Editorial “Hershey Trust’s flawed strategy”* concludes “Nonetheless, the Trust’s wheeling and dealing up to this point has emitted an odor, and it doesn’t smell like chocolate.”

WATCHDOG: A wag of the tail for the editors addressing the subject, albeit it with ‘kid gloves.’ What they do not mention is the Trust has been used as a feeding trough for retired Republican officials and cohorts, a prime example being former attorney general Leon Zimmerman who took almost $500,000 a year in payments for serving on boards.

Bill Keisling has written extensively concerning Trust official corruption at NewsLanc. See: “Fixing the Hershey Trust”

*The editorial was neither posted at www.LancasterOnLine.com or in its archives.

Lede (“lede” is the actual spelling as Chris Hart-Nibbrig keeps on reminding us) “Hospital charges a mystery to many” asserts:

“And even more confusing.

Hospitals offer discounts to self-pay patients, which vary greatly from place to place.

“Remember the hip replacement surgery charges, where Regional had the highest charge and LGH the lowest?

“LGH offers a much lower discount for self-pay patients, 25 percent, bringing its total to $28,321, about $6,500 more than Regional’s.”

WATCHDOG: Two wags of a tail: One for the reporters who set forth the issues so clearly…with the above possible exception. The other is for the editor who assigned and approved the report.

The article covers some of the ground that Newslanc’s borrowed reporter Doug McVay researched and wrote a series about in 2008 and has been added to over the years.

What is meant by “Hospitals offer discounts to self-pay patients”?

Discounts from what? We know that the government and the insurance company pay far less. So if “self-pay” patients are offered discount, who is the dumb SOB who is paying the full freight?

The answer: The so call “price” is ficticious and strictly for calculating actual prices according to a sliding scale of discounts are based. Think of it as a sticker price on a new car.

We are separately posting three NewsLanc articles from 2008 and 2009 resulting from McVay’s ground breaking research on LGH.

Editorial “Martin, Stuckey reform efforts” * opines “Lancaster County commissioners Scott martin and Dennis Stuckey are the latest to step up to the plate in opposition to the 50-year-old law that provides for artificially high wages for workers on publicly funded construction projects, including those at public schools.”…

“Others Point to the unfairness of the process, whereby the prevailing wage is set by union collective-bargaining agreements, and not by fair market value for a particular trade or skill set.”

WATCHDOG: “Prevailing wage” per se is not a bad thing when it actually reflects the construction wages. But utilizing a negotiated rate set by unions and a minority of contractors to set wages for open shop (non-unionized) companies who are in the majority, such as in the Central Pennsylvania region, imposes an artificial and punitive expense on public works.

Rather than repealing Prevailing Wage, it should be made more representative of the actual construction wages of the communities with a maximum of 5% deviation upwards.

*Once again, a current article is not posted on LancasterOnLine.com. If the print edition is frequently some of  yesterday’s news tomorrow, the online version is too often today’s news never.

In “Bottoms Up, Lame Duck” , Columnist Maureen Dowd writes concerning a presidential news conference:

“ABC News’s Jonathan Karl asked [President Barack] Obama if he was already out of ‘juice’ to pass his agenda, citing the president’s inability to get a watered-down gun bill passed in the Senate, Congress swatting away Obama on the sequester cuts, and the recent passage of a cybersecurity bill in the House with 92 Democrats on board, despite a veto threat from the White House.”

“ ‘But, Jonathan,’ [Obama]  lectured Karl, ‘you seem to suggest that somehow, these folks over there have no responsibilities and that my job is to somehow get them to behave. That’s their job. They are elected, members of Congress are elected in order to do what’s right for their constituencies and for the American people.’ ”

“He still thinks he’ll do his thing from the balcony and everyone else will follow along below. That’s not how it works.”

WATCHDOG: It is Dowd who doesn’t get it.   President Obama recognizes that the only chance he has to bring about important change is to win both houses in the November, 2014 elections.   He is laying that ground work.

“If Koch Brothers Buy LA Times, Half of Staff May Quit”

WATCHDOG: If Koch Brothers buy LA Times, that half and probably most of the rest will be fired.

Also, it will need to develop a new audience.

Lead article “Do hospitals pay fair share?” reports:

” ‘A question is sometimes raised as to why not-for-profit institutions such as Lancaster General Health … are exempt from paying property taxes,” wrote LGH President and CEO Thomas E. Beeman. But LGH does pay property taxes, he wrote; by the end of fiscal year 2013, on June 30, LGH will have paid more than $6 million in taxes and payments in lieu of taxes to local municipalities and school districts.’ ”  …

“Here, officials say they’re generally pleased with the generosity of local health care systems. In Lancaster city, the health system’s $237,000 in tax payments and $1.38 million payment in lieu of taxes mean that in fiscal year 2013, it will pay about 95 percent of what its tax bill would have been without the exemptions.”…

“In 2012 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a landmark decision asserting that to prove it is a tax-exempt charity, an organization had to meet five specific criteria — it must “operate entirely free from profit motive” and donate “a substantial portion of its services,” among other requirements.”

