Gov. Flip-Flop or Pork
Chop?-Thursday Gov. Murkowski told the oil industry he
would consider appeals from the industry on his decision to
aggregate satellite North Slope oil fields in a way that would raise
taxes on the industry by about $147 million in FY 06 at projected
oil prices. His statement may open the door to a full or partial
retreat from his unequivocal statement during the State of the State
 address that he was making the changes by
regulation. Oil industry honchos denounced his decision in strong
language, saying it potentially hurts investment decisions and was
done without their knowledge or input. The governor cracked the door
to a potential flip-flop at a meeting with the Support Industry
Alliance. At that meeting he also mentioned he felt "a little bit
like a pork chop being thrown into the wolf cage"-apparently a
reference to appearing in front of a group whose members had
stridently criticized his decision to put the bite on
them.
Getting personal-The
governor's $147 million bite out of the oil industry prompted
choruses of outrage at volumes not often seen and verbiage not often
heard. BP's Alaska honcho told the Support Industry Alliance the
increased tax on oil is equal in magnitude to the cost of
40 new wells a year or what it costs to lease a corporate jet for
100 years-a sharply personal and not-veiled-at-all reference to the
governor's continued desire to replace his turboprop for a jet. It's
one thing to whisper these kinds of personal jabs sotto voce in the
boardroom but quite another to do it publicly.
Lost in
translation-The State of Washington's secretary of state
(Sam Reed) abruptly pulled the Chinese language component of his
official web site following complaints from the state's Chinese
community. His site allows visitors to view the site in  different languages but the Chinese translation was way
off, reports the Seattle Times. For example, a statement about his
proposing "statewide mandates to restore public trust" was
translated as "Swampy weed suggests whole state order recover open
trust."
Good on ya-Rep. Mike
Hawker, a veteran of the POMV (Percent of Market Value) battle last
year that would have inflation-proofed the permanent fund
differently and caused some legislators to drool over the
possibility of tapping into left-over fund earnings for state
spending, challenged the revenue commissioner's Jan. 21st
description of POMV being a revenue-raising measure. He reminded the
commissioner that last year permanent fund managers kept telling
lawmakers that POMV was to protect the permanent fund not a device
to tap into earnings for spending.
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Elected
Alaska officials are lucky private sector employers remain at our
feet rather than going for our throats when it comes to containing
health care costs.
It's the
private sector employers, after all, who are the ones paying state
taxes or fees (thanks to y'all, whether you're a multi-national oil
company or a mom 'n pop who's barely making it and shuddered a
couple years ago  when business license receipts were tripled). An
ever-higher proportion of those taxes and 'fees' are being spent by
government on skyrocketing costs directly related to providing
health care. These employers increasingly see their tax dollars
diverted from better educating a work force or improving public
infrastructure to covering runaway governmental health care
costs.
And let's not forget that responsible private sector
employers who struggle to maintain adequate health insurance for
their employees (thanks to y'all for providing that family safety
net) have fewer investment dollars that lead to job growth.
Ry Cooder
sings a-Woody Guthrie written?-song that proclaims "taxes on the
farmers feeds us all". The lyrics then suggest we're in big trouble
if farmers take a rest. Well, when it comes to State of Alaska
taxes, it's the private sector employers who feeds our state
government coffers. We don't tax individuals. We tax business. And
business has been remarkably patient with our inattention to
exploding health care costs.
A
warning to readers: stop here if you think I have a solution to the
health care crisis buried at the end of the column. I don't-just a
suggestion.
One of the reasons for our inattention to health care cost
containment is complexity. Crafting a fiscal plan is like cooking
oatmeal but fashioning an  affordable health care system
that protects workers, retirees and families at a fair cost is as
difficult as preparing confit of duck. If policy makers can't boil
the oatmeal what in the world makes us rash enough to think of fancy
duck dishes that take patience and time.
Complexity-that's the best excuse to avoid the crisis. But
it's not good enough.
If, in
Alaska where taxes on business feeds us all, private sector
employers let us get away with the "it's too tough" excuse for
avoiding health care issues they're letting us get away with
something they wouldn't let their own executives get away with. If
they struggle for solutions in their businesses, they should demand
solutions from us.
I certainly
don't mean to suggest that the governmental solutions mimic
solutions practiced by some businesses-businesses like WalMart that
provide 'thong'-like health benefits for active employees (which
pushes some of their employees into publicly subsidized health care)
instead of 'longjohn' health plans. Nor should we emulate businesses
that retroactively change pension plans because they feel they can't
afford skyrocketing health costs (again, pushing pensioners into
publicly subsidized health care). But we need to begin the immense
chore of health care cost containment. We just need to do it in a
way that guarantees health care promises made to all
employees-private sector and public sector-are kept.
Again, I
don't have a plan that gets us to a great solution. But I've gotten
to the point where I can identify some of the problems. And I do
believe the best start is involving some Alaskans outside the
Capitol.
Inside the
Capitol we deal with concepts and ideas that need leavening by those
dealing with reality. While I viscerally believe that drug costs are
screwy, that the way many companies advertise prescription drugs too
often  borders on the immoral (including the schemes where major
drug companies write certain doctors a check and too often those
doctors then write prescriptions), that we let pharmaceutical
companies keep generics off the market through the use of specious
tactics, and that drug companies suppress bad news from drug trials
doesn't mean we don't try to work with responsible elements of the
industry. While I viscerally believe some health care corporadoes,
like the perps who ran the HealthSouth or Columbia/HCA frauds, game
their bottom lines to enrich themselves at the expense of patients
from womb to tomb or government-funded Medicaid and Medicare, that
doesn't mean we can't work with the majority of providers to make
the system better.
Frankly, if
we don't work with industry, they've proven they can stop any
reforms suggested at the federal, state or local level.
The
solutions are slippery. I believe we need to work on all
fronts-fraud, drug costs closer to the Canadian price lists,
insurance plans that cover preventative services, reviewing
certificate of need processes, protecting  hospital 'profit centers' while encouraging
competition to hold down costs, and a host of other issues. As state
leaders we also need to work with our congressional delegation to
deal with the FDA and other national issues.
And we need
to start working on these issues now. If we don't, the only
'reforms' will be initiatives to take costs out of the system by
shifting the economic burdens to workers, and their families through
'reformed' retirement plans or higher co-pays. That makes as much
sense as switching to nothing but leg warmers when the cost of
longjohns goes up.
That's an
idea that should leave Alaskans shivering.
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