1. "Overall, the job market for new physicians in New Jersey still appears to be good." Only 3% don't have job offers yet and 57% say they will be paid $160,000 or more in their first year. (So, that's why so many parents pushed their kids to be doctors.)
2. The bad news, though, is that fewer are staying in New Jersey, which worsens our local doctor shortage. (Admittedly I live in an out-of-the-way place, but I absolutely believe there is a huge doctor shortage.) Here's what the NJCTH says:
The new data would seem to further erode New Jersey's physician pool and underscores a projected shortfall of 2,800 physician shortage predicted by a 2-year study released earlier this year by the Council. The Council is now projecting a shortfall of 3,250 physicians.
"This year's exit survey is alarming," said J. Richard Goldstein, MD, President and CEO of the New Jersey Council of Teaching Hospitals. "Previous exit surveys have consistently shown that New Jersey's resident retention rate is lower than many states, hovering around 50% for graduating residents that intend to go into private practice. When the 2008 rate slipped to 47%, we were concerned, but last year we reached an alarming point where only 32%, less than one in every three residents, intend to establish a practice in New Jersey. Hopefully this will serve as clarion call for collaborative action by public policy makers and the leadership of our medical schools and teaching hospitals."
Of course I cannot tell you why this is happening, but the council points to better recruitment efforts by other states: "Richer loan repayment programs, better Medicaid rates, caps on pain and suffering, lower tax burdens, prompter pay laws for HMOs, less red tape." It seems to me that the new Cooper Medical School at Rowan University should help too.
Confidant to Governor Christie and NJ State Senator Joe Kyrillos attended a Middletown Board of Education budget forum recently and started talking about how now is the time to allow "really smart people" to make decisions about how to handle the budget crisis that effects the school system due to the Governors budget cuts. He just doesn't think he's one of those really smart people apparently: (h/t Middletown Mike)
New Jersey's still on honeymoon with Chris Christie, except that tax cut for the rich
But they're not expecting the sweeping change he promised. In a new Rutgers Eagleton poll,
Christie is polling at 45% favorable/26% unfavorable, but more than a quarter - 26% - haven't formed an opinion yet, which may change after Christie's first big budget address March 16. But every demographic group opposes Christie's position that the surcharge on New Jerseyans making more than $400K should expire. Even Republicans, but by the slimmest of margins.
Bad news for New Jersey's growing list of policitician-criminals
NJ Supreme Court rules convicted NJ politicians can't use their leftover campaign funds to defray their legal bills, upholding an advisory decision by ELEC. The decision - unanimous - bars former Sen. Wayne Bryant from using $640,000 from his campaign account to pay for for his legal defense against federal corruption charges. Saddest of all, was the position taken by Bryant lawyer Angelo Genova, that there's always a risk a public official will need to defend himself against criminal accusations. Don't hand me straight lines like that.
3 of Christie's cabinet choices were approved yesterday, but not before a lengthy round of questions - some rough - for Janet Rosenzweig (nominated to lead the Department of Children and Families), Jennifer Velez (who Christie wants to keep leading the Department of Human Services) and Gary Lanigan (Christie's choice to run NJ's prison system).
Same-sex couples can identify themselves as married in the coming national head count. For many NJ families, this will be the first time they have an opportunity to refer to their union as marriage in an official government document.
Sen. Barbara Buono is asking the governor & NJ Transit officials to reconsider cutting 3 bus lines, saying all three run through commuter-hub East Brunswick. Buono is asking for a public hearing to be scheduled near East Brunswick so commuters and others can register their opinions.
The problems of the broke unemployment fund have roots on both sides of the aisle, but the Christie Administration has focused on the actions of Democrats in recent years. The Auditor took a stroll down memory lane and found that people close to the Governor had a hand in creating the mess:
But The Auditor has found a number of those controversial maneuvers were enacted when Republicans ran the Legislature in the 1990s, and Christie chief of staff Rich Bagger - then a state lawmaker - voted yes four times from 1992 to 2002.
Derek Roseman, spokesman for Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester), enjoyed this stroll through legislative history. "In Trenton," Roseman said, "politics is often like loading a mousetrap with dynamite: Even when making your point, you might accidentally blow up half your house."
That revelation prompted a more subdued response from Christie's communications people saying that both sides created the mess and now everyone could join together fixing it. But lets see how long it takes before they go back to blaming all the ills of our state on the Democrats.
There has been a renewed push to end the 1985 FDA provision that banned gay men from donating blood. Eighteen Senators including Frank Lautenberg signed a letter to the Commissioner of the FDA calling for a change in policy:
The senators' letter noted that in March 2006, the American Red Cross, America's Blood Centers and the American Association of Blood Banks reported to an FDA-sponsored workshop that the ban "is medically and scientifically unwarranted."
The move to ban donations was a response to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, but in their letter the Senators noted that we live in a much different society than we did in 1983:
"Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
They said we turn away potentially healthy blood donors because of an out of date system and we're not necessarily any safer for it. But the FDA didn't seem interested in hearing what the Senators had to say:
"while FDA appreciates concerns about perceived discrimination, our decision to maintain the deferral policy is based on current science and data and does not give weight to a donor's sexual orientation."
That was in an article and I can't find it on the FDA's website, but that's a disappointing response from them. The statement seems kind of ridiculous because how can they not give weight to sexual orientation if it's only a ban on gay men? You can view the letter the Senators sent here. I contacted Steven Goldstein with Garden State Equality for comment and got this:
The ban on anyone not being able to give blood is a relic of the stone age. The fact is, safe and unsafe sex practices have nothing to do with sexual orientation and everything to do with individuals on a person to person basis.
The Senators pointed out the need for a comprehensive review of the policies that deal with blood donation because currently,a heterosexual woman who has had sex with numerous AIDS-infected partners can give blood after waiting a year, but a gay man who's been celibate since 1978 is banned. The Courier Post had an editorial yesterday endorsing Lautenberg's efforts to end the ban:
lifting the ban will save lives -- and bring an end to a needless bias against a considerable segment of our population.
The editorial called it an archaic policy that limits desperately needed blood supplies. If we're able to screen blood for diseases, it shouldn't matter whether that blood comes from heterosexuals or homosexuals. If fear is driving public policy making, the soundness of the decisions needs to be called into question.
Senator Bob Menendez appeared on MSNBC the other day with Savannah Guthrie and Chuck Todd for the Morning Rundown show. When asked about what his members will say to the argument that using reconciliation for healthcare is an end run, which it's not but the media continues to perpetuate, he said:
Look, no matter how hard we tried, no matter how hard the President tried, the Republicans just weren't serious about solving the problems of millions of Americans that get denied health insurance because they have a pre-existing condition, of tens of millions of Americans that have no insurance whatsoever, and all the rest of us who have insurance and the price keeps going up, even though we get denied more and more when we make a claim with insurance companies.
You can see the segment here:On the campaign side, Menendez talked about how the DSCC will be supporting Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas in the primary, who now has a challenge from a Progressive candidate. He said they always support incumbents, but don't broadcast their strategy of what they will do to help out. Lincoln turned around and started attacking the public option, voiced her opposition to cap and trade and painted Washington as children in her latest ad. While Washington may be acting like Children, Lincoln is one of the people throwing dirt in the sandbox.
On the losing side, well, just about everything else.
When it comes to the service cuts and fare increases for NJ Transit however, this is a world of hurt for New Jerseyans on so many levels. NJ Transit recently released a "proposal" with public hearings to be held later this month, that deal with a 25% fare increase in many instances to deal with the funding cuts Christie proposed last month. On top of the fare increase - which largely hits those who commute into Manhattan for work as well as those who rely on public transportation (read: more lower and middle income people) to get to work or to get around. So while the super rich get a tax cut that can help them with their vacation home or 4th car, everyone else gets a transportation tax increase.
Further modernization of these systems in New Jersey is fundamental to providing a safe and operational infrastructure while improving the quality of life for the state's residents.
So not only does Christie screw over those who can afford it least, he does it by cutting mass transit and public transportation services, which could very well lead to more use of cars, more pollution and more stress on our already overstrained roads and bridges.
But at least Wal-Mart and the super rich will be happy.
Kean and Sweeney hope to make the "commonsense" changeover by year's end, citing the immediate cost savings and environmental benefits of ending the numerous stacks of printed bills and amendments. As an example, they note that Hawaii's 25-member Senate has reported savings of more than $1.2 million and enough paper to save 800 trees since it went paperless in 2008.
The idea is that a wireless network and laptops could replace the requirements that everything be endlessly printed out and copied. You can see the resolution (SR48) online. No, don't print it! There is also a similar resolution (AR72) for the Assembly but it isn't as far along.
The Hawaii Senate notes that their initiative also involved increasing interaction with the public, which I don't see in the Sweeney/Kean resolution:
For our Senators, this initiative transformed chamber floor sessions so that by the end of our 2008 session, over 90 percent of our members were solely using their Senate issued laptops to access our interactive Order of the Day (OD) in their caucus discussions and on the chamber floor. For the public, participation in the legislative process became more accessible as they could submit testimony via e-mail as well as view all measures, committee reports, and testimony submitted on any measure via the Legislature's website. Public hearing notices posted on our website were also interactive, containing links to the above documents.
