Category Archives: Education

Health care’s PROBLEM: Americans’ health

Education, Health care, State government

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications

Arkansas legislators are preparing to meet in special session for the second time in less than a year to discuss rising school employee health insurance rates. It’s a difficult issue, but it’s a “lowercase p problem.” The “capital P Problems” are beyond what state legislators can address by themselves.

Let’s start with the “lowercase p problem.” The cost of health insurance for school employees is rising faster than the system or many employees can afford.

In a special session last October, legislators poured $43 million in one-time money into the system and added another $36 million annually from other sources as a quick fix. They also appointed a task force chaired by Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Gravette, to craft long-term solutions.

That task force has proposed two bills for legislators to discuss for now, with more on the way sometime in the future. One would, among other changes, exclude spouses of school and state employees from coverage if they can obtain it elsewhere, as is common in the private sector. The other would exclude part-time school and state employees who work less than 30 hours. That would involve a lot of school bus drivers and cafeteria workers, and it’s more controversial, even though the practice of excluding part-timers is also common in the private sector.

Legislators will be called into special session in the next few weeks if they can arrive at consensus on at least one of the bills beforehand. Other important changes can be made administratively, such as changing the way the school employees’ super-cheap bronze plan and expensive-but-generous gold plan are structured.

Health care has become the dominant issue in the state Legislature, just as it is the most contentious one in Washington. The past two legislative sessions have centered around the debate over the state’s “private option,” which uses Obamacare dollars to buy private insurance for 150,000 Arkansans who beforehand were not quite poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. As a result of this year’s primary and runoff elections, there will be two less senators supporting it. During this past fiscal session, it passed with no Senate votes to spare.

What to do about the private option is a big concern, but it’s not one of the “capital P Problems.”

One of those is the health care system itself, over which state legislators can have only limited influence. America’s health care system, pre- and post-Obamacare, is far too expensive and doesn’t allocate its resources effectively. In many cases, it doesn’t make us healthier, and in quite a few cases, it actively makes us sicker and even kills us.

That’s a Problem. But there’s a bigger one – one that deserves not only a capital P but instead all-caps. The PROBLEM is this: America is not a healthy place, and Americans are not healthy people. Sixty-nine percent of us age 20 and above are overweight, and 35.1 percent are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Eighteen percent of children ages 6-11 are obese. More than 18 percent of adults smoke cigarettes despite all the efforts that have been made to encourage them never to start. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 9.2 percent of Americans age 12 and above in 2012 had used an illegal drug (including marijuana) or abused a psychotherapeutic medication during the past month.

The health care system does little to discourage these realities, but it is not the principal cause. Unhealthy daily habits and lifestyle choices are woven into the fabric of American life, and it’s not just what we eat, drink and smoke. Our lifestyles are both sedentary and stressful. We’re rushed much of the time, but from a seated position. Our lives are marked by excess in many areas and deficiencies in others, such as sleep, joyful time with family, and meaningful community activities. Most of us know we’re not living right just by looking in the mirror.

Health care systems can be engineered to encourage healthier behavior, but no system can free us from the consequences of our own choices. Our health care is unaffordable because our health is unaffordable. Ultimately, we are the problem with health care, and the solution must begin with us.

UA, colleges go online to avoid Kodak’s fate

Education

By Steve Brawner

More than 350,000 Arkansans have taken some college classes but do not have a degree. That’s a business opportunity for Arkansas colleges and universities. Meanwhile, 95 out-of-state, online higher education providers offer programs to Arkansas students that have been approved by the Department of Higher Education, and that number is growing. For Arkansas colleges and universities, that’s a market threat.

How do service providers respond to opportunities and threats in a free market economy? Adapt or die.

Dr. Donald Bobbitt, president of the University of Arkansas System, told the House and Senate Education Committees Monday how his system is adapting. The eVersity program will offer degrees starting this fall that are designed to reach older Arkansans who need employment skills but not the on-campus college experience. It’s meant to fill jobs that are available right now. The approach will be systemwide and funded entirely through student tuitions.

The courses are being designed to be cheaper and more convenient than traditional on-campus classes so a mom with three kids can go back to school without leaving home. Semesters will last six weeks, and there will be eight of them a year so that older students can take one course at a time and still finish in five years. Billing will be done monthly rather than in lump sums. Credit hours will be offered to students with relevant work experience. Bobbitt said a student will be able to earn a degree from home in five years at a cost of $18,000 – maybe significantly less.

Bobbitt acknowledged that his profession hasn’t changed all that much in 1,000 years, but changes are coming now. Online college-level chemistry course experiments can be done at home with the professor checking the results on YouTube. Courses are being designed to take advantage of free online material instead of textbooks.

