One of those states is Massachusetts, which passed health-care reform similar to the one contemplated at the federal level in mid-2006. The major aspects of this reform took place in 2007, notably the introduction of large subsidies for low-income populations, a merged nongroup and small group insurance market, and a mandate on individuals to purchase health insurance. And the results have been an enormous reduction in the cost of nongroup insurance in the state: The average individual premium in the state fell from $8,537 at the end of 2006 to $5,143 in mid-2009, a 40 percent reduction, while the rest of the nation was seeing a 14 percent increase.

• Why is a mandate necessary? [Those without coverage drive up costs for those with coverage]
  
• Will premiums go up or down? [They would go down]
  
• Will there be help? [Yes]
  
• What's affordable? [The House bill provides affordability tax credits for families of 4 up to $88,000]
• Has it been tried? [Yes, successfully]
  
• Which version is more affordable? [The House bill]
  

That's why the most important document House Democrats released when they unveiled their bill last week was a list of 14 benefits that would be created immediately.

These include insurance reforms to ban lifetime limits on coverage and an end to "rescissions," under which insurers abruptly nullify patients' policies after they file claims. One of the most popular reforms in the bill -- barring insurers from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions -- wouldn't take effect until later. So the House bill creates an interim high-risk pool to help those who need coverage in the meantime.

There are also particular benefits for Medicare recipients, including an immediate reduction in drug costs, and a very popular provision that would allow parents to keep their children on the family health plan through age 26.

Especially important are new investments in community health centers and in efforts to increase the number of primary care doctors. As millions more people get access to decent care, the system will have to provide more doctors, nurses and facilities to treat them.

"People will be excited about 2013," said Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, which shares jurisdiction on the health-care bill. "But there are enough benefits between now and then to keep them engaged and to keep them favorably disposed."

Readers of this paper will know that, for much of this year, Congress and President Obama have grappled with one of the most important and complicated issues affecting our nation's economy and our community: health insurance reform.

I am proud to announce that on Thursday we introduced revised legislation that addresses many concerns raised about reform and brings us closer than ever to delivering on the long-held promise of quality and affordable health care for each of us.

I am a principal co-author of the bill.

Since three House committees passed a bill this summer, we have worked hard to incorporate changes and improvements suggested by people from across the political spectrum. Our revised bill directly addresses the needs of American families. It will:

• Not increase the deficit.
• Curb out-of-control costs that are bankrupting families and employers.
• Strengthen Medicare for seniors, in part by closing the prescription drug "donut hole" and by making the program sustainable for years to come.
• Protect people against discriminatory insurance company practices. We eliminate so-called "pre-existing" condition denials, stop insurance companies from dropping coverage if you get sick, and establish yearly caps on what you will pay out-of-pocket.
• Keep premiums affordable and insurance companies honest by ensuring competition in the health care marketplace through inclusion of a public consumer option. People in California will be able to choose from multiple private options, such as Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente and others, or choose a public plan that offers the best quality at the best price -- just as they do on Expedia.
• Offer affordability credits to ensure that low-income and middle-class families can pay for coverage, and ensure that small businesses can actually help cover their employees.

One of the biggest concerns I heard throughout this process was about the bill's cost. Let me be clear: Our reforms are fully paid for and will not increase the federal deficit. In fact, our revised bill will reduce the deficit by at least $30 billion over the next 10 years.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of our reforms at $894 billion. More than half of this cost will be offset through a combination of savings generated by making Medicare and Medi-Cal more efficient and implementing new technology, but we do not cut services for seniors or low-income individuals. We improve care for people served by these critical programs.

The rest of the bill's costs are paid for by a surcharge on the wealthiest 0.3 percent of U.S. households-- married couples earning over $1 million dollars and individuals earning more than half a million dollars annually.

For the past 70 years, Americans have battled hard for the right to quality, affordable health care. While we still have hard work ahead, next week the House will vote on our truly historic legislation and get us closer than ever to achieving what generations of Americans have been fighting for.

require insurers to allow young people through age 26 to remain on their parents’ policies. It would provide immediate help to people who have been uninsured for several months or denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions. It would speed elimination of a gap in drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries (the so-called doughnut hole) and would give the government power to negotiate drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries, a promising way to reduce costs.

The bill would take a long stride toward universal coverage while remaining fiscally responsible.

