As the US House of Representative works on its symbolic vote to repeal the new national health care plan Vermont moves forward.  A draft report was presented in Montpelier by Dr. William Hsiao for recommendations today.

Vermont State Senate Pro Tem said in part “The Hsiao report provides us with a road map to develop a healthcare system with a strong foundation.”

The draft report is available here http://www.leg.state.vt.us/jfo/healthcaresystemdesign.aspx

comments can be emailed to comments@vermontact128study.com.      

As required by Act 128, Hsiao studied three options for system reform:

1 A government-run single payer program;  

2 A “public option” that would be offered as a choice within a new health insurance exchange;

3 A third option, not specified in the legislation, which Hsiao defined as a public/private single payer program that has a public governance structure and preserves a limited role for one private insurer.

Hsiao recommended implementing the third approach.  He and his team estimate that it would reduce health care costs by $500 million while achieving quality and universal coverage for Vermonters. The plan will reduce overall employer payments for health care, decouple health insurance from employment and create as many as 4,000-5,000 new jobs in Vermont. [emphasis added]

My father often reminds me, writes auditor Tom Salmon:

"It's not what you say, it's what they hear," so I'm hoping you hear what I say in the spirit intended.

So begins Tom Salmon’s rambling Burlington Free Press My Turn op-ed feature Blame no one and engage everyone.The opening quote used here like some type of editorial Miranda warning puts the reader on notice that any possible misreading is the fault of the reader not the author.  

Auditor Salmon keeps demanding to be listened to. People may still be listening, but what is he saying?

A few years ago as states' revenues fell dramatically nationwide, he proposed that Vermont allow in casino gambling to cover budget shortfalls, ignoring that gambling revenues were in drastic decline. More recently, as the desire for government transparency has grown, he proposed boundries be placed on public information requests.  

Salmon’s recent My Turn winds like a car out of control swerving down several paths,veering at, then away from, topics as they might come into focus, and ultimately running up on the sidewalk.  

Blame no one. He notes post-election opinion columns popping up titled ‘Where do we go from here?’ then proceeds to blame Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post for misreading the political situation surrounding the President’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform report. Marcus says both sides must listen to what they don’t want to hear. Salmon asks: What if there are more than two sides? Reform, Salmon declares, will require new players. He hints that he may be one of these players because, as Vermont Auditor of Accounts:

I warn of dangers, and the loss of "listening" is a real danger.

Will his next party be a tea?      

Then spinning his tires and laying a little more blame on the pavement, he says

Ms. Marcus fell prey to the same inclination many big brains do; they speak of the problem as if it lay under a glass case .

Salmon then steps on the gas and speeds away to other issues.

Clutching a favorite quote: "People do not lack strength, they lack will." Salmon now steers our attention to single payer health care, claiming he didn’t hear much about the fact that 70 percent of our health care costs are attributable to preventable causes. (Was he not listening?)

While vaguely alluding to preventable causes of illnesses (lack of will?) he fails to engage us with any positive proposals  but finds fault with those who find it easier to blame: teachers, schools, MacDonalds and soda for childhood obesity for missing the mark.  

He sums up by looking over his shoulder back to the campaign and shouting,   “I could dazzle you with financial facts that are all big and bad”.

Engage everyone. At last braking to a shuddering conclusion of sorts he posses several unanswered policy questions in rapid fire, demands more involvement and skids headfirst into a dire warning:

We need participation, and the time of good intentions and “hoping for volunteers” is over. It’s time to get in the game, or watch our country, as we’ve known it, vanish.

Has the airbag mercifully have gone off ?  

The headline Monday  read NRC Report Vt. Yankee hasn’t done all promised.(paywalled)  

However it reads as if Entergy had done nothing at all. According to the NRC, Entergy had promised, after the tritium leak a year ago, to do more studies on radioactive tritium and groundwater contamination.  

Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that Entergy Nuclear had promised to do more studies on the issue of the tritium and other radioactive contamination and groundwater protection, but hadn’t carried out all those promises.  

“No significant findings were identified,” Sheehan said Friday. According to the[NRC] report, Entergy “has yet to complete its longterm groundwater monitoring program.”  

