Brew City Brawler

Big writeoffs coming at Journal Communications?

Goodwill is more than a charity. It's an accounting term. To wit:

goodwill: (accounting) an intangible asset valued according to the advantage or reputation a business has acquired (over and above its tangible assets)

Or, in other words, the value of the name above the door. At some companies it represents a not-insignificant portion of their total value.

And if you look JRN's latest annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, you can see they caution investors that one of their hypothetical risk factors is an impairment charge of goodwill or other intangible assets.

From the Risk Factors section of the filing (p. 26):

Our business may be negatively affected by an impairment charge of goodwill, broadcast licenses or other intangible assets.

As of December 30, 2007, we had a total of $481.8 million of goodwill, broadcast licenses and other intangible assets on our balance sheet. [Brawler: JRN's actual goodwill represents just north of $230 million of that total.]As of December 30, 2007, goodwill, broadcast licenses and other intangible assets represented 56.2% of our total assets. A non-cash impairment charge of goodwill, broadcast licenses or other intangible assets would have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations and we could be in violation of the financial covenants of our revolving credit facility.

Obviously, this statement doesn't mean anything is imminent. But before you dismiss it as boiler plate, please note this language did not appear in the company's 2007 filing.  And the Brawler doubts the accountants threw it in there on a whim.

And, impairment of goodwill (about a quarter of that total asset value) has been all the rage in the media world of late. With newspapers selling at fire sale prices, how does the value of the Journal Sentinel hold up?

Now, obviously, the Brawler has no insider knowledge, etc. And it could ultimately mean nothing. But the Brawler thinks it's worth noting.

eta: An actual accountant writes:

If you dig a little deeper, you will see that over 93% of their goodwill comes from their Broadcast Group (see page 86), which would be relatively unaffected by the changes in the print industry, since it mainly involves the value of the broadcast licenses.

A more likely reason the diclosure was added is that intangibles as a percent of total assets went from 47.6% to 56.2%.  The reason for the increase is due to acquisitions of broadcast stations (and the corresponding licenses).

Not to stop the JS bashing, of course, because it appears just about everyone hates the JS.

Hey Journal Sentinel: Why did Charlie Sykes get "voter fraud" report before the mayor?

Dear Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Daniel Bice had an interesting column the other day about how both the police chief and the mayor were blindsided by the release of an 18-month old report on voter fraud that -- weakly -- made the case WI should adopt voter ID laws and dump same-day registration.

It didn't answer the question of why the report was leaked to Charlie Sykes and his apparatchiks.

Patrick McIlheran, demonstrating he's more a copy editor than reporter at heart, hails the leak as "whistleblowing." Which might be true if it exposed wrongdoing by MKE leaders or revealed something that the good people of Milwaukee didn't already know (that there were problems with the 2004 election).

The report's stealthy release didn't do either of those things. What it did do is keep the meme of extensive voter fraud alive .... even if the facts reported are old news and don't demonstrate a compelling need to overhaul the state's election laws. (And to what extent do we trust the judgment of investigators who say -- with a straight face -- that there was a question whether Gwen Moore would be elected to Congress?)

The report's release does fit in with the RPW's efforts to raise the specter of voter fraud -- often based on zero or crap evidence, It's done so in the past two election cycles. And none other than the Brawler predicted they would do so just in time for the County Executive race. Is the Brawler a prophet? No! He just knows a pattern when he sees one.

Some questions you might want to ask:

1. Was there any contact between the RPW/RPW surrogates and the people who leaked the report?

2. Was there any contact between Scott Walker/his surrogates and the people who leaked the report?

3. Who actually wrote the recommendations in the report?

4. Was anyone given a sneak peek of the report?

5. Why the timing of the report?

The Brawler suspects the people of Milwaukee would be interested in finding out whether their tax dollars funded a report that, through the cooperation of some rogue cops and the RPW, was aimed at making it more difficult for people in Milwaukee to vote.

But that's just a hunch.

