Tag: Ridgewood Schools

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>by Susan K. Livio/The Star-Ledger
Sunday August 23, 2009, 7:43 AM

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/christie_and_corzine_battle_ov.html

In the midst of their protracted fight over political corruption and allegations of ethical misdeeds, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican contender Chris Christie are having another heated battle — this time on health policy.

While the issue seems one for the wonks, it’s prompted a nasty volley of charges

Through news conferences and testimonials from breast cancer survivors, Corzine’s supporters say Christie is indifferent to women’s health issues because he proposed a low-cost insurance plan that excludes any legally mandated health benefits. Such a plan, Corzine’s allies forcefully say, would undo a law enacted five years ago that requires insurers to cover mammograms for women under 40 with a family history of breast cancer.

Flatly calling Corzine “a liar,” Christie posted an emotional video on his website revealing how a mammogram detected a cancerous tumor and saved his mother’s life 30 years ago.

“I am not the anti-mammogram candidate. Anybody who would suggest that is just a reprehensible human being,” Christie said Monday while campaigning in Westwood. “Because I want to offer people other options that they knowingly can either pursue or not pursue, that does make me “anti’ any of the mandates that are covered under the insurance policies now.”

Beneath the loud talk lies an issue that clearly defines differences between the two candidates, said Montclair University political science professor Brigid Harrison.

“One person advocates for a mandate-free insurance system and one doesn’t,” Harrison said.

Zeroing in on mammogram coverage among the dozens of insurance requirements in state-regulated health plans “enables Corzine to remind women voters, who tend to lean Democrat anyway, there is a difference between him and Christie,” Harrison said.

Unfortunately, she added, it didn’t take long for the discourse on this substantive issue to “degenerate into base politics.”

The debate started when Christie proposed ways to slow the soaring cost of health insurance — such as allowing insurers to offer a bare-bones policy stripped of health screenings and other mandated benefits, to appeal to “young people” who “may not need the chance to have every type of procedure that’s available in the medical world,” Christie said in a video posted on his website.

Corzine and his supporters viewed his comments as trivializing lifesaving screenings that state law requires insurance companies to provide, such as mammograms. The attacks quickly escalated.

“It is unconscionable Chris Christie wants to line the pockets of New Jersey health care insurers at the expense of the health care of millions of New Jersey women,” said Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer), accompanied by a three-time breast cancer survivor at the Statehouse.

Assembly Health Committee Chairman Herb Conaway (D-Burlington), a physician, said Christie’s plan would give “insurance companies free rein to drop coverage for mammograms, minimum maternity stays and even coverage of critical therapy and treatment for autism.”

Corzine issued a statement saying it would end coverage of 24-hour maternity stays, a law sponsored by his running mate, Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen). Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester) keyed in on coverage for autism treatments.

Christie’s running mate, Kim Guadagno, hit back, hosting a teleconference with Assemblywomen Dawn Marie Addiego (R-Burlington) and Caroline Casagrande (R-Monmouth) saying they were offended by the Democrats’ charges.

Christie said “crass politics” has distorted an idea worthy of public discussion.

“I am trying to get people to say if they want less expensive coverage that has less mandates, they should have the option to pick it. No one is going to be required to do it. It’s going to be an option,” Christie said last week.

The state’s mandates for mammograms and other health coverage actually don’t affect most people. About two-thirds of those with health insurance in New Jersey are covered by self-insured and federally regulated plans that do not have to comply with state mandates, said Marshall McKnight, spokesman for the state Department of Banking and Insurance.

The value and cost of insurance mandates has been debated for a long time. With 45 mandates, New Jersey is tied for 13th most in the nation, according to a Council for Affordable Health Insurance report. Rhode Island ranks first with 70 mandates; Idaho is last with 13.

Mammogram coverage, provided by all 50 states, raises premiums less than 1 percent, the report said. But it added: “It is the accumulated impact of dozens of mandates, not just one, that makes health coverage unaffordable.”

Having bare-bones health coverage for the young and healthy also has a down side, said Joel Cantor, director for the Center for State Health Policy at Rutgers University.

While “offering a low-cost option is good for people who don’t want to pay,” Cantor said, allowing these healthy people to leave other health plans would drive up the premiums for those who remain in them. He added that money can be saved by providing screenings that can detect diseases like breast cancer, rather than treating them later.

Quinnipiac University political scientist Maurice Carroll said he doesn’t know who is right but welcomes a “legitimate” issue debate to a race marked by character attacks.

“It’s an honest-to-God issue. That’s a good thing,” he said.

Staff writer Josh Margolin contributed to this report.

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/christie_and_corzine_battle_ov.html

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Elementary Idol

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=669994n&tag=related;photovideo

its old but we still love it !

>Please — why waste money on an “expert” to opine on Valley? Whether we are for the renewal or against the expansion, we all know the issue to be addressed and we don’t need an expert to tell us. Simply put: the hospital can’t be maintained in its current site and size, so, should it be made larger? End of story.

We need to either decide: Ok, the hospital needs to expand to better serve our health needs and there may be some cost to the safety and beauty of the Village; or, no, it doesn’t get to expand.