While noting that Vermont Yankee failed  to complete its longterm groundwater monitoring program as they had promised ,the NRC obligingly employs a little of its faith based regulatory rhetoric:

Sheehan said the NRC believed that Entergy “effectively evaluated the contaminated groundwater with respect to off-site effluent release limits, and the resulting radiological impact to public health and safety; and complied with all applicable regulatory requirements and standards pertaining to radiological effluent monitoring, dose assessment and radiological evaluation.” Emphasis added  

Well as long as the NRC believes they have effectively evaluated the contaminated groundwater, no doubt it will be too busy this week to work on past promises as today they start a simulated radiation leak exercise. A control room simulator will “create blueprints for everything associated with an actual disaster”

Once the plume is originated by the computers, plant employees will use wind patterns to track which way it would travel and state hazardous material technicians will be sent out to various sites to collect simulated measurements.  

William Irwin, chief of Radiological Health for the Vermont Department of Health ironically spoke of accountability when he said.

"We’re going to hold companies and people more accountable as a state. Vermonters should be proud of the systems in place."

Quick,un-wrap a new chief of staff from storage.

Speculation is that Obama may be about to name fellow Chicagoan William Daley as his chief of staff to replace Rahm Emanuel who departed to run Chicago. Former VT Governor Howard Dean has weighed in as only he can.

The atmosphere of what he called contempt “will change dramatically especially if Bill Daley comes in,” Dean said. He added that he disagrees with Daley on a “lot of stuff politically, but I do think, A, he is a grown-up and B, he gets that you don’t treat people like you know everything and they don’t.”

A president’s chief of staff is a personalized accessory item that reflects the style and particular needs of a president. The position has been described as gatekeeper, the power behind the throne and even co-president.

Styles vary from H.R. Haldeman Nixon’s chief palace gatekeeper who described himself as the president’s son-of-a-bitch all the way to the Bush family retainer Andrew Card, G.W. Bush’s Chief of Staff who once sniffed primly about Oval Office etiquette after Obama took office: "there should be a dress code of respect….I wish that [Obama] would wear a suit coat and tie."

What is President Obama needing these days in a chief of staff?  

William Daley brother of the Mayor of Chicago and son of the former mayor Richard J.Daley as described by Chicago journalist Ben Joravsky:

William Daley has picked up his brother’s [Richard M.] affinity for Republicans. So much so that if young William had not been raised in the household of his father, the legendary Democratic Party chieftain, Mayor Richard J. Daley, I doubt he would even be a Democrat.

Examine William Daley’s resume, and you’ll see he’s essentially a businessman who would fit in well with what’s left of the moderate wing of the Republican Party.

William Daley, 63 was vice chairman of Amalgamated Bank, a corporate lawyer and Sec. of Commerce to Bill Clinton and helped with the North American Free Trade Agreement. He was also advisor to VP Biden’s early 1988 presidential run, chairman of Al Gore’s 2000 campaign and later did legislative lobbying for San Antonio based SBC telecom. Currently he is a top official with JPMorgan Chase.  

 A new poll indicates popular support for taxing wealthy that flies in the face of the Republican insistence on keeping repeal of tax cuts for the wealthy off the table.

Interestingly the budget cutting preferences run in almost reverse order from the new Congressional Republican House priorities.  

When questioned about preferred first steps to balance the Federal budget  

61% increase taxes on wealthy  

20% cut defense spending

4% percent cut Medicare

3% cut social security

Increased taxes on the wealthy tops those four options even among higher earners who might be most affected by a tax hike, the poll suggested. Fifty-eight percent of respondents making between $50,000 and $100,000 per year rated tax hikes as the best first step to balance the budget, while 46 percent of those making over $100,000 said it was their top choice, too.  

The incoming Republican House has expressed an eagerness to address the deficit and mounting U.S. debt. But the fight over tax cuts in the closing weeks of 2010 made clear the GOP isn't ready to address the budget through tax hikes, against which they vigorously fought in the lame-duck Congress.