A problem with the Journal Sentinel's education coverage?

Apropos of the Brawler's post about a study finding the vouchers compromise of '06 has fallen  short of its described goals, one "Eric" says:

Does it surprise you that this story wasn't blared on the front page of the Journal Sentinel? Do you have any doubt that if it concluded that vouchers were having a definitively positive impact, and the research was done by that WMC group, it wouldn't be trumpeted above the fold?

And you know, he's absolutely right.

Alan Borsuk has waxed indignant when he sees minimal outrage over higher school taxes. He has cited a crap study from the WPRI that purportedly shows the residency requirement keeps teachers away from MPS (this is not an endorsement of RR, it's pointing out that the study was crap).

Yet when a study by the Public Policy Forum points out that

• a good chunk of recent voucher recipients already were enrolled in private schools (as opposed to being refugees from terrible MPS schools, the whole point of the program)
• accreditation leaves a lot to be desired

we hear not a peep from Borsuk.

Milwaukee taxpayers are paying good money to subsidize private schools (and the Brawler is not reflexively opposed to vouchers). The PPF study raises questions as to whether that money is being used wisely. Does Borsuk think his readers don't care to hear about that?

The ABCs of Milwaukee's Right Wing

It's 2008 and an election year. That means the full force of the Milwaukee's Stupider Media -- the bloggers, the columnists, the yakkers -- are going to be upon you. 

Here's a handy A-Z guide on what you can expect to hear from them. Because to Milwaukee's right wing, words mean what they want them to mean!

A is for affirmative action. V. bad -- except when it gets Patrick McIlheran a job as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's conservative columnist!

B is for Bush Derangement Syndrome. A condition marked by the belief that George Bush is a good, if not great president,when nearly 7o percent of the country disapproves of the job he's doing. In extreme cases, sufferers will suggest that it's liberals who actually are alienated from America.

C is for Catholic. Against abortion and in favor of vouchers. As for following the Vatican's opposition to the war and support for labor and liberal economic social policies and dialogue with Islamic peoples (including Iran) ... not so much. You can adhere to the Vatican's opposition to the death penalty so long as you mention that (quietly) only once a year.

D is for Democrats. See N is for Nazis.

E is for Evangelicals. S0 long as they mind their place -- dutifully voting for establishment Republicans -- they're fine. Should they try to push one of their own as a presidentail candidate -- Mike Huckabee -- well, that's just unseemly.

F is for France. Because France was right about this whole Iraq War/occupation not being a good idea, they deserve to have abuse heaped upon them. (Neglect to mention that French troops actually are in Afghanistan.) Boycott all things French, including words (laissez faire doesn't count).

G is for Government. Governments that seek to protect the environment, protect workers and administer health care are big bad nannygestapo states. Governments that engage in illegal surveillance of its citizenry, mislead their people into a war and never-ending occupation of another  country and actively seek to push people off the voting rolls are called limited governments.

H is for humor. Retard jokes? Hilarious! Irony? That's hard!

I is for Iraq. As long as we stay there, we're winning. No matter how many people (our own and others) are killed or wounded, no matter how many hundreds of billions go down the drain, no matter how much it exacerbates regional tensions or inspires hatred of the US, we're winning. What are we trying to accomplish? We'll tell you that later!

J is for journalism.  "The smarter the journalists are, the  better off society is. [For] to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves -- and the better the teacher, the better the student body."  Warren Buffet said that. It's unclear whether he knew Jessica McBride teaches journalism at UW-M.

K is for Ku Klux Klan. A white supremacist group. A member of this group might call a group of Latinos "chihuahuas" (particularly if it was a bunch of women and kids) and inform them they should learn English or leave -- as did a prominent Wisconsin right wing blogger.

L is for Liberal. See N is for Nazis.

M is for McBride, Jessica. See here.

N is for Nazis. The political party that, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, led Germany from 1933 to 1945. It was responsible for the bloodiest war in Europe's history and its rein of terror was marked by the Holocaust, the deliberate extermination of six million Jews and many more others deemed as "unfit." Because liberals (i.e. Democrats) see an activist role for government, this puts them on a continuum with the Nazi Party.

