Co Op

Seldom do the United Steelworkers, the United Nations and film director Michael Moore express the same idea at the same time. But all have, in their own way, promoted the benefits of cooperative businesses in recent months. The Steelworkers Union, North America's largest industrial union, has signed an agreement with a 100,000-member European co-op to help U.S. workers gain an ownership stake in their workplace. The U.N. has declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives.

Old Dominion Electric Cooperative said Tuesday that it will seek approval from Maryland regulators to build an electric power plant in Cecil County. The Virginia-based Old Dominion supplies power to about 550,000 households and businesses through 11 cooperatives in Maryland, Virginia and Delaware, including the 52,000-member Choptank Electric Cooperative on the Eastern Shore. The nonprofit said its proposed plant would be constructed near Rising Sun, at its Rock Springs facility.

Dear Mr. Azrael, Several financial magazines have recently referred to "transfer on death" as a way to facilitate a smooth transfer of property, rather than wait for the prolonged probate process. Is such a registration possible for shares in a not-for-profit housing cooperative? How is the designation made on the actual stock certificate? Is it necessary to obtain special permission from the officers of the cooperative or is this simply a decision of the shareholder? Ruth Fegley Baltimore Dear Ms. Fegley, A cooperative housing corporation (or "co-op")

The federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was intended to extend health insurance coverage to 32 million of the roughly 50 million Americans who currently lack it. Yet even after the law fully goes into effect in 2014, millions of Americans will still be hard-pressed to pay the premiums charged by traditional for-profit health insurance companies. If they are to benefit from the law, many of them will have to seek lower-cost alternatives to the for-profit insurers. Plans for new kinds of nonprofit health cooperatives, which provide members equivalent care at lower cost, are already on the drawing boards in about two dozen states, including Maryland, which recently received a $65 million federal loan to fund the establishment of the state's first non-profit health cooperative.

The Maryland Watermen's Cooperative looked like a great idea -- a public-private venture that would breathe life back into Annapolis' once-thriving seafood industry. So why isn't it working?Annapolis leaders must find out soon, while there is still time to save the cooperative and prevent a $1.3 million, state-of-the-art seafood plant from becoming a huge white elephant.Six months after the cooperative opened in the old McNasby's Oyster Co. plant in the Eastport section of the capital city, it still isn't doing what it must to survive economically: process seafood.

The Carroll County Farm Bureau plans to surprise a shopper between 9 a.m. and 12: 30 p.m. tomorrow at the Westminster Co-op Grocery Store by picking up the food portion of the total bill at the cash register.The second annual "Food Check-Out Day" is meant to illustrate how relatively inexpensive food is in this country. Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 9, the average American worker will have earned enough money to pay for his or her whole year's supply of food, according to the Farm Bureau."As food producers, we are concerned that some Americans cannot afford to buy the food they need, but we are proud of the part Maryland farmers play in making our food supply more affordable for all," said Joan Myers, chairwoman of the bureau's Women's Committee.

The dusty rooms in the old McNasby Oyster Co. plant look like the abandoned basement of a very old house. It seems impossible that employees once worked there, standing before a 40-foot-long shucking table, dropping shells onto a conveyor belt.The equipment has stood idle since 1987, when Annapolis' last seafood processor closed after 78 years in business.In another part of the Eastport plant, though, in a partially enclosed bay area at the docks overlooking Back Creek, there's plenty of life.

Q. What are the major differences between co-ops and condos?A. A co-op is a corporation that owns and operates a building. "A person who lives in a co-op apartment owns two things: a stock certificate for an interest in the corporation and a proprietary lease for a particular apartment," said Stuart Saft, a New York real estate lawyer."

Next to a flier urging a Coca Cola boycott, across the aisle from the garlic pills, stands the political agenda of The Belly food cooperative -- a holdover from the '60s back-to-nature movement that is struggling to survive the age of the microwave."

The Columbia Natural Foods co-op has lost its one-day-a-month home at the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center, and its new site will force changes in its operations.The co-op, operating in Columbia for more than a quarter-century, was asked to move from the lobby of the Interfaith Center in the fall.The center said the co-op's presence in the lobby could interfere with activities of the four churches that are primary tenants, so it offered the co-op the option of renting a room at a higher rate or leaving.