The 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll was conducted Nov. 29-Dec. 2 and released on Monday. It has a three percent margin of error.  

It may come to pass that Vermont Yankee’s nuclear waste will ultimately end up on the Texas-New Mexico border in a privately owned  1,338 acre waste site.

Vermont’s partner in Texas is Waste Control Specialists, a nuclear waste disposal site owned by Texas billionaire Harold Simmons. A Texas news magazine calls Simmons the “King of Superfund Sites,” and notes an example of his genius:

[Simmons] has figured out a way to clean up a radioactive mess one of his companies made in Ohio by—according to some experts—creating another radioactive mess in West Texas. The best part: he’s gotten the folks in West Texas to support the plan and the federal government to pay for it.

Harold Simmons “King of the Superfund” may also benefit from two of Vermont Gov. Douglas’ appointed officials that voted against what some see as the state’s interest. In November Vermont state nuclear engineer Uldis Vanags and Steven Wark director of consumer affairs and public information for the Vermont Department of Public Service as members of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission voted preliminary approval to allow the Texas nuclear waste site to accept waste from other states. Vtdigger.com reports that:

In audio testimony, Vanags and Wark voted against amendments to the proposed rules that would have given Compact members first dibs to the landfill and also that would have delayed action and allowed the Texas and Vermont legislatures an opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

This will end Vermont’s exclusive deal with Simmons’ Waste Control Specialties and expand its potential profit base. Wark and Vanags  rationale was that this would lower costs for Vermont. Governor elect Peter Shumlin immediately raised concerns that opening up the site might limit space and thus the access needed for VY’s waste. “It’s a race for space,” Shumlin told The New York Times. “When push comes to shove, the first waste that arrives is the waste that gets in.”

The waste compact will meet on January 4 to make the decision on how much low level waste can be processed.  

Earlier legislative changes in Texas and national reclassification of nuclear waste types made Simmons’ private nuclear waste site possible. In a 2006 interview he explained:    

“It took us six years to get legislation on this passed in Austin, but now we’ve got it all passed. We first had to change the law to where a private company can own a license [to handle radioactive waste], and we did that. Then we got another law passed that said they can only issue one license. Of course, we were the only ones that applied.”

 

Among Harold Simmons’ many civic minded philanthropies he also donates heavily to conservative Republican causes. He is one of Texas governor Rick Perry’s biggest contributors, partly funded Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads against John Kerry and paid for anti-Obama ads.  

A person could be agnostic about a soda tax and this might still raise more than a few questions about conflicting motives. Save the Children has dropped its previously active support for a tax on soft drinks. The group had recently been a leader in the effort as a way to fight childhood obesity in campaigns in Mississippi, New Mexico, Washington State, Philadelphia and the District of Columbia.  

What changed? Save the Children’s chief operating officer claims there is no connection between the discussions they are having regarding grants from Coca Cola or a $5 million dollar grant already received from PepsiCo.

“We looked at it [support of the soft drink tax] and said, ‘Is this something we should be out there doing and does this fit with the way that Save the Children works?’ ” She said. “And the answer was no.”

Call it partnering:

Nice li’l non-profit you have there. Sure could use a fresh coat of paint though.  

Alternative: Nice soft drink you have there? It’d be a shame if it was taxed.

 

Similar questions about conflicting interests were raised in 2009 when the doctor’s organization American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) received a six figure grant from Coca Cola to develop consumer education content on beverages and sweeteners for FamilyDoctor.org, a consumer health Web site.  

Unconnected to the Save the Children effort this issue was front and center here in November when the Vermont Healthy Weight Initiative was spotlighted by Attorney General William Sorrel (out of what some see as his traditional role).

The initiative included a proposal for a tax on sugar sweetened beverages(SSBs)  

  Dead-enders have held out hope that various,last minute scenarios lurking in the background could save Vermont Yankee so that it might be granted an operating license to remain open past its stale date of 2012. Any saved-by-the-bell drama may play out in just over four months, by this April when major fuel and equipment investment decisions take place.  

