such measures are fiercely debated, with dueling experts and research papers. In Michigan, the percentage of workers in unions has dropped to 14.5 percent from 16.6 percent before the changes. Yet in Indiana, the percentage of union members grew to 10.7 percent from 9.1 percent in 2012, a statistic some labor experts say shows how difficult it is to gauge the effects of such measures given other factors at play. In Wisconsin, the percentage of workers in unions dropped to 11.7 percent in 2014 from 14.2 percent in 2010, before Mr. Walker took office. Central to the new momentum behind the laws were sweeping Republican victories in state elections in 2010, when the party got full control — in the chambers and the governor’s office — of states that included Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana. Republicans made more gains in 2014 , now controlling 68 of the 98 chambers around the country and the most state legislative seats since 1920. But it was the victories in 2010 that set off a new flood of right-to-work legislation in the Midwest, which had rarely seen it. Soon after taking office, Mr. Walker pressed for a bill that cut collective bargaining for most public sector workers and removed requirements that they pay fees if they chose not to join unions that represented them. Republicans elsewhere followed suit, but not all of those measures flew through. Ohio, where Republicans had taken sole control of state government, passed a measure limiting collective bargaining, but it was rejected months later in a statewide ballot measure . Image Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois, a Republican, announced an executive order that bars state workers who opt out of unions from having to pay fees. Credit Seth Perlman/Associated Press Then, for right-to-work advocates, there came an even more memorable turning point: In November 2012, voters in Indiana (where a law was repealed in the 1960s) re-elected Republican legislative majorities even after labor leaders pledged to defeat them for passing a right-to-work law earlier in the year. On the same election night, voters in Michigan rejected a labor-backed ballot measure to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the State Constitution. “The combination sent a clear message to elected officials in the region: You can end forced dues by passing right-to-work, and voters will reward you for it,” said Patrick Semmens, a spokesman for the National Right to Work Committee, who keeps a copy of The Indianapolis Star outside his office from the day after the law passed there. A month after the 2012 election, the Republican-held Legislature in Michigan, a cradle of the American labor movement, passed a right-to-work measure , which was promptly signed by Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican who had said the matter was not on his agenda. Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, called it “a concerted effort by the folks who have a lot of wealth and power to get more wealth and power.” “They’ve had these plans a long time, and now they’ve come to fruition,” he said. In Madison, politics have been nearly impossible to separate from the debate over the policy in recent weeks. For many Democrats, the issue became an intense, highly partisan battle over Mr. Walker, his conservative policies since 2011, and his flirtation with a presidential bid. “This is about crushing unions,” Representative Chris Taylor , a Democrat, said during an all-night debate last week. At another point, Robin Vos , the Republican House speaker, said Democrats suffered from “Walker derangement syndrome.” In other states, where the debate is complicated by split partisan control, leaders were closely watching. In New Mexico, where a right-to-work measure passed through a newly Republican-held House last month, Democrats said they expected to see the measure vanish in a committee of the Senate, still held by Democrats. “This is all about breaking up unions,” said Sam Bregman, chairman of the New Mexico Democratic Party. In Missouri, Republican lawmakers said they were concerned that they might be left behind by their Midwestern neighbors, given all that had changed. A measure that had stalled for several years passed the State House last month , and a Senate committee is expected to send it to the floor in a matter of weeks. Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, has suggested a veto is likely, and Republicans say an override would be difficult. “But when you see a Wisconsin, a Michigan, when they can get it done there,” said Senator Mike Parson , a Republican, “it’s pretty tough to sit here in Missouri with the makeup of things here and we can’t get it done?”

Wisconsin
Scott Walker
Collective bargaining
Labor Unions
2016 Presidential Election
State legislature


Ikea Recalls Crib Mattresses for Entrapment Hazard

Abstract: The Swedish furniture company Ikea has recalled 169,000 crib mattresses after reports that two children became trapped, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Wednesday. The children were removed uninjured. Ikea urged consumers to check for a possible gap between the mattress and the frame. The company said five Vyssa crib models sold in the United States between August 2010 and May 2014 were recalled, including those branded Vackert, Vinka, Spelevink, Sloa and Slummer. The government urged anyone with these models to stop using the mattress if there was a gap larger than two fingers’ width next to the frame.

IKEA
Mattress
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Infant bed
Recalls and Bans
Babies


Baseball Hall of Fame Needs to Change 5 Percent Rule

Abstract: Hall of Fame voters are a fickle bunch. Neither Jim Rice nor Bert Blyleven has done anything to bolster his candidacy for enshrinement in Cooperstown since retiring. Yet their shares of the vote have increased to 72.2 percent and 61.9 percent last year from 29.4 percent and 14.1 percent 10 years ago. Clearly, the hundreds of baseball writers who determine who receives a plaque need every one of the 15 years they are given to consider each player to render their verdict. Yet a little-noticed quirk of the Hall’s voting procedures has denied a vast majority of candidates their due period of deliberation. To prevent the electorate from being swamped by an overwhelmingly long list of choices, the organization permanently removes everyone from the ballot who fails to attain 5 percent of the vote in any year. This condemns those players to obscurity because their names will be excluded from the annual ballot debate among baseball pundits nationwide. As mainstream baseball reporters have become more familiar with the sophisticated quantitative tools now available to assess players’ value, their collective judgment has evolved. As a result, some players whose skills have been underappreciated would probably benefit from strong campaigns of support today. Unfortunately, many have been dropped from the ballot, and their omissions are no less glaring than the current statistical causes célèbre of Blyleven, Alan Trammell and Tim Raines. Perhaps the single most egregious victim of the 5 percent rule is Bobby Grich, who makes for a fascinating comparison with Rod Carew, his rival for the title of top American League second baseman of the 1970s. Carew was unusual for the concentration of his value in a single skill, batting average. Grich did absolutely everything in the game brilliantly — except hit for average. Although Carew actually spent more time at first base than at second, and was merely adequate at second, Grich was one of the top defenders at his position. Carew’s aggressive style limited his ability to draw walks, but Grich was one of his era’s most patient hitters. And although Carew had little extra-base pop, Grich was a feared slugger. On balance, Grich and Carew were equally useful to their teams over their careers. Yet Carew was chosen for the Hall on the first ballot in 1991, and Grich dropped off after receiving 2.6 percent of the vote in his first year of eligibility, 1992. Another player who suffered because of the policy is Ted Simmons, who is almost certainly one of the 10 most valuable catchers in major league history. His combined on-base and slugging percentages were 24 percent above the league average, a figure surpassed by only six players with more than 1,400 games caught in the majors. And his defense behind the plate was roughly average, which is hardly a strike against him. Perhaps because he was overshadowed by a remarkable crop of catchers in the 1970s, led by Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk and Gary Carter, Simmons too lasted just one year on the ballot, receiving 3.7 percent of the vote in 1994. Lost in the (highly justified) clamor for the selection of Trammell is the case of his double-play partner, Lou Whitaker. Although Whitaker was less valuable than Trammell in the field because he played second base rather than shortstop, he was superior with the bat, bettering Trammell’s career on-base and slugging percentages by 11 points each. In Trammell’s and Whitaker’s first 11 years together, the Tigers never finished below .500. Both members of their keystone combination deserve enshrinement, but only one is regularly mentioned as a candidate: Whitaker received 2.9 percent of the vote when he hit the ballot in 2001. Finally, the fates of Darrell and Dwight Evans have been intertwined by more than their names. For about 20 major league seasons, they were tremendously disciplined hitters, regularly appearing on walk leader boards. They had good power but fell short of 500 home runs. And they made significant contributions with the glove: Dwight’s arm in right field was justifiably celebrated, and modern fielding statistics show Darrell had excellent range as a young third baseman. The Evanses were probably more valuable than their contemporary Dave Winfield. But Winfield’s 3,000 hits punched his ticket to the Hall, and neither Evans remains on the ballot. Darrell lasted one year, receiving 1.7 percent of the vote in 1995, and Dwight held on for three, being eliminated after a 3.6 percent showing in 1999. Grich and Simmons have been retired for 20 years, so their cases will have to be taken up by the veterans committee no matter what. But by eliminating the 5 percent rule, the Hall could give Whitaker and the Evanses another shot, as well as other candidates deserving of consideration, like Will Clark, Keith Hernandez, Willie Randolph, Bret Saberhagen and Dave Stieb. As the Baseball Writers’ Association of America finally begins to open its doors to more statistically savvy Internet journalists — Rob Neyer and Keith Law of ESPN.com were admitted this year — it should give such journalists the chance to express their support for every player worthy of induction.


NBC’s Savannah Guthrie Says She Is Pregnant and Won’t Go to Olympics Because of Zika

Abstract: The “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie said on Tuesday that she was pregnant and, as a result, would not participate in NBC’s coverage of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro because of concerns about the Zika virus. Ms. Guthrie, 44, said her baby was due in December. “I’m not going to be able to go to Rio,” she told her co-anchor, Matt Lauer, shortly after she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. “The doctors say we shouldn’t because of the Zika virus. So I’ll miss it. You’re going to have to go to female beach volleyball without me, Matt. Try to carry on!” Ms. Guthrie said she would “hold down the fort” from New York. “We’re going to be in the height of the campaign season, so we’ll be here,” she said. NBC and NBC Universal cable stations will broadcast the Olympics from Aug. 5 to Aug. 21. Brazil has recently had a surge in babies born with microcephaly, a condition in which their heads are abnormally small. Health officials have attributed the surge to Zika, a mosquito-borne virus. Noah Oppenheim, a senior vice president of NBC News and the executive in charge of “Today,” said Ms. Guthrie approached him "very recently” to inform him she was pregnant and would not attend the Olympics. He described the discussion as “one very happy conversation” and said NBC Universal has a companywide policy that allows for anyone to opt out of the Games without consequence. He said that “just a handful” of people have opted out thus far. As far as Ms. Guthrie’s presence in New York to cover the election, Mr. Oppenheim said, “It’s a lucky coincidence we’ll have Savannah here to anchor it for us.”

