A Mayor to learn from

Every mayor in this country can learn from my friend Mayor Ed Malloy of Fairfield, Iowa.  Not only did he have a vision for reducing the energy consumption of his whole city, he is making it happen.  Read the story below.

I expect that other mayors will soon have the chance to attend future workshops around the country featuring Mayor Malloy’s efforts.  The American Sustainable Business Council, Natural Resources Defense Council and White House Council on Environmental Quality will be working to make that happen.  Hopefully the Fairfield experience will soon be coming to a South Carolina city near you.

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Des Moines Register
November 2, 1013

Fairfield defines community action

Jefferson County town shows how to 'manufacture dreams' through civic collaboration

Written by

ROX LAIRD

ADVERTISEMENTFairfield, Ia. – Drive around this Jefferson County seat with Mayor Ed Malloy and you begin to understand why this town is considered unique in Iowa.

The obvious reason is the presence of Maharishi University of Management that is a magnet for transcendental meditation devotees from around the world, which is evident as Malloy wheels around the downtown square. It is lined with unusual shops, art galleries, bookstores, restaurants offering international fare, imported chocolates and teas. A monthly First Friday Art Walk draws a cross-section of the community and people from around the state.

Just off the square, across from the Jefferson County Courthouse, sits the community center and the Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts. It is home to what is described as the only professional live musical theater company in the state and attracts a variety of performing arts events.

A couple of blocks on is Malloy’s oil trading company, housed in an office building built according to the ancient Indian principles of Maharishi Vedic architecture that seeks harmony with the energy of the sun and nature for the well-being of occupants. Many examples of Vedic design can be seen in Fairfield and in Maharishi Vedic City, incorporated in recent years.

Fairfield is a town of contrasts, where you can see a BMW parked on the street next to a pickup truck. The native population has increasingly accepted immigrants who brought a different culture and an entrepreneurial spirit that invigorates the city’s economy. Fairfield has earned a long list of plaudits in numerous “best of” categories, including the April Smithsonian magazine’s list of “The 20 Best Small Towns in America.”

Fairfield lives green

Among the striking things about Fairfield is its ethic of self-sufficient sustainability. This manifests itself in many ways, such as a cooperative organic food market and a solar-powered radio station run by volunteers. Solar panels sprout from roofs and from freestanding structures. The city of Fairfield has an energy efficiency coordinator, whose salary is shared by the city and by Iowa State University’s extension service.

In the city’s industrial park, Sky Factory uses backlit photography to create outdoor scenes for ceilings of hospitals and medical clinics. The plant has set aside space next to its parking lot for an array of solar panels and a garden tended by employees.

On the opposite side of town, a mostly off-the-grid subdivision called Abundance EcoVillage captures energy from the wind and the sun, and draws air for heating and cooling from the Earth.

This conservation ethic runs deeper in the community than these outward symbols of alternative and renewable energy sources. As a participant in Alliant Energy’s Hometown Rewards program, Fairfield took on a challenge beginning on Earth Day in 2012 to reduce its overall energy consumption by 4 percent. It hit that and exceeded it: Fairfield residents shaved electric and natural gas consumption by 8.5 percent and businesses cut theirs by 8 percent.

Working with Alliant, which provided marketing and technical support, the city held workshops for residents and business owners, some 4,500 participants pledged to meet energy savings goals by doing laundry in cold water and installing compact fluorescent light bulbs. A fund was created to make loans for new windows and insulation.

The total savings of 10.2 million kilowatt hours of gas and electricity is enough energy to power 1,077 homes for one year, according to Alliant, which independently verified the energy savings. Besides the savings on power bills, Alliant dangled a carrot in the form of a grant of nearly $19,000, which the city put toward installation of solar panels on the roof of the Fairfield Library this summer.

Alliant Energy spokesman Justin Foss attributed the success of this impressive energy savings to the level of community engagement, working at a neighbor-to-neighbor level creating peer pressure that came from an active group that led the charge.

“This is a program that works really well for Fairfield,” Foss said. “You can’t do that in every community.”

A foot in both worlds

Ed Malloy is perhaps the best example of how Fairfield has melded small town Iowa values with the exotic culture inspired by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Malloy is an immigrant from New York, practices TM and lives in a spacious and handsome home built to the exacting Vedic principles. He moves comfortably among traditional and nontraditional Fairfield, which is evident from his support by voters for more than a decade.

Malloy says Fairfield’s can-do culture begins with setting ambitious goals, but achievements are celebrated by the entire community, not just the strong core of transcendental meditation followers fed by Maharishi University.

