By Jessica Peck Corry

This article originally appeared in the Denver Post on October 28, 2007

Higher education’s ivory tower is crumbling. Colorado’s public university establishment will tell you this demise is due to neglect and lack of funding. The truth, however, is much more complicated.

In 2007, we’ve got an opportunity to save our universities — redesigning them into competitive and innovative institutions that will thrive well into the next century and beyond. Will our universities allow this essential transformation to happen?

This month, Colorado’s university presidents are pleading with state officials for $832 million in increased funding. They speak passionately about the need to hire more tenured faculty, reach out to rural students, and address neglected infrastructure needs.

We can only assume that this dialogue is a pretext for a conversation they will initiate with voters next year, pleading for more money through yet another statewide tax increase. But before we give them another cent, we need to make sure that the money they’ve got now is being spent in the most efficient way possible.

Ample evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that it’s not.

As part of higher education’s larger plea, Metropolitan State College president Steve Jordan is asking for $2.8 million to expand Metro’s percentage of tenure-track faculty. But the last thing we should be doing is throwing money at a system that is largely broken.

In the aftermath of the Ward Churchill scandal, we should be asking questions about the value of our tenure system — which, in Churchill’s case, served as a mediocre job-protection program for his unscholarly work.

While the University of Colorado has taken baby steps toward reform, it remains plagued by an inescapable conundrum: By making it so incredibly difficult to fire a professor — in Churchill’s case, it took more than two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars — tenure largely removes the incentive for professors to compete and excel in their respective fields.

Gone are the days when incoming freshmen could benefit from the great minds of tenured faculty. Today, undergraduates are all too often squeezed like sardines into large lecture halls, with access to their professor’s knowledge limited to crowded office hours or through teaching assistants.

Our universities should instead hire more adjunct professors, instructors who teach part-time and on a non-tenured basis, providing an incredible service to students at substantial cost-savings to taxpayers. In just the last year, Colorado’s law schools have benefited tremendously from such expert knowledge. At CU, top election lawyer Scott Gessler and federal Judge Tim Tymkovich each taught a semester of election law. At the University of Denver, respected land-use attorney Tom Ragonetti teaches night students about current issues in municipal planning.

We can and should establish a system that protects the free speech rights of all professors but removes any assurances that a professorship is a lifetime appointment. Adjunct professors have their fingers on the pulse of industry, politics, business and science to a degree that most tenured professors could only dream of. While adjunct positions rarely include the benefits of tenure, including health insurance or job security, competition for such jobs can be fierce. Adjunct professors teach because they love it and believe it provides an important service.

We must also make serious changes to the way our universities run their administrations. At a Denver meeting I recently attended, CU Regent Paul Schauer attempted to convince audience members that CU is an efficient machine. But with 22,000 faculty and staff serving approximately 50,000 students, there are clear and real opportunities for personnel cost-savings.

As an appointee to CU’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Diversity, I have seen firsthand tremendous administrative waste. Before commissioners first met in early 2006, we were given stacks of budgets that included questionable omissions and contradictions.

After a year of pleading — joined by legislative calls for a state audit — commissioners were given additional numbers. Even these figures, however, were discredited by CU-Boulder Chancellor Bud Peterson, who said that CU isn’t actually sure how much it spends on diversity. According to Peterson, diversity is part of every effort CU undertakes, and therefore, its cost and impact is unquantifiable.

I didn’t buy it for a moment — and neither should you. Diversity at CU has its own administration, employing hundreds of people at a cost far greater than the $28 million originally projected. And at a time when students are facing back-to-back tuition increases, it only continues to grow. Boulder now has a diversity vice chancellor who rakes in $160,000 a year. At today’s tuition rates, this money could better provide nearly 25 first-year scholarships to disadvantaged students.

In addition to cutting waste, our universities must reward innovation. After CU professor E. Christian Kopff became concerned about student ignorance of basic historical and constitutional concepts, he started Boulder’s Center for Western Civilization. If all goes as planned, it will enroll students in 2008. With less than $75,000 in university money, Kopff was able to establish an entirely new program — building on course work provided by existing departments — to provide students needed educational opportunities.

Our universities can no longer afford the luxury of doing business as usual. As the ivory tower crumbles, its leaders must explore viable opportunities to save it from ruins — even when it’s uncomfortable for those watching from the guard tower.