• If people like their current plans, they will be able to keep them.
• For individuals who aren’t currently covered by their employer, and some small businesses, the proposal will establish a new Health Insurance Exchange where consumers can comparison shop from a menu of affordable, quality health care options that will include private plans, health co-ops, and a new public health insurance option. The public health insurance option will play on a level playing field with private insurers, spurring additional competition.
• This Exchange will create competition based on quality and price that leads to better coverage and care. Patients and doctors will have control over decisions about their health care, instead of insurance companies.

• Every American who receives coverage through the Exchange will have a plan that includes standardized, comprehensive and quality health care benefits.
• It will end increases in premiums or denials of care based on pre-existing conditions, race, or gender, and strictly limit age rating.
• The proposal will also eliminate co-pays for preventive care, and cap out-of-pocket expensesto protects every American from bankruptcy.

• Guarantees that every child in America will have health care coverage that includes dental, hearing and vision benefits.
• Provides better preventive and wellness care. Every health care plan offered through the exchange and by employers after a grace period will cover preventive care at no cost to the patient.
• Increases the health care workforce to ensure that more doctors and nurses are available to provide quality care as more Americans get coverage.
• Strengthens Medicare and Medicaid and closes the Medicare Part D ‘donut hole’ so that seniors and low-income Americans receive better quality of care and see lower prescription drug costs and out-of-pocket expenses.

• Employers can continue offering coverage to workers, and those who choose not to offer coverage contribute a fee of eight percent of payroll.
• All individuals will generally be required to get coverage, either through their employer or the exchange, or pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of income, subject to a hardship exemption.
• The federal government will provide affordability credits, available on a sliding scale for low- and middle-income individuals and families to make premiums affordable and reduce cost-sharing.

• Provides transparency in plans in the Health Exchange so that consumers have the clear, complete information, in plain English, needed to select the plan that best meets their needs.
• Establishes consumer advocacy offices as part of the Exchange in order to protect consumers, answer questions, and assist with any problems related to their plans.
• Simplifies paperwork and other administrative burdens. Patients, doctors, nurses, insurance companies, providers, and employers will all encounter a streamlined, less confusing, more consumer friendly system.
• Increases funding of efforts to reduce waste, fraud and abuse; creates enhanced oversight of Medicare and Medicaid programs.

• Pays for the entire cost of the legislation though a combination of savings achieved by making Medicare and Medicaid more efficient – without cutting seniors’ benefits in any way – and  revenue generated from placing a surcharge the top 0.3 percent of all households in the U.S.(married couples with adjusted gross income of over $1,000,000) and other tax measures.
• The Congressional Budget estimates the bill will reduce the deficit by at least $100 billion over ten years.
• Estimates also show the bill will slow the rate of growth of the Medicare program from 6.6 percent annually to 5.3 percent annually.

The states' reports suggest the biggest impact has been at schools. Twenty-three states that have reported school job numbers said more than 156,000 jobs had been created or saved.

Carol Bingham, director of fiscal policy for the California Department of Education, estimated the stimulus saved about 20,000 teaching positions. But she and others warn that precisely counting saved jobs has proved almost impossible. "It was intended to be a count. The way it was done, I think it's going to end up being an estimate," she said.

Indiana officials reported that the stimulus had created or saved about 13,000 school jobs. Asked whether he had any idea how many layoffs the plan had prevented, state Education Department spokesman Cam Savage replied: "I really don't."

Why did the state agency charged with keeping workers safe on the job fail so badly — and are those failures symptomatic of a national problem?...At stake could be Nevada’s control over the workplace-safety program. Nevada is one of 22 states operating such a program, which is supposed to protect private and public employees. The federal government shoulders the responsibility in all other states.

• No ‘willful’ or ‘repeat’ citations were made and were even discouraged. ‘Willful’ violations carry significantly higher penalties;
• In nearly half of all fatality cases, family members of the fallen workers were not contacted or given the opportunity to speak with investigators;
• Clear cases of repeat violations were not cited. For example, OSHA issued ‘serious’ violations in the Orleans Casino case rather than ‘willful’ or ‘repeat’ violations even though the owner and operator of this hotel had same violations other facilities in Nevada;
• Even when Nevada OSHA cited a workplace for a health and safety violation, they could not demonstrate that those workplaces were abated correctly; and
• Nevada OSHA investigators were not properly trained on construction hazards. 

The probe examined Nevada OSHA’s oversight of 25 workplace fatalities, some of which occurred during the Las Vegas Strip construction boom and found an agency with staff ill-equipped to investigate accidents and administrators unwilling to impose hefty penalties on companies.