NBC
Savannah Guthrie
Today
Zika Virus
Brazil
2016 Summer Olympics
Pregnancy
TV


Feud Tourism in the Land of Hatfields and McCoys

Abstract: SARAH ANN, W.Va. — Standing on the back of an Appalachian hillside, Reo Hatfield fixed his gaze over the land of his infamous forebears, a scowl etched across his face. Before him, the graves in the Hatfield Family Cemetery had surrendered to years of gravity and weather, slender headstones slumped and overgrown, the inscriptions of some erased by time. The graveyard, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, has become a focal point for Mr. Hatfield, 63, a Virginia businessman seeking to restore and preserve the cemetery in hopes of luring tourists eager to learn about the Hatfield-McCoy feud. It is a burial spot for members of both families — some of whom died in the 19th-century interfamily war over land and family honor. Image Emily Chaney performing a skit on the Hatfields at the cemetery, which is on the National Register of Historic Places but has fallen into disrepair. Credit Kyle Green for The New York Times “They come here with expectations of seeing something special,” he said. “But you start up the road, and you can hardly walk up there. And once you get there, the graves are unkept, and the fence that guards the grave site has fallen down in numerous places.” Four years ago, Mr. Hatfield approached West Virginia officials with a plan to clean up the cemetery, but they have been unable to determine whose land it is. The owner’s approval is needed for the project to go forward, so nothing has happened. The lack of progress has frustrated Mr. Hatfield, who called the initiative a good-will effort by both families after they made their longstanding truce official in June 2003. Local tourism departments, along with members of the Hatfield and McCoy families, are working to transform feud folklore into a dependable source of jobs and revenue for Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia, a region grappling with the decline of coal. In the past year, communities along the Tug Fork, the stream that is the state boundary in the area, have witnessed a surge in out-of-town foot traffic, tourists by the thousands drawn to the region in search of history. Image A tour group making its way to the Hatfield cemetery. A History Channel mini-series last year prompted renewed interest in the families’ long feud. Credit Kyle Green for The New York Times Officials on both sides of the river attribute the increase to “ Hatfields & McCoys ,” a 2012 History Channel mini-series that told the families’ story. There is an urgency to capitalize on the show, Mr. Hatfield said, and to promote the feud as a draw to the region. In Pike County, Ky., thousands of state dollars have been funneled to the local tourism department to that end. Tony Tackett, the county’s executive director of tourism, said his office had spent close to $40,000 in state money on billboards and a national advertising campaign since April 2012. The campaign included advertisements in O, The Oprah Magazine, and several other publications. State money also bought signs to direct tourists along winding roads to landmarks. And at least three previously unlisted cemeteries and sites nearby have been submitted for National Registry status. “The mines are shutting down every day,” Mr. Tackett said. “We have to put our people back to work.” Image Ron McCoy, left, and Reo Hatfield. "If tourism goes away, it’s still my family,” Mr. McCoy said. “But we know the Hatfields and McCoys can be a real boon to this area.” Credit Kyle Green for The New York Times As Mr. Hatfield left the site of his family’s cemetery on an April afternoon, Adam Warren stepped off a rented bus with a tour group. Mr. Warren said he decided to start his own business, Hatfield & McCoy Guided Tours , shortly after the History Channel show ended. “As soon as the mini-series came out, we had tons of people showing up, looking for sites,” he said. “I was home, applying everywhere away from here because I didn’t want to work in the mines. But here I am. This is what I do.” His group wheezed its way up the steep mud road to the cemetery, stepping over jagged rocks and avoiding yawning ruts. At the top, they found a life-size marble statue of William Anderson Hatfield, known as Devil Anse , standing watch, a tail of his overcoat chipped away. Image The area where the Hatfields and McCoys lived and where many of them are buried. Credit The New York Times Mr. Warren said he had known a lot about the feud before starting his business but delved deeper into the rich Appalachian tale to develop his expertise. The last Hatfield-McCoy killing has been traced to the spring of 1947, but a majority of the family feud violence took place in the late 1800s, when dozens of Hatfields and McCoys perished in tit-for-tat skirmishes. The feud — which some say started over a pig, and with a stabbing at a polling place — symbolically ended in 2003, after more than a century, when the families united in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks to show that they could overcome their differences, Mr. Hatfield said. Stepping around the cemetery with his customers — on that day the Romeos (Retired Old Men Eating Out) of Ashland, Ky. — Mr. Warren expressed concern about the state of the site. The weeds, mud and boulders leave it looking uninviting, despite the official Department of Interior plaque at the graveyard entrance, he said. Image The grave of William Anderson Hatfield, known as Devil Anse. Credit Kyle Green for The New York Times Officials with the West Virginia Division of Culture and History said that they had fielded calls about the care of the Hatfield Family Cemetery but that the burden of site upkeep fell to the property owner. The state does not police the conditions of sites. “People are concerned that it be taken care of, that it continue to be mowed, that it’s accessible,” said Susan Pierce, the deputy state historic preservation officer. “I know my mother would complain if she went up there.” The department’s most recent paperwork on the cemetery dates to October 1980, when Evelyn Gannon, then its owner, applied to have it listed on the National Register. At the time, Ms. Gannon listed an address in Bakersfield, Calif., as her primary residence. Efforts by the families and by The New York Times to reach her have been unsuccessful. The local tax assessor’s office has no name on file associated with the property, which is not surprising; officials there said cemeteries were not subject to property tax. Image The tombstone of the McCoy patriarch, Randolph, in Pikeville, Ky. Credit Kyle Green for The New York Times At the Sarah Ann post office, about a mile from the cemetery along the curvy Route 44, a postal worker, Fawn Morrison, said that for years, before it became popular with tourists, the cemetery had been a solitary Appalachian spot, a jungle of weeds that made for pleasant getaway hikes. “If you saw another person up there every three to four months, it’d be a miracle,” Ms. Morrison said. “Then it got to be that there was no place to pull off the road and park.” The traffic has slowed in the last year, she said, but at any given time it is common to find cars parked at the base of the hill. By contrast, Dils Cemetery in Pikeville, Ky. — the grave of the McCoy family patriarch, Randolph McCoy, and other family members — was once an eyesore, but it has been restored and is now heavily advertised as a must-see spot. Standing in the cemetery with Mr. Hatfield, Randolph McCoy’s great-great-great-grandson, Ron McCoy, 49, sympathized with his friend and the rest of the region. “If tourism goes away, it’s still my family,” said Mr. McCoy, a finance officer for the State of North Carolina. “But we know the Hatfields and McCoys can be a real boon to this area.”

Cemetery
West Virginia
Kentucky
Historic preservation
Restoration and Renovation
Travel,Tourism