In Fairfield, Malloy said, “people go out and manufacture their dreams. When we all share the pride, that’s when everything changes.”

Classroom building is a lesson in sustainability

Fairfield, Ia. – Maharishi University of Management here set out three years ago to build a new classroom building for its sustainable living program that lived up to the department’s mission. The finished product may be the greenest building in Iowa.
The building is constructed of compressed-earthen blocks manufactured by students on site and load-bearing timbers consisting of full-size aspen tree trunks. It generates more energy than it consumes. It collects and treats rain­water from the roof for drinking and flushing. Daylight supplies two-thirds of light in classrooms and offices during the day. Passive and active solar energy is stored in 600 tons of earthen blocks and a 5,000-gallon water tank, which is supplemented with wind-generated electricity. It has a greenhouse for growing plants indoors and edible landscaping outdoors.
The Schwartz-Guich Sustainable Living Center is performing exactly as intended. In fact, it is “exceeding our expectations in energy efficiency in cooling and heating seasons,” said Lawrence Gamble, professor of sustainable living at MUM and an irrepressible evangelist on the subject of renewable energy and natural resource conservation.
Standing beside the center’s electric meter outside the building recently, Gamble pointed to the spinning wheel that measures electric consumption. The wheel was going backward, however, meaning the building was returning power to the electric grid. In fact, according to Gamble, the center produces about a third more energy than it consumes. And it consumes less than a quarter of what an ordinary building of the same size would consume.
Besides employing nearly every imaginable green building technique, the Sustainable Living Center design follows the principles of Maharishi Vedic architecture, an ancient design philosophy from India that puts buildings in harmony with nature. It is hard to imagine a building that does a better job of meeting that goal.

 

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20131103/OPINION01/311030029/

 

Under Health Care Act, Millions Eligible for Free Policies

The New York Times
November 4, 2013

By REED ABELSON and KATIE THOMAS

 

Millions of people could qualify for federal subsidies that will pay the entire monthly cost of some health care plans being offered in the online marketplaces set up under President Obama’s health care law, a surprising figure that has not garnered much attention, in part because the zero-premium plans come with serious trade-offs.

Three independent estimates by Wall Street analysts and a consulting firm say up to seven million people could qualify for the plans, but federal officials and insurers are reluctant to push them too hard because they are concerned about encouraging people to sign up for something that might ultimately not fit their needs.

The bulk of these plans are so-called bronze policies, the least expensive available. They require people to pay the most in out-of-pocket costs, for doctor visits and other benefits like hospital stays.

Supporters of the Affordable Care Act say that the availability of free-premium plans — as well as inexpensive policies that cover more — shows that it is achieving its goal of making health insurance widely available. A large number of those who qualify have incomes that fall just above the threshold for Medicaid, the government program for the poor, according to an analysis by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company.

The latest analysis was conducted by McKinsey’s Center for U.S. Health System Reform, whose independent research has been cited by the federal government and others.

“The whole point of the law was not only to cover the uninsured, but so people didn’t have to make choices between food or drugs, or going to the doctor or dentist,” said Karen Davis, a health policy expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It’s what it is designed to do.”

Many insurers tried to price their least expensive plans so they would become free or nearly free with the addition of subsidies that are set based on a person’s income and the cost of a midlevel, or silver, plan.

Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia has four plans that are free to some customers. But the company, along with other insurers, has been careful not to publicize its free coverage for fear of alienating customers who will need to pay more.

“We’re not advertising zero dollar,” said Brian Lobley, a senior vice president at Independence Blue Cross. But the company is promoting monthly premiums in the $20 to $30 range, he said.

The Obama administration has also stressed affordability over coverage with no monthly charge, frequently saying that the cost of coverage will be less than a monthly cellphone bill for many consumers. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services would not comment on the McKinsey analysis, saying in a statement that the goal of the health law was to provide a range of options for people with differing needs and budgets.

The analysis found that five million to six million people who are uninsured will qualify for subsidies that will be greater than the cost of the cheapest bronze or silver plan. A million more people with individual insurance could also be eligible, according to McKinsey, although estimates of the size of the market for private individual insurance vary widely. None of the people in the analysis qualify for Medicaid.

The availability of zero-premium plans may make the deal especially enticing to the healthy young people the marketplace needs to succeed, said Mark V. Pauly, a professor of health care management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “This is such a good deal that you’d have to believe you were immortal not to really pick it up,” he said.

