November 4-11, 2013
Nov 04 08:15 A matter of life and death Nov 04 14:48 Exposing China's anti-academic freedom play Nov 05 03:13 Open letter to Chancellor Rosenstone Nov 05 04:37 Mary Katherine Ham embarasses Juan Williams on O'Reilly Factor Nov 08 09:10 SCSU data analytics, Silence Dogood edition Nov 08 04:04 President Obama's non-apology apology Nov 09 22:41 ACA through the eyes of "Bill in Kentucky" Nov 11 00:13 St. Cloud State and Mankato State enrollment comparison Nov 11 01:28 MnSure: Close enough for government work
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Open letter to Chancellor Rosenstone
To: Dr. Steven Rosenstone, Chancellor of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities
From: Gary Gross, investigative reporter and concerned taxpayer
Subject: St. Cloud State
Dr. Rosenstone, It isn't difficult to picture why being the chief executive of a major system of universities, technical colleges and community colleges is a challenging responsibility. With universities, tech schools and community colleges spread literally throughout the state, it's virtually impossible to know all that's happening on each campus.
With over 50 campuses statewide, it's difficult to conduct proper oversight on each of these campuses. You have to rely on the presidents of each of these universities, tech and community colleges to be people of integrity and vision. In addition to those requirements, it's a bonus when the presidents make smart business decisions. Unfortunately, That isn't the case at St. Cloud State.
You already know that enrollment has declined dramatically each of the last 2 years and this Fall's 5%+ decline means significant budget cuts to offset lost revenue. It is clear that the 2013-14 academic year will mark the fourth consecutive year of declining enrollment and declining revenue. Unfortunately, the enrollment and revenue declines are just the tip of a big iceberg.
I'm certain you're aware of the renovations being done to the Herb Brooks Center, formerly the National Hockey Center. I'm equally certain you're aware that the original plans called for the renaming of the building to the National Hockey and Event Center and a $30,000,000 dollar project serving as the southern anchor of a redevelopment project along 5th Avenue ending at an expanded St. Cloud Civic Center.
That's proof of questionable judgment on President Potter's behalf. At the same time President Potter was trying to raise $23,000,000 for the National Hockey and Event Center, St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis and civic leaders were pushing the legislature to expand the St. Cloud Civic Center. Though they didn't get the projects included in that year's bonding bill, they still expanded the Civic Center and Hockey Center.
Eventually, both facilities were renamed. The St. Cloud Civic Center became the River's Edge Convention Center. With the entertainment-related enhancements dropped from the National Hockey and Events Center renovation, the word Event was dropped from the Herb Brooks Center.
First, it wasn't realistic to think the University could raise millions of dollars to renovate and expand the Hockey Center. More importantly, it wasn't wise to think the National Hockey and Event Center could successfully compete with the Rivers Edge Convention Center.
That's because the Rivers Edge Convention Center has a substantial base of events and loyal clients. They have the flexibility to respond to a wide variety of event sizes and types. That's before talking about the logistical disadvantages the Brooks Center has as a result of its location and the extensive commitments for hockey and other community events that raise very little in usage fees.
There are dozens of bars, restaurants and hotels within walking distance of the Rivers Edge Convention Center. The closest hospitality facilities to the Herb Brooks Center are over a mile away. With the entertainment-related improvements not being made, the enhanced revenue from events, a key part of the finance plan, won't materialize. As a direct result of that change in plans, St. Cloud State will have additional expenses but without the revenue stream to cover debt retirement. That means the only option left is to take the money from the academic budget.
However, that isn't the worst financial decision President Potter has made in support of 5th Avenue redevelopment. The worst financial decision President Potter has made was signing a contract with the J.A. Wedum Foundation for an upscale apartment complex near campus. During a Budget Advisory Committee meeting, a highly placed and reliable member of the SCSU administration admitted that the best that St. Cloud State could hope for was 'only' losing $50,000-150,000 a year.
Unfortunately, the first two years the contract was intact didn't come close to that best case scenario. During the first 2 years of the contract, St. Cloud State paid the Wedum Foundation all the rent it collected plus an additional $2,250,000. Rumor is that the University will 'only' lose between $980,000-$1,000,000 this year on that contract.
