Health Benefits

The difference in fiscal management between Annapolis and Towson is that while state lawmakers may brag about how they've stopped digging a hole in the budget, Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. has gone a step further - he has started filling it in. It may not grab headlines, but the $2.53 billion budget Mr. Smith submitted this week is as notable for what it excludes as for what it contains. It doesn't raise the county's property tax rate, and overall spending rises a reasonable 5.8 percent.

Annapolitans hoping for a rerun of last year's cut in the property tax rate should promptly tuck those hopes away. Even as she holds the line on taxes, Mayor Ellen O. Moyer's operating and capital budgets call for spending more to preserve historic properties, expand bus services and crime prevention and cover increased benefits to employees. The $74.3 million operating budget for fiscal 2008 -- a $5 million increase over the current year -- maintains the property tax rate of 53 cents per $100 of assessed value.

The good news is Maryland's long-term liability for retiree health benefits might not be nearly so big as the $20 billion lawmakers thought last year. The bad news, actuaries told legislators yesterday, is the state is still on the hook for about $14.5 billion in benefits. The change isn't because of any action the state has taken since a first set of consultants estimated a $20 billion liability last year, but rather because a new set of actuaries from Buck Consultants made different assumptions about how many retirees will be enrolled in the plans.

Ending months of brinkmanship, negotiators for the Baltimore school board and teachers union have reached a tentative agreement on a contract that leaves existing health benefits intact.At issue has been a protracted dispute over the language on health insurance in the two-year contract.The board wants to seek competitive bids from health insurance plans. Union leaders feared that could result in a loss of teachers' coverage through CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.The city's 7,000 schoolteachers have been working without a contract since talks broke down during the summer.

State officials will offer two months of free health benefits to thousands of former welfare recipients who might have been inappropriately denied Medicaid when they stopped getting government checks.Beginning next month, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will send medical assistance cards to 60,000 people whose Medicaid and welfare cases have been closed. The cards, good for November and December, will be accompanied by simplified forms aimed at getting low-income people to apply for Medicaid.

In a move that has alarmed employers across the nation, the Labor Department has enlisted state officials in an experimental program to protect consumers who are denied health benefits by self-insured companies.The vast majority of large and midsize employers are self-insured and therefore are exempt from state insurance regulation under a federal pension and welfare law.Under a two-year agreement signed yesterday by the Oklahoma insurance commissioner, John P. Crawford, state officials will help officials of the Federal Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration, which regulates the self-insurance companies, to lean on employers to resolve health care complaints.

The cranberry's future has never looked rosier. Not only has its refreshing taste and proven health benefits (such as fighting urinary-tract infections) made it one of America's most popular juice drinks, but the cranberry is making a splash on the fashion scene as well. Cranberry is the hot color this season, and decorators are recommending a variety of shades for everything from upholstery fabrics to wall paint.But it's more than just new hues. The berry's tangy flavor is popping up all over.

CHICAGO -- It still surprises him that the government considers him to be a rich man, a wealthy sheep ripe for shearing. Now Congress and the president are arguing about how much to increase his Medicare payments and reduce his health benefits -- with the demagoguery that working-class people shouldn't be paying so much of his health-care bills.But he isn't Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or a Rockefeller or a Kennedy. He is just one of those people who have worked hard and skimped to save all their lives and now, unexpectedly, are finding themselves ''rich'' by government definition -- and therefore a honeypot to be taxed.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Pressing a new case for the equal treatment of same-sex couples, San Francisco is moving to become the first major city in the country to require the companies with which it does business to offer health and other benefits to the unmarried partners of their employees.The city's board of supervisors passed legislation by a 10-0 vote Monday to prohibit the city government from contracting with companies that do not make the same benefits available to employees' domestic partners that they do to the married spouses of their workers.

Employers in Maryland and the Baltimore-Washington region reported higher increases in spending on employee health benefits than businesses nationally, and they also said more of their workers are covered by managed health care plans.The annual survey conducted by New York-based A. Foster Higgins & Co, found that managed care plans in 1995 were so widely offered by employers that they should be considered the norm rather than the exception.The health care and employee benefits consultant said 102 employers in Maryland and Washington, D.C., responded to the survey.

Four years ago, when Maryland legislators approved what became known as the Wal-Mart bill - a mandate that would have forced the retailing giant to either pay a minimum amount for employee health benefits or a hefty penalty to the state - it was derided by the company as both bad public policy and illegal. The latter objection proved to be true. It was thrown out by a federal appeals court as a violation of federal law that limits states' ability to regulate employee benefits. But the reasoning behind the proposal was sound: If companies are to compete on a level playing field, how can some be burdened with the obligation of providing increasingly expensive health care insurance while others are not?

