Problems with Medicare Policy

Concerns are rising about the way federal funding for hospitals is being distributed. The Obama administration recently published a report that calls for change in payment policy from federal insurance programs, such as Medicare, to hospitals. The report showed that hospitals are increasingly getting rewarded or punished based on their performance. For example, hospitals lose federal funding if the number of treated patients who return within the next month is above average. This is a problem because funding is being awarded to high-tech hospitals, and taken away from hospitals that need drastic upgrades. Many also fear that current policy benefits hospitals with generally high-income patients, whereas it takes funding away from hospitals with low-income patients.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/us/politics/health-laws-pay-policy-is-skewed-panel-finds.html?ref=policy&_r=0

Man Disturbs Supreme Court in Protest (Unit 4 Judiciary)

The Supreme Court strictly forbids any video recording during their hearings. This is why Noah Kai Newkirk, a man who recorded Supreme Court actions and posted them on line, has served time in jail. Newkirk disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling from 2010 which exempted some interest groups and corporations from limits on campaign spending. He says he intended to protest and expose the "unprecedented amount of money" that corporations are allowed to spend. In addition to spending a night in jail, Newkirk has been banned from the Supreme Court grounds for a year. The Supreme Court building intends to tighten its security now that footage from a hearing has been posted online for the first time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/man-who-disrupted-supreme-court-gets-time-served/2014/04/15/2db2368c-c4bd-11e3-9ee7-02c1e10a03f0_story.html

A Word on Whistleblowers

My opinion of whistleblowers is that anybody who bravely reveals injustice to the public deserves praise. Among these is Professor Matthew Woessner, who recently exposed a "wellness" program at Penn State that he felt was degrading and forced students to reveal personal information. Huffington Post journalist Robert Moranto recently provided an interesting approach to looking at whistleblowers, dividing them into four (perhaps sterotypical and over-generalizing) groups. These are bureaucrats who reveal information to the public about financial waste, "megalomaniacs" who "feel that only they know the truth," "Machiavellian infighters" like those who exposed Nixon's scandal, and "cornered whistleblowers" who choose to obey the law even when their bosses try to tell them to break it. I don't think these archetypes are to be taken that seriously, but this article still offered an interesting perspective on whistleblowers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-maranto/thinking-about-whistleblo_b_3830426.html