WATCHDOG: Six comments:

1) Thank you Sunday News for at least discussing the matters of importance, albeit always in a way that minimizes offense to the establishment.  For this a wag of the tail.

2) Readers should always continue to the end of such articles and also between the lines.

3) The authorities do not pay much heed to updating assessments on tax exempt properties, so it well may be that the tax Lancaster General Health would have to pay without an exemption would be much greater than their current contributions.

4) Lancaster General Health clearly has not donated “a substantial portion of its services” nor does it provide adequate support to other charities that share its mission, as also required.  Concerning services, the trick they play is to set artificially ‘retail rates’ on its services and then treat discounts to insurance plans and the Amish as contributions.

5) The Lancaster General Health governance lacks transparency, is self-perpetuating, and the all Caucasian establishment board does not reflect community diversity. It is also gradually creating a monopolistic strangle hold on all medical services in the county.

6) The public ends up paying for Lancaster General Health’s self-serving actions through higher medical bills and health insurance rates.

News article “USDA to Ineligible Immigrants: We’ll Still Give Your Kids Food Stamps” reports:

“Illegal immigrants can get food stamps on behalf of their eligible kids — without having to disclose their immigration status, according to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch.

“The food-stamps offer is spelled out in a Spanish language flyer provided by the United States Department of Agriculture to the Mexican Embassy.

“Judicial Watch said the flyer proves that the USDA is making ‘no effort to restrict aid to, identify, or apprehend illegal immigrants who may be on the food stamp rolls.’ ’’

WATCHDOG: Harrumph!   By all means, let those children go hungry.  That’s the American way.

Article “OxyContin a gateway to heroin for upper-income addicts” observes:

“As addicts move from legitimate prescriptions to the black market of pure, precisely measured narcotic pain pills to the dirty world of dealers, needles and kitchen table chemists, health officials and police are noting sharp increases in overdoses, crime and other public health problems…

In Minnesota, one in five people seeking treatment is addicted to opiates, says Carol Falkowski, the former drug abuse strategy officer for Minnesota and a member of the Community Epidemiology Working Group at the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which tracks trends in drug use.

“Heroin is huge. We’ve never had anything like it in this state,” she says. “It’s very affordable. It’s very high purity. Most people did not believe that heroin would happen here in Lake Woebegone, but it really has a grip, not only in the Twin Cities, but all around the state.”

WATCHDOG: Heroin is “huge” here in Lancaster County also, with an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 heroin addicts.   For the past decade we have had a methadone clinic and physicians can now be readily certified to prescribe Suboxone, both displacing heroin and enabling addicts to function normally and return to families and to gainful employment.

Syringe exchanges are indispensible for both preventing the spread of social diseases and also for befriending addicts, encouraging them to be tested for HIV / Aids, and, when they are ready, expediting their access to detoxification and long term treatment.

The  Lancaster Harm Reduction Project is the newly established local syringe exchange.

A letter headed “New standards do not aid college preparation” starts as follows:

“As an educator, I feel there is a wide information gap in the article “New standards ask more from students” (Sunday News, April 7).

“The artice inferred that the ‘rigorous’ standards will prepare our stdents for college. Nothing could be further from the truth.” (Emphasis added)

WATCHDOG: Ouch!   We believe the “educator” meant to say ‘implied’, not ‘inferred’, a distinction that most high school graduates understand… or at least should.  The writer implies; the reader infers.

News article “Apartment plan rises in Lancaster” reports:

“4-story, 32-unit building would be built at 151 W. Walnut St., a former brownfield site at North Prince and Walnut streets that is now a parking lot…

Moreover, “$650,000 or $900,000” would represent most of the cash contribution in a project of $4.8 million.  Like the Marriott Hotel arrangement, the City takes most of the risk and the sponsors get almost all of the profits.

Although we encourage downtown apartment development, we would prefer a higher priority being given to acquiring the Brunswick Hotel and Annex and the former Bulova Building and then clearing the site.   Now that the Watt and Shand site has been developed, this is the most prime real estate in downtown Lancaster and would attract developers for an upscale mix use condominium and townhouse project.

Despite Mayor Rick Gray’s two terms in office, Czar Patterson hasn’t been able to accomplish anything concerning the blighted Lancaster Square East.    Patterson won’t even discuss the project with NewsLanc and its publisher, a long standing real estate developer here and abroad.