Devil’s In The Details of Denver Tax Increase

This column originally appeared in the Denver Daily News on October 15, 2007.

By Jessica Peck Corry, Brad Jones

For the 14th time in four years,
Denver taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill for yet more taxes. The question:
Should we say yes?

Staying true to his always colorful and lively campaign antics,
Mayor John Hickenlooper and his friends at City Hall are trying to get our
attention–desperately pleading with us to approve nine tax-and-bond increases at a
total cost of more than a half-billion dollars. And in doing so, they want to raise
our property taxes–forever.

Hickenlooper says ballot questions “A through I” are
all about “catching up” and “maintaining” the city. But if the numbers show us
anything, it’s that Denver has squandered the money it already has, and doesn’t
deserve to come back for more.
Consider the following: Denver’s population has risen
just 2 percent in the last five years. Over this same period, the city’s total
budget has swelled by 13 percent. Even if voters deny each new proposal, next year
will mark Denver’s first-ever billion dollar budget.

While Denver residents have
already given the city a $300 million raise over this same five-year period,
Hickenlooper is back begging for more. Missing from his package is any serious plan
to address our city’s big problems–like a strategy to promptly deal with snow left
behind from back-to-back blizzards like we saw last year–and that made driving down
side streets nearly impossible. Bond 1D, $150 million pitched for transportation,
doesn’t allocate funding for a single new snowplow.

Issue IE is also raising the
eyebrows. Most notably, this $93 million bond comes at a time when legitimate
questions are being raised about the department’s current management. Last month,
the city announced that it had made serious miscalculations concerning resources
available to keep 11 recreation centers open for longer hours.

“We made a mistake,”
Daniel Betts, deputy manager of recreation facility services, told the Rocky
Mountain News. “This is not uncommon. There are several corrections that we need to
make in the budget book around either numbers or just language.”

Betts isn’t the
only one making mistakes. An expose by Paul Day of CBS4 this summer highlighted the
fact that city was breaking its own rules concerning watering restrictions -
allowing sprinklers to continuously run at major parks during mid-day hours when
water is most susceptible to evaporation.

Hickenlooper also hopes to convince
taxpayers to fund his fantasy of having top cultural amenities on every corner. He’s
asking taxpayers to kick in more than $130 million for Issues 1G and 1H - which will
provide for the renovation and expansion of the city’s botanic gardens, concert
hall, and science museum.

It sounds like a nice idea–but you’re not alone if
you’re asking yourself, “Didn’t we already agree to fund such improvements?” In
2004, taxpayers said yes to extending a dedicated sales tax for the Scientific and
Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) which funds many of Denver’s cultural
“attractions.” According to SCFD, sales tax receipts grew 5.8 percent in 2005 and in
2006 funded Denver’s cultural scene to the tune of nearly $25 million.

Where has
the money gone? When just a tiny fraction of the city’s population can afford
symphony tickets–which run as high as $69.50 a pop–taxpayers shouldn’t have to
fund a second increase simply to make sure the wealthy can enjoy refurbished seats
at their next symphony visit.

The most costly of the proposals, 1A, is a “forever”
property tax increase. According to Hickenlooper’s campaign team, it will cost $27
million–but that’s per year, every year. If you can say anything good about the
rest of the proposed increases, it’s that they’re bonds, which will eventually be
paid off. Not so with 1A.

Like every tax proposal, the devil is in the details.
Before you say yes, take the time to take another look.

Brad Jones is the managing editor of Face the State, an on-line political
news daily. Jessica Peck Corry is a policy analyst with the
Independence Institute. Both are Denver residents.

This column originally appeared in the Denver Post’s PoliticsWest on October 11, 2007.

Just ten months into Gov. Bill Ritter’s administration, the nickname “Back Room Ritter” is already gaining traction. And rightly so — this is a man who likes to make important decisions without public input.

Earlier this year, Ritter remained silent after a Denver District Judge scolded officials from Ritter’s Department of Public Health and the Attorney General’s office for violating constitutional mandates regarding open meetings. The judge ruled that this government coalition had violated the Constitution by meeting in secret to set arbitrary limits on sick and dying patients seeking relief under the Colorado’s voter-implemented medical marijuana program.

