Pop out the Jiffy Pop – GOP debate wrap. Is your child ready for T-K? NBA negotiations stall, is player union decertification next? Patient satisfaction to play a role in Medicare reimbursements. The struggle for Egypt – an historical perspective.
Pop out the Jiffy Pop – GOP debate wrap
This has been quite the week for the Republican Party. So CNBC may have scored a ratings coup by hosting last night's debate between presidential contenders. All eight candidates were back on stage – Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum – for this tenth debate.
The chosen focus was the economy, but the biggest question leading up to prime-time was how Herman Cain would handle the sexual harassment allegations that have been dogging him day in and day out since Halloween. Ipsos/Reuters polls from this week show Cain was hurt by the allegations, but has any other candidate been helped by them? Pundits say Perry’s flub – forgetting an agency he wants cut – amounted to his worst debate performance yet. Is he out of the race?
There are two more debates coming up this week – a CBS News debate at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., followed by a foreign policy debate put on by the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
WEIGH IN:
Have you had enough? Are the Republican candidates drowning in debates, as some conservative thinkers have suggested?
Guests:
Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and adjunct faculty at USC Annenberg School
Jonathan Wilcox, Republican strategist; former speech writer for Governor Pete Wilson
Is your child ready for T-K?
Last year, then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the Kindergarten Readiness Act, which changes the date by which children must reach their fifth birthday in order to start kindergarten.
Previously, with a cutoff date of Dec. 2, California's kindergarteners were among the youngest in the nation. Many were starting school at age four, which many educators feel is too young for the rigors of a modern kindergarten education.
The new kindergarten cutoff date will move up by one month each year starting in 2012, reaching Sept. 1 in 2014 and thereafter. This opens the door to "Transitional Kindergarten," a groundbreaking new program that gives autumn-born four-year-olds a year of pre-kindergarten – essentially, a two-year kindergarten experience and, some say, a much-needed step up to academic readiness.
"T-K" lets younger children develop literacy and math skills, as well as the emotional maturity to thrive and learn in a kindergarten classroom. Before T-K, parents who could afford an extra year of daycare or private preschool could still hold their four-year-olds back. But as an affordable option for all families, T-K levels the playing field.
The program, which will kick off in the fall of 2012, has received the support of education leaders statewide. Detractors of T-K, however, have called it "stealth universal preschool," and point out that studies haven’t proven the lasting benefits of a pre-K education.
The state is estimated to save $700 million annually as kindergarten classes grow smaller – which makes the new grade a zero-sum proposal.
WEIGH IN:
Do you have a child that would benefit from Transitional Kindergarten? Or do you see it as an unnecessary step, a waste of educational resources? Is there a better way for the state to spend the money it will save? If you’re a teacher, do you welcome the thought of a slightly more mature class of 2025?
Guests:
Catherine Atkin, president of Preschool California
Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas Fordham Institute
Patient satisfaction to play a role in Medicare reimbursements
Starting next year, a provision in the Affordable Care Act mandates that Medicare reimbursements will be based on patient satisfaction surveys, as well as other quality of care criteria. If patients say they got great care, the hospital gets more money back from the feds. But if hospitals get negative reviews they’ll see reduced revenue.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the governmental group overseeing the plan, says this is an historic switch from quantity based reimbursements to quality based. They say the new measures will improve patient care and cut down on costs by holding health care providers accountable for how they treat patients.
However, those in the medical profession aren't so sure. Hospital administrators are worried that they'll lose much needed funds because of a couple of disgruntled or hard to please patients ... something over which they have little control.
It could be a big problem for some of the most well-known hospitals here in Southern California. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, for example, gets low marks on the government's Survey of Patients' Hospital Experiences even as they get stellar scores in clinical care by other measures.
Experts say the disconnect could be because people have higher expectations of these hospitals, or they may have longer stays, which usually result in lower satisfaction levels.
WEIGH IN:
If that's the case, will the government's new plan unfairly punish local hospitals for uncontrollable circumstances? Do patient satisfaction surveys provide the real picture of how hospitals treat their patients? And how will hospitals work within this new system to maximize their Medicare returns?
Guest:
Mark Gavens, senior vice president of clinical care services and chief operating officer at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
NBA negotiations stall, is player union decertification next?
This weekend National Basketball League officials met with the players union in a last ditch effort to come to some sort of an agreement on player compensation and the months-long lockout. Talks have reached in impasse in recent weeks, and with players and owners unable to work together, some players are getting antsy.
According to the Associated Press, several players, some of them all-stars, participated in a conference call last Thursday with an anti-trust lawyer. The topic of discussion was decertification. Some of the biggest names in the game were on the call, and according to the New York Times, this small but powerful faction is demanding that no more concessions are made, and if talks continue to go nowhere players should move to dissolve the union.
It's a dramatic maneuver that gives owners no one to bargain with, triggering a legal battle that could go on for months. It's telling that it is well-known players angling to decertify; they have less to lose in a protracted lockout. It's the players lower down on the roster that will start hurting for money if this drags on much longer.
WEIGH IN:
So, what happened at the bargaining table this weekend? Is decertification really on the table, or is it the player's ultimate bargaining chip to get owners to compromise on revenue shares? If dissolving the players union is for real, how will it affect the season? What will happen to the already strained player/owner relationship in the long run? And who will the winners and losers be if decertification really happens?
Guest:
Mike Bresnahan, covers the Lakers and the NBA for the Los Angeles Times
The struggle for Egypt: A historical perspective
When Tahrir Square in Cairo was teeming with revolution early this year, the world watched intently. Geopolitics hadn't been shaken so fundamentally since 9/11. The regime of Hosni Mubarak had held onto Egypt for thirty years, offering stability in the beginning, then a long, slow decline.
This year's uprising may not have been predictable, but as Steven Cook writes in "The Struggle for Egypt," it was inevitable. A fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Cook has just published a timely modern history of Egypt – from the pride of the Arab world to a stagnant and corrupt state. What happened in those years? How did American foreign policy play a role?
It was only 60 years ago that Gamel Abdel Nasser and his military cronies seized power and led a popular resurgence of Egyptian nationalism. The reforms continued into the 1960s, tested finally by the 1967 war with Israel. Anwar Sadat inherited a weakened military and government but ultimately became a statesman on the global stage.
The New York Times review of Cook's new book says it does "an excellent job telling the story of Sadat's daring trip to Jerusalem, which quickly and unexpectedly led to the Camp David accords – a peace treaty almost universally reviled in the Arab world, including Egypt.
With that one move, Sadat managed to become the darling of the West, while sacrificing almost all his domestic support." His assassination led to the ascent of Hosni Mubarak, who wouldn't take the same risks. The security state grew without the added consolation of stability and economic growth. Cook argues foreign aid, particularly from the U.S., fueled a flawed relationship between Cairo and Washington.
WEIGH IN:
Will history repeat itself? Egypt's military has been shepherding the new reforms. When will they hand over power? What kind of leader was Mubarak in the 70's? What changed? How did the rest of the Arab world view Egypt throughout the 20th century?
Guest:
Steven A. Cook, author of "The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square" (Oxford University Press). Cook is the Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also author of "Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria and Turkey."