A Newcomer Fits Rangers’ Prototype for the Fast Track

Abstract: GREENBURGH, N.Y. — The Rangers used to have another player just like Michael Grabner. His name was Carl Hagelin. Like Grabner, Hagelin was a 185-pound left-handed-shooting winger who was exceptionally fast and was good at killing penalties. After a 2014-15 season in which they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference finals, the Rangers, pressed against the salary cap, traded Hagelin to the Anaheim Ducks. Hagelin played only 43 games for the Ducks before he was traded again in January, to the Pittsburgh Penguins, whom he helped win the Stanley Cup. The first team Pittsburgh beat in the playoffs was the Rangers, who decided they needed to become much faster . The Rangers signed Grabner in July for two years and a reasonable $3.6 million because, in part, he had struggled last year in his only season in Toronto, scoring nine goals in 80 games. The year before that, he scored eight goals in 34 games for the Islanders in a season disrupted by injuries. But Grabner has had a resurgence this season, scoring a team-high seven goals in 14 games for the Rangers (10-4-0). “It’s just the way it goes,” Grabner, 29, said before the Rangers left for a four-game trip that will start Saturday in Calgary against the Flames. “It’s tough to score goals in the N.H.L., and I just take it as it comes. I’ve been on the other end the last couple of years, where I’d get chances and nothing would go in. “If you get chances, that’s the biggest thing. I’d have to look at my game a little bit if I didn’t get shots, or chances to score goals. When you get the chances, you hope they go in, but when they don’t, you try to keep working to get more.” Grabner, from Villach, Austria, was a first-round pick in the 2006 entry draft by the Vancouver Canucks, for whom he played only 20 games. In 2010, he was traded to Florida, then was claimed by the Islanders on waivers a few months later after the Panthers tried to send him to the minors. Image Grabner (40) in a game last week against the Oilers. He is providing an edge the team has not had since Carl Hagelin was a Ranger. Credit Bruce Bennett/Getty Images He scored 34 goals in his first year with the Islanders and finished third in the voting for the Calder Trophy, given to the top rookie. In 2011, the Islanders signed Grabner to a five-year, $15 million contract. He scored only 56 goals in four seasons before he was traded to Toronto. Grabner’s acquisition was regarded as a bit of a flier for the Rangers, but Coach Alain Vigneault said, “Everything I see from Grabs is what I expected.” “The speed, the penalty-killing, the good stick,” Vigneault said. “He’s a player that can intimidate the opposition with his speed. When he’s jumping and feeling good about himself, he’s a very effective player. That’s what we’ve seen so far, and that’s what I expect to see moving forward.” The Rangers were 26th in the N.H.L. at killing penalties last year after finishing sixth in Hagelin’s final season in New York. The team is now 12th. Grabner, who had a hat trick on Oct. 30 against the Lightning, has enabled the Rangers to become the highest-scoring team in the league. But he can also play defense. “It’s incredible,” said Ryan McDonagh, the Rangers’ captain and top defenseman. “I mean, you talk about not just the open-ice speed he has but, in practice, in D-zone coverage, he’s just so quick in his turns. He’s right on you — takes away time and space. You might think you have a second or two, and, boom, he’s right on you. Offensively, when you have the puck, you’re not even aware of the ability he has. It’s been a huge strength for us.” Grabner thrived on a line with Kevin Hayes and J. T. Miller, who are tied for the team lead with 13 points. “It revolves a little bit around his speed,” Miller said of Grabner. “But he goes to the tough areas, and a lot of the goals he scores are right around the net this year. He goes to those areas, and he makes it easier for his linemates to get open because he makes a lot of room.” At practice Thursday, Vigneault shuffled his lines in an effort to help the struggling forward Chris Kreider, and Grabner played with center Brandon Pirri and winger Jesper Fast. Pirri smiled when he said of Grabner: “He wants to go. That’s the strength of his game.” Pirri added: “Obviously, we’re a quick transition team, but with his speed, it pushes their D back, and it opens ice. If they don’t respect his speed, he’s going for a breakaway — he has two breakaways a game, it seems like. It’s weird, but he seems to know what he’s capable of, and he does it very well.” The road trip, which also includes stops in Edmonton, Vancouver and Columbus, is being regarded as the first true test of the season for the Rangers, who have played all but four games at Madison Square Garden. They are tied at the top of the Metropolitan Division with Pittsburgh (9-3-2), which also has 20 points. Grabner provides an edge that the Rangers have not had since Hagelin was here. “Speed for the opposition is a scary thing when you’re seeing that coming down the wing,” Vigneault said, adding of Grabner, “I’m very happy he decided to join our team this year.”


Kai Tak, Hong Kong’s Old Airport, Reopens as a Cruise Ship Terminal

Abstract: HONG KONG — It was perhaps the most spectacular flight approach in the world: amid mountains, seas and frequently tempestuous winds, aircraft nearing Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong would stage a stomach-churning right turn, glide over the densely populated Kowloon Peninsula and land on a runway that jutted straight out into the sea. Starting Wednesday, passengers approaching the old runway will do so at crawl speed — and from the sea, rather than from the air. After 15 years of lying idle, the former airport will reopen its gates to the world’s travelers — as a cruise ship terminal at the southern end of the old runway. Gleaming silver, and 850 meters, or about half-mile long, the new terminal building has airy immigration and check-in halls reminiscent of, yes, an airport. A large, manicured rooftop garden with 360-degree views of the Hong Kong skyline will open to the public in the next few months. And the terminal’s two berths will be able to accommodate the largest cruise ships in the world — behemoths more than 300 meters long that can carry thousands of passengers. The first of those giants — the 15-deck, 310-meter Mariner of the Seas, operated by Royal Caribbean International and carrying more than 3,000 passengers — is scheduled to dock at the terminal Wednesday evening. The new terminal cost 8.2 billion in Hong Kong dollars, or about $1 billion, and was designed by the architectural firm of Norman Foster, whose other designs include plans for the renovation of the New York Public Library. Mr. Foster’s firm also designed the larger airport that replaced Kai Tak in July 1998. For now, most of the old airport, including the area where the terminal building once stood, lies empty, the shiny new cruise terminal awkwardly isolated at the far end of the former runway. The nearest neighborhoods — Kwun Tong and Kowloon Bay — are somewhat rundown, and until planned public transportation connections are completed in the coming years, the terminal building’s rooftop gardens will be tough for ordinary visitors to reach. While Hong Kong is home to one of the busiest container ports in the world, cruise companies held off factoring the terminal into their itineraries until it was actually finished. Just 19 ships are scheduled to dock at the new terminal in the next 12 months. Still, industry executives say they believe that traffic will gradually increase as cruise activity in Asia picks up, and Hong Kong policy makers see the project as crucial to expanding tourism in the city. Gregory So, the Hong Kong secretary for commerce and economic development, said at a media briefing last week that the new terminal would “greatly enhance the berthing capacity for cruise ships in Hong Kong, thereby enhancing our competitiveness and attractiveness.” Image The decision to convert the old airport site is, in essence, a bet on Asia’s growing appetite for travel. Over the last few decades, thanks to rising affluence and improved transport links, Asia has evolved from being primarily a destination for wealthy Westerners to being an increasingly important source of new travelers — Asians journeying to places within the region and beyond. Travel from mainland China, in particular, has soared, making the country both the biggest source of foreign tourists in the world, and the biggest spender in global tourism, according to the World Tourism Organization. This growth has yet to extend into the cruise ship segment, which remains overwhelmingly focused on travel within the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Just under two-thirds of the roughly 21 million people in the world who will take a cruise this year will come from North America, and about 27 percent will come from Europe, according to Cruise Market Watch , an American firm that compiles data on the industry. Only about 7 percent come from Asia. In part, that is because Asians have only recently begun to approach travel as something that involves relaxation and leisure, rather than an activity focused on shopping and sightseeing, said Liu Zinan, chairman of the Asia Cruise Association and vice president of Asia for Royal Caribbean. The lack of terminals that accommodate cruise ships also has hampered growth in the region. “Compared to the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, there is a paucity of destinations for cruise ships to go,” said Jeff Bent, managing director of Worldwide Cruise Terminals, which manages the new terminal in Hong Kong. “Cruise lines have fewer options to put together interesting itineraries.” That is changing rapidly as port cities and cruise companies race to expand their capacities in the region. “The market potential for cruising in Asia is huge as the total potential number of cruise passengers could reach 3.7 million by 2017, and double to over seven million by 2020,” said Pier Luigi Foschi, the Asia head of Carnival Cruise Lines, which opened an office in Singapore last month to spearhead its operations in the region. Singapore opened a large new cruise ship terminal last year, which, like the new center in Hong Kong, can handle ships as large as 220,000 tons. The terminal expects 100 ship calls in the coming cruise season, which runs from October to May. In Hong Kong, the debut of the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal opens the city to superlarge cruise liners, which are too large to dock at the existing Ocean Terminal, just across Victoria Harbor from the city’s skyscraper-studded financial district. And in mainland China, new operations have been developed in several coastal cities. “Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin, Singapore — they are all racing with each other to become leading cruise ports in the region,” said Mr. Liu of Royal Caribbean. Hong Kong’s geographic location and hotel and transport infrastructures, he added, mean the new terminal will be an important feature on tour operators’ itineraries. Anyone who might want to reminisce over the old Kai Tak Airport and its legendary flight approach, however, will have to look elsewhere. The new building retains little of the site’s former incarnation, though a park being planned alongside it will have an “aviation theme.”

Hong Kong
Airport
Port
Cruises
Transit Terminals
Travel,Tourism


General Mills Profit Rises 8%

Abstract: MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 19 (AP) — The food maker General Mills reported on Wednesday that its first-quarter profit rose 8 percent as rising revenue offset higher ingredient costs and increased spending on marketing. The company, which makes Cheerios cereals, Yoplait yogurt and Pillsbury baking mixes, said it earned $288.9 million, or 81 cents a share, up from $266.9 million, or 74 cents a share, in the period a year earlier. Revenue in the period, which ended Aug. 26, rose 7 percent, to $3.07 billion from $2.86 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were expecting 80 cents a share on revenue of $3 billion. Food makers have been pressured by rising ingredient and fuel costs. In response, General Mills announced a cereal price increase in June and raised prices on Yoplait in July. General Mills spent $113 million on interest, up 8 percent from a year ago, as its debt grew. Sales in General Mills’ retail foods division, the company’s largest, grew 6 percent, to $2.03 billion. Operating profit rose 6 percent, to $473 million. Sales of Big G cereal rose 5 percent. Shares of General Mills, which is based in Minneapolis, rose 18 cents, to $58.85.