And now Ritter is again back in court. Recent open records requests reveal that his administration has met with union officials to develop a secret joint-strategy to force compulsory unionization on public employees. While Ritter handed over some information related to the meetings, he is seeking court relief after refusing to release at least one key document still in his possession.

While frustrating to government watchers, Ritter’s actions should be expected in the aftermath of the 2006 election, where he pulled the bait-and-switch of the century. Campaigning with the financial backing of union contributors and committees, he convinced industry leaders that he’d be a pro-business executive.

His timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Just a year earlier, business coalitions looking to cash in on favorable state contracts supported Referendum C — a $6 billion tax increase pledged to address infrastructure funding shortfalls in previous years. Unlike his opponent Bob Beauprez, who had publicly opposed the measure, Ritter vocally supported it as a necessary development tool to get the state’s economy going.

In 2007, however, after backing both Ritter and Ref C, the business community is voicing a growing frustration as Ritter’s recent actions indicate he is anything but pro-market. While Ritter threw a bone to business leaders by vetoing a key union-backed bill earlier this year, he’s come back strong for labor bosses — pledging to support “partnerships” between unions and government that will inevitably lead to yet more taxes on Colorado’s working families.

To build frustrations even more, he is now also championing a controversial statewide property tax increase, with his fellow Democrats strategizing statewide on ways to pass several more. While basic economics dictates that taxpayers foot the bill every time government expands, this isn’t stopping him from continuing to make conflicting promises.

Jessica Peck Corry is a public policy analyst with the Independence Institute in Golden, Colo.
A few weeks ago, Ritter announced his plan to cut corporate taxes, provide private-sector subsidies, and roll back the much despised business personal property tax. This package is just another disingenuous big-government approach designed to look pro-commerce. The goal is clear: Use favorable tax cuts to buy the silence of business leaders while balancing the state’s budget on the backs of Colorado taxpayers.

State Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, articulately characterized this strategy, telling a reporter, “The effect of his pro-business package will be the same as a fly hitting a 747. This is nothing more than a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.”

Ritter, a former District Attorney, is also questionable when it comes to his stance on criminal justice issues. Earlier this year, following bi-partisan passage of a bill that would have allowed reformed adults to apply to have their criminal records sealed, Ritter vetoed the effort. He made this decision despite the fact that the legislation included several protections designed to ensure that law enforcement officials could maintain open access to such files.

While Ritter should be commended for his honesty in previously acknowledging “infrequent” marijuana use in high school and college, he isn’t willing to take a stand for those who made the same or similar mistakes — but had the misfortune of getting caught. He remains silent as federal college financial aid is ripped from the hands of students, including those in Colorado convicted under state law of the most minor of drug offenses, such as possessing a marijuana joint.

Ritter is a man conflicted as he strives to reward those who funded his campaign — as well as those who ultimately voted him into office. In the crosshairs of this strategic battle are ordinary voters, left to guess about his loyalties and forced to fund his strategic alliances. Governor, isn’t it time to finally let the sun shine in?

This column originally appeared in the Rocky Mountain News on Saturday, October 6, 2007

You’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Ward Churchill is a man who will not give up. While the University of Colorado spent more than two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to kick him off its Boulder campus, he’s back—now teaching an unsanctioned class that espouses the same discredited “facts” that got him fired in the first place.

To Churchill’s misguided minions, he remains a hero in the crusade for academic free speech. Too bad they believe the First Amendment only applies to those who support their shared perspective. At a Tuesday evening lecture, titled “ReVisioning American History: Colonization, Genocide and Formation of the U.S. Settler State,” only those with favorable perspectives were allowed to attend.

Two male organizers who doubled as bouncers turned away at least three male students, calling them “agitators.” At least one of the organizers also scuffled with a Boulder Daily Camera reporter who tried to enter the lecture.

Ultimately, only 30 or so attendees—mostly bright-eyed followers drinking way too much of the Churchill Kool-Aid—made it past the screening process and inside the door to the classroom in CU-Boulder’s Eaton Humanities building.

Aaron Smith, a 24-year-old thoroughly indoctrinated student, told the Camera that he helped organize the class because he and other students wanted to hear what Churchill had to say. “We were deprived of his teaching,” Smith lamented to a reporter. “He was one of the most valuable professors we’ve had on this campus.”