The report is the most significant review of a state program conducted by the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in nearly two decades. Labor officials said the findings have prompted a nationwide review of state-administered workplace-safety plans and increased federal oversight.

The Labor Department said its investigation was triggered in part by the Sun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series that examined the Strip construction deaths and exposed the failures of government, management and labor unions to protect workers.

The report documents troubles large and small within Nevada OSHA’s offices in Reno and Henderson — from state lawyers and managers who discouraged harsh citations for company violations to staff communiqués via Post-it notes. In half the fatality cases, families of the workers were not told of investigations, as required.

Colleges and universities have not slashed sticker prices in response to the economic downturn. On the contrary, tuition and fees rose 6.5 percent at public four-year colleges compared with the 2008-2009 school year and 4.4 percent at private, nonprofit, four-year institutions. Those were steeper rates of increase than in prior years, after adjusting for inflation. Over the past decade, annual increases have averaged 4.9 percent at public colleges and 2.6 percent at private colleges.

[Mr. Gross] left [Farm Bureau] for a while before coming back and working his way up to claims administration vice president. He was getting regular raises and great job reviews. He was highly valued.

Then one day in 2003, Gross said he and just about every other 50-or-older supervisor or higher-level worker in the claims department - and nobody younger than 50 - was demoted. It was a kick in the gut.

"For years, I couldn't have been more loyal," he said. "I was always proud to say I worked for the Farm Bureau."

He had no idea he'd become the invisible man. "I went from having a great job to, literally, not doing much of anything."

This year, he's been doing mostly clerical work, "taking numbers from one report and posting them onto another."

Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and Representative George Miller of California, the Democratic chairmen of two powerful committees, recently introduced bills to reverse the court’s age ruling. They would make the standard for proving age discrimination equivalent to the standard for proving discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin.

When older workers lose their jobs, according to the advocacy group AARP, it takes them longer than other workers to get new ones. Age-discrimination complaints have been rising. In 2008, the number of age cases filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was up 29 percent from the year earlier.

Congress made clear four decades ago that it wants to protect older workers from discrimination, but the Supreme Court has tried to interfere with that effort. It is up to Congress to put the teeth back into the law.

The historic legislation, championed by President Obama and approved by the U.S. House earlier this month, is a rare and welcome chance for Congress to actually streamline government instead of just talking about it. If approved by the Senate, the Student Loan and Fiscal Responsibility Act could save taxpayers $47 billion to $87 billion over the next 10 years by eliminating the middleman role private lenders play in federal education loans.

Families who now get their Stafford or parental PLUS loans through banks or credit unions or nonprofits such as Sallie Mae would instead borrow directly from the federal government, working through school financial aid offices just as they do now.

The unemployment rate for 16 to 19-year-olds hit 25.9% in September, the highest rate recorded since at least 1948 (the earliest data the Labor Department supplies).

Lately, their plight hasn’t been falling on deaf ears. The House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing earlier this week to address low unemployment among young people.

“Indeed, because of the horrible economy, younger workers are now competing with more experienced workers for positions traditionally [in] the domain of the young and less experienced,” Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat and the committee chairman, said according to prepared remarks. “Until the economy as a whole turns around, younger workers will continue to be hit the hardest.”

At least things don’t appear to be getting worse for the 20-somethings lately. The unemployment rate for 20 to 24-year-olds dropped to a still-high 14.9% in September. It’s the second month the group’s unemployment rate decreased.

• Guarantee that you will not be denied coverage based on a so-called pre-existing condition
• Limit out-of-pocket expenses to protect families from medical-related bankruptcy
• Make your insurance policy transparent so you know what you’re paying for
• Prevent insurance companies from dropping coverage when you get sick
• Prevent insurance companies from charging people different rates based on gender, health status, or occupation.

It was a blessed relief last week, in the thick of such intractable issues as health care and Afghanistan, to see the House of Representatives pass a piece of legislation that was urgently needed, made perfect sense and — mirabile dictu — could save taxpayers billions of dollars.

Members approved a bill that would end subsidies to private lenders who currently finance college loans, putting the government directly in charge. This significant measure, a longtime goal of Democrats, would save taxpayers about $87 billion over the next decade, estimates the Congressional Budget Office.

Those savings would be used to boost student grants, improve early education and pre-school programs, support community colleges and modernize public schools.