General Mills Incorporated
Company Reports


U.S. Women Win Medley Relay; Sun Yang of China Sets Record

Abstract: LONDON — It was going to take a lot of bling to deflect attention from the brilliance of Michael Phelps, who won his sixth medal and fourth gold of the London Games on Saturday in his fourth and final Olympics. His United States teammates on the women’s 4x100-meter medley relay had the credentials to pull it off. Missy Franklin, Rebecca Soni, Dana Vollmer and Allison Schmitt took a combined five individual golds and two silvers into the final, and they left London Aquatics Centre for the last time with a world record and a relay gold. The Americans eclipsed China’s three-year-old mark by 14-hundredths of a second with a time of 3 minutes 52.05 seconds. Australia finished second, in 3:54.02, and Japan was third, in 3:55.73. Led by Franklin, who finished with four golds and a bronze, and Phelps, the United States dominated the swimming medal count with 16 golds and 30 medals over all. “I think all around, this meet has been amazing,” Soni said. “Not just for the U.S. team but for all the world records that were broken.” Nine world records fell, with Sun Yang of China getting into the act by lowering the record he set last year in the 1,500-meter freestyle on his way to dethroning the defending champion Oussama Mellouli of Tunisia. Sun’s time of 14:31.02 was a 3.12-second improvement over his previous best. Mellouli finished third, behind Ryan Cochrane of Canada. Sun, 20, became the first man to win the 400 and 1,500 freestyles at the same Olympics since Vladimir Salnikov in 1980. In the only other individual race on the final night of competition, Ranomi Kromowidjojo of the Netherlands won the women’s 50 free. It appeared Sun had forfeited his chance to race in the final when he left the blocks early on the start, which is grounds for disqualification. He was allowed to swim after it was determined that a scream from a fan in the stands had caused him to false start. Sun was emotional after the race. “I really cried at the finish because I was afraid of a false start,” he said through an interpreter. “I was so scared that I would be disqualified. After so much pressure, I was glad I could finish it.” With four medals, including a relay bronze, Sun led a resurgent Chinese team that also got two individual golds from the female medley specialist Ye Shiwen, a gold in the 200 butterfly from Jiao Liuyang and a bronze from Yi Tang in the women’s 100 freestyle. “Many people say China has got so many medals because of doping,” Sun said, “but I can tell you that it is because of hard work and training. Chinese are not weaker than the U.S.A. or any other country.”

Sun Yang
United States
Swimming
Olympic Games (2012)


Man Critically Injured in Hit-and-Run

Abstract: A restaurant deliveryman was clinging to life Thursday night after he was struck by a vehicle in East Harlem, the police said. The man, who is in his 20s, was riding a bicycle south on Lexington Avenue at about 5 p.m. when he was hit near 104th Street by a white vehicle traveling in the same direction, the police said. The driver left the scene and the vehicle has not been found, the police said. Emergency responders found the deliveryman in cardiac arrest. He was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he remained in critical condition late Thursday, police and fire officials said.


I.R.S. to Drop Suit Against UBS Over Tax Havens

Abstract: The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday that it would drop a closely watched civil lawsuit against the Swiss bank giant UBS after the Swiss government said it was on course to hand over details on thousands of American clients suspected of using their accounts to evade taxes. The I.R.S. said it had received details on 2,000 clients so far and expected to receive information on the remaining 2,450 this fall. While that is past the Tuesday deadline set in an August 2009 deal between Switzerland and the I.R.S. for the 4,450 names, the agency said it was confident of the country’s intentions to comply with the agreement announced by Swiss officials on Thursday. The statement by the I.R.S. puts to rest a serious headache for UBS, the world’s largest private bank, and for Switzerland over offshore private banking services that enabled wealthy Americans to evade taxes. The I.R.S. had threatened to revive its legal challenge to UBS through a broad request for client names known as a John Doe summons that would have sought up to 52,000 client names. “Based on information received to date and assurances by the Swiss government, we anticipate being in a position to withdraw the John Doe summons this fall,” the I.R.S. said in a statement. The agency, backed by the Justice Department, sued UBS last year, one day after the bank reached a $780 million deferred-prosecution agreement with United States authorities over its private banking services. But the client disclosures may also open new problems for the bank and others, said William M. Sharp, a tax lawyer in Tampa, Fla., and Zurich who represents many former UBS clients. Because the disclosures contained details about UBS and other bankers, outside lawyers and consultants who helped clients evade taxes, he said, the Justice Department could take action against those professionals. Federal prosecutors have been investigating other Swiss banks and Swiss-based financial professionals. Fewer than half of the 4,450 names have been turned over because some clients who were selected in recent months still have time to appeal to the Swiss authorities to try to prevent their disclosure. Several hundred clients have filed such appeals, Mr. Sharp said. Some American clients on the list of 4,450 had hidden accounts of more than $100 million, he said. UBS is disclosing American clients who had unreported accounts of at least a million Swiss francs, about $977,000. UBS will also disclose Americans who held sham company accounts with that total. The accounts in question cover 2001 through 2008. For accounts that UBS deems to have involved “tax fraud or the like” — a new term that covers concealment of funds, the submission of incorrect or false documents to UBS or the I.R.S., and what the I.R.S. calls “a scheme of lies” — the balance may be less than a million Swiss francs but more than 250,000 Swiss francs, about $244,000. UBS will also disclose accounts for which holders did not file a special disclosure document, called a W-9, over at least three years since 1998, and for which the accounts generated annual revenue to the client of at least 100,000 Swiss francs.

Internal Revenue Service
UBS AG
Tax Evasion
Federal Taxes (US)


Sex Abuse Trial of Ex-Vatican Envoy Is Delayed

Abstract: VATICAN CITY — The trial of a former Vatican ambassador accused of sexually abusing boys while stationed in the Dominican Republic and of possessing child pornography was adjourned indefinitely on Saturday after he fell ill and was hospitalized. The defendant, Jozef Wesolowski, 66, was taken to an Italian hospital for an “unexpected illness” on Friday, the Vatican said in a statement. The trial will resume when Mr. Wesolowski recovers, it said. Before the adjournment, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor, Gian Piero Milano, accused Mr. Wesolowski of purchasing and retaining on his two computers an “enormous quantity” of child pornography and of sexually abusing a number of boys in the Dominican Republic presumed to have been 13 to 16 years old. Mr. Wesolowski, a former archbishop, is also accused of causing serious harm to the boys he is accused of abusing and of offending “Christian morality,” Mr. Milano said in a statement released Saturday. Image Jozef Wesolowski is accused of sexual abuse and owning child pornography. Credit Erika Santelices/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images If found guilty, Mr. Wesolowski could face up to eight years in prison, though the sentence could be lengthened if the Vatican court decides that there are aggravating circumstances. Mr. Wesolowski’s lawyer has promised to fight the accusations, a Vatican spokesman said. On Saturday, he said his client had been willing to attend the trial before he fell sick. Mr. Wesolowski is the first top Vatican official to stand trial on sexual abuse charges in the Vatican since Pope Francis issued new rules that allowed prosecutors more leeway in such cases. Abuse victims have lamented that for decades, the Catholic Church has covered up cases of abuse or has not properly punished the perpetrators or their supervisors. Mr. Wesolowski was secretly recalled from the Dominican Republic in 2013 before local authorities there could investigate the accusations against him. He remained free inside Vatican City until September 2014, when he was placed under house arrest. He was defrocked by a Vatican court in June 2014. Francis is not the first pontiff to publicly confront the issue of abusive clergy or to revise Vatican rules to discipline priests who engaged in sexual abuse, but he is the first to take action against their superiors. Last month, Francis approved the creation of a Vatican tribunal to try bishops accused of covering up for priests or failing to take action. He has also created a papal commission on abuse that includes two abuse survivors and lay people under the guidance of the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley.