Although they vary in their design, bronze plans generally cover about 60 percent of a person’s medical costs. All plans, including bronze, must cover standard benefits like prescription drugs, maternity care and mental health treatment.

The availability of the zero-premium plans varies across the country. McKinsey found that about 40 percent of the uninsured in Missouri will be able to select a no-cost bronze plan, for example, compared with 2 percent of the uninsured in New Jersey.

Its estimate, based on an analysis of premiums for plans offered in the marketplaces in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, is in line with two other estimates, by Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley.

The McKinsey researchers also found that about half of the people eligible for zero-premium plans were under 39 and uninsured. The Obama administration has been emphasizing the affordability of its plans for young people, a critical group because their participation in the marketplaces will help keep overall premiums low.

It is impossible to know who will actually sign up, and whether they will choose a zero-premium plan.

For many people, paying slightly more for a silver plan may be a much better option, experts said. Ninety percent of those who will have the option of buying the no-cost plans make less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $28,725 for an individual, and $58,875 for a family of four. People earning below those thresholds are eligible for the most generous assistance, but only if they choose a silver plan.

About a million of those who will qualify for free coverage will be able to buy a silver plan for no monthly cost. McKinsey, which is releasing a report about the new insurance marketplaces, estimates that the cost of silver plans for the people who qualify for a zero-premium bronze plan will range from $40 to $50 a month.

“They may be getting zero premiums, but they’re also leaving a lot of money on the table if they don’t enroll in a silver-level plan,” said Sabrina Corlette, a professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute.

All plans, including bronze policies, limit annual out-of-pocket costs to $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for families. But insurers and advocates said out-of-pocket costs — even those under that limit — can be daunting to people with low incomes.

For Mark and Elisabeth Horst, both artists in Albuquerque, the risks of signing up for a bronze plan were outweighed by the prospect of getting it free. The Horsts, who make $24,000 a year between them, qualified for $612 in monthly subsidies, but the cost of a bronze plan was $581 a month.

“We’re in good health,” Mr. Horst said.

Besides, he said, they can always switch to a better plan next year. “At this point, it’s a little bit of a gamble.”

Not everyone selects the cheapest option. Dante Olivia Smith, a lighting designer from Manhattan, learned that federal subsidies would allow her to buy a bronze plan for $24 a month.

“It was astounding,” she said. “I almost started crying, and called my mom.”

In the end, however, she went with a silver plan for $91 a month that included dental and vision coverage. Ms. Smith, who is 30, said she opted for the more comprehensive plan because of her work, which requires her to climb ladders and use power tools.

“If I had a different job, for 24 dollars a month I would have been like ‘Woo-hoo!' ” she said. “But the reality is, I know what my risks are in my life.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/business/under-health-care-act-millions-eligible-for-free-policies.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1383664168-KWv3q73RZKdGIjFlNug2Zg

Hurting the economy in a SNAP

This morning 875,000 South Carolinians woke up to something other than an earlier sunrise than they had last week.  They woke up to having less food to eat every month.  SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known at food stamps) saw an automatic cut on Friday because of the inability for Congress to get its act together to continue a slightly higher level of benefits enacted in 2009.

So now a family of four that qualifies economically for SNAP will have the equivalent of 21 fewer meals per month.  Most of the Americans helped with purchasing nutritional meals are children.  However there will also be 30,000 hungrier vets in South Carolina on SNAP. 

But if you don’t think this SNAP reduction affects you, you’re wrong.  Anytime you take money from Main Street you hurt local economies.  Since SNAP funds are used to buy food, nationwide that is a $5 billion loss to retailers and to our agriculture industry.  For South Carolina that is a $93 million direct loss to the economy.  But it’s more than that because it doesn’t count the churning effect of money.

We always encourage people to buy local because for every one dollar you spend in a locally-owned store you get three times the economic benefit for your local economy.  Well, the reverse is the same.  While not all of the $93 million is spent in South Carolina buying food from locally-owned stores, certainly a large percentage is given the rural nature of our state.  So that $93 million could mean as high as a $270 million loss to our small businesses if SNAP recipients are forced to cut back on buying food or cut their other spending on Main Street in order to try to put food in their stomachs.

So if you don’t care about having more hungry children and vets in South Carolina and the nation, you should still be concerned about the impact of SNAP reductions on our economy. 

 

Debunking Obamacare horror stories

The stories of how individuals and small businesses are being harmed by Obamacare are being pushed by the ACA-haters and some gullible journalists are regurgitating the stories without checking them out.

Watch this segment from last night’s MSNBC program The Last Word.  Lawrence O’Donnell interviews Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times who debunks one of these stories.