O is for Once Upon a Time. A fictitious past that conservatives frequently hark back to in advancing arguments. For example, Owen Robinson believes that in "once upon a time" people grew old with dignity -- and without the indignity of the welfare state. The fact is, of course, that until big gummint came along, old age mean impoverishment for most working people. History is hard!

P is for Pinochet, Augusto. Chilean general who ousted the democratically elected Salvador Allende in a military coup in 1973 and ruled the country until 1990. Even though he was a dictator whose regime killed thousands of people (including the American Ronni Moffitt, who, along with the actual target Orlando Letelier, who was killed in a car bomb assassination in Washington DC in 1976), some righties think he's OK -- or at least his sins are mitigated -- because he instituted a variety of "free market" reforms. The fact that his economic policies proved disastrous and were often reversed is seldom noted.

Q is for quicheoise. A term of opprobrium for Madison lefties that was invoked by Charlie Sykes in a recent column. The coinage earned him all sorts of huzzahs from other right wing bloggers. Obviously -- as with virtually all other bon mots or insights made by this man -- he lifted it. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. But the Brawler wonders where Sykes get the stones to questions some peoples' manliness when he admitted recently that he was incapable of shoveling out his driveway so his car would get through. Charlie, it's not the length of your driveway that matters -- a real man can always carve a path through the snow!

R is for Robinson, Owen. Proprietor of the rightwing blog Boots and Sabers. He doesn't know much about history. He thinks the only things Justice Louis Butler has to run on are his incumbency and his race. He booted off a commenter over dubious charges of sockpuppetry. He posted a retard joke on his blog and said it was OK because his mom had been a special ed teacher. So you can see why he's the keynote speaker for Green Lake County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner on March 2! See also here and here.

S is for Sykes, Charlie. The latest issue of Milwaukee Magazine summed it up nicely with some quotes from yesteryear.  "Syked Out:“Away from his professional cronies … his books and his daily blows against the status quo, [WTMJ-AM radio host Charlie] Sykes is an isolated man.” (July 2000). “A man of immense talent and ambitions, yet unsure what to do next in life, a man who has gained the respect and fear of the power elite while failing to win the long-term loyalty of even a single friend.” (h/t Whallah!) The Brawler would add that the man seems to get only pettier -- and lazier (want to know what Chuck's going to talk about tomorrow? read conservative blogs the night before) -- with the passage of time.

T is for T-Shirt. Few things exercise Patrick McIlheran more than kids wearing Che T-shirts. Paddy: Don't worry! You can get a Pinochet t-shirt if you want!

U is for urban. Adj. Scary.

V is for voter fraud. There's never been any evidence of organized voter fraud in Milwaukee (it never had the sort of machine that would drive such abuse, for one, at least in the Twentieth Century), but that won't stop the state GOP and its fellow travelers from raising this charge in election cycle after election cycle -- or advocating Voter ID to address an illusory problem. Meanwhile, it will never occur to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to investigate GOP-instigated voter suppression.

W is for Walker, Scott. The Milwaukee County executive whose strongest base of supprt may be with right wing pundits who live outside Milwaukee County. Ma Brawler, meanwhile, thinks he's a weasel.

X is for Xoff. A prominent member of a group known to the right wing as the "hate left." The evidence of this group's hate? Its tireless effort to poke holes in the bogus arguments of the right. (However, equating Muslims with Nazis is not hate -- it's just freedom of expression!)

Y is for yacht. Yacht is one of many many words that F. Scott Fitzgerald could not spell. Right-wing blogger and attorney Rick Esenberg is known to make a spelling mistake two, misspelling Favre -- twice! -- in one recent post.  According to the formidable logic typical of Jessica McBride (and, frankly, not a few other denizens of Milwaukee's right), this means Rick Esenberg wrote The Great Gatsby.

