Education

Tackling rising health care costs - Now is the time to act

September 19, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

The Heath Affairs magazine arrived this week at my Capitol office. The headline shouted to me: “New Urgency to Lower Health Costs.” The words echoed the calls of many who pay too much and get too little for their health insurance dollar.

Often conversations with constituents turn to the continued struggle folks face with rising health premiums. New research published this month in the journal Health Affairs confirm when it comes to health care we are paying more and getting less.

One study by the Rand Corporation found workers’ monthly health care bills doubled in the past ten years. The L.A. Times reported, “Rising out-of-pocket medical bills were so corrosive…they virtually wiped out income gains over the decade, leaving the typical family with just $95 more a month to spend on things other than health care in 2009, compared with 1999.”

The Health Affairs article reported the typical family would have $545 more a month in 2009 if health costs had not dramatically exceeded the rate of inflation.

A study released by Commonwealth Fund found nationally the number of uninsured climbed to 52 million people under age 65. Over the past seven years the number of people with poor or inadequate health coverage grew by fifty percent. This is a 9% increase in just three years.

Milwaukee Public Radio's odd preoccupation with conservative special interest groups

August 31, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

Tune in, tune outIn terms of its news and cultural programming, WUWM-FM in Milwaukee is, like most public radio stations, a reasonably good alternative to the shock-jock, wingnut talkmeister, carnival-realilty programming you get on most commercial TV and radio outlets these days. Milwaukee Public Radio, as the station is also known, is every bit a complement to Wisconsin Public Radio.

But MPR, like WPR, lately has had a bit of a problem with balance. To some extent that's because both entities are surely stressed by the attack of right-wing "kill public radio" types, and their call to de-fund such public outlets altogether. In WUWM's case, a little bit of this problem also may spring from the fact that station manager Dave Edwards is, by several accounts, a somewhat conservative guy, like too many other people in modern American radio broadcasting.