Sadly, questions raised early in the planning stages about the viability of an upscale apartment complex for SCSU students were ignored by the University. Private property owners were and are furious with the University because they thought the project would hurt their rental income and their property values. These fears have become reality.
I've lived in St. Cloud over 50 years. It's always been a blue collar town for the most part. Student renters aren't people of great means. Why President Potter thought that he could fill an upscale apartment complex at any time is mind-boggling. It's beyond puzzling why he thought he could fill the apartment complex with enrollment dropping. Now with declining enrollment, filling an upscale apartment complex is impossible.
That's before talking about the price escalator clause in the contract, which included a 3% increase each year under the original contract. The renegotiated contract calls for 'only' a 2% increase per year.
I could write in detail about other questionable financial decisions (e.g. ISELF, Confucious Institute, Police Services contract, Great Place to Work) and could include discussion of the transcript scandal but I'd need another letter to talk about these fiascoes.
Suffice it to say that there are people who vehemently disagree with President Potter's statement that the transcript scandal is mostly about late drops and withdrawals. It isn't mostly about those things. It's mostly about students' participation in classes that they did poorly in being completely erased from the online transcript system.
In summation, President Potter's administration has made many questionable financial decisions, leaving SCSU in a precarious financial position.
Posted Tuesday, November 5, 2013 3:13 AM
Comment 1 by Nick at 06-Nov-13 02:57 AM
Great article Gary!! Students are looking for the cheapest rental options because most of them are living on student loans. Most students would look for a four bedroom apartment or in the case of houses, a four bedroom or higher (i.e. five, six, seven, ten) ranging from $275 pp/month to $350 pp/month. Potter and Rosentone don't understand that.
On a side note, the alumni board invited me to an event where Earl Potter was going to be there, which was close to my parents house. It was scheduled for this Thursday, but then they had to cancel because of low response, which doesn't surprise me!!!
A matter of life and death
This op-ed in the Wall Street Journal is both heartbreaking and infuriating:
Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers.
My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.
My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits.
Last week, President Obama gave a speech in Boston. In the speech, he talked about substandard health insurance policies that the Affordable Care Act would eliminate. He hinted that the policies being canceled were substandard policies. Then he told people there that if their policy was canceled, they should get on the exchange and shop for better coverage, saying "That's what it's for."
That hasn't helped Edie Littlefield Sundby, the woman who wrote the op-ed:
Countless hours searching for non-exchange plans have uncovered nothing that compares well with my existing coverage. But the greatest source of frustration is Covered California, the state's Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchange and, by some reports, one of the best such exchanges in the country. After four weeks of researching plans on the website, talking directly to government exchange counselors, insurance companies and medical providers, my insurance broker and I are as confused as ever. Time is running out and we still don't have a clue how to best proceed.
That's the heartbreaking part of the op-ed. Here's the infuriating part of the op-ed:
Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive , and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers.
That's infuriating information because President Obama lied about the Affordable Care Act eliminating only substandard health insurance policies. What Ms. Sundby just desribed is anything but substandard. It's the opposite of substandard health insurance coverage.
Before the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.
What happened to the president's promise, "You can keep your health plan"? Or to the promise that "You can keep your doctor"? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician.
Apparently, Covered California can't offer Cadillac plans. Thus far, they've eliminated Ms. Sundby's Cadillac plan. Then again, they were essentially eliminated by the Affordable Care Act. Hopefully, this negative publicity will force Covered California to rethink its offerings. If they don't rethink things, things could get rather dire for Ms. Sundby:
For a cancer patient, medical coverage is a matter of life and death. Take away people's ability to control their medical-coverage choices and they may die. I guess that's a highly effective way to control medical costs. Perhaps that's the point.
Last week, Rep. Frank Pallone, (D-NJ), told Megyn Kelly that insurance companies were cancelling substandard policies because they'd never be able to sell the policies now that the newer, better policies are offered. It's infuriating to hear a congresscritter that's either too stupid to know he's been duped or too dishonest to tell the American people the truth.