As the U.S. economy continues its meltdown, it is unthinkable that the retirees who fought wars and built our nation through decades of labor, earning post-employment pensions and medical benefits, are among those being faulted for America's economic problems. Lately, economists, talk-show hosts, journalists and even politicians have been echoing the corporate-speak by tagging baby boomers and retirees' earned pensions and health benefits as "legacy costs" dragging our nation down. The Miriam-Webster dictionary defines legacy as a "gift by will, especially of money or other personal property; bequest; something transmitted or received from an ancestor or predecessor."

When Charles Miller went to work at General Motors' Broening Highway plant in 1954, he was attracted to the company by its reputation for good salaries and stellar benefits. He stayed for 31 years. Since he retired from his job as a data processor in 1985, he has gotten health coverage from the automaker, which helped pay for his heart surgery last year. But now the 77-year-old Perry Hall resident and thousands of other white-collar GM retirees and their spouses or survivors, including hundreds in the Baltimore area, are losing that.

News this week that treating a dying Medicare patient at the Johns Hopkins Hospital costs 60 percent more than care at the Mayo Clinic - without yielding any extra health benefits - prompted Congressional Budget Office Director Peter R. Orszag to suggest health care may be "the least efficient sector of our economy." The problem isn't that expensive hospitals charge more for a given test or procedure, but rather that they do a lot more of them. Efficiency means doing fewer marginal ones.

YESTERDAY, WE ANALYZED GOV. MARTIN O'Malley's proposed budget. There was a heavy response on our Web site, baltimoresun.com, much of it quite emotional. Here's a sampling: Michael, of Baltimore, wrote: This budget is a bloated piece of garbage. Why does spending have to go up EVERY YEAR? Do people's wages go up every year? No. Bill, of Catonsville, wrote: I would love to know what the raises are or will be for state employees, starting with O'Malley, this coming fiscal year. I would also like to know how much of the increases for our "investment" in education are for teachers compared to salary and benefit increases for administrators.

Close your eyes and think of someone who has hurt you. Let all the anger, hurt and resentment you feel for that wrongdoer bubble to the surface. Seethe, shout, savor it. Feel your heart pounding, your blood boiling, your stomach churning and your thoughts racing in dark directions. OK, stop. Now, forgive your offender. Don't just shed the bitterness and drop the recrimination, but empathize with his plight, wish him well and move on - whether he's sorry or not. University of Wisconsin psychologist Robert D. Enright, the guru of what many are calling a new science of forgiveness, calls this final step "making a gesture of goodness" to a wrongdoer.

If you think starting a new job is challenging, wait until it is time to sign up for benefits. In the old days, new employees typically would receive a thick binder filled with information, booklets and forms about health insurance, retirement plans and other benefits. Frequently, a human resources specialist would sit with the new hire to explain the options. Nowadays, workers typically must glean the information about the company's offerings from countless Web pages. As onerous as it might seem, it's crucial that workers review the documents and take advantage of the programs an employer sponsors as soon as they are eligible, experts said.

A triple nonfat mocha may taste good, but it's likely the jolt that drives millions of people to fork over three bucks or more for the steaming cup of liquid. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of North Americans consume caffeine regularly, according to a 2004 review, with an average daily consumption equal to about two mugs of coffee or four 16-ounce bottles of soda. The habit has become less guilt-inducing recently, with growing evidence that both coffee and tea can fight cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson's disease and more.

The difference in fiscal management between Annapolis and Towson is that while state lawmakers may brag about how they've stopped digging a hole in the budget, Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. has gone a step further - he has started filling it in. It may not grab headlines, but the $2.53 billion budget Mr. Smith submitted this week is as notable for what it excludes as for what it contains. It doesn't raise the county's property tax rate, and overall spending rises a reasonable 5.8 percent.

Annapolitans hoping for a rerun of last year's cut in the property tax rate should promptly tuck those hopes away. Even as she holds the line on taxes, Mayor Ellen O. Moyer's operating and capital budgets call for spending more to preserve historic properties, expand bus services and crime prevention and cover increased benefits to employees. The $74.3 million operating budget for fiscal 2008 -- a $5 million increase over the current year -- maintains the property tax rate of 53 cents per $100 of assessed value.