Valuable? Perhaps Smith was simply confused. He must have meant expensive. After all, Churchill—best known as Boulder’s most vocal crusader against capitalism—benefited mightily from it. During the latter years of his tenure, he garnered a salary of nearly six figures.

Churchill first became a Colorado household name in 2005 after his essay comparing terrorism victims to Nazis became public. The truth is that he deserved to be fired long before. He claimed American Indian ancestry—later disproven—in a fraudulent but effective effort to gain CU teaching positions. When the University’s Board of Regents voted 8-1 earlier this year to finally fire him, however, it was because of his misconduct inside the classroom and inside the many screeds he authored.

His dismissal became inevitable after American Indian scholars (real ones, that is) pointed out lie after lie in his published research.

In a written introduction to Tuesday evening’s lecture, as reported by the Camera, Churchill was not compensated for his time leading the first of what he hopes will be an ongoing course. It will carry no academic credit, and according to the introduction is, “in no sense bound by the rules supposedly governing courses offered in the university catalogue.”

While Churchill’s actions as a disgraced former professor are certainly free from the confines of a simple course catalogue, they are not free from the requirements of university policy governing public accommodations. CU specifically prohibits discriminatory actions by those hosting events anywhere on its taxpayer-funded campuses.

While University spokesman Bronson Hilliard emphasized to the Camera that the event was “private”—which is allowed under university policy—the exclusionary tactics used Tuesday night raise serious concerns about the actions of Churchill and his supporters.

First, even if the event was booked as “private”, university policy still dictates that event organizers must not discriminate against people on the basis of a variety of protected characteristics—including their creed or basic set of core beliefs. And second, while “private” event organizers are allowed to ban the media, why would they?

What has Churchill got to fear by respecting the free speech rights of others, including reporters? If he believes in the power of his positions, he should welcome all willing to hear them. Beating up reporters is just not quite as persuasive.

This all reminds me of a lesson that CU should have learned years ago. In 2003, the university came under public scrutiny after the Independence Institute revealed that CU students were using university rooms to host racially-segregated events. While the discrimination then was based on race—and yesterday’s was based on ideology—the intent of organizers remains the same: Segregation is okay as long as long as they’re the ones perpetuating it.

Ultimately, students of all perspectives can—and should—be able to host controversial on-campus events at public universities, including the University of Colorado. In doing so, however, they are rightly prohibited from excluding those who may look or believe differently than them. Perhaps this is a little detail that Churchill left out of Tuesday evening’s syllabus.

For those who missed out on Tuesday’s event, there is good news. According to organizers, he will be back at least three more times in the next month, with future sessions focusing on colonialism, genocide, and racism. But if you happen to disagree with him, just hope that you can get a foot in the door. Body armor may be a good idea.

Jessica Peck Corry (Jessica@i2i.org) is the director of the Independence Institute’s Campus Accountability Project.

Fired professor back at Colorado

This article appeared in the Washington Times on October 4, 2007

By Valerie Richardson - BOULDER, Colo. — It’s going to take more than getting fired to stop former professor Ward Churchill from teaching at the University of Colorado.

The ex-professor was back on campus Tuesday at the invitation of students to teach an unsanctioned course, “ReVisioning American History: Colonization, Genocide and Formation of the U.S. Settler State.”

Always a popular figure on campus, Mr. Churchill, 52, was met with applause by the 30 or so students and well-wishers who attended the first session.

“This course is an entirely voluntary exercise for all parties involved,” Mr. Churchill said. “It carries no credit, fulfills no institutional requirements, involves payment of no tuition, entails no paycheck to its instructor.”

Student organizers reserved a classroom at the Eaton Humanities Building for the unofficial course. According to the syllabus, Mr. Churchill will teach every Tuesday evening through the month of October, with class topics to focus on colonialism, genocide and racism.

Mr. Churchill ignited a national outcry for an essay comparing September 11 victims to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. In July, the university’s Board of Regents voted 8-1 to fire him for unrelated academic misconduct, including plagiarism and fabricating research.

His supporters accused the university of violating Mr. Churchill’s free-speech rights. The professor, who had been chairman of the Ethnic Studies Department, has since filed a lawsuit challenging his dismissal.