Dominican Republic
Jozef Wesolowski
Catholic Church
Priest
Rape


Nets Need Brook Lopez to be Meaner

Abstract: Brook Lopez’s outside shot appears to develop in several stages. He turns and faces the basket usually from 10 to 15 feet away, brings the ball up from his waist in a motion that mimics the opening of a cranky old window and holds it over his head for a count of Mississippi one, Mississippi two, Mississippi three. By the time he releases the shot, without his feet leaving the floor, the defender has been lured into a state of boredom or possibly fallen asleep. There is a fluidity to the process that easily exceeds ugly, although it falls far short of pretty and certainly cannot be described, by N.B.A. standards, as impressively athletic. When the ball goes through the net — and in the final analysis it must be stated that Lopez has a very soft touch — we are left with the feeling of having watched something very old school. “When Brook’s shooting the ball, I think it’s going in, and I’m usually surprised when it doesn’t,” Nets Coach Avery Johnson said. On Sunday afternoon, when we were reminded that Nets basketball can be as unsightly in a borough as it was in the suburbs, Lopez scored 10 of Brooklyn’s first 19 points in the first seven minutes on an assortment of (not really) jumpers, hooks and tip-ins. The Nets built an 11-point lead and essentially sleepwalked to an 82-74 victory over the Orlando Magic, the team formerly known as Dwight Howard’s. This was two days after the Nets routed the same talent-deprived and injury-depleted squad by 39 points on the road. The Nets are still in the phase of getting acquainted with one another, along with their new market, and it is impossible to know what kind of season they are headed for beyond the likelihood of running way with the race with Orlando in the N.B.A.’s two-team Howard Loser’s Division. How Lopez — their 7-foot consolation prize after the Magic determined he was not the big man to rebuild around and instead traded Howard to the Lakers — fares as a nightly front-line scorer will probably be the most telling factor. That Lopez was an early difference-maker Sunday and finished with a team-high 20 points was one way of looking at the Nets claiming their first winning streak (two games) in Brooklyn. The antithetical view was that Lopez was largely invisible for the rest of the game; his inability to dominate at either end of the floor was evidenced by the Magic’s 48-30 advantage on points in the paint. Beside a runner in the lane off a nifty pass from Deron Williams that helped quell a late Magic run, he was often outmaneuvered in the second half by Nikola Vucevic, the 7-footer acquired by the Magic from Philadelphia in the complicated four-team Howard deal. What did that suggest about Lopez’s reputation — his lost 2011-12 season to a broken foot notwithstanding — that the Magic chose Vucevic, a relatively unknown second-year player from Montenegro, over him? Probably not as much as Vucevic’s paltry $1.7 million salary, compared with the four-year, $61 million contract the Nets gave Lopez as a restricted free agent last summer. Still, a snub is a snub, though Lopez laughed off a question about extra incentive to leave Orlando feeling pangs of regret. “I had nothing to do with that,” said Lopez, who never plays the role of the tough guy in the locker room or — unfortunately, according to his detractors — on the court. The knock on Lopez, in his fifth season, has been that his playing personality matches his aforementioned shooting touch. His three rebounds — along with seven turnovers — would have been more of a postgame issue had Kris Humphries not cleaned up the glass with 21 rebounds. “I’d box out and think I had position, and then he’d just go get it,” Lopez said, his unintentional commentary on teamwork. It stands to reason that Lopez will never be an above-average rebounder or shot-blocker; the athleticism just isn’t there. It is actually on offense that the Nets would settle for him to work harder, be meaner. “Scoring comes easy to him, but sometimes he settles for the outside shot when he can put more pressure on the defense by fighting for position on the block,” said Jerry Stackhouse, the Nets’ sagacious veteran. “Sometimes it’s not just about creating offense for you but for everyone else by posting up deep, by sacrificing, drawing the double team, and then just being in better position to go for the rebound.” Stackhouse added: “But he’s improving. He’s still a young player.” How much upside does Lopez really have? Shaquille O’Neal recently touted him as better than Howard, which was Shaq at his playful best or delusional worst. The Nets would still deal him for Howard in an eye blink, and don’t think their management hasn’t kept an eye on the Lakers’ situation out West. Howard is unsigned beyond this season, and there can be little doubt that Mike Brown was fired to avert a Lakers meltdown that would have made Kobe Bryant impossible to live with — not the best means of keeping the sensitive Howard in an L.A. state of mind. Of course, Howard’s leaving is still in the fantasy stage, and no one in the East wants to hear his name and free agency anymore in the same sentence. In Brooklyn, moving on for good would be much easier if Lopez could become an All-Star inside force. Or merely more forceful.


Police Look Into Fires Set After West Virginia Game

Abstract: The authorities in Morgantown, W.Va., are investigating seven street fires set after Saturday’s West Virginia-Baylor game. The police said one fire spread to three parked vehicles and destroyed them. That fire also caused about $1,000 in heat damage to the exterior of a house. ¶ With Stanford the lone team in the top 19 to lose, the top of the rankings had only some relatively minor shuffling. Alabama became the unanimous No. 1 for the first time this season, while Louisiana State slipped to No. 4, from No. 3, after another sketchy performance. The adjustments will be more major next weekend, when five games will feature matchups of ranked teams, including three in which each team is ranked between Nos. 4 and 11. ¶ The former Oklahoma coach Chuck Fairbanks, 79, told The Oklahoman he received a diagnosis of brain cancer in late August and said he would begin radiation and chemotherapy treatments on Monday. ¶ Auburn receiver Quan Bray has been suspended following his arrest in Georgia, Tigers Coach Gene Chizik said. Bray will not play Saturday against Arkansas, and Chizik said he had not determined how long the suspension would last. Bray was arrested Thursday night during a traffic stop on the University of West Georgia campus. He was stopped for playing loud music, the police said, and officers realized he was driving on a limited permit. The police said that an open bottle of alcohol was found in the car but that Bray had not been drinking.

College Athletics
Football
Football (College)
Auburn University
Bray Quan


Debate Over Children and Psychiatric Drugs

Abstract: Early on the morning of Dec. 13, police officers responding to a 911 call arrived at a house in Hull, Mass., a seaside town near Boston, and found a 4-year-old girl on the floor of her parents’ bedroom, dead. She was lying on her side, in a pink diaper, the police said, sprawled across some discarded magazines and a stuffed brown bear. Last week, prosecutors in Plymouth County charged the parents, Michael and Carolyn Riley, with deliberately poisoning their daughter Rebecca by giving her overdoses of prescription drugs to sedate her. The police said the girl had been taking a potent cocktail of psychiatric drugs since age 2, when she was given a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder , which is characterized by mood swings. The parents have pleaded not guilty, with their lawyers questioning whether the child should have been prescribed such powerful drugs. The case has shaken a region known for the excellence of its social and medical services. The director of the state’s Department of Social Services has had to defend his agency, which had been investigating the case before the girl’s death. The girl’s treating psychiatrist has taken a voluntary, paid leave until the case is resolved. And New Englanders are raising questions that are now hotly debated within psychiatry, and which have broad implications for how young children like Rebecca Riley are cared for. Tufts-New England Medical Center, where the child was treated, released a statement supporting its doctor and calling the care “appropriate and within responsible professional standards.” Indeed, the practice of aggressive drug treatment for young children labeled bipolar has become common across the country. In just the last decade, the rate of bipolar diagnosis in children under 13 has increased almost sevenfold, according to a study based on hospital discharge records. And a typical treatment includes multiple medications. Rebecca was taking Seroquel, an antipsychotic drug; Depakote, an equally powerful mood medication; and Clonidine, a blood pressure drug often prescribed to calm children. The rising rates of diagnosis and medication use strike some doctors and advocates for patients as a dangerous fad that exposes ever-younger children to powerful drugs. Antipsychotics like Seroquel or Risperdal, which are commonly prescribed for bipolar disorder, can cause weight gain and changes in blood sugar — risk factors for diabetes . Some child psychiatrists say bipolar disorder has become an all-purpose label for aggression. “Bipolar is absolutely being overdiagnosed in children, and the major downside is that people then think they have a solution and are not amenable to listening to alternatives,” which may not include drugs, said Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Stony Brook University School of Medicine on Long Island. Paraphrasing H. L. Mencken, Dr. Carlson added, “Every serious problem has an easy solution that is usually wrong.” Others disagree, insisting that increased awareness of bipolar disorder and use of some medications has benefited many children. “The first thing to say is that the world does not see the kids we see; these are very difficult patients,” said Dr. John T. Walkup, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Walkup said that when drug treatment was done right, it could turn around the life of a child with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Dr. Jean Frazier, director of child psychopharmacology at Cambridge Health Alliance and an associate professor at Harvard, said that up to three-quarters of children who exhibit bipolar symptoms become suicidal, and that it is important to treat the problem as early as possible. “We’re talking about a serious illness with high morbidity, and mortality,” Dr. Frazier said, “and for some of these children the medications can be life-giving.” Still, most child psychiatrists agree that there are still questions about applying the diagnosis to very young children. Recent research has found that most children who receive the diagnosis are emotionally explosive but do not go on to develop the classic features of the disorder, like euphoria. They are far more likely to become depressed. And many therapists have found that some patients referred to them for bipolar disorder are actually suffering from something else. “Most of the patients I see who have been misdiagnosed have been told they have bipolar disorder,” said Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a professor of psychiatry at Boston University who runs a trauma clinic. “The diagnosis is made with no understanding of the context of their life,” Dr. van der Kolk said. “Then they’re put on these devastating medications and condemned to a life as a psychiatry patient.” Details about what happened to Rebecca are still emerging. A relative of her mother, Carolyn Riley, 32, told the police that Rebecca seemed “sleepy and drugged” most days, according to the charging documents. One preschool teacher said that at about 2 p.m. every day the girl came to life, “as if the medication Rebecca was on was wearing off,” according to the documents. Defense lawyers are also focusing on the question of medication. “What I want to know,” said John Darrell, a lawyer for Mr. Riley, “is how in the world you diagnose a 2-year-old and give her these strong medicines that are not approved for children.” A lawyer for Rebecca’s psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji of Tufts-New England Medical Center, did not return calls seeking comment. Some experts say the temptation to medicate can be powerful. “Parents very often want a quick fix,” Dr. Carlson said, “and doctors rarely have much time to spend with them, and the great appeal of prescribing a medication is that it’s simple. “To me one of the miracle of children’s brains is that we don’t see more harm from these treatments.”

Bipolar Disorder
Children and Youth
Mental Health and Disorders


Slow Start for Armstrong

Abstract: The Australian Matthew Goss won the 30-lap, 32-mile criterium prelude to the Tour Down Under cycling race in Adelaide, Australia, and Lance Armstrong finished 68th to begin his last professional event outside the United States.