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/the-truth-about-the-affordable-care-act-59129923503

Good news from NFIB survey

Good news from our friends at the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) even if they don’t think it is good news.  According to a non-random survey of 921 small business owners and operators released today by the NFIB, “64 percent reported that they pay more for insurance premiums per employee in 2013 than they did in 2012.”

This is great news!  No one was predicting that Obamacare would result in actually a decrease in health insurance premiums for small businesses.  The best hope was that the double-digit increases of the past 15 or more years that almost all small businesses were experiencing would be less prevalent and that many small business would find insurance even less costly because of the health insurance tax credits made available through Obamacare.

Now, even the Obamacare-hating NFIB is admitting that 36% of their selected small businesses are paying less in premiums in 2013 compared to 2012.  The NFIB doesn’t give us a lot of detail about the increases that were experienced but we should assume that that is also good news for the Obamacare effect.

Here is how the NFIB report dealt with the rate increase issue: “36 percent of those under 20 employees saw premium rate increases of less than 10 percent last year (when they experienced increases) compared to 45 percent among firms over 20 employees.”

So let’s make the assumption (and that’s dangerous) that 36% of businesses with fewer than 20 employees and 36% of businesses with 20 or more employees had no premium increases.  That would mean that more than 50% of all the small businesses in this survey had no increase in premiums or an increase less than double digits in 2013 compared to 2012. 

This is an outstanding improvement over pre-Obamacare rates for small businesses.  And this does not count possibly even better small business rates that these companies might find in the SHOP program of the Health Insurance Marketplaces when they are open.

Thanks, NFIB, for this good news.  We’re heading in the right direction for small businesses.

Superstorm Sandy's warning about our future

 

Today is the one year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy that devastated the New York and New Jersey coastal communities.  Sandy wasn’t a hurricane but the cost in terms of dollars was enormous.

--$2.4 billion authorized by the SBA in disaster loans for residents and businesses

--$2.7 billion in funding to municipalities for clean-up, infrastructure repair and opening affected hospitals

--$7.8 billion paid out from the federal flood insurance program

Now consider what would have been the cost of exactly the same storm years from now with a one, two or three foot rise in sea level due to climate change.  It could be up to a six foot rise in sea level by the end of the century (high estimate from NOAA) if we don’t start cutting back on carbon pollution.

Chris Carnevale of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has his latest blog out entitled, “How High Will the Seas Rise?”  Check it out and then picture what could happen to our South Carolina coastal tourism communities years from now with higher sea levels and a Sandy-like superstorm or another Hurricane Hugo hits us.

Good-news stories about Obamacare

As the Health Insurance Marketplace creeps toward being fully operational and the Obamacare-haters use the technical problems to continue their attacks, the good news is starting to get out.

Over 330,000 Americans have checked to see if they are eligible for a federal subsidy to make their health insurance more affordable.  About 700,000 applications for health insurance have been made through the states and federal Marketplaces.  

Then there are the personal stories of happy Marketplace shoppers.  Below are examples of Americans who have had great results.  Thanks to the Franklin Forum for this information.

Three Hours Saved Man $6,000 - Andrew, Freelancer, 34 yrs old
It took three hours, but Andrew Stryker managed to be among the first people to purchase health insurance through Obamacare’s new insurance markets. Stryker is 34 years old and lives in Los Angeles, where he now does freelance work. He pays a monthly premium around $600 to stay on the COBRA plan from a job he left four years ago. He has high blood pressure and says insurance companies have previously denied his applications for coverage on the individual market. ‘I figured this might cut my premiums in half and I’d be getting better service for half the price,’ he says. … ‘I’ve been watching the news about the government shutdown,” he says. “Obviously three hours is a long time to wait, but it will save me over $6,000. For that, I would have waited all day.’” [Washington Post’s Wonkblog, 10/1/13]

Formerly Uninsured Woman Found $60 Plan
“In Mississippi, one of 34 states letting the federal government operate the online health insurance marketplace created by the health law, consumers continue to face long delays and other technical difficulties as they try to log on and shop for affordable coverage. Sixteen other states and the District of Columbia are operating their own marketplaces. ‘Why keep trying?’ asked Meredith Stark, 29, a hotel desk clerk in the northeast Mississippi town of Blue Springs. ‘Because this is something we need. We have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. And, I am sorry, but not having health insurance denies life.’ Stark says she has a chronic blood condition and had been skipping medication for three years while uninsured because of its cost. The marketplace, also known as an exchange, will offer plans based on four categories -- gold, silver, bronze and platinum -- with varying deductible costs, copayments and other consumer cost sharing. But the combination of heavy traffic – federal officials reports hits in the millions -- and programming problems has made the web site difficult to access since its Oct. 1 launch. After a week of trying, though, Stark managed to complete the online process and enroll her husband and herself in a plan that will cost $60 a month.” [Kaiser Health News, 10/11/13]

