To Clarify or Not to Clarify

Posted by & filed under CGR Staff.

This isn’t where Steve Minarik wanted to go.

And state Republicans would like to stop from arriving there.

But maybe the state GOP should give a second thought before saying no to… Destination “Primary.”

You already know the story about John Faso gaining the designation of the state GOP faithful this week, grabbing more of the weighted vote than William Weld, the former Massachusetts governor. (Listen to Karen DeWitt’s fine wrap up here for a refresher.)

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Another Taxing Situation

Posted by & filed under CGR Staff.

Monroe County has yet another sales tax complication on its hands

This one over gasoline.

The State Legislature has approved capping the sales tax on fuel as an answer to the gripe by motorists about higher gas costs. Gov. George Pataki sounded like he was ready to support it.

The state proposal also allows counties to cap the amount collected in sales tax on gas. The problem is…can counties afford it? The answers are all over the map.

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Too Much Medicaid Messaging

Posted by & filed under CGR Staff.

Medicaid, Medicaid, Medicaid.

How the cost of this program plays on the minds of local government leaders as they try to make ends meet.

You can’t turn around without seeing some county legislator or executive lament how the local share of this vastly growing social service program beats down their budget.

Look at Monroe County. You’ve seen the stories about how county leaders want to deal with a gap in the budget. Republicans want a sales tax increase. Democrats want to charge towns that use the sheriff’s department directly for the service. Behind it all – Medicaid.

And, boy, if the county doesn’t remind you about it – over and over again. That bad state government, says the county leader. They push that Medicaid cost on the counties and won’t control the spending. Albany allows that runaway freight train to run right over us.

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The Message with Sizzle

Posted by & filed under CGR Staff.

The people who work in Albany will now be running from Albany to run for reelection.

Many from our region believe they are coming with good news in hand.

Assembly member Susan John proudly touts that she “delivers for Rochester.” She worked to get more state aid to the city and to the City School District.

Assemblyman Joe Morelle talks about how – as chairman of the  Assembly Committee on Tourism, Arts, and Sports Development, he’s “pleased that the Legislature approved $36 million for the multi-venue performing arts component of Rochester’s Renaissance Square project, as well as $5 million
for the construction of PAETEC Park, the new home of the Raging Rhino’s soccer
club.”

Senators Joe Robach, George Maziarz and Jim Alesi are thrilled to report that the budget has $15 million in aid to assist in the construction of a new student recreation center/multipurpose field house at SUNY Brockport.

Hey, even Governor George Pataki – the man who fumed about the veto overrides that kept in place a fatter state budget – is fine with taking credit for approving $26.5 million for school construction in Rochester.

Heck, you don’t get a guy like Pataki or, say, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver out to town on an announcement that Medicaid has been reformed. It’s much easier to announce a tangible item paid for by New York State aid (otherwise known as your money). Just a few years ago, for example, it was the announcement of the state aid for the Fast Ferry that brought Silver here.

And, by golly, it was an announcement of state aid that got Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno to downtown Rochester in 2004.

I had a colleague who gave this advice when making any kind of presentation: Make sure it has sizzle.

To New York State lawmakers, it is the doling out of state money for projects and to local governments that “has the sizzle.” They believe this is what sells to the voter.

It put me in mind of something written by Jay Gallagher, the Albany Bureau chief for Gannett News Service. He posed a few questions in his column a few weeks back. Among them:

How can state lawmakers  hold down taxes by increasing spending well beyond inflation? How come we keep hearing that the state debt is huge, yet we still borrow more?

Aren’t these good questions to pose to state lawmakers when they start on the road to reelection? Don’t these have “sizzle?”

 

Playing the Press

Posted by & filed under CGR Staff.

Scott McClellan stepped down from his job as press secretary to the Bush White House last week. The position as defined by McClellan seemed more like one of those blow-up, punching clowns we kids of the 1960s used to batter.

Jay Rosen, the New York University journalism professor and author of the excellent PressThink blog, saw the McClellan years as a watershed for the press relationship with an administration.

You should read it. But in short… he said the years of spinning the media are over. Instead, we now see the Bush administration engaged in a kind of press nullification. McClellan, famous for saying nothing and repeating talking points over and over, devalued the press by not dealing with it. There is some truth to this. And it’s not one that civic-minded folks should be happy to see.

This got me to thinking about other administrations – and how they deal with the press. There have been some differences.

Currently in the Rochester area we have two people heading up administrations who have an ease with the press. County Executive Maggie Brooks was, in fact, a television reporter in a former life. Her polish and poise in front of inquisitors has so far served her well. A test of her press savvy is on deck, however. She has proposed a sales tax increase and a potentially thorny trade-off of sales tax money for Medicaid expenses. We’ll see how she does (in fact, I’ll get a chance at lobbing a few questions her way on Friday when she visits the WXXI studios for Need to Know).