People's health is what's important. The Affordable Care Act is hurting people's wallets and endangering their lives. It isn't a matter of whether the ACA will be fixed. It's a matter of when it'll get a major overhaul. The longer Democrats pretend like it's a great plan, the more lives that will get lost.
That's an unacceptable price to pay for the Democrats' intransigence and bitter partisanship.
Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 8:15 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 04-Nov-13 03:24 PM
Gary:
One of the of the big arguments for the bill by Democrats was that preexisting conditions won't be accounted for you anymore. Unfortunately you can say Obama has turned every current individual policy like the one that poor person has into a preexisting condition that must be killed off.
And by the way by making you chance instead of getting better and cheaper coverage as promised she is getting less coverage and more expensive coverage.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Exposing China's anti-academic freedom play
Some of the things I read in this article should make universities think twice before signing an agreement with Chinese universities. Here's the story that isn't getting told:
Many reputable and informed scholars of China have observed that the Confucius Institutes are marked by the same 'no-go zones' that Beijing enforces on China's public sphere. In an interview reported in The New York Times, June Teufel Dreyer, who teaches Chinese government and foreign policy at Miami University, said: 'You're told not to discuss the Dalai Lama - or to invite the Dalai Lama to campus. Tibet, Taiwan, China's military buildup, factional fights inside the Chinese leadership - these are all off limits.'
The Confucius Institutes at North Carolina State University and the University of Sydney actively attempted to prevent the Dalai Lama from speaking. At Sydney, he had to speak off-campus, and the CI sponsored a lecture by a Chinese academic who had previously claimed that Tibet was always part of China, notwithstanding that it was mired in feudal darkness and serfdom until the Chinese democratic reforms of 1959. The Confucius Institute at Waterloo University mobilized its students to defend the Chinese repression of a Tibetan uprising, and McMaster University and Tel Aviv University ran into difficulties with the legal authorities because of the anti-Falun Gong activities of their Confucius Institutes.
Other taboo subjects include the Tiananmen massacre, blacklisted authors, human rights, the jailing of dissidents, the democracy movement, currency manipulation, environmental pollution and the Uighur autonomy movement in Xinjiang. Quite recently, Chinese government leaders explicitly banned the discussion of seven subjects in Chinese university classrooms, including universal values, freedom of the press and the historical mistakes of the Chinese Communist Party; this was part of a directive to local officials to 'understand the dangers posed by views and theories advocated by the West.' It stands to reason that these subjects will also not be matters of free inquiry in CIs.
Academic censorship isn't acceptable, whether it's being promoted by a university through speech codes or whether it's happening as a result of Chinese government interference. Censorship should be fought by these universities because their mission is to inform and educate. These universities' mission isn't to coddle Communist dictatorships.
More than one CI director has stated that his institute is free to discuss anything it wants to; the only problem seems to be with the things they don't want to discuss. 'We don't know anything about the contract that [Hanban officials] force their teachers to sign,' said Glenn Cartwright, principal of Waterloo's Renison University College, which houses the institute. 'I'm sure they have some conditions, but whether we can dictate what those conditions can be is another story.' Human rights are not discussed in the Confucius Institute of the British Columbia Institute of Technology because that isn't part of its mandate. According to director Jim Reichert, 'our function is really focused on cultural awareness, business development, those sorts of pragmatic things.'
Saying that CI's are "focused on...pragmatic things" is a way of saying "I've caved to the Chinese government's political pressure." If we want to teach the Chinese people something, we should teach them about the pillars of our republic.
It's time to expose the Chinese government's political interference. Most importantly, it's time to expose the Chinese government's attempt to stifle academic freedom in America.
Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 2:48 PM
Comment 1 by Jethro at 04-Nov-13 07:55 PM
SCSU just shelled out some money to get a Confucious Institute.
Mary Katherine Ham embarasses Juan Williams on O'Reilly Factor
Last night on the O'Reilly Factor, Juan Williams made some foolish statements. This video offers proof that he's become unhinged:
Here's the partial transcript that shows Mr. Williams has a gigantic partisan blind spot:
WILLIAMS: This is the No Spin Zone. I don't think you're part of this right wing horde that's doing everything, shutting down government, anything to undermine Obamacare so let me give you a straight answer, which is to say that, yes, if you had a plan before March, 2010, which is when the law went into effect, you're supposed to be able to keep it...