Democrats had been working for years to pass legislation curbing subsidies to lenders. Now, with a Democrat-controlled House, and with banks pretty much in the doghouse, the measure passed the House roughly along party lines, 253–171, with only four Democrats voting against and six Republicans in favor.

It is yet to be seen how the bill will fare in the Senate, but for now, it spells good news for students and taxpayers — especially in Texas, where, as reported by the Chronicle's Jeannie Kever, post-high school students have enrolled in record numbers for the current school year, in spite of concerns that the recession would dissuade many of them from entering college.

Community colleges told Kever that enrollment had “skyrocketed,” and preliminary data from four-year colleges show enrollment has increased in many of them too, assuaging fears that more students might opt for the cheaper community colleges.

• The Maine Campus (University of Maine):  "We applaud the representatives who passed what amounts to the largest higher education aid reform bill of our lives. We hope the Senate follows suit."
• The Daily Cardinal (Stanford University):  "The bill will help students graduate with less debt while saving taxpayers money. Such action is wise and long overdue."
• The Lariat online (Baylor University):   "Though the opposition may see this as just another area overtaken by the federal government that may lead to job loss through the industry or a burden on universities during the transition out of their respective federal lending programs, it is a risk and a burden well worth shouldering."
• Daily Pennsylvanian (University of Pennsylvania):  "Private lenders have shown that they are more trouble than they are worth, and redirecting the savings into expanding grants to students is an excellent, efficient redistribution of resources. We hope the House passes this bill."
• Georgetown Voice (Georgetown University):  "It is essential that the Senate passes this bill. As Hoyas who claim to strive for a diverse community, we must lend our support to initiatives like this, which are crucial to enabling people from every background to come here."
• The Daily Reveille (LSU):  "It’s finally time for banks to get their hands out of private education...Banks should not be in the business of profiting off the loans of students seeking the critical skills needed to compete in a global economy.  Higher education deserves better. Our nation’s undergraduates deserve every chance to succeed in America, and thus to make America succeed with them."
• Indiana Daily Student (University of Indiana):  "This bill decreases government bureaucracy, increases efficiency, wastes fewer taxpayer dollars and stops payouts to financial institutions for doing absolutely nothing but shifting their losses onto taxpayers. What’s not to love?"

It is somewhat curious that if you Google  "students who support FFELP" you will get the following message:  No results found for "students who support FFELP".

Cutting out this "unwarranted subsidy," as Obama put it in a speech Monday, would free up almost $90 billion over 10 years. The House would use the largest chunk of that money to raise Pell Grant amounts for low-income college students; the grant amounts have lagged far behind increases in tuition costs.

The money is also directed in other, innovative ways. About $10 billion would go to community colleges -- the biggest infusion of federal cash ever to these institutions.

Colleges would get $2.5 billion to figure out how to keep track of how many students manage to graduate, as opposed to piling up debt and then dropping out. In the House, private colleges were able to wiggle out of this requirement; the Senate ought to hold them to it.

Another $8 billion would go to early childhood education programs, which vary widely in quality, with the goal of establishing some standards and accountability for preschool programs.

Meanwhile, the administration has seized on education funding in the stimulus bill to push its reform agenda. The stimulus included $4.35 billion for competitive grants to states to improve elementary and secondary education -- the largest-ever amount of discretionary federal funding for school reform. The administration's proposed regulations on these Race to the Top funds require that any state wishing to compete for the money must lift restrictions on the number of charter schools and get rid of laws or rules that prohibit linking teacher pay to student performance.

Seven states -- Tennessee, Rhode Island, Indiana, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Colorado and Illinois -- have revoked their limits on charter schools. The California legislature set aside a 2006 law that prohibited using student performance data to evaluate teachers.

Finally, the appropriations bills moving through Congress would further the reform push. Most important, they would dramatically boost funding -- from $97 million in 2009 to as much as $446 million in 2010 -- to offer higher pay to teachers and principals who improve performance in high-poverty schools.

Federal agencies that supply food for 31 million schoolchildren fail to ensure that tainted products are pulled quickly from cafeterias, a federal audit obtained by USA TODAY finds.

The delays raise the risk of children being sickened by contaminated food, according to the audit by Congress' Government Accountability Office.

In recent recalls, including one this year in which salmonella-infected peanut butter sickened almost 700 people, the government failed to disseminate "timely and complete notification about suspect food products provided to schools through the federal commodities program," the audit says.

Such alerts sometimes took more than a week to reach schools, "during which time (schools) unknowingly served affected products."