“We were deprived of his teachings and critical analysis of common thought,” Aaron Smith, a 24-year-old senior political science and ethnic-studies major, told the Campus Press, the student newspaper. “I disagree with the decision to fire him.”

The university released a terse statement yesterday emphasizing that Mr. Churchill is no longer employed as a professor.

“Any CU student is at liberty to invite Ward Churchill to campus to speak, but this should not be viewed by anyone as a resumption of employment or of his former professorial role at the University of Colorado at Boulder,” the statement read.

Not everyone was welcome at the event. A newspaper photographer and several students described as “agitators” were turned away by event organizers, according to the Boulder Daily Camera.

Attendees also were warned to leave recording devices, including cell phones, at home.

Jessica Peck Corry, who heads the Independence Institute’s Campus Accountability Project, called it “ironic” that Mr. Churchill’s class would be closed to the public, given his claims of free speech during the fight over his dismissal.

“It’s certainly offensive that someone who’s as much a free-speech activist as Ward Churchill is prohibiting people from hearing him speak,” Mrs. Corry said.

Mad Voter: Free-market fix needed for health care

Jessica Peck Corry

This column originally appeared on the Denver Post’s PoliticsWest site on October 4, 2007

Let’s celebrate Hillary Clinton’s fantasy for a moment and assume that her plan to socialize American health care could work.

Let’s visualize for the sake of pleasant conversation that she finds a way to fund her plan with a paltry $110 billion annual taxpayer investment. Let’s suppose that it wouldn’t put small businesses out of business. Let’s suppose that every American (and every illegal immigrant) would be covered.

What would this coverage look like? Now it’s time to take off the blinders. It could be a nightmare for every American facing a catastrophic health care emergency. We need look no further than our neighbors to the north and across the Atlantic to realize why socialized health care is horrific in practice.

For one brief and horrible moment, assume that your child has contracted meningitis. You’re lucky because the disease is detected early and she will survive. Your joy is soon tempered, however, when you realize that she now suffers from one of meningitis’ most devastating potential complications—deafness.

Your best hope for recovery? Pray that you live on the right side of the border and on right side of the Atlantic.

Regardless of geography, your child’s best shot for regaining her hearing may be a cochlear implant, a surgically-implanted device that stimulates the auditory nerves of the inner ear with electrical impulses that give a user a sense of sound. The only problem—the devices must be implanted quickly.

A Denver hearing specialist I spoke with emphasized that timing is critical. According to Anne Cosgriff, who previously worked for Cochlear Americas, when a child goes deaf because of meningitis, bone tissue can begin to grow inside the ear that can make implantation problematic.

“Timing is everything,” she said. “If the boney material begins to grow, you can still get implantation done but it’s going to be much more difficult. The patient could end up with a longer surgery with more complications, ultimately meaning that (the device) is less likely to work.”

For the vast majority of American children suffering from meningitis-induced deafness, getting the procedure — and getting it done in time — may include a battle with the family’s insurance company. But in the end, according to Cosgriff, the prospects are much better for kids here than they are for their neighbors to the north.

Cochlear has an entire staff devoted to securing coverage by U.S. insurance companies. In addition, several states are now mandating coverage of the implants. And for the 15 percent of American families who lack private insurance, the government often picks up the tab. While the system is imperfect and Medicaid reimbursement rates trail behind actual costs, the situation is improving as public health care advocates coordinate with industry officials to significantly improve reimbursement rates and develop private sector strategies for increasing access.

In Colorado, the Center for Hearing at the Colorado Neurological Institute is working with industry leaders, including Cochlear, to provide cost-free implants to needy families.

Compare this to Canada, where the government runs the show and the private sector has little opportunity — or incentive — to improve access. According to the Hearing Foundation of Canada, the government in Ontario artificially limits supply to 47 cochlear implant procedures a year and hundreds of people forced to wait up to four years for treatment.

In British Columbia, government funding allows for only 25 adults and a fewer number of children to receive an implant annually. Everyone else is forced onto a waiting list. In a recent medical article written by Lorne Smith, titled “Canada, Land of Equal Access,”Dr. Sipke Pijl, PhD, director of the Department of Audiology at St. Paul ’s Hospital in Vancouver, says recent government funding there has translated into shorter wait times — but they still languish at about a year.