URGENT BULLETIN TO JUAN WILLIAMS: Republicans have used legislative tools to prevent people from being negatively affected by the disaster known as the Affordable Care Act. HealthCare.gov isn't functioning and likely won't be anytime soon. People are getting cancellation notices from their insurance companies because Secretary Sebelius wrote a regulation that virtually guaranteed that grandfathered-in policies would be a thing of the past by the end of 2013. People with excellent coverage are getting their cancellation notices. People's health insurance premiums are skyrocketing. The middle class and young healthy adults are getting hurt the worst.
Thanks to tens of thousands of people signing up for expanded Medicaid, federal deficits will return to Obama's first term deficit levels. Those were the bad old days during which the only trillion dollar deficits in our nation's history happened.
What's worst is that the Affordable Care Act has endangered the life of Edie Littlefield-Sundby , a survivor of Stage IV gall bladder cancer. She isn't alone in worrying about getting separated from the doctors that've saved her life thus far.
Mr. Williams, shame on you for being utterly gullible. Shame on you for not realizing that the Democrats' spin is nothing more than outright lies. People promising better health insurance prices with better coverages shouldn't be trusted. If anything, people should run away from them as fast as their feet can take them.
Mr. Williams, would you believe a car salesman if they told you that they could sell you a new, plushed out Cadillac Escalade at a cheaper price than a new Chevy Malibu? Of course you wouldn't. You'd laugh at the salesman as you ran from that showroom. You'd run because you know that there's no such thing as a free lunch.
That's especially true when the sales pitch comes from a politician.
Mary Katherine Ham put Williams in his place with this response:
MKH: The rule is, first, do no harm. You're familiar with that in the medical community. Obamacare is doing harm. Right now, people are losing insurance. They're not able to sign up for new insurance. They're not able to afford the new insurance plans they're being offered and they're not able to get on the website to get the subsidies that Obamacare promised them to be able to afford these unnecessary plans when they liked their plans before.
That's a lengthy list of substantive criticisms of the Affordable Care Act. First, people are getting kicked off the insurance they liked because the Obama administration thinks they know what's best for families. That's extreme arrogance. Next, HealthCare.gov is a disaster. Several IT experts are predicting it won't be fully operational for another 4-6 months. Third, thanks to HealthCare.gov's dysfunctionality, people can't find out if they qualify for a subsidy.
Those are the things that Mary Katherine mentioned in the segment. She didn't mention that data security is iffy at best. She didn't mention that HealthCare.gov is sending inaccurate information to insurance companies. She likely didn't mention those things because of time constraints and because there's a ton of things that aren't functioning properly.
It's sad to think that a journalist is too unhinged to notice basic facts like the list Mary Katherine listed. A journalist's job is to notice things, then report them to his/her readers. At this point, Williams' ability to notice things that don't fit with his ideology is questionable.
Last night, Williams made a fool of himself. We deserve better than that.
Posted Tuesday, November 5, 2013 4:37 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 05-Nov-13 03:18 PM
Gary I think we need to start challening the comment substandard. Let me give you an example using the state of Minnesota.
DVS has decided a couple of years ago to save money to put the drivers manual on the state website and to stop printing drivers manuals to save money.
Is the state of Minnesota giving substandard service because they don't print hard copies of the drivers manuals.
Some people will argue that if they don't have access to the computer that they are being given bad coverage (or substandard).
Some people will be content with let me look at the computer.
What Obamacare is they pick and you have no choice like the people interested in drivers manuals in the state of Minnesota.
Walter Hanson
Minneapoli, MN
SCSU data analytics, Silence Dogood edition
What's So Hard About Data Analytics?
by Silence Dogood
The data in the following table, which comes from the MnSCU website, shows the FYE enrollment from FY07 through FY13 for St. Cloud State University:
If you add the Ug FYE (undergraduate full-year equivalent) to the Gr FYE (graduate full-year equivalent) you get the total FYE shown in the Table below.
The data is plotted in the Figure below.
Please note that these are FY labels so FY13 is the 2012-13 academic year. This Figure does NOT include any information for FY14, which is the current fiscal year.
These data show that enrollment peaked in FY10 and then declined slightly in FY11 (a drop of 121 FYE), which correspond to a drop of 0.80%. These data also show that from FY11 to FY12 enrollment dropped 1,037 FYE, which corresponds to a decrease in FYE of 6.93%. For the FY12 to FY13 comparison, enrollment dropped 885 FYE, which corresponds to a decrease of 6.35%.
Using data from MnSCU, the FYE data for Summer 2012 (1,069) and Fall 2012 (6,366) when compared with Summer 2013 (1,012) and Fall 2013 (6,017), shows enrollment is down 406 FYE for the same period for the prior year, which corresponds to a decrease of 5.46%.
The important question is: How can we predict, using data analytics, the Spring 2014 FYE enrollment? If we know the spring enrollment, we can then calculate the total enrollment for FY14. The administration has projected a decline of 4.7% for spring FYE. If enrollment drops 4.7% from Spring FY13, the enrollment for Spring FY14 would be 5,353 FYE. This would yield a total projected enrollment for FY14 of 12,382 (summer 1,012, fall 6,017, projected spring 5,353), and represents a drop of 671 FYE, which corresponds to a decrease of 5.14% from FY13.
Is this a reasonable prediction? The reason why accurately predicting enrollment is so important is the concomitant budget considerations.
The faculty has never been told how the administration has come up with its' enrollment projections so we are only left to wonder. However, here are two alternate methods of predicting the Spring 2014 enrollment.
The following table shows the fall and spring FYE enrollments from FY07 through FY13.
If the number 5,353 (generated by the administration's assumption of a 4.7% decline from Spring 2014), is entered into the table for the Spring enrollment, the value for FY14 would give:
If you look at the declines in enrollment from Fall to Spring occurring the last three years, where the declines in overall FYE appear, the average decline in enrollment from fall to spring semesters is 10.6%. So projecting an 11.0% decline might seem reasonable. However, from the data it is clear that the rate of decline is increasing, so it might be more reasonable to extend the rate of decline based on a linear regression for the data for the past three years. Performing this linear regression, the predicted rate of decline would be 12.4%. Using a 12.4% decline* generates a spring FYE enrollment of 5,271.
This translates to an annual enrollment for FY14 of 12,300 (summer 1,012, fall 6,017, projected spring 5,271), which corresponds to an annual enrollment decline from FY13 of 753 FYE, which corresponds to a decrease of 5.77%.
This might be where the story ends. However, a significant effort was made to increase the enrollments in the Senior to Sophomore (S2S) Program this fall. Rumors say the S2S enrollment is up over 4% from FY13. Clearly, this would inflate the fall enrollment number (leading to projected spring enrollment that would be too large because S2S students don't register in spring like regular students). As a result, the total enrollment projected would be too high.
Another way to predict enrollment for FY14 that would not be biased by the increased S2S fall enrollments would be to look at the total enrollment for the past three years of decline and extend that trend into the future. Performing a liner regression of the FYE data for FY11 through FY13 gives a total enrollment of 12,066 for FY14. Interestingly, the correlation coefficient is 0.998 indicating that the data is nearly linear.
The total FY14 enrollment will almost certainly be larger than 12,066 FYE predicted because the additional S2S students in fall were not accounted for in the projection based on a linear regression of the total enrollments. However, it is easy to determine a correction factor to account for the 4% increase in the S2S enrollment. Based on the total number of S2S students and projecting a 4% increase will lead to an increase of approximately 30 FYE. As a result, the overall enrollment for FY14 would be 12,096. This number yields an overall drop of 957 FYE in FY13, which corresponds to a decrease of 7.33%.
The administration is predicting an enrollment of 12,382. Using the data from the decline from fall to spring semester yields a prediction of 12,300. Finally, using the enrollment trend for the past three years with an adjustment for the increase in S2S enrollments gives 12,096. So how do you pick a number?