Z is for Ziegler, Annette. Ethics -- indeed, professionalism -- are for suckers!

(This column, particularly the intro, was "inspired" in part by a recent Patrick McIlerhan column, addressed by Mike Plaisted here.)

Why does the Journal-Sentinel's McIlheran link to a blogger who calls Mexicans "chihuahuas"?

Over at Patrick McIlheran's blog, Paddy comes under fire for linking to Texas Hold "Em Blogger, he who likes to call Hillary Clinton Hildabeast, liken her to Hitler and engage in other worthy pursuits.

Paddy's response:

After all, he (Tex) remains the Clorox of Wisconsin blogs: pungent and caustic in such a wonderfully beneficial way. 

To demonstrate exactly how "pungent and caustic"  "Tex" can get, Tim Rock at his own blog invokes some choice words that "Tex" made about Mexicans (in comments to a post at Texas Hold Em about the outrage of a Texas pizza chain accepting pesos) (Brawler's bold):

I am sick of them shoving their fucking culture and theire fucking language down my throat.

I stood in Wal Mart yesterday and listen to a bunch of chattering chihuahuas speaking Mexican until I sick of listening to it and finally said, “You’re in America. Speak English or go back to wherever you came from” and walked away.

Either adopt our culture or language or get the fuck out of the U.S. My grandparents were immigrants and guess what? English was learned in their homes. It was the only acceptable language.

In the same comment string, Tex said:

Welcome to the United States of me-HEE-co. A nation that refuses to protect its borders doesn’t deserve to be a nation. And with the illegal alien lobby firmly in control of policy, it won’t be long until we aren’t one any more.

And to this America, I say good riddance. It isn’t the one I learned to love.

Tex hates America!

Beyond being clearly racist (while this word can get thrown around fast and loose, the Brawler thinks most reasonable people would agree that calling a group of people dogs is a fairly clear-cut example of racism) and jaw-droppingly stoopid (speaking "Mexican"?), the behavior described  is insane. Who acts or talks to people like that?

Now, Paddy can say that a link to "Tex" isn't an endorsement of his knuckledragging views ("Hyperlinks from my blog, either in posts or in the blogroll, do not imply agreement in whole or in part with any particular content on the linked pages."). But it certainly raises questions about McIlheran's -- and the Journal Sentinel's -- judgment. Indeed, one could feasibly argue that linking to a guy like Tex after his chihuahua comments have been brought to light shows that McIlheran and the JS are bigots. Or hold Mexican Americans in vulgar contempt.

McIlheran might argue that's unfair. But let's recall the invective Paddy hurled in the direction of John Edwards after it came out that two bloggers his campaign had hired had written critically, and in NSFW language, about Catholicism:

It makes clearer what kind of voter the man is trying to woo. He's free to hire and keep anyone he wants. If the leading populist lefty in the race wants to signal faithful Catholics he regards them with vulgar contempt, that's a useful political signal.

Here's how that could be recast:

The Journal Sentinel and its bloggers are free to link to any bloggers they want. If the leading newspaper in the region and its conservative columnist wants to signal Mexican Americans they regard them with vulgar contempt, that's a useful political signal.

And after one of the bloggers resigned and Edwards said he was offended by her writings, Paddy wrote this:

Of course, why Edwards could say he was "personally offended" by Marcotte's work and yet keep her in charge of his campaign's blog is unclear. The whole point of a campaign is about expressing a message to voters.

Rewrite!:

Of course, why McIlheran could say he doesn't necessarily agree with linked bloggers and yet continue to link to a blogger who calls Mexicans "chihuahuas" is unclear. The whole point of being a newspaper columnist is about communicating opinions and insights to readers.

(Note: It's quite possible that McIlheran was unaware of Tex's "chihuahua" rhetoric when he linked to, and subsequently praised, his blog. Though the Brawler would note that Tex's chihuahua comment has been pointed out before in the cheddarsphere.  In any event, between Rock's work and this post, it's fair to say that McIlheran is aware of it now.)

While we're at it, here are some choice quotes from McIlheran about the two lefty bloggers -- note how, if you change some words around, they could easily pass for descriptions of Tex's work:

The vulgarity is stunning, as is the sheer volume of it. It is as if some people believe that it makes one’s views more genuine or heartfelt if they’re conveyed in language that one expects from Michael Richards on a bad night. (Here's the whole post)

From another post:

But the weird part, the buddy-are-you-even-awake-when-you-type-this part, is where he refers to Edwards' blogger as "colorful" and "outspoken."

Colorful and outspoken is how you refer to that whole Molly Ivins-Ann Richards routine. The blogger, Amanda Marcotte, routinely uses language that gets you thrown off a bus. She uses the same kinds of words that amounted to a meltdown for Michael Richards. She imagines lawmakers she doesn't like having sex with a desk. Go on, read some of Marcotte's colorful outspokenness. I've run into her blog before this and took her for some fringe nutcase. She is not about being colorful and outspoken in support of some view. She is about insulting Catholicism in gutter terms.

Is it the McIlheran line that insulting Catholicism is outrageous but calling Mexican immigrants (also likely Catholic, now that I think about it) "chihuahuas" merely "caustic and pungent"?

Is that the Journal Sentinel line?

There are plenty of thoughtful conservative bloggers out there. Tex is not one of them.

Why does the Journal Sentinel let John Torinus write about Healthy Wisconsin or: John Torinus, meet Elizabeth McCaughey

Not once, not twice, not thrice but four times, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has published columns by John Torinus that enlist bogus facts -- or no facts at all! -- to attack the Senate Democrats' Healthy Wisconsin proposal.

Torinus' resume includes posts as chairman of Serigraph, board member of the WMC and a former business editor of the right-wing Milwaukee Sentinel. But his performance at the Journal Sentinel calls to mind Elizabeth McCaughey, the right wing hack who distorted and misrepresented, to no small effect, the Clinton Health Security plan in the pages of The New Republic in 1994.

From Theda Skocpol's "Boomerang: Health Care Reform and the Turn Against Government" (p. 153):

McCaughey included outright lies about the Health Security bill, for example, falsely stating that it would prevent patients and doctors from dealing with one another outside of officially approved insurance plans. Her accusations about bureaucratic regulations forcing middle class people into low-cost managed-care plans were in fact much more true of the Cooper bill than Clinton's Health Security. But the editors of the New Republic favored the Cooper plan and were happy to use McCaughey's smear piece to sully public perceptions of Clinton's proposals.

Hey JS editors: if a news reporter blew facts as often as Torinus he or she would be (hopefully) pulled from the beat or given a good talking to. And while Torinus may be an opinion columnist, that does not give him a license to make shit up -- as he has been doing all summer long when it comes to Healthy Wisconsin.

The Brawler would suggest that Torinus' intellectually dishonest attacks are intended more to advance the interests of the WMC than to enlighten the readers of the JS.

The Brawler would like to think that the JS would resent being so used. But if it's not, the least the paper could do is make explicit that it's a conduit for WMC talking points.

Best of the Journal Sentinel blog comment sections: The Vikki Ortiz edition

The Brawler wants to say upfront that the best comment section in a JS blog this week -- perhaps ever -- revolves around the Great Erica Perez Dive Bar Debacle. But illusory Tenant, is all over that one.

So as a runner up, the Brawler puts forth a piece of insight offered in response to a Vikki Ortiz post. She asks her readers the allegedly interesting question of whether it's possible to have friends of the opposite sex once you're involved in a serious relationship.

She just doesn't know!

There's barely enough bandwidth in the intertubes to contain the mad science dropped by one "John" -- is that his middle name?

