Healthy Food Doesn’t Have to Be Locally Grown

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

This New York Times article about school lunches and nutrition correctly points out that processed foods are not the best menu choice for kids. Then it conflates “healthy” with “local”:

Ann Cooper has made a career out of hammering on the poor quality of public school food. The School Nutrition Association, with 55,000 members, represents the people who prepare it.

Imagine Ms. Cooper’s surprise when she was invited to the association’s upcoming conference to discuss the Lunch Box, a system she developed to help school districts wean themselves from packaged, heavily processed food and begin cooking mostly local food from scratch.

Locally grown produce is healthier than processed snacks, but it isn’t the only alternative to junk food. Relying exclusively on local food sources is unwise because it restricts your options to those foods that are in season and that can be grown in your climate. This is obvious when you consider the fact that no fruits or vegetables are harvested in most of the United States during the winter, when children are in school.

Choice as a Motivator

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

An article in the New York Times reports that choice in education can motivate students. The article is about eighth-graders choosing books to read in a public-school English class — a micro-level choice as compared with the selection of schools or classrooms, which usually have the spotlight in the debate over educational choice.

Some teachers find that allowing students to choose their own books inspires them to read more and to work harder. If a choice critic saw one of those students avidly reading, he might say, “That student would have excelled at reading any book.” That’s the accusation I often hear when I mention students who are doing well in the schools their families chose for them: “The child would have worked hard in any school.” And it’s hard to dispute this claim, because you can’t observe the same child in a hypothetical different situation to compare. When it comes to choosing books, though, you can make a comparison — a teacher can assign a book to an entire class and also give students the freedom to select books on their own.

Choice in literature programs is not directly analogous to choice between schools, so the success of one doesn’t imply that the other is always best. But it does suggest that, in some cases, people thrive under conditions of choice precisely because they get to choose.

Illinois’ Tax Is Missouri’s Gain

Posted on by Caitlin Hartsell

On Sept. 1, Illinois will significantly raise taxes on alcohol, a diktat that will hurt Illinois businesses while benefiting bordering stores in Missouri. From the Post-Dispatch:

Under the new structure, the tax on a gallon of beer would rise from the current 18.5 cents per gallon to 23.1 cents, which could add about a nickel to the price of a six-pack.

The hike for other drinks, though, will be higher. The tax on wine will jump from 73 cents per gallon to $1.39, adding more than a dime to the cost of a typical bottle. And distilled spirits will jump from $4.50 per gallon to $8.55, a 90-percent tax increase.

Missouri’s alcohol taxes already were lower than those in Illinois. Missouri taxes its beer at 6 cents per gallon, wine at 42 cents and spirits at $2.

Illinois officials plan to use the added revenue to fund a series of infrastructure projects. They will find, though, that passing such a large tax hike will not result in reaping the amount of revenue that they anticipate, as some potentially large marginal number of people move their activities elsewhere. The Illinois tax hike, combined with Missouri’s lower gas taxes, will cause businesses on the east side of the state border to see a stark decrease in sales as Illinoisans flock to Missouri to purchase gas and alcohol — as well as other items, like cigarettes and food, which will further augment Missouri’s tax revenue at the expense of Illinois.

A $6.55-per-gallon price difference for liquor is significant, and the availability of cheaper alternatives across the state line means that the tax hike is less likely to lead to a decrease in alcohol consumption than simply to provide Illinois residents with an incentive to stock up during their trips across the border.

At any rate, decreased sales in Illinois will benefit Missourians as the Show-Me State’s coffers capture Prairie State dollars.

No “Free-Market Clouds” for Blunt

Posted on by Caitlin Hartsell

I have a few comments to add about the Springfield News-Leader op-ed piece that David Stokes wrote about earlier today. The piece berates Rep. Roy Blunt for favoring private insurance reform to a public option model, and falls prey to a few logical errors in the process.

The article claims:

For-profit insurance companies milk 30 percent off the top for “administrative” costs vs. just 4 percent for Medicare.

These are very misleading numbers. For one, elderly and disabled Medicare patients require more care so that the administrative cost will be spread out over more patient dollars. In actuality, the per-patient Medicare administration cost is much higher for Medicare than for private insurance companies — it is just spread out over more health care dollars. This does not mean that Medicare is more efficient; a study from the Heritage Foundation debunks the myth of Medicare “efficiency”:

In 2005, Medicare’s administrative costs were $509 per primary beneficiary, compared to private-sector administrative costs of $453. In the years from 2000 to 2005, Medicare’s administrative costs per beneficiary were consistently higher than that for private insurance, ranging from 5 to 48 percent higher, depending on the year.