Back in February, the administration predicted an enrollment decline of 2.4%. In April, this increased to a decline in the range of 2.8-3.2%. The administration says in May they increased their prediction to a decline of 4%. Finally, in September, the administration has now said the enrollment will be down 5%. If the administration's predictions are plotted as a function of time, by the end of the year, the decline will likely be even greater than 7.33%!
Using the administration's projected number of 12,382 for the FY14 enrollment, SCSU's enrollment will have decreased from the high of 15,096 in FY10 by an astounding 18.0%. If the number 12,096 is used, this four-year decrease is 19.9%. Why is all of this important? Using the administration's data, a decrease in enrollment of 1% results in a budget reduction of over $620,000. So, if the enrollment is down by 7.33% (more than two percent larger than the 'finally' budgeted number), the university would be looking at a loss of at least $1,240,000. If enrollment continues to drop, pretty soon we'll be talking about real money.
Posted Friday, November 8, 2013 9:10 AM
Comment 1 by Crimson Trace at 08-Nov-13 11:52 AM
A very compelling argument. The data tells a convincing story of what is really going on. An enrollment decline approaching 1/5 of your student base is alarming.
"Using the administration's projected number of 12,382 for the FY14 enrollment, SCSU's enrollment will have decreased from the high of 15,096 in FY10 by an astounding 18.0%. If the number 12,096 is used, this four-year decrease is 19.9%."
Comment 2 by Patrick-M at 08-Nov-13 12:09 PM
Let's see 19.9% less students is about a $45,000,000 loss. (3,000 students X $15,000, tuition/fees, books and room/board). Gosh now we are talking real money!
Comment 3 by Yeager at 10-Nov-13 10:16 AM
I'm bothered by this analysis - yes, there could be some reason for concern with a simple look at enrollment. But so many mitigating factors exist. First, it appears that enrollment over the entire analysis period drops by only 7.8%, not the nearly 20% that seems to be the focus here. What was the enrollment prior to this point? Is it possible that enrollment was artificially high in 2010, rather than artificially low in 2013? Why was it higher in 2010? What about student success - high enrollment isn't directly related to student success, and in fact might be inversely related (poorer student achievement results in longer graduation times and retaking of courses). A quick look shows that, indeed, graduation rates in 2010 were significantly lower than in 2012.
Also, couldn't one come to the conclusion from the many postings here on lfr regarding SCSU, that the cuts that they made recently show a prudent conservation of resources?
My comments aren't made in defense of the administration - surely there are criticisms to be made. However, the obsession over a blunt, generalized measure (enrollment equals budget) doesn't seem to hold up under any sort of scrutiny, and reading through the various sources available (including the union's meet and confer notes) shows that postings like this, made by knowledgable insiders, aren't serving to further the discussion.
Comment 4 by Patrick-M at 10-Nov-13 12:29 PM
So Yeager, the only way to "further the discussion" as you say is to not offer any opposing comments. Spoken like a true liberal!
I have no problem with programs being closed if the process follows established rules, procedures and policies and not to satisfy personal agendas.
The reason enrollment gets so much press (the FTE or FYE, not headcount) is that it is a definite benchmark used by so many in higher ed. Student success is a vague term, what you say is student success I may differ with you and describe it differently.
President Obama's non-apology apology
Last night, President Obama went on NBC to issue a non-apology apology. Here's the video:
Here's the partial transcript of what he told Chuck Todd:
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me. We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and that we're going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this. (NBC News, November 7, 2013)
Much of what was said last night misses the point. That said, it would've been fitting had President Obama admitted that he intentionally told people that they could keep their plan if they liked their plan. At least then President Obama would've told the unvarnished truth. At least then President Obama wouldn't be engaged in an elaborate spin intended to distract people's attention away from the Affordable Care Act's substantive shortcomings.
Nothing President Obama said last night told the people that've lost their coverage that he'd changed his mind. Nothing he said told people that he wouldn't veto a bill that lets people keep the insurance they chose and that his legislation stripped them of.
Nothing he said last night told people that his signature achievement would lower health care costs. Another thing President Obama didn't say last night was that people should have the option of a Health Savings Account, aka HSA, coupled with a high-deductible policy with coverage of catastrophic events or illnesses.