Take it away, "John":

The short answer is no.  I suppose you want me to elaborate.  Fine.  Most of the time a guy and girl are platonic friends, one of them likes the other and one of them doesn't.  The other reasons for these types of friends is that you are a female and friend's with your friend's boyfriend because he has become part of her life.  So as log as they date, he can be your friend, ....but it is really your friend through someone else.  So...back to heterosexual male and female friends...on their own for their own sake...usually one likes the other(no matter what they say) ...and when one of the two friend's gets married...your friendship will fade deep into the background....often only interacting in front of the spouse.  That's just how it works.  And you find new friends, which I am sure is a pain at first.  The only exception to this is if you had a boyfriend and could hang out the 4 of you for quite some time, to keep a friendship going....but unless you can become very close to your friend's girlfriend...against most odds...you will be taking a backseat and moving on...at least until they break up or divorce...a 1 in 2 chance on that one.

Edifying!

Why there's no compromising with Republicans on Healthy Wisconsin

On Sunday the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel edit board criticized the Wisconsin Senate Democrats' Healthy Wisconsin plan as going too far (a position with which the Brawler disagrees) and criticized the Republican Assembly for not having a health plan at all (a position the Brawler finds strangely familiar).

The answer, the edit board intoned -- as most edit boards do in such situations -- is that the Dems and Republicans must reach across the aisle and reach a (word most loved by editorialists) compromise.

As an example of such reaching across the aisle, the edit board harks back to health care plan proposed in 2005 by Rep. Curt Gielow (R-Mequon) and John Richards (D-Milwaukee), elements of which are in Healthy Wisconsin.

Surely bipartisanship can flourish if the two sides sit down and work it out, the edit board clearly hopes.

To which the Brawler replied: Hogwash.

And again he says: hogwash.

If we're ever going to see meaningful health care reform in Wisconsin it will be against the wishes of many GOP legislators, not with their assistance. They're too wedded, ideologically and financially, to the status quo. Those that may sympathize with reform live in fear of being attacked as RINOs and facing challengers in their next primary.

Let's just revisit the reaction that the Gielow-Richards plan, so beloved by the JS edit board, got from Gielow's fellow Republicans (From the 6/16/05 Capital Times):

Rep. Robin Vos, R-Racine, described the plan as a form of government-mandated "Hillary-care," referring to former first lady Hillary Clinton's health insurance proposal of the 1990s.

"It's hard to know what to say," Vos told Gielow. "Radical is a kind term for this program, in my opinion."

Rep. Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa, called it "nothing short of a framework for socialized medicine in Wisconsin" that would create a "slippery slope of compulsory managed care and unending tax increases."

Sen. Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield, said he was "outraged" by the "ludicrous" plan. "I do not want a system where a Madison bureaucrat decides on a whim what doctors I am able to see or who provides care for my family," he said in a statement.

"Socialism and more government should not be the way of this new millennium," he said.

Same old shibboleths that have greeted Healthy Wisconsin -- and every other serious health care reform of the past 60 years.

The Journal Sentinel edit board has admirable goals for what it believes health care reform should accomplish -- portability, covering the uninsured, holding down costs. It's time the edit board stops pretending that Assembly and Senate Republicans share these goals. And then editorialize appropriately. 

The Milwaukee Vukmir-Sentinel

Bruce Murphy had an interesting item last week about how Dave Riemer, one of the godfathers of Healthy Wisconsin, protested to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about its giving opponents of Healthy Wisconsin a weekly forum in the paper -- that'd be WMC Board Member and Sunday business columnist John Torninus -- with no rebuttal.

That may have been the reason the JS hosted a debate between the two -- a debate in which any neutral party would have declared Riemer the winner despite Torinus' posturings to the contrary -- and gave Riemer a column in Sunday's business section.

Then, proving the JS has a sick sense of humor, it gives rightwinger Leah Vukmir a prominent platform in the Crossroads section.

At a minimum, the JS should have run the columns side by side. If the JS really cared about its image, it would have run the Vukmir column on the comics, perhaps under "Zits." Because this column is straight out of the funny pages.

The column is an ideological screed, a pile of unsubstantiated assertions, starting with the headline, "Consumer control is the best course." The Brawler dearly hopes that the JS and other news outlets will consider placing the adjective "so-called" before the words "consumer driven health plans." The term gives the plans a connotation of being pro-consumer, when, in fact they're not.  "Caveat emptor health plans" -- guess wrong and you're screwed -- might be a better term.

Vuk prattles on about "an army of consumers with information and tools," provides a dubious history of health care, and talks about how the system is broken. She goes on to say how putting consumers in charge would be a "significant paradigm shift" as "consumerism" would foster competition, leading to better quality, lower costs and a pony.

"Consumers evaluate cost, quality and value in every segment of our economy -- except in health care -- because the consumer has never been in charge." Besides being punctuationally challenged, the sentence repeats the old GOP saw that health care is a market like anything else when, in fact, it's not.

She talks about the miracle of HSAs then goes on about how "consumers also must have access to relevant and objective cost and quality information about hospitals and doctors." She notes Wisconsin is a pioneer in "promoting health care transparency."

Yes, if you're going to have a consumer-driven system, you need transparency in prices. But that doesn't exist right now -- and the Assembly GOP isn't proposing anything to meaningfully change that. Weird!

She goes on to say that opponents falsely claim that consumer-driven health care is only for the healthy (Leah, you could've gotten some serious rhyming going if you had added "and HSAs for the wealthy" -- keep working on that flow!). She  denies it.

Her evidence? "At Marshfield Clinic and other places, focused, integrated health care teams are changing their approach to  comprehensive care for illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease -- significant cost drivers."

Well, if they're doing that at Marshfield Clinic "and other places," sign me up!

She then lurches to a big government is bad conclusion, including the objectively false claim that "Big government plans may temporarily address the issue of access, but they do nothing to control costs." She warns of a loss of personal freedom, though people can choose their doctors under Healthy WI. She -- fine, her staff -- offers a pithy throwaway line as conclusion and, mercifully, it ends.

Will it be all Vuk all the time in the JS on health care? The Brawler fears it may be. Leah -- fine, her staff -- has a blog in the Jsonline's backroom blog section. In Friday's installment, she demonized Healthy Wisconsin and also took shots at a fact-based critique of HSAs published by Citizen Action Wisconsin:

The document is riddled with falsehoods and myths with the clear intent of scaring those who might even consider options other than government control of health care. In future postings, I will dispel the myths and biases of the supposed "Seven Deadly Sins of HSAs."

Quite the cliffhanger! So far, she hasn't dispelled any of these "myths or biases." Presumably the WMC or WPRI or someone else is still working on that.

Does the JS believe publishing Leah Vukmir's propaganda on health care serves the public discussion on this important issue? Really believe it?

Journal Sentinel: Still clueless on health care reform

The Brawler was frustrated by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's lead editorial this past Sunday on Healthy Wisconsin and the Assembly Republicans' rival health care "plan."

On the one hand, the Brawler was encouraged to see the board recognizes the Republicans don't have a plan at all. "But the Republican plan, if one can actually call it a plan considering how limited it is, does far too little." Sounds familiar! The editorial sees more promise in health savings accounts than the Brawler, but the Brawler figures they had to throw a bone to McIlheran if they ever were going to get out and enjoy the weekend.

But the Brawler was disappointed with the editorial board's treatment of Healthy Wisconsin. It attacks the program as being too ambitious -- "a plan too far" -- and employs Republican demagoguery in doing so.

But it never explains what, exactly, its alleged shortcomings are. And the edit board also foolishly believes that the way to achieve meaningful health care reform -- and the board has an ambitious agenda -- is through some sort of compromise and "move toward the middle."  (To be fair, the edit board has some nice things to say about Healthy WI.) 

Here are the relevant excerpts from the editorial:

Democrats in the state Senate say that Wisconsin's health care system is in such grave condition that the only hope is the equivalent of a heart-and-lung transplant....

The sweeping overhaul proposed by the Democrats, which they call Healthy Wisconsin, sets out to do too much too fast. ...