Canadian officials boast that the implants are much cheaper there — with one article saying the average cost is $32,000 — compared with $50,000 or more in the U.S. While Canada’s government health insurance generally covers the cost of the procedures and related costs, including specialist referrals, this means nothing for the hundreds of families languishing on waiting lists. They can only hope they’ve got time to spare in the fight against lifelong deafness.

For most Canadians, access to an American hospital or an American-like health insurance system is just a fantasy. They must get in the back of the line. They don’t have the financial luxury owned by wealthy Canadians who head to major U.S. cities for implant procedures. They aren’t as lucky as some Canadians who to have access to private health insurance known as “extended benefits” coverage.

For British Columbia’s 4.3 million residents, there is just one medical clinic that administers the implants for adults, and another for children. According to Pijl, who administers the implants in Vancouver, the prospects can be dim for those seeking help. “Here in B.C., cochlear implants for adults are on kind of a quota system,” Pijl said. The Ministry of Health “will allow us to do 25 implants a year.”

If your child has gone deaf in both ears, the prospects can be even worse. The Canadian government refuses to fund bilateral cochlear implants. According to Pijl, bilateral implants can be essential in aiding hearing recovery. Canadian audiologists are lobbying the government to fund them. “If I were responsible for a children’s program, I would consider it malpractice not to implant both ears,” Pijl said.

For U.K. children suffering from Meningitis-induced deafness, the prospects are even bleaker. National waitlists there top five years. And the deaf aren’t the only ones suffering from the nation’s socialized system. According to an August study released in The Lancet Oncology, English and Scottish cancer patients have some of the lowest survival rates of any country in Europe. While U.S. patients face overall cancer survival rates of 63 percent, just 53 percent of patients in the U.K. and 58 percent in Scotland will survive.

According to Professor Ian Kunkler, a study researcher and professor at Scotland’s Western General Hospital, waiting lists for chemotherapy are a serious culprit. “We have good evidence that survival for lung cancer has been compromised by long waiting lists for radiotherapy treatment,” Kunkler told the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper.

Stuart Browning, a free market filmmaker who is emerging as a conservative voice to counter Moore, says there is another obvious source of the disparity. As he told me, less than 40 percent of British cancer patients ever gain access to an oncologist.

Despite the advantages of America’s imperfect — but clearly superior — health care system, Clinton and others (including liberal filmmaker Michael Moore) continue to perpetuate a national fascination with socialized health care systems.

In Moore’s recent film documentary titled “Sicko”, he suggests that America has got one of the worst systems in the entire industrialized world. While he advocates a “Single Payer System” (the government) and Clinton stops short, a key element unites the two and their ideals: the government should ultimately fund coverage, determining supply, demand, and costs for every American.

Moore claims such a system could lead to greater efficiency. And he’s probably right. He points out that we spend more money on health care than almost any other nation. Keeping people alive costs money. Making sure that children don’t go unnecessarily deaf is expensive. But it’s an investment Americans are willing to make.

We could all pay less for health care if the government limited access to cutting-edge technology like cochlear implants - or insurance companies stopped insisting that consumers over the age of 50 get colonoscopies. After all, as Browning points out, colonoscopies are only readily accessible in the U.K. to those with a family history of colon cancer.

While Clinton’s plan is deeply flawed, she made a good point on ABC recently when she said Republicans “are in the ‘just say no’ category.”

Where is the GOP leadership today?

Clinton’s efforts today — coming 15 years after her first effort to socialize medicine got laughed out of Congress — indicates an ideological commitment that Republicans should emulate in their own positions. It’s tough to argue against flowery terms like “universal coverage,” but no one said that running for president would be easy.

To improve America’s health care system, we should move toward capitalism — and not away from it. We need a free-market GOP candidate who will take on the most difficult task we face with regard to health care: ensuring that the poorest among us have access to quality care.

Jessica Peck Corry is a public policy analyst with the Independence Institute in Golden, Colo.

In many cases, allowing for negotiation directly between a doctor and his patients is a good first step. The market is already acknowledging this opportunity, with private urgent care centers popping up across America — and in the process, providing quality care at a lower cost to the nation’s poor. We need to make health care more friendly to Americans as consumers — and not just as patients.