The Affordable Care Act isn't making health care more affordable. It's just letting politicians pick the winners and losers. Millions of people are getting cancellation notices. The people don't care whether the administration hears them. They care whether the administration will do something to prevent them from losing their health insurance on Jan. 1, 2014.
Millions of people have had their premiums increase, their deductibles increase or both increasing. Edie Littlefield-Sundby didn't hear that should could keep the coverage that saved her life .
The middle class is getting shafted by the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Predictable, young healthies are staying away in droves. Deductibles are increasing. Ditto with insurance premiums.
Politicians and bureaucrats have taken the insurance companies' place as the chief predators. Exchanging one predator for another isn't what Americans wanted. They wanted true health care reform, including lowering health care costs, lower or stabilized health insurance premiums and lower or stabilized health insurance deductibles.
Last night, President Obama essentially said he knew what's best for the American people. No president knows what's best for individual families.
Posted Friday, November 8, 2013 4:04 AM
No comments.
ACA through the eyes of "Bill in Kentucky"
Friday night on Special Report, Bret Baier closed the first segment of the Roundtable with an email from "Bill in Kentucky," who offered a worthwhile perspective. Here's the text of Bill in Kentucky's email:
BRET BAIER: I just want to end with this email from Bill in Kentucky who emailed today.
BILL IN KENTUCKY: Putting things into perspective: March 21st, 2010 to October 1, 2013 is 3 years, 6 months and 10 days. December 7th, 1941 to May 8th, 1945 is 3 years, 5 months and 1 day.
What that means is that, in the time that we were attacked at Pearl Harbor to the day Germany surrendered, is not enough time for this progressive federal government to build a working webpage. Mobilization of millions, building tens of thousands of tanks, planes, jeeps, subs, cruisers, destroyers, torpedoes, millions upon millions of guns, bombs, ammo, etc. turn the tide in north Africa, invading Italy, D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, race to Berlin, all while we were also fighting the Japanese in the Pacific! And in that amount of time, this administration can't build a working webpage.
That's right. It's taken this administration more time to get HealthCare.gov running than it took the Greatest Generation to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Based on early reports, it might take another 6 months to get HealthCare.gov functioning properly.
If that's true, that means it took less time to win World War II and Operation Desert Storm. Combined.
More important than the historical perspective, though, is that this administration thought that it was skilled enough to pull this off. Clearly, they're imcompetent, far too incompetent to run an operation this complex. Incompetence mixed with hubris is an awful mix.
Rahm Emanuel was President Obama's first Chief of Staff. It's important to remember that his motto was that they shouldn't let a good crisis go to waste. That's the attitude this administration operated from while Rahm was Chief of Staff. Congress operated from that perspective, too.
I'm betting that many of the people who've gotten their insurance policies terminated would like to tell Emanuel and Ms. Pelosi that their work product stinks. I don't think Pelosi and Emanuel would mind, though, because they passed the thing that Democrats have wanted to pass for almost a century.
Their concern for the American people is virtually nonexistent. Satisfying their ideological allies is what's important for Obama, Emanuel and Pelosi.
Bill in Kentucky's perspective was badly needed because it highlighted this administration's incompetence, their disdain for the American people and their rigid ideological bent.
Originally posted Saturday, November 9, 2013, revised 10-Nov 12:09 AM
No comments.
St. Cloud State and Mankato State enrollment comparison
Mankato and SCSU: An Enrollment Comparison
by Silence Dogood
The fgigure below shows the FYE enrollment for SCSU and Mankato for FY07 through FY13. This data is from the MnSCU website so there should be no question about the accuracy of the data.
The plots are remarkably similar for the first four years. In FY11, differences begin to appear. Mankato is still climbing but SCSU has a 0.8% decline in enrollment. In FY12 Mankato is still climbing while SCSU shows a decline of 6.93%. In FY13 Mankato shows a decline of 1.72% while SCSU declines 6.35%.
If we use the amount Mankato is down fall semester 2013 and predict that they will be down the same percentage this spring from last spring, Mankato's FYE enrollment for FY14 will be 14,223. If we perform the same calculation and assume that SCSU will be down 5% this spring as compared to last spring, SCSU's FYE enrollment will be 12,364. Adding these data for FY14 to the plot gives the figure below.