Unfortunately, leaders in both political parties, and their respective supporters in the larger community, seem too wedded to their own fixes. The Democrats want to overhaul - Republicans say "blow up" is more like it - the current, fragmented health care system and reorganize it as a statewide purchasing pool, patterned after the state employee health insurance plan. Everyone under age 65 would get health care, and it would be financed with a controversial new payroll tax on employers and a tax on employee wages.

Republicans were correct to scold Senate Democrats in June when the Senate approved the Healthy Wisconsin plan, a combination of three existing plans, including the Richards-Gielow proposal, at the last minute. The plan should have been carefully scrutinized in the political and public arenas before the Democrats gave it their blessing and put it in the budget.

That said, the plan does have some merit, and its authors deserve credit for at least attempting to address the true symptoms. The Democrats showed political courage by tackling the problem head-on rather than merely tinkering with it.

Some critics have claimed the Senate Democrats' plan would take away individual choice. Not so. Participants could pick their own doctors and health plans. Supporters of the plan say it would use consumer information, price sensitivity and competition, similar to the state employee health plan, to hold down costs.

But Republicans and others are right to raise questions. For instance: How realistic are the projections for statewide cost savings for health care compared with the statewide cost of the new payroll taxes to finance the care? How will rates be set for doctors and other health care providers?

So after calling the plan overly ambitious and insinuating it will blow up the current health care system (curious as it leaves the delivery system intact), what are the edit board's complaints?

1. The Dems allegedly put it out at the last minute (this is a debatable point, given the prominence of health care in elections across the state in 06 but let's cede it).
2. There are questions about how will rates be set and questions about the realism of the cost projections (Though the JS elides the bigger question: What are the costs, in dollars and care, in doing nothing vs. the cost of Healthy Wisconsin).

The first is trivial. The second is legitimate, though these questions are the sort that arise around any major policy initiative and are hardly insurmountable. Neither of these criticisms support the scary rhetoric that drives the beginning of the editorial -- or the scary rhetoric that animates the JS's coverage.

But the Brawler's biggest frustration was the edit board's conclusion on how to address this mess: The Assembly and Senate need to get together and compromise.

First off, as a hybrid system Healthy Wisconsin is already arguably a compromise. It's not as if it's some crazy single payer system, some local version of the UK's much-loved NHS.

Second, defining the "middle" as the space between the Senate Dems and Assembly GOP is foolish. The Brawler would define the middle as where the people of the state reside. And polling suggests that the majority of people in the state would support something like Healthy Wisconsin. The "middle" is not some titrate of Healthy Wisconsin and the Assembly GOP's non-plan.

Finally, the Brawler deeply hopes that the JS edit board realizes soon that the state GOP will make a good faith effort to address health care reform around the same time George Bush makes a good faith effort to get out of Iraq before he leaves office. It ain't going to happen. The state GOP is too wedded, ideologically and, more importantly, financially, to the current system to make any significant changes to it.

Unless, of course, they see the alternative as being defeated in 2008.

In 1992, George Bush I proposed health care reforms including insurance purchasing pools for small companies, regulation of insurance company practices and malpractice awards to limit the cost of coverage, and tax-financed vouchers plus tax credits to make insurance more affordable for lower-income families. He also of course encouraged the spread of managed care. (Taken from Theda Skocpol's "Boomerang," page 31).

Say what you will about Bush's plan -- and it was widely derided at the time -- but it's arguably more ambitious than what the Assembly Republicans are proposing 15 years later.

The Assembly proposals also fall way short of the "symptoms" the edit board says health care reform must address: costs that exceed inflation; tens of thousands of people who lack coverage; the failure of many plans to cover pre-existing conditions; and lack of portability.

Healthy Wisconsin should do all that (Hey editors, check out the Riemer editorial in Sunday's business section!)

Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- the Republicans will offer will address those concerns. Compromising with them isn't the answer. Defeating them is.The sooner the Journal Sentinel edit board realizes that, the better we'll all be.