G.M. to Use Buyouts to Cut Pension Obligations

Abstract: DETROIT — General Motors said Friday that it would offer lump-sum payments to thousands of white-collar retirees to reduce its pension obligations, which are the biggest in the nation, and would pay Prudential Insurance to take over its pension payments to other retirees. The changes, which will eliminate about one-fifth of the automaker’s pension obligations, are intended in part to increase its appeal to investors. Everyone affected by the change is already retired, and many will be able to spend the money without rolling it over into another retirement account, as long as they pay the appropriate taxes. The company is planning to provide extensive financial counseling to help people make the money last through their retirement years. G.M. is following a similar move by the Ford Motor Company, which announced last month that it would offer retirees the chance to take their pensions as a single big check. Both automakers are seeking to reduce retiree-related costs. “Clearly pensions have continued to be a significant issue for General Motors,” said Dan Ammann, G.M.’s chief financial officer, in a conference call with reporters. “It is important for us to mitigate the growth of these obligations.” G.M.’s stock price fell 19 cents to $22.01 in trading Friday, a comparatively strong showing on a day when other auto shares and the general market were down significantly. Philip Waldeck, Prudential’s head of pension and structured solutions, called the plan “a breakthrough transaction.” “I think over time, others will follow,” he said. Shedding pension obligations might indeed be attractive to other companies, especially those with pension plans so large they have started to overshadow the operating business and cause unpredictable fluctuations in cash flows. But for many companies, it would still be too expensive to pay an insurer to take over their pension obligations since pensions can become more costly to provide when interest rates are low, as they are now. G.M. is benefiting from investment changes it made in the last few years to make the value of its pension assets mirror the value of the obligations even when market conditions change. In addition, legal changes this year allow companies to offer retirees lump-sum payments that have an equivalent economic value to the stream of monthly pensions they replace. In the past, companies had to pay a premium to retirees if they offered lump sums. Mr. Ammann said that the pension changes announced on Friday would reduce G.M.’s total obligations, currently $134 billion, by $26 billion. Most of the cost will be paid with money the company had already set aside in its pension fund for salaried workers, but G.M. will put in an additional $4 billion from its corporate coffers. Unionized hourly workers’ benefits are unaffected by the changes. G.M. said that even after sending roughly $29 billion of pension assets to Prudential, it will still have $8 billion of assets in the salaried workers’ pension fund. That will leave the plan $2 billion short of the total $10 billion that the company owes its current workers for future pensions. The white-collar workers’ pension plan has been frozen already, and officials said their benefits would be unchanged. G.M. said that in the coming weeks, about 42,000 of its 118,000 retired salaried workers would get letters offering the chance to trade their regular monthly pension checks for a single upfront payment. Those who choose the big check would receive it by September. The conversion factor for calculating the value of the single check was established by law in 2006. For retirees who do not accept or are ineligible for the lump sum, G.M. will purchase a group annuity contract from Prudential Insurance to pay and administer the continuing benefits. Mr. Ammann said that G.M. was anxious to transfer the day-to-day management of its obligations to retirees to Prudential. “It allows us to focus more on our core business, which is building cars and trucks,” he said. The lump-sum offers will be made to retirees who left G.M. between October of 1997 and December of last year. The size of the offers will vary by age, health, length of corporate service, and current pension benefits. G.M. will spend $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion to finance the buyouts, buy the group annuities, and create the new plan for existing salaried workers. The company expects to take a charge of as much as $3.5 billion against earnings in the second half of the year for the changes. It will also lose about $200 million a year in noncash profits that it was allowed to report because of accounting rules that apply to pensions. Those rules have been controversial among investors because they can allow companies to raise their reported earnings without improving the performance of the business. Ford, for its part, has said it will offer lump-sum pension buyouts to all of its 98,000 white-collar retirees but has not provided details of the payments or how the offer would affect the company’s finances. The first wave of Ford offers is expected in August.

General Motors
Pensions and Retirement Plans
Automobiles
Prudential Financial Inc


Using the Web to Get the Boss to Pay More

Abstract: If information is power, then most employees who enter salary negotiations are holding pea shooters while the boss is encased in a Kevlar vest. Unless someone left a spreadsheet of the company’s salaries on the copier (funny how often that does happen), most employees have precious little ammunition going into a meeting to talk about their pay. A few Web sites try to level the playing field by providing more detailed information about salaries. Salary.com began revealing the results of salary surveys on its site in 1999. PayScale.com is now challenging it by gathering information directly from the people who search for data. (A third site, Payscroll.com , is testing a method of trolling job listings for salary information. It will be opened to the public this month or next.) New Internet technologies are providing information that has never been available to the average person and transforming the way they sell homes or buy airline tickets. It could have the same effect on the 47 million people who look for new jobs each month and the countless others who think they are underpaid at the ones they have. Jessica Morrison, who wrote advertising copy for Drugstore.com in Seattle, was one of those. After five years at the company and several promotions, her title was associate editor even though she had the same duties as a copywriter, a loftier title. She also suspected that at $42,000 a year, she was paid a lot less than someone else with her duties. She checked PayScale, and its free report that compares her pay with others holding a similar job title said that someone with her experience should be making $50,000 to $60,000. Then she went to see her manager. “I was a little nervous going in, but I had done my research,” Ms. Morrison, 27, said. She got the title she wanted and a raise to within the pay range she suggested. “If I had gone in without the information, the conversation would have been, ‘I feel like I am not making enough money,’ ” Ms. Morrison said. More extensive salary surveys are done for corporations, but a regular employee could not hope to buy the information from any of the other major compensation companies like the Hay Group or Mercer. “We wouldn’t give it to you,” said Iain Fitzpatrick, general manager of the reward information service division of Hay. The compensation companies do not want their information being used against bosses negotiating salaries. “The last thing we want is for a client to say, ‘We just had a conversation with an employee who was quoting Hay data,’ ” Mr. Fitzpatrick said. Unlike Salary.com, which obtains its information from a variety of surveys of corporate human resource departments, PayScale collects the information directly from people seeking the data. If you want PayScale’s salary information, first you will have to tell them what you make. A basic report is free, but the company charges $20 for a more detailed analysis. PayScale, which supplies its data to job listing sites like CareerBuilder.com , Jobster.com and SimplyHired.com , says it uses search engine technology and a rules-based algorithm to match requests for data in a database of 5.5 million profiles. Executives at Salary.com, which provides its data to job boards at America Online, Yahoo, HotJobs.com and Monster.com, take issue with the new approach. Their survey found 96 percent of human resources departments do not trust user-reported data. William Coleman, senior vice president for compensation at Salary.com, said, “People get information wrong.” He said they often did not understand what benefits or bonuses they were getting, so he considered any self-reporting to be suspect. But Joe Giordano, the founder, chairman and also vice president for product development at PayScale, said its information was accurate. “People come onto PayScale with no incentive to lie because they want high-quality information,” he said. The company checks the information for inconsistencies, tossing out extremes. It said that about 50 percent of submissions were not included, but that it got enough, about 300,000 a month, that no single filing could influence the overall result. “We collect more in one day than some companies collect in a year,” said Michael Metzger, the chief executive. It takes about six minutes to fill in its questionnaire. PayScale asks for your title, the number of years in the field and your city. It then asks you to better define your job. If you said software programmer, it wants to know what kind of programmer and what programming languages you know. People in professions with a profusion of titles are asked more questions. Finally, it asks you questions about your employer, your education, and, of course, your salary and benefits. Then it computes the results and displays them on a graph so you can see the range. A senior software engineer in Silicon Valley with 20 years of experience makes $88,531 to $106,364. A benefits claims examiner in Indianapolis, who has been on the job for a decade, makes $41,122 to $54,821. Although Salary.com argues that its paid results are more accurate, its free Salary Wizard tool yields results that can barely differ: for example, a range of $84,289 to $107,711 for the programmer and $40,091 to $52,942 for the examiner. PayScale, which gets about a third of the traffic that Salary.com does, says it has information on jobs not usually found in corporate salary surveys like pornographic film actor (average salary: $63,275), rabbi (average salary: $98,610) and crossing guard (average hourly wage: $9.21), but so far no chick sexers, mimes or bloggers are in its roster. “We don’t get many boiler makers, but we get the jobs that are out there in volume,” Mr. Giordano said. PayScale data also say that a chief executive in New York City averages $248,278. When you stop laughing, it quickly becomes apparent what the big problem with this site is. It is most accurate where it has lots of data. The company acknowledges that it is very good with high-tech jobs, health care and nonprofits because a lot of people from those professions have visited the site and filled out the questionnaire. Only 22 chief executives in New York City have bothered, and none apparently clocked more than a mere $235 an hour. “It is only as good as what people are contributing,” said James Holincheck, a research vice president at Gartner who follows the compensation industry. (Salary.com’s result was a bit more realistic: a range of $417,459 to $1,266,936.) But the sites are meant for the average person, not titans of finance and industry. “It’s like the Kelly Blue Book for compensation,” Mr. Giordano said. Like that reference manual for used-car prices, the salary sites give you a good idea of where to start the negotiations confidently. Persuading the boss you need more money demands more than a report from an online service. You have to think about the kind of company that employs you. A start-up might pay lower salaries because employees have a chance to make a killing on options when it goes public or is sold. Some companies have a policy of high turnover, so raises are rarely in the offing. Mr. Coleman suggests that people think about quality-of-life issues, as well as the money. For instance, sometimes it is easier for an employer to give an additional week of vacation rather than a 2 percent raise. A workweek condensed into four days might hold some value even though you will work no less — and probably will work more. “Money isn’t everything, but it isn’t nothing,” he said. If you want more detailed information on multiple job offers in different regions, PayScale charges $20. Salary.com charges $30 to $100 for detailed reports depending on the level of the position. Both sites offer advice and scores of ways to parse the information they have collected. Salary.com measures the salary of a stay-at-home mom. (The statisticians calculated that doing the housekeeping, cooking, babysitting, chauffeuring, administration and other jobs involved in staying at home with a preschooler in Chicago would probably take around 91 hours a week and be worth about $146,000.) Pay-Scale finds that based on the answers to a question it asks about commutes, for example, a store manager in Seattle gets to work 17 minutes faster than one in New York City. That has to be worth something.