We should also be moving toward a system where insurance is used for catastrophic emergencies — similar to car insurance, and not for monthly medical needs. Certainly, doctors and patients could negotiate fair rates for immunizations, x-rays, and other basic health services without ever involving insurance companies. This is the idea behind health savings accounts, a model that is being adopted by consumers nationwide.

Unconvinced? Just take a look at less-regulated medical industries, like cosmetic surgery, where quality and innovation have improved dramatically over the past decade while consumer costs have dropped substantially. This is basic market economics allowed to play out.

For America’s poor or chronically ill, paying a high monthly premium — or a premium at all — may be out of the question. But for these families, moving beyond Medicaid and toward a totally socialized system will harm them the worst. Unlike the powerful and wealthy who can simply catch an airplane every time they need access to quality health care, America’s poor would linger on endless waitlists under socialized medicine.

No one can deny that Canadians and Brits in need of health care — who can afford it — come to the United States to receive it. Just last month, Canadian news stations reported that Member of Parliament Belinda Stronach traveled to California last June for her treatment to battle breast cancer. According to her spokesperson, she was referred to a California surgeon by her Toronto physician to treat “later stage” cancer. What should have been a personal health decision was blown up into an international story — and for good reason. Stronach abandoned the elitist system she has helped perpetuate.

America’s system is imperfect, but instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water, we should work to keep the baby alive. For those living with serious medical conditions, socialized medicine is a risk they can’t afford to take. Just imagine it’s your baby we’re talking about.

Part 1: HillaryCare not the prescription

By Jason Salzman, Rocky Mountain News Media Critic

This column originally appeared in the Rocky Mountain News on September 29, 2007

You don’t have to be much of a news junkie to know that the Independence Institute is in the local news way too often.

Journalists are overdosing us not only by quoting the libertarian-conservative organization excessively but also by embedding Independence Institute staff in Denver media outlets - without giving comparable organizations similar treatment.

Look at it this way. It’s Thursday, and you’ve had a long day, so you seek out the TV. You flip on KBDI Channel 12, and there’s Independence Institute Research Director Dave Kopel, who’s a fixture on Colorado Inside Out.

At 10 p.m., as you’re driving to pick up your teenager from an alleged homework session, whose voice is blasting from KOA on the car radio? Why, it’s Independence Institute President Jon Caldara on The Jon Caldara Show. So you listen to him until you get your kid.

Earlier that night, you consciously avoided Caldara’s Channel 12 program, Independent Thinking, which airs after Colorado Inside Out, but here he is on the radio.

Now you’re home, and wouldn’t you know it, you can’t sleep. So you log onto The Denver Post’s new Politics West.com, which features Independence Institute policy analyst Jessica Peck Corry’s “Mad Voter” blog.

You recognize Corry’s name, because she’s one of the Post’s prominent “Colorado Voices” columnists this year.

A day later, on Saturday morning, you open the Rocky Mountain News and On the Media columnist Kopel is staring at your from the Commentary section.

It’s perfectly fine for staff of an advocacy group to have part-time media gigs, but the Independence Institute has way more than any other comparable organization, on the left or right. And that’s counting just institute staff, not “fellows.”

None of the staff at left-leaning Bell Policy Center, Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, Colorado Progressive Coalition, or ProgressNow, for example, have regular platforms in the mainstream media, though Bell voluntarily dropped a regular Op-Ed spot at the Boulder Daily Camera, as did Caldara.

So here’s my humble and reasonable request: Next time an editor or producer is looking for a regular conservative-libertarian voice, they should - for the sake of diversity and fairness - avoid choosing a staffer from the Independence Institute.

Here’s why this matters. A policy organization that’s in the media spotlight often has huge advantages over its competitors in fundraising, volunteer recruitment, staff morale, and more. Not to mention the benefit of spreading its message to well over a million people each month, like the Independence Institute does.

I understand journalists aren’t solely responsible for creating this media imbalance. Organizational priorities play a role. In the case of Caldara’s Channel 12 show, the Independence Institute pays production costs for the program.

But the media’s problem of overexposing the Independence Institute goes deeper.

The Independence Institute is the single most quoted policy organization in Colorado, according to my analysis of staff-written news articles appearing in the dailies in 2007.

The institute was mentioned in a total of 38 news stories vs. Focus on the Family (28), Colorado Progressive Coalition (13), Bell Policy Center (10), Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute (10) and ProgressNow/ProgressNowAction (10).