The data shows Mankato is slightly up for FY14 because, although they were down 0.4% in the fall, they were up 7.3% in the summer and the enrollment for the prior spring was slightly larger than their trends. In reality, Mankato's enrollment might be about the same or slightly less than last year.
On the other hand, SCSU is down significantly and the assumption that enrollment will only be down 5% in the spring is probably not justified since the summer was down 5.4% and the fall was down 5.5%.
Say what you want about changing demographics. Mankato is only 140 miles south of South of St. Cloud and the two universities have had very similar histories. However, as clearly indicated by the data, Mankato is headed in a different direction than SCSU.
President Potter arrived at SCSU in the beginning of FY08 so it might be hard to credit him for the enrollment increases in FY09 and FY10. However, at some point President Potter's administration's actions have to become responsible for the enrollments at SCSU. According to the data for the last four years the trend is not a good one. Since FY10, SCSU's enrollment has declined 18.1% (using SCSU's optimistic projection for Spring 2014); it most likely will be down more than their prediction and the four-year enrollment decline will be closer to 19%. Over the same time period, Mankato is up 2.1%. Unless you can explain how the demographics for Mankato are significantly different than the demographics for SCSU, demographics can't be used to explain away these differences.
Enrollment means tuition and the administration has indicated that, for FY14, there will be a loss of $3,140,326 due to a predicted decrease in enrollment of 5%. This data comes from budget data presented at Meet and Confer on September 5, 2013.
Since SCSU's enrollment dropped 6.93% and 6.35% for FY12 and FY13, respectively, it is not hard to imagine that the lost tuition due to decreases in enrollment for FY12, FY13 and FY14 would be at least of the same order of magnitude each year. Note that tuition for FY14 was frozen at the same level as FY13 so this is likely a quite reasonable assumption. What is clear is that over the past three years, tuition revenue has dropped $9,000,000! This trend simply cannot continue into the future without significant program reductions and retrenchments.
Posted Monday, November 11, 2013 12:13 AM
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MnSure: Close enough for government work
Saturday night, a faithful reader of LFR tried logging onto the MnSure website. This is the message this reader got:
Seriously? I just tried to login to the site to view and apply for plans at 10:33 pm on Saturday, Nov 9, 2013 and I got this message:
the system is available monday through saturday, 6 am to 10 pm
please visit us during those hours to apply and enroll
Thank you for your interest in MNsure
Gov. Dayton, Sen. Klobuchar, Sen. Franken and other prominent Democrats have touted how fantastic the MnSure portal is. This information is proof that MnSure's website isn't like Kayak's or Amazon's websites . In fact, I'd argue that MnSure's motto is 'close enough for government work'. Further, I'd argue that the government version of customer service is nothing like the customer service at Amazon or Target.
All kidding aside, MnSure isn't meeting people's needs. This can't be viewed in isolation. It must be viewed from the perspective that people who've had their policies canceled are depending on MnSure being operational at their convenience, not at the government's convenience.
That MnSure isn't open 24/7 is additional proof that government customer service stinks because it lacks a profit motive. Whether the job is done poorly or whether it's done exceptionally, the pay is the same. There's virtually no chance that the people staffing MnSure will get fired or take a pay cut.
That's the biggest fallacy exposed by the Affordable Care Act. Government shouldn't be in the business of telling clinics, doctors or hospitals how to care for patients. Having government telling doctors, hospitals and clinics how to care for patients is like having Bernie Sanders explain capitalism to Art Laffer.
The disgraceful part of this is that Gov. Dayton, Sen. Franken and Sen. Klobuchar have pretended like the MnSure website is running perfectly. Clearly, that isn't the case. In fact, it's clear that the website's approach to customer service is mostly about doing what the government wants, not fulfilling the customers' needs.
Gov. Dayton, Sen. Franken, Sen. Klobuchar and the DFL legislature should be ashamed of themselves for constructing this disaster.
Posted Monday, November 11, 2013 1:28 AM
Comment 1 by bren jeffers at 11-Nov-13 10:54 AM
I'm getting same message at 11am Monday morning!!!!