Fearful possibilities are raised by one national pro-nuclear blogger. Curiously ill informed about Vermont he describes governor-elect Shumlin as an “anti-nuclear arch druid” and raises the possibility that as governor opponents will “tag him with the responsibility for heart-stopping increases in the cost of electricity” and he dreams up

A first-term recall election isn’t outside of the realm of political feasibility if things get really bad with brownouts on top of higher electric bills. All this will happen on his watch if he succeeds in closing the plant in 2012. That’s just two years from now into a four-year term.

(Vermont governor’s four year term?)

Setting aside impossible recall and unlikely brownout fantasies, what kind of future are BWR plants similar to Vermont Yankee currently looking at here in the northeast?

Indian Point, Oyster River and Vermont Yankee some of the oldest nuclear power plants still operating are struggling with declining demand for electricity and falling wholesale prices.

Tritium leakage is currently a problem at these 30+ year old plants.  

In New Jersey, Exelon’s Oyster River nuclear power plant recently reached a deal with the new Gov. Christie. The deal that closes the plant earlier than its twenty year license will allow the plant to continue to operate for another ten without installing cooling towers .The agreement shortens it’s life but gives it another ten years to use and discharge warm water into Barnegat Bay. Understandably some foes see the remaining ten years operation without cooling towers as problematic but the fact can’t be missed that the old plant, called a near twin of Vermont Yankee, is not worth investing in. Required upgrades exceed the value of the plant according to Exelon.

Entergy’s New York State Indian Point plants are also in the process of being required to build cooling towers. Vermont Yankee which does have cooling towers (although part of them rather famously collapsed from disrepair) has agreed to re-start pumping and removing tritiated water that leaked from the facility.

Like high-mileage used cars Exelon and Entergy have driven these old power plants for all their worth and now not worth the price of a set of new tires, disrepair and the bottom line may kill them.  

John Boehner just ups and cries lately. Why is he crying, are they just crocodile tears?  Like TPM’s Josh Marshall I am also:”Having a hard time reconciling the teary John Boehner of late with the cold, hard, nicotine-stained pol we've all known for the last 20 years.” No doubt it’s complex.  

Long ago on a flatbed railroad car in New Hampshire what might have been snow flakes but what was believed to be public crying (was he over come with emotion?)rapidly ended the 1972 presidential primary bid of Maine’s Democratic Sen.Ed Muskie.

Times have changed and public displays of emotion are more accepted.

They also help ratings. We all now know that Glenn Beck uses Vick’s Vapo-rub under his eyes to bring on the tears for his followers.  

The American Dream may be the cause.On CBS’s 60 Minutes when asked about his crying he said “Making sure these kids have a shot at the American Dream like I did is very important” and choked up and cried. One of Boehner’s fellow congressmen explains that he is "one of the more sensitive people" in Congress and that he often gets touched enough to cry.  

Hunter S. Thompson famously blamed the exotic drug Ibogaine for Ed Muskie’s tears but I wouldn’t go so far in this situation. Maybe the simplest explanation could be true here. Unlikely as it may seem, maybe Boehner is just a sensitive guy.

However the NY Times Opinionator blog’s Timothy Eagan notes the future Speaker of the House’s record, is a genuine crying shame for the middle class.  

But a look at Boehner’s record during his two decades in Congress shows a man who has voted against nearly every boost for the working stiff. There’s no empathy for those with the longest shots at the American Dream in his voting pattern. Instead, we see a politician who is hard-hearted in his legislative treatment of the people now coping with the kind of economic conditions in which the Boehner family grew up.

The Burlington Free Press reports Green Mountain Coffee Roasters financial outlook is looking good,even filtering in their recent earnings restatement:  

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters struck an optimistic tone Thursday in its year-end conference call with financial analysts after filing restated earnings and its annual report, known as Form 10-K, with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

A check of Insider stock transactions reported by Yahoo finance shows that in the last two years GMCR board member State Sen. Hinda Miller of Burlington exercised board related stock options five times from Dec. 2008 to May 2009, purchasing 18,000 shares of GMCR for $23,669 and in eight months selling them for $830,449.

That’s realizing a profit of $806,780 in five months.