Private insurance companies must also pay additional taxes from which Medicare is exempt — as much as 4 percent in certain states. This must be factored into the administrative costs for private insurance. These costs do not go to “insurance execs” and their “cronies,” but to the government. Other administrative costs for private insurance include marketing expenses and profit margins; the latter is a significant factor, because profit helps motivate efficiency.

The author of the News-Leader op-ed rails against the fact that private insurance company executives take home “multi-million dollar salaries and huge stock options while the government pays its top Medicare brass just a few hundred thousand dollars a year.” Offering large salaries enables some insurance companies to attract the best in the business. Effective leadership is not an arbitrary factor in building a successful business; a good CEO can create profits that far outweigh his compensation. And it’s worth emphasizing that private insurance companies can’t survive in a competitive market if they merely take profit without providing good service to their customers.

Expanding measures to increase market competition would be more likely to “squeeze the profiteers” than the author’s proposed public option. A government-run option does not engender competition, because its taxpayer-subsidized nature means it does not have to compete for revenue or customers, and will be guaranteed to offer the lowest sticker prices (not counting the cost of the subsidy, of course).

The private insurance business as it stands today is not a free market at all — it’s restrictive and highly regulated. Potential competitors face significant barriers to entry in the insurance market because of the geographic and other regulatory barriers they face; this effectively drives up health care prices. However, even considering the limited competition that currently exists in the private insurance market, these companies manage to be more efficient than their government-run counterparts.

How Not to Be Taken Seriously When You Write an Op-Ed

Posted on by David Stokes

Combest today has a link to a truly bad op-ed on health care in the Springfield News-Leader. (This is not a knock on the News-Leader, because the piece appears to have been submitted by someone outside the paper.)

The only thing good about this op-ed is that it can serve as an excellent lesson in how not to do something. I don’t call it “bad” because I disagree with the author, although I do disagree vehemently with him. It is poorly written because, for whatever reason, it contains all the easy, worthless catch-phrases that instantly identify the author as being biased and operating from a pool of partisan emotions rather than reasoned thinking.

Take a very quick skim of the piece. The heavy use of loaded words and phrases like “cronies,” “greedy profiteers,” “huge stock options,” and “skimming the system” instantly let me know that I have no need to take the writer seriously. He clearly hasn’t put the time into writing the piece that might make it worth my time to read it carefully. (I did read it carefully anyway, but only for the purpose of this blog post.) I think the author uses the term “profiteers” three times in the op-ed to describe executives at insurance companies, as though he has the ability to judge the amount of profit that is proper.

If you want to convince people who are not already inclined to agree with you about something, try more of this:

For-profit insurance companies milk 30 percent off the top for “administrative” costs vs. just 4 percent for Medicare.

And far less of this:

We need both these options in the final bill to reign in greedy profiteers.

The first is an argument. The second is a screed. This op-ed has too much of the latter and too little of the former.

“On Life’s Vast Ocean Diversely We Sail”

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Two stories on the Drudge Report feature kids sailing (or wanting to sail) solo around the world. The first is about a boy from Britain who accomplished this feat, and the second is about a girl who is being prevented by a court in the Netherlands from doing the same.

One reason advanced in opposition to the girl’s plan is that she would have to study by herself for two years rather than going to school. This is a scary example of a state imposing uniformity at the expense of someone’s dream. Schools as we know them have been around for only a short period of time, relative to the vast span of history. People have been exploring for thousands of years. Who is to say that the modern classroom constitutes a normal experience and sailing the open seas is aberrant?

As for the safety issue, the girl’s family planned her trip so that she would at most be at sea for three weeks at a time. Young teenagers have sailed solo on voyages of that duration. If a three-week journey is acceptable, then there should be nothing wrong with many three-week journeys in succession.

Breastfeeding Propaganda

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies be breastfed for a year because of the medical benefits it confers. More mothers might choose to breastfeed if they had that information. However, people should make decisions with their doctors about caring for infants, based on a calm consideration of medical advice. They shouldn’t make those choices out of fear.

That’s why I don’t like this ad from the Department of Health and Senior Services. The ad urges readers to prepare for “those emergencies that come up every day or during a natural disaster” and admonishes that breastfeeding is “even more important during emergencies.” The ad also features a little emblem that looks like a sheriff’s badge and reads, “Breastfeeding: A Vital Emergency Response.”