We don’t need an expert to either define the question or suggest answers to us. Audrey Myers is an expert, and a fine person, and she has already told us the hospital can’t exist in its current location. Therefore, the issues are easily devined. For example, on the one hand, we could lose a tremendously fine hospital that is a stone’s throw away; the hospital is an attraction to people buying homes in the Village; or, more significantly, because I will have to travel further, I may not make it to a hospital in time to get the life saving care I or my children need. On the other hand, allowing an admittedly out of character building and being known as a hospital town will devalue the property values throughout the entire town; Pascack Valley and Hackensack really are not that far away: as the hospital further drains town resources, our taxes will go up; and, significantly, I or my child might be struck by an ambulance or delivery truck barrelling down any street in any section of our town.

There are difficult, stark choices. Life by no means presents easy decisions.

But what stikes me here is the inability of our Village council to simply make a stand here and now. There is no need for an expert. We don’t even need further debate. What more can be written or said?

The issue is framed — Are we a bedroom community where we raise children and live out our lives? Are we a hospital town that serves and is sustained by the needs of the hospital. There’s nothing wrong with either option. But let’s not kid ourselves anymore.

Hiring another expert is precisely the sort of stupid nonsense that this Village council has been engaging in for years. It has lost all backbone. And, once again, it avoids the real issue while the voting scenario is easily forseen. Hire an expert in the dead of summer to render a meaningless decision and then, months later and divorced from all reality, but under the cloak of an expert’s opinion, announce a decision. (No matter how they vote, you can see certain VC members later offering their time worn excuse: “well, gee, its not exactly what I wanted, but the experts told us x,y & Z, so that’s how I reluctantly voted.”)

Please, VC, either stand up like men or women or give it a rest — and if you can’t do the job that needs to be done, step aside now for the good of the community. Or, better yet, let the community decide if you can not. Put the issue on a referendum vote. But, don’t waste any more money on experts when the decision to be made is common sense. Don’t continue to insult us by hiding behind experts and other third parties. You were elected to make decisions and move us forward. Speak your mind, cast your vote — do it and do it now: Hospital town or sleepy village?

Are any of you able to step up to the plate?

>The Planning Board has retained the services of Ray Skorupa, Strategic Medical Planner and Principal of Medical Planning and Research International “MPRI’ to conduct an independent study of the proposed Valley Hospital Renewal and the related Master Plan Amendment being considered by the Village of Ridgewood Planning Board.

Mr. Skorupa has over 35 years of professional expertise in the area of health care architecture and is known both nationally and internationally, having consulted, written and lectured on the topic in the U.S. and throughout the world.

The study is ongoing and the results will be presented at a Planning Board meeting no earlier than mid September. Once scheduled, the meeting date will be announced to the public and posted on the Village website www.ridgewoodnj.net.

>The Death Book for Veterans

Ex-soldiers don’t need to be told they’re a burden to society.

By JIM TOWEY
WSJ

https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358590107981718.html

If President Obama wants to better understand why America’s discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.

Last year, bureaucrats at the VA’s National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, “Your Life, Your Choices.” It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA’s preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated “Your Life, Your Choices.”

Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.

“Your Life, Your Choices” presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political “push poll.” For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be “not worth living.”

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to “shake the blues.” There is a section which provocatively asks, “Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘If I’m a vegetable, pull the plug’?” There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as “I can no longer contribute to my family’s well being,” “I am a severe financial burden on my family” and that the vet’s situation “causes severe emotional burden for my family.”

When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?

One can only imagine a soldier surviving the war in Iraq and returning without all of his limbs only to encounter a veteran’s health-care system that seems intent on his surrender.

I was not surprised to learn that the VA panel of experts that sought to update “Your Life, Your Choices” between 2007-2008 did not include any representatives of faith groups or disability rights advocates. And as you might guess, only one organization was listed in the new version as a resource on advance directives: the Hemlock Society (now euphemistically known as “Compassion and Choices”).

This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable. Worse, a July 2009 VA directive instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to “Your Life, Your Choices.” Not just those of advanced age and debilitated condition—all patients. America’s 24 million veterans deserve better.

Many years ago I created an advance care planning document called “Five Wishes” that is today the most widely used living will in America, with 13 million copies in national circulation. Unlike the VA’s document, this one does not contain the standard bias to withdraw or withhold medical care. It meets the legal requirements of at least 43 states, and it runs exactly 12 pages.

After a decade of observing end-of-life discussions, I can attest to the great fear that many patients have, particularly those with few family members and financial resources. I lived and worked in an AIDS home in the mid-1980s and saw first-hand how the dying wanted more than health care—they wanted someone to care.

If President Obama is sincere in stating that he is not trying to cut costs by pressuring the disabled to forgo critical care, one good way to show that commitment is to walk two blocks from the Oval Office and pull the plug on “Your Life, Your Choices.” He should make sure in the future that VA decisions are guided by values that treat the lives of our veterans as gifts, not burdens.