Offering online courses is nothing new, of course. Arkansas State’s online MBA program was ranked 14th in the country by U.S. News and World Report, while Harding University students can earn an online MBA. Arkansas Tech’s eTech program offers several associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

eVersity’s primary market is older, nontraditional students – not students who go to college straight from high school. But those students face challenges of their own. Student debt nationally is about $1 trillion, and far too many college graduates don’t have much to show for that debt but a job at Starbuck’s. If Arkansas colleges don’t provide sufficient value, more students will do what consumers always do – purchase what they need (job skills) at a cheaper price elsewhere.

And they do have choices. As Bobbitt explained, 95 out-of-state providers deliver more than 1,200 degree programs and credentials in Arkansas. Students can earn degrees from for-profit colleges like the University of Phoenix, public universities like the University of Missouri, and private schools like Liberty University. Those schools are educating students that might have chosen Arkansas institutions, which means those institutions have to step up their games, which is good for everybody. Plus, offering online courses gives Arkansas schools a chance to reach a potential worldwide marketplace.

Interviewed in a Capitol hallway after his presentation to legislators, Bobbitt said that faculty acceptance of the new online model has varied from professor to professor, but as a rule, “They understand that we don’t want to be Kodak.” That’s a reference to the film manufacturer and developer that failed to respond to digital photography and ended up declaring for bankruptcy.

Bobbitt had used another metaphor speaking to legislators earlier. He said the UA System is trying to operate like a fast-moving yacht, not the Titanic.

It must, as must other Arkansas colleges and universities. There are many ways for Arkansas students to get across the ocean these days, and many of them don’t require leaving home.

Help wanted for 400 jobs, and more

Business and economics, Education, State government

What would happen if an out-of-state employer was prepared to build a factory in Arkansas and pay 500 people a starting salary of $50,000 a year – but was having trouble finding the employees?

The state of Arkansas and the local community would pull out all the stops for that $25 million annual payroll. After ensuring the industrial park had adequate water, wastewater and electrical connections, there might be an offer of state-financed employee training. Then there would be a big press announcement with the governor, the mayor and the plant manager.

What if I told you a similar opportunity already exists with one of Arkansas’ established employers, immediately, with no need for a factory?

Here’s what Steve Williams, CEO of North Little Rock-based Maverick Transportation, told me about his trucking company’s situation.

“I’d go out and buy, easily go out and buy 500 trucks … and have more than enough business for those people to haul. I just can’t find 500 people to train to put in the trucks to do that. It’s literally, they do not exist.”

Because he can’t find enough drivers, Williams is buying about 100 trucks, leaving unfilled 400 jobs with starting salaries of about $50,000 a year. Some truck drivers earn $80,000.

Maverick Transportation is not the only trucking company looking for drivers. The American Trucking Associations estimates that the industry will need to find about a million in the next 10 years. There are many trucking companies in Arkansas. Those trucks also have to be maintained and repaired.

A person can go from unemployed to a truck driving job offer in 20 weeks at a cost of $10,400. That’s what it takes to earn a commercial driver’s license at the Diesel Driving Academy in Little Rock. Barry Busada, senior vice president, said many motor carriers will reimburse drivers for the cost of that tuition after hiring them.

I’ve oversimplified this situation. Many long-distance truck drivers are away from home a couple of weeks at a time, which is why turnover at many carriers is 100 percent a year. New government enforcement mechanisms have reduced the labor pool by forcing carriers to hire only drivers with clean records, which is not a bad thing.

Still, truck driving is a solid, middle class job requiring a skill that can be gained in 20 weeks. Very few college graduates make that kind of money after four or five years of a taxpayer-financed university education.

Two thoughts. First, jobs out there, even in this economy, and not just in trucking.

Second, Arkansas’ education system and workforce policies should be about filling jobs as much as creating them. Yes, Arkansas should nurture high-tech companies and the so-called “jobs of the future.” But Maverick is ready to hire 400 people now, and those jobs don’t require constructing college classrooms or remaking the K-12 public education system. Plus, truck driving jobs can’t be outsourced to China. Diesel Driving Academy students are eligible for federal student aid. Could Arkansas also create or at least encourage truck driving scholarships or loans?

This is not just about driving trucks. It’s about the value Arkansas places on work that doesn’t require a desk or a college degree. In the recent fiscal session, Sen. Jane English, R-Little Rock, changed her vote on the private option from a no to a yes as part of a deal to revamp the state’s workforce training system. English, who has worked years in this field, says the current system is too duplicative, too inefficient, and doesn’t meet the needs of employers or workers. Young people are not encouraged to work in skilled, blue-collar jobs. People aren’t being trained for the jobs that actually are out there.

That would include truck driving, where 400 people could make $50,000 a year, if Maverick Transportation could only find them.