At the end of this 2008 session, we compared paper usage statistics from the 2007 regular session and found that we had reduced our paper usage by 60 percent, having used 6,707,084 less sheets of paper, or, saving the equivalent of 725 trees. Additionally, our website statistics indicated that subscribers to RSS (really simple syndication) feeds from the Legislature's website tripled from 714,482 hits to 2,561,907 hits between January to April 2008.
The campaign of Jon Runyan is off to a sputtering start, though he now has the backing of all county parties in the 3rd District. First it was revealed that he's a donkey farmer masquerading as an elephant. Then he had his uninspiring debut in Camden County. This line stands out to me and has been repeated a few times already:
Runyan says he believes the country is being taken in the wrong direction by career politicians.
It seems like this will be a standard attack from Runyan. Here's the problem. Jon Runyan does like some career politicians. After all, Dawn Addiego who helped Runyan to run, was a councilwoman for many years, then a freeholder and now is an Assemblywoman. And then when asked who he admires:
Asked what political figure he admires, he in fact names Christie.
That would be the same Chris Christie, who was a freeholder, fundraiser, appointed US Attorney and then elected Governor. I guess it's ok be a career politician if he likes you, but not if he's running against you?
Busy week for me facing the challenges and privileges of being a State Senator in New Jersey. This past Thursday, the Senate Health, Human Services & Senior Citizens Committee heard the Vitale/Weinberg/Allen bill which would allow adoptees access to their birth certificates.
The three hour hearing was respectful, and moving on both sides of the issue.There was the husband who described how years ago the girl who would become his wife, then 16 years old, conceived a child from a horrible rape. At that time (pre-Roe) the young girl had no choice but to deliver the baby and gladly gave the child up for adoption. She wants no reminder of this horror in her life or of the child she surrendered to a better life.
The bill would allow birth parents to opt out of allowing information to be released to the adopted person for a period of one year after the law takes affect. However, birth parents would have to supply important health information to the adoptee. We heard from adoptees, from birth mothers, and from professionals in the field as well as from those who have done research on this most personal of issues. It was clear that the pendulum swung to the opening of adoption records to those adult adoptees who needed this information. Access to one's birth certificate should be a civil right in America. It is still not clear to me and it was rather surprising as to why the ACLU has taken the opposite side of this issue. The lawyer who spoke on their behalf did nothing to clarify their stand! The bill was released with a unanimous vote and now goes to the full senate for consideration. This has been a long battle for adoptees and the birth mothers who really wanted to know whether their children were OK.
Yesterday afternoon I participated in a panel at Englewood Hospital & Medical Center sponsored by The Coalition of 100 Black Women on health disparities. The discussion, moderated by Steve Adubato, was built around the PBS series, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? Wow - what a thought provoking documentary to promote understanding of the various ways in which class, racism and disempowerment can get under the skin and actually influence health outcomes. Anthony Ion, M.D. who is one of the original documentary experts flew in from California to participate. Dr. Ion is now Senior Vice President, Healthy Communities with The California Endowment. I cannot recommend this series more enthusiastically. If you belong to any organization or church group, this would make a really great and important program. Email Coalition President, Deborah Jackson at djackson@fullbright.com and she will put you in touch with the right folks.
The Bergen County Democratic Organization met this past week and approximately 800 of the more than 1400 or so delegates participated. The field of candidates was reduced by "leadership" suggesting (pressuring?) at least 3 of the potential nominees to drop their candidacies. I was not too surprised, and felt just a little hostility when I went to sign in and saw one of the two people under indictment for forging signatures of delegates in the 2005 convention (which I ended winning for my current State Senate seat) acting as a challenger for her town's delegates. Sensitive selection on the part of those folks! In spite of that the convention went on as planned, and the two incumbents, Freeholders Elizabeth Calabrese and Jim Carroll along with Mayor John Hogan handily won the party's endorsement. I hope that the other candidates, Rob Kovic, Sebastian Balfon and Pargellen McCall will stay involved and will help us in the future. Carol Hornlein has been writing about the current BCDO quite articulately on these same pages.
Today at the Judiciary Committee we will be interviewing Janet Rosenzweig, PhD, for Commissioner of the Department of Children and Families; Jennifer Velez for re-appointment as Commissioner of Human Services; and Gary Lanigan to be Commissioner of Corrections. Might be an interesting exchange of views, particularly around Dr. Rosenzweig's beliefs.
Gee, I really couldn't watch the Oscars Or so I thought. Then found out very late that the "blackout" had been lifted, so I tuned in the last part of the show. I have cablevision. The worst part is I'm not sure who should I be mad at and which of the two antagonists are more greedy than the other. To end up losing a "free" channel has certainly convinced me to look at other TV delivery options. Hope some of you "experts" give me some suggestions!