Jon Caldara is the dailies’ No. 1 favorite policy activist. He was quoted in a total of 22 news stories this year in the dailies.

The vast majority of articles quoting Caldara weren’t biased toward the position of the Independence Institute. They were fair stories about policy issues, reporting on Caldara’s activities or presenting the conservative view.

Journalists turned to Caldara for an astonishingly wide range of opinions - on FasTracks, the tax freeze, zoning, unions, prison sentencing, green subsidies, and more.

The Post even asked him for ideas on names for the cable TV show featuring the Colorado legislature. His answer: The Price Is Wrong. That’s a good quote, and it partially shows why so many reporters call Caldara.

When asked why Caldara gets so much coverage, Post reporter Mark Couch said Caldara is quotable and often “actively campaigning as a newsmaker.”

He’s right. But even if you subtract the instances when Caldara’s a newsmaker, he still gets double the mentions of comparable activists, except James Dobson.

It’s true that there are fewer conservative policy organizations in Colorado than liberal ones, but the Independence Institute, whose positions usually align with the fiscally conservative branch of the Republican Party, doesn’t have a monopoly on articulate and conservative policy mavens.

Journalists should find them and quote them, instead of relying repeatedly on the Independence Institute.

I’m not saying that the Independence Institute should be muzzled, and besides, who could muzzle a guy like Caldara anyway? My point is that journalists are giving this single organization too big a media megaphone.

Jason Salzman, president of Cause Communications and board chairman of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, is the author of Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits. Reach him at salzmanj@RockyMountainNews.com.

The Bellyaches of Free Speech
By Jessica Peck Corry, Ryan Olivett

This column originally appeared in the Denver Daily News on October 1, 2007

Free speech to a college newspaper editor is like an endless supply of candy to a five-year-old. Too often, both will partake of the sweets now and pay the consequences later.
It’s a lesson Colorado State University officials are reminded of this week as they deal with the public furor erupting after staff at the school’s student newspaper, the Rocky Mountain Collegian, let their thoughts concerning President Bush and the state of American civil liberties be known on the editorial page.

Specifically, the paper’s September 21st editorial page contained a four word editorial. “Taser this. . . F*$% Bush,” it read.

Collegian Editor David McSwane and his board say they intended to ignite debate about free speech. “We thought the best way to illustrate that point was to use our freedoms,” McSwane said. In other words, they saw shock treatment as their best possible approach. How sad.

In reality, there are plenty of other means to discuss free speech. But, McSwane and the Collegian chose an immature and irresponsible way to get attention—the candy they crave. They also assumed their readers weren’t sophisticated enough to engage in a legitimate dialogue on a very important political issue.

Like a child howling in a candy store to get what he wants, the Collegian substituted a four letter word for genuine political discourse. All for attention. If only McSwane had stepped back for a moment to acknowledge not just his freedoms as an American—but also his ethical obligations as a newspaper editor.

According to the code of ethics espoused by the Society of Professional Journalists, “gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort,” but this doesn’t mean the “pursuit of the news (serves as) a license for arrogance.” Journalists are, therefore, advised to “show good taste.” By printing their juvenile editorial, McSwane and his staff irresponsibly violated this ethos.

As McSwane is learning all too well, the First Amendment grants impunity from unnecessary government suppression—not impunity from public scrutiny. He is also getting an important lesson in basic market economics. While university officials should resist booting him for his choice of words, community members should be free to respond with their wallets. Advertisers have already yanked more than $30,000 in revenue.

The pain from lost advertisements is just the beginning. As CSU officials contemplate Swane’s fate, his journalistic reputation is now being solidified as someone unable to make important but basic ethical distinctions in everyday editorial decisions. This reputation is bound to follow him to his next journalist position—if there is to be one. Most professional journalists understand that obscene words don’t amount to quality journalism.

Ultimately, the CSU newspaper staff got what it wanted—attention. It’s just too bad that the paper’s editors will likely realize too late that this is just the type of attention a journalist should never seek. Free speech is sacred. We don’t need to scream obscenities to prove it.

Jessica Peck Corry Jessica@i2i.org serves as the director of the Independence Institute’s Campus Accountability Project. Ryan Ollivet, a CSU student, serves as a CAP research assistant.