Wages and Salaries
Computers and the Internet
Hiring and Promotion


By the Light of the Silvery Spoon, Ads Propose Using Coffee as Creamer

Abstract: A coffee brand is coming back to consumers with a humorous campaign that suggests a second way to use it, as a creamer. The brand is the Maxwell House International Café line of flavored instant coffee, sold by the Kraft Foods Group . In a campaign now under way — the first for the brand in three years — Kraft Foods and an agency named the Shopper Arts Network are asking consumers to add “a few spoonfuls” of their favorite Maxwell House International powdered variety to each cup of black coffee they are about to drink. The joke at the center of the campaign, which has a budget estimated at $3 million, is to associate spooning the instant coffee into the cup with the kind of spooning done by couples in love. For instance, the Maxwell House International Web site asks “Who will you spoon with?” above photos of three packages of the product dressed up in anthropomorphic garb: the French vanilla flavor is “The Frenchman,” hazelnut is “The Nutty One” and Suisse mocha is “The Alps Crooner.” A section of the Web site asks visitors “How do you like to spoon?” and offers them a chance to create postcards they can disseminate through social media. “Share your love of spooning with your friends and put yourself into the steamy action,” the Web page declares. There are nine choices, styled to look like vintage tourist postcards and carrying silly sayings like “All dressed up and ready to spoon,” “Suisse spoils me after we spoon,” ‘Life’s a beach when you’ve got a nutty guy to spoon with,” “The only thing steamier than this bath is the Frenchman I took it with” and “Taking the Ooh Lala Express to Spoonville.” The Web site also offers coupons, recipes and product information. And packages of Maxwell House International now are labeled to proclaim, “Also great as a creamer.” The campaign is being promoted with posts on the Maxwell House fan page on Facebook that urge, “Add some romance to your coffee.” It is also promoted on the Maxwell House Web site . Additional elements of the campaign include signs in stores, banner ads, coupons in stores and coupons in Sunday newspaper inserts. Kraft Foods was giving away samples on the Maxwell House International Web site, but ran out; coupons are now being offered instead. Maxwell House International is not the only brand that is seeking to reach shoppers by describing its varieties in human, romantic terms. A lighthearted campaign for Renuzit air fresheners, which carries the theme “Choose them all,” presents each scent as a handsome young man in print ads that bear headlines like “Sometimes, deciding is tough” and online video clips that feature Joan and Melissa Rivers spoofing reality dating shows. The primary target audience for the Maxwell House campaign is women ages 45 to 65, says Rupal Patel, brand manager for Maxwell House International at Kraft Foods in Northfield, Ill. “We needed something that was disruptive and engaging to get attention,” she adds, so it was decided the campaign would express itself with a fun tone and personality. The decision to introduce ads that are “bold” also reflects that “the brand has been dark a few years,” Ms. Patel says, referring to the hiatus in advertising. Image The campaign associates spooning the instant coffee into a cup with the kind of spooning done by couples in love. Selling Maxwell House International as a creamer as well as a coffee stems from research showing that “a lot of our consumers are using flavored creamers,” she adds, and that “the creamer category is a large and growing one.” “We tested this with consumers and saw strong results,” Ms. Patel says. In entering the creamer category, Maxwell House International faces creamer brands that include Coffee-mate , sold by Nestlé, and International Delight , sold by WhiteWave Foods. As for the potential for consumers to mix up the Maxwell House International and International Delight brand names, Ms. Patel says she believes that will be minimal, particularly because of a campaign being run by International Delight that asks consumers to call it “I.D.” “We hope that will delineate our brand from theirs,” she adds. On the flavored instant coffee front, Maxwell House International Café — known years ago as General Foods International Coffees — competes against brands that include Hills Brothers, Nescafé Memento, Starbucks Via and Taster’s Choice. The idea of basing the campaign on the romantic terms “spoon” and “spooning" — “bringing romance to a lonely cup of coffee,” as Ms. Patel puts it — underlines the change in behavior that the campaign seeks among consumers. Rather than pouring liquid creamer into a cup of coffee, “our product requires you to spoon it in,” she says. The agency working on the campaign, the Shopper Arts Network, also works on other Kraft Foods brands. The agency is part of the TBWA Los Angeles Group, a division of TBWA Worldwide, which is owned by the Omnicom Group. Other units of the TBWA Los Angeles Group include TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles and the Digital Arts Network. “At the very beginning, the proposition was that Maxwell House International had a defined image, a defined fan base,” says Harris Wilkinson, creative director at the Shopper Arts Network. By “introducing a new usage,” the campaign could “bring new people into the fold,” he adds. The ads also encourage current loyal customers to use more coffee, Mr. Wilkinson says, in that “even a huge fan of flavored coffee will drink regular coffee.” The goal is to speak to people who “buy Maxwell House International and use it on occasion” and “make usage a daily thing,” he adds. The campaign’s unexpectedly playful approach is intended to “make noise,” Mr. Wilkinson says, and after consumers “notice it they will think about using” Maxwell House International “in a different way.” At the same time, he adds, the campaign is also “a call to action,” through remarks like “Let’s spoon,” “Who will you spoon with?” and “Our smooth jams put me in a spooning mood.” The romantic aspects of the campaign are “definitely a bit of a historical nod” to the roots of the brand, Mr. Wilkinson says, referring to commercials for General Foods International Coffees. One such commercial featured two female friends drinking the French vanilla variety and reminiscing about a trip to France and a cute cafe waiter named Jean-Luc.

Coffee
Kraft Foods Group
Social Media
TBWA Worldwide
Omnicom Group
Online advertising
advertising,marketing


Syria Launches Deadly Airstrikes in Damascus Suburbs

Abstract: BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian warplanes have killed dozens of civilians, including more than 20 children, in an intensifying campaign of anti-insurgency airstrikes across the country over the past few days, bombing some targets as families were congregating outside to enjoy a sunny break from prolonged winter storms, activists and international medical aid workers said Monday. Their version of events was disputed by the Syrian government, which said through the official news agency that the airstrikes had made great progress against what it called armed terrorists fighting against President Bashar al-Assad. But the activist accounts were buttressed, at least in one case, by an unusually detailed description from the group Doctors Without Borders , which has been operating quietly in Syrian areas near the Turkish border, where the insurgency is relatively entrenched. “We could not keep silent,” Shinjiro Murata, the head of the Doctors Without Borders mission, said in a telephone interview from Aleppo Province. “We are sure that civilians were deliberately targeted.” He said an aerial assault on Sunday, which hit an open-air market in the village of Azaz, near the Turkish border, left at least 20 people dead and wounded 99. The strike came as many people from around the region were shopping. “A sunny day,” he said. “Many children were out with their parents.” Other signs that children had died in government bomb strikes were seen in videos uploaded on the Internet, although they could not be independently corroborated. In one, a boy’s naked body, thickly coated in gray dust, lay prone amid rubble, in footage that activists said was shot on Monday in Moadamiyeh, a suburb southwest of the capital, Damascus, on a street echoing with high-pitched wails and crammed with cinder blocks from collapsed facades. In a room exposed by the blast, a woman could briefly be seen carrying the motionless body of a child. A second video showed the bodies of half a dozen children laid out on blood-soaked blankets, including one curly-headed toddler no more than 2 years old. “Let the whole world observe, those are the victims,” a narrator said on the video. “Those are the ones Bashar al-Assad is fighting.” The official SANA news service said the Moadamiyeh explosion was caused by an insurgent mortar attack, not by government warplanes. It also said that airstrikes had killed scores of rebels around the country, including many it identified by name. The tally of children killed in airstrikes, according to activists, included seven children killed while playing outside in Hizza, east of Damascus, according to video that showed women weeping over their body parts; three in the northern city of Aleppo; two in an Aleppo suburb; four in Latamna, in Hama Province. In the Azaz attack on Sunday, Doctors Without Borders said 20 people were treated for injuries at its hospital in another town, since nearer hospitals had previously been bombed. The practice of destroying hospitals was corroborated by another humanitarian emergency organization, the New York-based International Rescue Committee , which said in a report on Monday that the Syrian authorities were engaged in “a systematic campaign” to hamper medical care through bombing and closing hospitals and intimidating, torturing and killing doctors who help the wounded. International efforts must expand quickly to address the humanitarian crisis in Syria, the I.R.C. said in the report. More than 600,000 people have fled Syria, and more than two million people have been displaced inside the country, since the uprising against Mr. Assad began nearly two years ago. The committee urged countries to meet the United Nations’ call for $1.5 billion to help needy Syrians. Its report said many desperate families end up without money for food, rent or medical care, leading women to join the sex trade and parents to sell daughters for early marriage or place children in exploitative jobs. The report also emphasized a little-discussed issue, the threat of rape, which many families interviewed in Jordan and Lebanon cited as a primary reason for their flight. “Many women and girls relayed accounts of being attacked in public or in their homes, primarily by armed men,” the report said. “These rapes, sometimes by multiple perpetrators, often occur in front of family members.” For those who remain inside Syria, the situation is equally dire, the report says. Many families have been displaced multiple times and have no access to schools or jobs. Sanitation and health services have essentially been dismantled. The carnage is taking place against a backdrop of rising concern that the conflict could stretch out for months without a political settlement. On Monday, Kofi Annan, the former Syria peace envoy for the Arab League and the United Nations who quit in August out of frustration, denounced what he called the absence of any concentrated international effort to end the conflict. “There is a lack of leadership, lack of leadership in the international community,” he said during a visit to the United Nations. “We need leadership both from President Obama and from President Putin,” Mr. Annan said, referring to Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Lakhdar Brahimi, the Algerian statesman who replaced Mr. Annan, is trying to push a political transition, but Mr. Annan said “he does not have the help that he needs.” The danger of letting the situation fester without a political solution, he said, means “you are going to get into a situation where the stalemate will go on for a long time.” Neither Mr. Assad nor his opponents have offered proposals that have any hope of acceptance by the other side. Mr. Assad refuses to talk to his armed opponents, and the opposition insists that Mr. Assad’s exit is a precondition for talks. On Sunday, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia, which has consistently opposed efforts to unseat Mr. Assad by force, urged the Syrian opposition to make a more serious effort to reach a settlement by offering concrete proposals to the government. “If I were in the opposition’s shoes, I would come up with my ideas in response on how to establish a dialogue,” Mr. Lavrov said. “President Assad came out with initiatives aimed at inviting all opposition members to dialogue,” Mr. Lavrov said. “Yes, these initiatives probably do not go far enough. Probably they will not seem serious to some, but they are proposals.”