The new mayor, Bob Duffy, also has an ease with the press. The former police chief has dealt with camera and microphones and pads shoved underneath his rather large frame. He gives you a kind of “aw-shucks” demeanor and speaks in a rather soothing tone. He hasn’t had any real tests during his first few months. We’ll see how he wears when a crisis comes his way.

The communications folks for both Brooks and Duffy are basically letting their bosses do the message-giving. They aren’t shielding him. And, as far as I can tell, the spinning is subtle. It’s there but not divorced from the chief administrator. It comes straight from the person holding the office.

That wasn’t always the case with a former chief administrator around these parts – County Executive Jack Doyle. This was a man who didn’t appear to like being questioned. It wasn’t the content of the question that bothered him – instead it was the idea of a question being posed at all. His top communications guy for most of those years, a former Democrat and Chronicle reporter named John Riley, played a much stronger role in directly spinning reporters. This was an administration that didn’t enjoy a palsy-walsy relationship with reporters. And for the most part, they liked it that way.

Former Mayor Bill Johnson seemed to act as his own press person. He took questions head on. And when he didn’t like how he was being covered, he’d let you know. My guess is that people who work in government communications would have cringed at how Johnson would engage the press.

Then there is the current occupant of the governor’s mansion – George Pataki. Most of what I know about him comes from others who dealt with that administration on a direct basis. But all reporters in the state have engaged Pataki and his press people, especially during election years.

Pataki’s predecessor, Mario Cuomo, seemed much like Bill Johnson. He would engage the press. He would also demean the reporter if he thought the question was based on a shaky premise. An intimidator, but at least accessible.

I dare anyone to call Pataki accessible. The first person a reporter thinks of when it comes to Pataki is Zenia Mucha, a tough-as-nails advisor who kept guard on Pataki. It became the hallmark of the Pataki administration ( here’s a great piece that describes the difference by the Albany Times Union’s Jim Odato. As Odato put it, press conferences were rare, news came via press releases. On the campaign trail it was no different. Local reporters would put questions to Pataki and either you’d get a non-response or no response. I can remember during the 1998 campaign a number of us in Rochester got to Pataki after an election event at Strong Memorial Hospital. We wanted to ask about a topic he didn’t want to deal with (I couldn’t tell you what it was now if I tried). Pataki simply shut down and walked briskly to his car… even as reporters continued buzzing around him trying in vein to get an answer

I remember that day for the way it felt – like we were an annoyance. And how it may have appeared to onlookers – like we were a pack of dogs. This sounds a lot like what you might have seen on a daily basis in the White House Press Room with McClellan behind the podium.

Rosen may be right – that McClellan ushered in a new era of press relations in Washington. But I think an earlier practitioner of this press nullification could be found in Albany.

Pricing for Self Pay in Health Care Marketplace

Posted by & filed under CGR Staff, Rochester Business Journal.

“Dad, I’m at the emergency room.”

Oh, great. Send your daughter off to college—across the country, for heaven’s sake—and one thing you notice right away: You have REALLY lost control. Unless you own a Lear or a nice $20m Gulfstream, there is no way to get to California quickly in a crisis.

OK, maybe not a crisis. Turned out she was fine—too much caffeine, too little sleep. They put in an IV, did some blood tests, then sent her back to campus.

I wish I could say that there was nothing wrong with ME when I got the bill! Are you sitting down? The hospital sent me a bill for $2,335. If that wasn’t bad enough, I soon got the bill for the “accessories,” like the extras you get with some gadget on a late night infomercial: “But that’s not ALL! Buy the hospital visit today for only $2,335 and get a doctor for ONLY $547! And don’t miss the lab work! Call the toll free number on your screen and get your personalized pathology report (YES, we test YOUR OWN BLOOD) along with your hospital visit WITH the doctor for a mere $354.25! That’s right—the whole emergency room visit for just $3,236.25!!

Many of you have had a similar experience. What’s my point?
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Pharmacy Price Variation

Posted by & filed under CGR Staff, Rochester Business Journal.

Need drugs? The legal kind, I mean? I think you’ll agree that there is no shortage of sources. I did a quick check of the phone book and found ten places to buy prescription drugs within a two mile radius of my house (3 Eckerds and 2 Wegmans plus Tops, Rite Aid, CVS, Kmart, Walmart and Medicine Shoppe). And there are more planned—Target & Walgreens will be in the radius by the end of the year.

Doesn’t this seem rather odd? Let’s put aside the places that do drugs as part of a one-stop-shopping model, such as the grocery and department store chains. It is the stand-alone pharmacies that puzzle me. How can Eckerds make money with three stores in my backyard? I can’t remember a time when these places were particularly busy. Waiting at the check-out is a rare event. Offhand, this doesn’t look like an efficient model. So either they are ready to go bankrupt (Ah, that must be why Walgreens is entering our market—they want to share in the losses!) or the margin between the price they pay and the price we pay is pretty rich.
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