Economist Paul Samuelson, who won a Nobel prize for his effort to bring mathematical analysis into economics, helped
shape tax policy in the Kennedy administration and wrote a textbook read by millions of college students, died Sunday.
IUPUI says it needs about $15 million to renovate the aging Natatorium swimming complex and wants the city’s Capital Improvement Board to fund part of the expense.
Polls show public likes proposed Medicare expansion and public option, but does not like overall Senate bill.
Indiana lawmakers are preparing to punt on 2009’s must-solve business issue in the hope of a federal bailout. However, it’s
anybody’s
guess how Washington will respond.
Environmental activists who are upset about Indiana’s water-pollution rules say they’ll ask the federal government to take
action against the state.
Obama is going wobbling on forcing fiscal responsibility on states, and Hoosiers might get stuck with the bill.
We Hoosiers are starting to treat education with a sense of urgency and as something
worth achieving. This response to our city’s, state’s and country’s education crisis is reassuring, because the
stakes couldn’t be higher.
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard’s administration has chosen five local contractors to run 12 municipal golf courses for
the next 10 years, and expects to get $6.3 million in capital improvements out of the deal.
Short sales and foreclosures in this 2,200-unit development began cropping up several years ago and continue today.
In his first public appearance in Indiana since skipping his own induction into the Indiana University Hall of Fame last month,
former basketball coach Bob Knight criticized a proposed NCAA tournament expansion to 96 teams, saying nobody should get a bye in the
Big Dance.
Group presidents tell Indiana senators that the reform bill would expand dysfunctions of current health care systems.
Landmark health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama passed its sternest Senate test in the pre-dawn hours early
Monday, overcoming Republican delaying tactics on a 60-40 vote that all but assures its passage by Christmas.
Indianapolis’ Office of
Sustainability has begun evaluating recommendations on ways to make 70 city-owned buildings more "green." Among
the ideas: mounting
wind turbines or solar panels at the City-County Building.
A high-profile piece of land in Fishers that is part of a proposed hotel and water park project has been bought by the bank
that foreclosed upon it.
The past year has been mighty unkind to the Capital Improvement Board, the entity charged with operating the city’s
professional sports venues and Indiana Convention Center.
The Center Township Advisory Board has picked Buckingham Cos. to redevelop a 2-acre property it owns
at 860 W. 10th St. near the IUPUI campus.
The word “tax” tends to immediately raise the blood pressure of most Americans. And while the purpose of most
taxes is to raise revenue for the assessing government body, taxes can also be targeted toward changing individual and corporate
behavior.
The Akron company had been meeting its obligations for decades before Tim Durham acquired it seven years ago.
It’s tough being a most-favored nation. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Connecticut, a subsidiary of Indianapolis-based
WellPoint Inc., got a tongue lashing from that state’s attorney general for the “most-favored
nation” clauses it inserts in its contacts with hospitals. The clauses insist the hospitals give
no other insurance plan a discount larger than that given to Anthem. The clauses are preventing some
of Connecticut’s hospitals from signing up for a new state-run insurance plan for the uninsured,
called Charter Oak. It pays rates lower than those negotiated by Anthem, and many hospitals have refused
to join for fear Anthem would insist that the hospitals allow Anthem to lower its payment rates to equal those
of Charter Oak. Connecticut Attorney general Richard Blumenthal wrote a letter this month to Anthem asking it to promise not
to insist on receiving discounts equal to Charter Oak. “I call on Anthem to break its death grip on hospitals and encourage
them to join in this critical health insurance program,” Blumenthal said in a statement. Most-favored nation clauses
were banned in Indiana by the General Assembly in 2007.
Even though Wall Street likes the Senate health reform
bill, that doesn’t mean rank-and-file insurance professionals do. But in the Christmas spirit, Susan Rider, president-elect
of the Indianapolis Association of Health Underwriters found some positives in the latest version of health
reform. She likes that there will be no government-run health plan or an expansion of the Medicare program—although
she still does not like the proposed expansion of Medicaid. She likes that a cap on flexible-spending
accounts of $2,500 will now rise in line with inflation. She likes that the federal Department of Health
and Human Services will not set broker commissions in the newly created insurance exchanges. But she
does not like much of the meat of the bill. She thinks the requirement for insurance plans to spend at
least 85 percent of premiums on care (80 percent for individual policies) needs to be reduced, likewise the $6.7 billion in
annual taxes assessed on for-profit health insurers and the 40-percent tax assessed on insurance
policies costing $23,000 or more. Rider said the fines used to enforce the mandate that all individuals
buy health insurance will be “completely ineffective” because they will allow
Americans to pop in and out of insurance pools only when they need health care services.
This
can’t be good for business—especially for a human resources business. Indianapolis-based
consultant HR Solutions Inc. was sued in federal court last month for allegedly failing
to pay commissions earned by a saleswoman and then firing her the day after she got out of the hospital after a pancreatitis
attack. The saleswoman, Candi Marsch of Evansville, wants HR Solutions to shell out back pay, punitive damages and legal
fees.
Legislation that could bring more wind turbines and solar power projects to Indiana has a good chance of passing in the upcoming
legislative session after failing in the last session’s closing hours, two state lawmakers say.