The website explains the link between breastfeeding and emergencies: If people can’t get to a store because of a natural disaster, it’s helpful to be able to breastfeed. Well, I guess that’s true. The print ad doesn’t make the connection, though, and even after reading the website’s commentary, I’m still confused by the reference to “emergencies that come up every day.”

The ad leaves readers with the impression that breastfeeding is necessary to avert disasters that could strike at any time — much like last year’s midwifery op-ed that claimed we need midwives in case of floods or hurricanes.

Besides provoking anxiety with its allusions to unlikely scenarios, the ad tells women to “contact a local public health department,” as though women could only breastfeed with the government’s help.

Although I personally think breastfeeding is an important practice, I don’t want the state to push that choice on everyone — especially not with scare tactics.

Snail Mail Payouts

Posted on by Caitlin Hartsell

In an effort to cut expenses, the U.S. Postal Service is offering to pay employees to retire or resign by the end of the year. This deal, arranged by the union, will offer employees payouts totaling $15,000 over the next two years. The USPS hopes to save $500 million with these job cuts, and is also considering closing mail centers to address further budget concerns; of the 681 national mail centers that may potentially close, 38 are in St. Louis.

With a $6 billion budget deficit, the USPS surely needs an overhaul.  But the USPS has taken the wrong tack. It should be improving its service, rather than simply cutting it. Many businesses and individuals rely on the USPS for important mail; reductions to service fail to address that, instead exacerbating the existing problems. The advent of the Internet has made USPS service redundant in some areas, and a decrease in service would only serve to push its usefulness even farther to the wayside.

With the inevitable decline of USPS service, however, lawmakers need to reduce the legal restrictions that currently hamper other potential mail services. Although the USPS does not receive taxpayer funds, it has essentially been given a regulatory monopoly on certain types of delivery services. Mailboxes, by law, can only be accessed by postal service employees. The Private Express Statutes limit private mail carriers from delivering mail unless it has the proper USPS postage or is “extremely important” and priced at more than $3. These statutes stifle competition and hurt consumers.

Even long before the advent of the Internet and telephones, the USPS was inefficient. In 1844, abolitionist and individualist lawyer Lysander Spooner created the American Letter Mail Company to ferry letters to Boston, Philadelphia, New York, or Washington, D.C., for a third of the price that the USPS charged at the time. New legislation eventually halted his business, but his efforts did force the USPS to significantly lower its rates. The giant postal monopoly of today no longer has to respond to this sort of cost-cutting competition, because federal protection keeps it insulated from those who might provide a similar service more efficiently. Instead, it can get away with practices like paying employees to quit without having to address the real reasons that it cannot make a profit, while private companies like FedEx and UPS are flourishing.

It’s certainly a good idea for the USPS to cut jobs and make its process more efficient, in order to meet its budget constraints. But sustainable efficiency will not occur without real, free-market competition. Simply paying people to quit does not address the growing superfluity of the USPS, and instead makes the mail service slower and more expensive.

Who Moved My Charter School?

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The president of United Teachers of New Orleans comments on charters:

“There’s no replication of programs that are successful,” Carter said. “I don’t want to see schools closing year after year because their business models don’t work.”

At first glance, it’s hard to tell what he’s referring to when he says there’s no replication. Many of the most successful charter programs, like KIPP, are national networks. They replicate their best ideas in multiple schools.

I think he’s talking about different charters within the same city, which are not joined by common policies the way schools in a traditional public district are. If one charter does a good job, other nearby charters are free to deviate from its methods — and possibly fail, as a result.

That’s not such a bad thing. Allowing some charters to stagnate is the flip side of giving charters the freedom to innovate. Sponsors can dismantle their charter schools if expectations are unmet, so there’s no need to worry that a poor performer will be around for decades. The same can’t be said of traditional public schools; they lack a mechanism by which they can be shut down, and at best the state can step in after a protracted accreditation battle. The potential to close, far from being the disadvantage implied by the above quote, is actually a plus for charters when compared with traditional districts.

And the uniformity within districts doesn’t always mean that they replicate the best practices, either. For example, KIPP started out in a traditional district, but its success wasn’t replicated there because of bureaucracy. Only when KIPP’s founders switched to the charter model were they able to expand their program to help thousands of kids.

Not all charter schools are coordinated through networks, but they all can learn from other schools. The language-immersion charters opening this year in St. Louis were able to gain inspiration from the French-immersion charter in Kansas City, as well as from language-immersion schools in other states. They didn’t have to invent an immersion approach from scratch. And countless charters adopt long school days, even ones that are not affiliated with KIPP. No school board orders them to do it; they do it because it works.

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