Mr. Towey, president of Saint Vincent College, was director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives (2002-2006) and founder of the nonprofit Aging with Dignity.

https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358590107981718.html

>Sorry, but I’m not a supporter of a water park, and I feel our local gov wastes money all the time. I’m not a supporter of the BOE either.

OK?

And… Here you go: I left Graydon for a private pool. Took my family elsewhere. Cost much more money that I’d like to spend. I find Graydon to be beautiful, and when I drive by each day, I think how convenient it would be to spend these hot summer days at Graydon. Much cheaper too. Guess what? When my 6 yr old had another ear infection last summer, we resolved to leave. When my children’s doctor asked if we still were at Graydon, saying that they see a surge in infections late in the summer, when the water warms up, we resolved to leave.

I am not an RPP supporter. No spin from either side. Ask our local medical health professionals for their personal opinions on Graydon. Ask if they’d let their own kids swim there in late August.

I dont want a $10 mio mess. I want something that is community based, a place where my kids can also swim and hang out as teens for years to come.

Not sure what the compromise is… maybe half the pond aspect and then build a traditional cement pool next to it. Yes, somewhere with the Ridgewood swim team could compete. I support that, as swimming is a great activity. Somewhere those of us with young kids could enjoy the sand … And enjoy a cement pool with cholorine. Smaller “natural” pool would be easier for the lifeguards to watch as well, and still visually acceptable to the traditionalists.

Dont attack the idea. Yes, its full of holes. All I am saying is that I would come back to Graydon if there were changes. Changes dont have to cost $10mio, and they dont have to include ducks and geese.

Find a compromise that costs less and will help end this saga.

Sit down at a table together and discuss this as a community.

Please.

>Obama’s: “Basic Standard Of Decency” Allows Illegals To Be Treated (H.R. 3200 – Page 50 Section 152)

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Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) — “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” — Barack Obama, Aug. 11, 2009

https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aJ01reSCujDQ#

No institution has been the butt of more government- inefficiency jokes than the U.S. Postal Service. Maybe the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The only way the post office can stay in business is its government subsidy. The USPS lost $2.4 billion in the quarter ended in June and projects a net loss of $7 billion in fiscal 2009, outstanding debt of more than $10 billion and a cash shortfall of $1 billion. It was moved to intensive care — the Government Accountability Office’s list of “high risk” cases – – last month and told to shape up. (It must be the only entity that hasn’t cashed in on TARP!)

That didn’t stop President Barack Obama from holding up the post office as an example at a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, last week.

When Obama compared the post office to UPS and FedEx, he was clearly hoping to assuage voter concerns about a public health-care option undercutting and eliminating private insurance.

What he did instead was conjure up visions of long lines and interminable waits. Why do we need or want a health-care system that works like the post office?

What’s more, if the USPS is struggling to compete with private companies, as Obama implied, why introduce a government health-care option that would operate at the same disadvantage?

Obama Unscripted

These are just two of the questions someone listening to the president’s health-insurance reform roadshow might want to ask.

Impromptu Obamanomics is getting scarier by the day. For all the president’s touted intelligence, his un-teleprompted comments reveal a basic misunderstanding of capitalist principles.

For example, asked at the Portsmouth town hall how private insurance companies can compete with the government, the president said the following:

“If the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining — meaning taxpayers aren’t subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services and a good network of doctors, just like any other private insurer would do — then I think private insurers should be able to compete.”

Self-sustaining? The public option? What has Obama been doing during those daily 40-minute economic briefings coordinated by uber-economic-adviser, Larry Summers?

Capitalism Explained

Government programs aren’t self-sustaining by definition. They’re subsidized by the taxpayer. If they were self-financed, we’d be off the hook.

https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aJ01reSCujDQ#

>I can honestly see eye-to-eye with all the points of concern that have been made thus far. But these battles between the “For and Against” WILL RESOLVE NOTHING and it’s effects are by far the most counter-productive. Working in the legal industry I have learned that when two parties refuse to yield the results NEVER benefit ANYONE in the end. I have also learned that a true, fair and honest result is reached when both sides go home at the end of the day not fully satisfied with the decision. I also feel compelled to note that throwing politics in any situation will not bare any feasible result.

It’s like trying to solve a puzzle by putting it into a blender. And from the comments I have just read, it is clear to see that at this point is seems that egos and pride have altered the course of progression. No decision should ever be based upon one’s ego or pride but solely on facts that can not be manipulated for or against this debate. One such fact is that the attendance at Graydon is at an all time low as countless people in town are going elsewhere. Unfortunately the days of swimming in a pond is not as appealing to the “entitled youth of today” as it was to many of us when we were children. Again, I will note I am still on the fence on this matter, but in situations like this it is best that the voice of the people of Ridgewood be the one that speaks last, not the two sides of this mess and God knows not the politicians.

Finally, has anyone ever thought about the two sides putting aside their egos and pride and getting together just to toss ideas out there in hopes of finding a common ground. I believe it was Lord Byron who once said that adversity is the first path to truth.

Sincerely,

Craig Hueneke