Syria
Bashar al-Assad
Arab Spring
Targeted Killings
Humanitarian aid


As Medicare and Medicaid Turn 50, Use of Private Health Plans Surges

Abstract: WASHINGTON — As Medicare and Medicaid reach their 50th anniversary on Thursday, the two vast government programs that insure more than one-third of Americans are undergoing a transformation that none of their original architects foresaw: Private health insurance companies are playing a rapidly growing role in both. More than 30 percent of the 55 million Medicare beneficiaries and well over half of the 66 million Medicaid beneficiaries are now in private health plans run by insurance companies like the UnitedHealth Group, Humana, Anthem and Centene. Enrollment has soared as the government, in an effort to control costs and improve care, pays private insurers to provide and coordinate medical services for more and more beneficiaries. Although the programs remain highly popular with patients, skeptics question whether the use of private plans will save the government money in the long run and worry that the plans may skimp on care. But both programs served as foundations for the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which, like the newer versions of Medicare and Medicaid, uses a combination of government money and private insurance to provide coverage. This week, the White House is using the half-century anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid to portray the Affordable Care Act as a logical extension of the two social insurance programs, which are part of the fabric of American life. Administration officials hope that President Obama ’s health care program will one day be as widely accepted as Medicare and Medicaid are now. “The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid and built a model that helped fill some of the gaps between Medicare and Medicaid,” Jason Furman, the chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview Wednesday. “At the same time, it is rooted in the private sector and competition.” When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill creating Medicare and Medicaid on July 30, 1965, he made clear his ambitions for the programs: They would extend “the miracle of healing to the old and to the poor.” The legislation fulfilled decades of Democratic dreams, but, unlike the Affordable Care Act, it was passed with votes from a substantial number of Republicans. The architects of Medicare and Medicaid, among them Wilbur J. Cohen and Robert M. Ball, had concluded that private insurance was out of reach for many older and low-income Americans, who could not obtain affordable coverage in the commercial market. At the time, Mr. Ball was the Social Security commissioner, and Mr. Cohen was a top official at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, who later became secretary. Both men had been inspired by the New Deal and had worked for decades on Social Security. “They believed that commercial health insurance had failed the elderly, and they wanted to replace it with social insurance, as a first step toward similar coverage for the rest of the population,” said Theodore R. Marmor, a Yale professor and historian of Medicare. In a secretly recorded telephone conversation in March 1965, Mr. Cohen described the Medicare bill that had just been approved by the House Ways and Means Committee. “Quite frankly,” Mr. Cohen told President Johnson, “there’s no longer any room for the private insurance companies to sell insurance policies for people over 65.” In the original versions of Medicare and Medicaid, beneficiaries could go to any doctor who would take them, and the government would pay providers a fee for each service. By contrast, in private managed-care plans, beneficiaries use a network of doctors and hospitals, and the federal or state government pays insurers, which receive a fixed amount per member per month. The original setup of Medicare and Medicaid began to change in the early 1980s after Congress and the Reagan administration created incentives for private insurers to contract with Medicare. Enrollment rose and fell as federal officials tinkered with reimbursement rates. In the last decade, as private insurers accelerated their marketing of Medicare plans and baby boomers accustomed to managed care reached retirement age, enrollment in the private Medicare plans, called Medicare Advantage, surged. About 99 percent of beneficiaries now have the option to enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan, and the average beneficiary has a choice of more than a dozen plans. In interviews, Medicare beneficiaries expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the original government-run program and the private alternatives, which include health maintenance organizations and other forms of managed care. “For seniors on fixed income, an H.M.O. provides the best bang for the buck,” said Ann E. Mason, 74, of Rochester. Like many older Americans, she found that a Medicare Advantage plan offered better value than the combination of traditional Medicare and a supplementary insurance policy to fill gaps in Medicare, for expenses like co-payments and deductibles. Ann C. Dorsey, 65, of Atlanta, qualified for Medicare several years ago after she developed a rare heart tumor and became disabled. She has invited insurance agents to her home to explain their plans and says she is pleased with her Cigna H.M.O. Image “For seniors on fixed income, an H.M.O. provides the best bang for the buck,” said Ann E. Mason, 74, of Rochester. Credit Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times “Anybody who doesn’t look at Medicare Advantage is nuts,” said Ms. Dorsey, who said she saved at least $1,000 a year because of lower out-of-pocket expenses. But, she said, before selecting a plan, beneficiaries need to do their homework, comparing benefits, physician rosters and prescription drug lists of different plans. Yet even with managed care, big questions remain about how to finance Medicare and Medicaid for the next 50 years. In Congress and in state legislatures, which help pay for Medicaid, the costs continue to cause anxiety. Under the Affordable Care Act, more than half the states have expanded eligibility for Medicaid, and state officials have enrolled most new beneficiaries in private plans. In many states that expanded Medicaid, enrollment has far surpassed expectations, evidently because state officials underestimated the demand for insurance and the proportion of eligible low-income people who would sign up. Michigan, for example, has signed up 600,000 people in 16 months — more than it expected to enroll in five years. Nearly 80 percent of the new beneficiaries are in private managed-care plans. Congress did reduce payments to private Medicare Advantage plans in the Affordable Care Act, to help offset the cost of the legislation, and insurers predicted that enrollment would decline. Instead, it has increased to 16.6 million people, from 11 million in 2010. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the number will reach 30 million by 2025. Experts say that private plans are not for everyone. “Medicare Advantage plans are often more stingy with benefits,” said Judith A. Stein, who has represented hundreds of beneficiaries as the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Medicare Advocacy. “We have seen many cases in which people who are really sick cannot get coverage for nursing or therapy at home or in a skilled nursing facility — coverage that they would be able to get if they were in traditional Medicare.” Improper payments, including fraud, still bedevil Medicare and Medicaid, irking beneficiaries and politicians. The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, says that improper payments cost the federal government $60 billion in Medicare last year, or 10 percent of program spending, and $17.5 billion in Medicaid, or 6.7 percent. Last month, the Justice Department, in a nationwide sweep, accused 243 people of Medicare fraud schemes involving more than $700 million in billings for services that were unnecessary or never provided. Among those charged were 46 doctors and other professionals who offered home health care, psychotherapy, physical therapy, diagnostic tests and prescription drugs. For Medicare and Medicaid, paying for the rising cost of prescription drugs remains a daunting challenge. “Medicare Advantage provides great coverage,” said Nancy R. Corey, 68, a retired schoolteacher in Dayville, Conn. “But drug costs have skyrocketed. I’ve spent as much on my main medications in the first six months of this year as I did in all of 2014.” With Medicaid rolls climbing to record levels, especially in states that expanded eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid officials also face a huge challenge finding enough doctors. In many states, doctors have been reluctant to accept Medicaid patients, in part, they say, because the fees are low. Elizabeth A. Persaud, 36, of Alpharetta, Ga., who has a form of muscular dystrophy , receives home and community-based services through Medicaid. A personal attendant helps her get out of bed, shower, eat and go to work. Medicaid is a boon that allows her to preserve her independence, Ms. Persaud said, but she added: “It is difficult to find doctors in my area who accept Medicaid. I often have to have someone drive me far away to see a specialist.” Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, said that Medicaid plans were “once the scourge of poor communities,” taking money without providing much care. But now, she said, they provide invaluable services to people with severe physical and mental health problems, as states often require those services in their contracts with insurers. “The care is light-years better than what a Medicaid beneficiary would face if she had to go find an orthopedist, a rheumatologist or a podiatrist or get specialty drugs on her own,” Ms. Rosenbaum said. Many Medicare patients agree. In a comment echoed by other Medicare beneficiaries, Judith M. Anderson, 69, of Chicago said: “After a lifetime of an utterly boring personal health care history, I was diagnosed with cancer in 2013. Without Medicare, I would be bankrupt and probably dead by now. I had three surgeries and chemotherapy and paid less than $1,000 out of pocket. I love Medicare.”

Medicare
Medicaid
Health Insurance
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act
Old age,elderly,senior citizens
US
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Barack Obama