Better Coverage For At Least $13,000 Less - Butch Matthews, small business owner, 61 yrs old
Butch Matthews is a 61-year-old former small business owner from Little Rock, Arkansas who used to wake up every morning at 4 A.M. to deliver canned beverages to retailers before retiring in 2010. A lifelong Republican, he was heavily skeptical of the Affordable Care Act when it first passed. 'I did not think that Obamacare was going to be a good plan, I did not think that it was going to help me at all,' he told Think Progress over the phone. But after doing a little research, Matthews eventually realized how much the law could help him. And on Tuesday, his local Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) provider confirmed that he would be able to buy a far better plan than his current policy while saving at least $13,000 per year through Arkansas' Obamacare marketplace... I still am a very strong Republican, but this... I'm so happy that this came along," he continued. "Our home is paid for, vehicle's paid for, this is our expense that we have. We have more expense on medical care than everything else put together, so this is going to be a great help for us.'" [ThinkProgress, 10/21/13]

Indiana Catholic Couple Can Now Afford to Have a Second Child - Steven, Freelancer, 39 yrs old
“Our story isn't terribly exotic, but it's ours. My wife and I (42 and 39) are both freelancers working at home, which means—among other things—we've been blessed with being able to raise our 7-year-old child without outside child care. Although solidly middle class by dollars, we don't earn health care through our employment, which means a large chunk of our money ($600 per month) goes toward health insurance, despite being mostly healthy nonsmokers. We're most interested in the provision of the ACA that requires insurers to cover maternity. It's nearly impossible for single buyers to purchase in our home state of Indiana: one-year waiting period, an extra $10,000 in annual premiums. Basically, you're prepaying for a standard delivery. Because of the lack of coverage—and earnings that have kept us from being certain of Medicaid benefits—we've limited ourselves to one child (which has been tricky, since we're practicing Catholics). We hope for coverage that's either better or cheaper than what we have now—and preferably both!” [Slate, 10/2013]

Colorado Republican Expects “Substantial Savings” - Eric Powell, Small-business owner, 32 yrs
"I grew up a staunch Republican, voted for Bush twice, but the combination of Sarah Palin and the baffling Republican response to Obamacare has caused me to have a major identity crisis in my political beliefs... I grew up in House Speaker John Boehner's district, and we're longtime family friends. My grandpa held the same congressional seat, my dad was a township trustee with him when they both were starting out, and I went to school with his kids. I've honestly never disagreed with any significant Republican positions until this one, but I voted for Obama in 2012—the only Democratic vote I've ever made...I spent an hour or so Tuesday morning browsing plans at the Colorado insurance exchange. My goal was to find coverage for myself and my two children for less cost than we’d incur through my wife’s employer. My children are currently on my wife’s employer-based plan, and my coverage is through the state’s soon-ending high-risk pool. While my wife’s employer coverage is inexpensive for herself, covering our entire family would cost us an additional $1,000 per month out-of-pocket (for a less-than-ideal $3,500 deductible plan).... Browsing and filtering plans is fairly straightforward, and I was impressed by the number of options. For myself and my two children, I was shown a total of 78 plan options from about 10 different carriers. The plans ranged from $357 to $1,024 per month (some including dental coverage), and it was pretty clear that we’d find substantial savings compared to insuring our entire family through my wife’s employer.” [Slate, 10/2013]

Illinois Couple Kept Coverage, Saved $390 - Kathy Kanak, 57 Year Old
“Kathy Kanak beat the system. Late Wednesday, the 57-year-old, of Libertyville, became one of the first known enrollees for health insurance at the glitch-stricken online marketplaces operated by the federal government for 36 states, including Illinois. … ‘I just kept trying,’ she said. ‘Tell people to just keep trying and (they'll) get in eventually.’ With federal tax credits, the Kanaks will pay about $260 a month in 2014 on premiums for medical coverage with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois and dental insurance through Delta Dental, a savings of about $390 a month from their current coverage. They'll be able to retain their family doctor and their dentist, and their annual deductible will drop to $1,500, from $5,000 this year.” [Chicago Tribune, 10/04/2013]