A Maryland group led by Howard County health officer Peter Beilenson has received a $65 million loan under federal health reform to start the state's first insurance co-op, a consumer-owned nonprofit that will compete against private insurers to sell health policies. Evergreen Health Cooperative Inc. hopes to begin operations by next October, when consumers will begin buying insurance on the state's new health exchange. The exchange is the market where those not covered by employee insurance can buy health policies under the federal reform law. The company also will sell insurance outside of the exchange.

With a potent mix of excitement and idealism, we set out to become physicians serving on the front lines - primary-care doctors who would be the first point of contact for patients we would follow over the course of a lifetime. Yet throughout our training, the ideals of a career in primary care have begun to fade as strong financial, administrative and lifestyle considerations push us steadily toward specialization. As the United States struggles with a shortage of primary-case physicians, the pressure to veer from general practice represents a systemwide failure to supply the well-trained primary doctors our communities deserve.

Update: Gino's opening is on Wednesday, Aug. 17 (not Thursday, Aug. 18)   Where you end up on Aug. 18 may reveal everything about not only your politics and your taste but, indeed, who essentially you are as person, i.e., your mortal soul. Will you show up at the grand opening of the Baltimore Food Co-op ? Actually , the co-op has been operating since July 28, but its el grando openingo will be on Thursday, Aug. 18, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.  The mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will preside at a 12:30 p.m. ribbon cutting.

This email from the Baltimore Food Co-Op just popped up: "Exciting news: On July 28th, we will be officially opening our doors as the Baltimore Food Co-op!" It continues: "You may find our shelves to be a bit bare, but that's because there are so many of them! They'll soon be full of yummy food with the help of your continued support and membership fees. On July 28th, please be the first to see what we have available!" The Baltimore Food Co-Op is located at 2800 Sisson St.

One of the casualties of the recent budget deal is a potential game-changer in health care: nonprofit health insurance cooperatives (co-ops). Although not eliminated, the funding to help launch the co-ops was cut significantly. Let's set aside the fact that the "savings" from the $2.2 billion cut to the co-ops is budgetary sleight of hand, since the start-up funding to co-ops is in the form of loans which must be repaid in full. The unfortunate consequence of this ill-advised cut is that these incubators of innovative health care practice — which in many states will be the sole consumer-oriented competitors to the offerings of the big insurance companies — will be limited in number rather than exist nationwide, as originally envisioned by the sponsor of the co-op initiative, North Dakota Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad.

Howard County is moving ahead with plans to convert a highly regarded health program for the uninsured into a low-cost regional insurance co-operative, despite the increasing pressure to reverse the national health care law that allows such an initiative. County officials are considering the creation of small neighborhood walk-in clinics for co-op members, staffed by a salaried doctor, a nurse, a care coordinator and a clerk. Eliminating the traditional fee-for-service system could deliver care more cheaply, advocates said.

The smell of fresh vegetables and the flapping of brown paper bags filled the air."Anybody want sweet potatoes?" shouted a woman."Yeah, I'll take some sweet potatoes," answered another.The scene could have been the bustle of a farmers market or the chaos of a grocery store the day before a blizzard.Instead, it was the usually peaceful basement of Meadow Branch Church of the Brethren near Westminster. Every two weeks, the church activity room becomes a produce market, when members of the Westminster Co-op gather to pick up cases of fresh produce and to place their next orders.

Howard County's fledgling health access plan for the uninsured could change into a regional nonprofit health insurance co-op for limited-income working families, the plan's chief architect said. Under the recently passed federal law that requires everyone to have health insurance by 2014, Healthy Howard cannot survive in its current form, its creator, Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, said last week.. That is because the innovative health access plan for Howard County residents is not insurance, and it relies heavily on doctors and hospitals providing free care, he said.

S eldom do the United Steelworkers, the United Nations and film director Michael Moore express the same idea at the same time. But all have, in their own way, promoted the benefits of cooperative businesses in recent months. The Steelworkers Union, North America's largest industrial union, has signed an agreement with a 100,000-member European co-op to help U.S. workers gain an ownership stake in their workplace. The U.N. has declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives.