Washed It!

As employers struggle with rising healthcare costs and a sour economy, U.S. workers for the first time in at least a decade are being asked to shoulder the entire increase in the cost of health benefits on their own.

The average worker with a family plan was hit with 14% premium increase this year, pushing the bill to nearly $4,000 a year, according to a survey by the nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.

That is the largest annual increase since the survey began in 1999 and a marked change from previous years, when employers generally split the rise in the cost of premiums with their employees.

The average employer contribution to a family plan did not go up at all this year, meaning the entire increase was borne by workers.

At the same time, nearly a third of employers reported that they either reduced the scope of benefits they are offering this year or increased the amount that workers must pay out of pocket for their medical care.

Workers saw average copayments for routine office visits increase 10% and deductibles continue their surge upward.

In 2010, more than a quarter of American workers with employer-provided health coverage were in plans with deductibles of at least $1,000.

“It’s really bad news for everybody,” said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, an organization of large employers that provide coverage to about 50 million workers, retirees and dependents.

Overall, premium growth slowed slightly this year to 3%, with the average annual cost of a family health plan reaching $13,770. Workers picked up 30% of that bill. The average plan for an individual cost $5,049.

The squeeze, reported by employers between January and May, largely reflects the fallout of the ongoing economic slowdown and may be ameliorated in future years as the new healthcare law is implemented.

But it could further complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to rally support for the law, which is expected to do relatively little in the short term to contain rising medical bills.

“There have been times when employers have been able to absorb costs. This is not one of those times,” said James Gelfand, health policy director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a leading critic of the new law.

The law, which focused on expanding coverage for Americans who don’t get insurance through work, was designed to largely preserve the existing employer-based healthcare system.

Independent analyses of the law estimate that most Americans will continue to get insurance through their employer, as about 157 million do now.

Administration officials Thursday pointed to two new studies from the Rand Corp. and the Commonwealth Fund that predicted small businesses in particular would probably expand coverage in coming years, in part with help from billions of dollars of in new tax credits.

“We have really just begun our efforts,” said Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, emphasizing the growing number of tools government regulators have to control insurance premiums.

The Kaiser survey found that the percentage of firms offering health benefits rose to 69% from 60% this year, an unexpected increase that analysts speculate may reflect the failure of many businesses that didn’t offer benefits.

But the survey suggests that the coverage workers are being offered is becoming increasingly unattractive as employers try to control their costs in the down economy.

“We were all so focused on the reform debate that I think we took our eyes off the fact that what we call heath insurance in this country is changing,” said Kaiser foundation President Drew Altman. “What workers get looks less and less like the comprehensive coverage their parents had.”

U.S. employers push increase in cost of healthcare onto workers

The fate of the U.S.-sponsored peace talks launched Thursday in Washington could hinge in part on how things play out in this hotly disputed West Bank city, where extremists on opposite sides suddenly find they share a common purpose: to sabotage the process.

The militant Palestinian movement Hamas, which hasn’t openly attacked West Bank settlers in about two years, renewed its campaign of violence this week with two drive-by shootings. It claimed responsibility for killing four settlers near Hebron on Tuesday and injuring two others a day later near Ramallah.

Jewish settlers around Hebron responded by throwing rocks at Palestinians and setting fire to a field. On Thursday, they demonstrated their contempt for what they termed the “fancy ceremonies” in Washington by rolling out bulldozers and cement mixers to resume construction in defiance of Israel’s 10-month moratorium. Settlers are also calling for the reinstallation of West Bank checkpoints and the waiving of gun permits to enable settlers to carry weapons.

The developments serve as a reminder that before Israeli and Palestinian negotiators can tackle big-picture issues such as the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem and refugees, the peace process will have to survive some daunting short-term challenges. Among them are the Sept. 26 expiration of Israel’s construction moratorium and a spike in Palestinian violence.

Hebron, home to more than 150,000 Palestinians and 400 Jewish settlers, is often at the center of the storm, and it is once again. Residents are bracing themselves and warn that violence could spread to other parts of the West Bank.

“The talks have renewed the cycle of violence,” said Khaled Amayreh , a Palestinian journalist and analyst. “Things are heating up.”

The next month will test the resolve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, analysts say. Friction and violence at the launch of peace talks is nothing new. The question is whether the leaders will press ahead despite provocations or use them as justification to walk away.

The two leaders agreed in their first direct talks Thursday to meet again in the Middle East in two weeks, and then to reconvene about every two weeks thereafter. U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell cited a “constructive and positive mood” in the meeting.

However, the unresolved conflicts also were apparent. Netanyahu raised the issue of the attacks on Israelis in the West Bank this week. Abbas called on Israel to end all settlement activity.

“In every conflict, the closer the sides have gotten to an agreement, the more the peace spoilers started coming out of the woodwork,” said Professor Tamar Hermann, senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a research group. “But this is a transitional phase and if we give in to it, we will miss the opportunity.”

The settlement construction issue could offer the first glimpse of how committed both sides are to talks. Netanyahu has resisted Palestinian demands to extend the freeze, whereas Abbas has threatened to quit talks unless the freeze continues. Both men are under tremendous domestic pressure to stick to their positions and equally strong pressure from the U.S. and international community to bend.

Analysts have said that the two sides need to find a way to finesse the issue in coming weeks so they can move on to other, equally weighty topics.

Netanyahu’s position will demonstrate how serious his intentions are, wrote Eitan Haber, Israeli analyst and former advisor to assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on the Ynet news site Thursday. “Americans and Palestinians will view the freeze as a test case.”

At the same time, if Netanyahu refuses to budge, Abbas will face a similar dilemma over whether to reverse his stance or abandon what many experts believe could be the last round of negotiations for some time.

The attacks against Israeli settlers upped the ante for both men.

Netanyahu rejected immediate calls for him to quit the talks and return home.

David Wilder, spokesman of the Jewish Community of Hebron, blasted the U.S.-brokered peace process as an attempt to “sink Israel…. These attacks cannot continue, and the only way to stop them is to stop acquiescing to Obama and the terrorists who want to destroy us.”

The killings also hardened the resolve of many Israelis against pressure to extend the construction moratorium, a move they argue could now be seen as rewarding terrorism.

For Abbas, the killings meant being forced onto the defensive just as negotiations began. They bolstered Netanyahu’s demand that talks begin on the issue of security, rather than borders or settlements, which are Palestinian priorities.

Hamas leaders promised the violence would only continue, calling the first two attacks the start of a “series of operations” to be carried out by its militant wing.

Although Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, where 1.5 million Palestinians live, its operatives in the West Bank moved underground after the 2007 split with Abbas’ more moderate Fatah movement. In response to the Hamas attacks this week, Palestinian Authority security officers arrested several hundred Hamas supporters, Hamas officials said.

The attacks marked a turning point for Hamas, which has generally avoided armed assaults and rocket attacks against Israeli citizens since Israel’s 22-day assault against Hamas’ positions in the Gaza Strip in late 2008 and early 2009. Though rocket attacks from Gaza have continued to strike southern Israel, other militant groups claimed responsibility and Hamas had even tried to prevent such attacks, arguing that they were not in the “Palestinian national interest.”

That informal policy appears to have changed, probably because of the resumption of peace talks. Hamas officials say the resumption of armed attacks in the West Bank is not an attempt to spoil peace talks, but critics note that the Islamist movement has been harshly critical of the process.

The group’s attacks could soon present another challenge to budding peace talks. So far, Israel has not responded militarily, but Hamas officials are bracing for a round of retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza once Netanyahu concludes the peace summit in Washington.

edmund.sanders@latimes.com

Batsheva Sobelman in The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau and special correspondent Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.
West Bank city of Hebron could be powder keg as Mideast peace talks begin

Five U.S. troops were killed by roadside bombs and insurgent fire in southern and eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the latest casualties in a particularly bloody spell that has left 12 service members dead in two days, and 19 since Saturday.

Meanwhile, on the southern outskirts of the capital, Kabul, a gunman opened fire on a busload of Afghan Supreme Court clerks, killing three and wounding 12, the Interior Ministry reported.

Assailants on two motorcycles halted the bus Tuesday morning in the Musayi district, an area where insurgents are active, court spokesman Abdul Malik Kamawi said. One gunman then boarded the bus and opened fire with an automatic weapon, killing two people, Kamawi said. A third died later in a hospital.

“We’re trying to find out who they were. For now, we can only say they are the enemies of the Afghan people,” Kamawi said.

Suspicion immediately fell on Taliban insurgents who have waged a continuous campaign against Afghan government officials and institutions and have stepped up attacks in the run-up to Sept. 18 elections for the lower house of parliament. Candidates and their aides have been threatened, kidnapped and killed, and many voters say they plan to stay away from the polls for fear of violence.

In Tuesday’s attacks, NATO said four troops were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, while a fifth died in a battle with insurgents in the country’s south. No other details were given and the service members were not identified by name, as is standard procedure.

The deaths came a day after roadside bombs killed eight other members of the international force in Afghanistan, including seven U.S. troops, NATO said Tuesday. A 20-year-old Estonian soldier was also killed.

The deaths bring this month’s total to 55, including a Marine killed in fighting in the volatile southern province of Helmand on Friday whose death was not announced until Monday night. That is still fewer than the 66 killed in July, the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

Almost all of the recent coalition deaths have come in southern and eastern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is most deeply entrenched and where fighting has been heaviest.

Those areas are also closest to the mountainous border with Pakistan, where insurgents maintain safe havens and training bases to instruct recruits, including foreign fighters, who are later infiltrated into Afghanistan.

NATO commanders have warned casualties will mount as coalition and Afghan forces enter areas under longtime Taliban control, particularly in the hard-line Islamic movement’s spiritual heartland of Kandahar province. The NATO force swelled this month to more than 140,000 — including 100,000 Americans — with the arrival of the last of the reinforcements that President Barack Obama ordered to Afghanistan in a bid to turn the tide of the nearly nine-year war.

Also Tuesday, NATO also said its forces, working with Afghan army and police, had killed 19 insurgents and captured five in a major air assault on the village of Omar in the eastern province of Kunar.

Ground forces taking part in the assault that began Monday uncovered insurgent fighting positions, along with weapons caches and ammunition stockpiles inside the village, it said.

The coalition also said it killed two insurgents and wounded a third in an airstrike Monday on a Taliban commander in charge of logistics in Kandahar, including the coordination of homemade bomb attacks.

A number of Taliban and allied Haqqani Network commanders were also detained in operations Monday, including one recently returned from teaching bomb-making techniques in Pakistan, NATO said.

In Zabul province bordering Kandahar, insurgents on Monday night ambushed a convoy carrying food and other supplies, killing two private security guards and wounding five others, provincial government spokesman Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar said.
12 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2 days

Five years after Hurricane Katrina, President Obama recommitted the nation to ongoing repair of the Gulf Coast as the region’s fragile recovery hung in the balance and his own popularity needed shoring up amid disappointment with the administration’s handling of the gulf oil spill.

Obama underscored the optimism and ongoing frustration felt in New Orleans, a city that had shown signs of renewal despite lingering devastation.

Residents worry the nation will leave them behind, fatigued over the one-two punch of the hurricane and BP spill. Obama seemed intent on convincing them otherwise.

“I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you – and fight alongside you – until the job is done,” Obama said at Xavier University, a historically black college where he delivered the commencement address less than a year after Katrina.

After being criticized for his administration’s slow response to this year’s BP oil spill, Obama impressed on gulf residents the improvements he had made in streamlining Katrina aid — including $1.8 billion for Orleans Parish Schools announced Friday.

Obama pledged to finish the largest civil-works project in the nation’s history — shoring up the failed levees — by next year. He noted the June groundbreaking on a new Veterans’ Administration hospital.

The White House sent top administration officials as the region held days of panel discussions, art exhibits — even a funeral for Katrina where attendees hoped to bury their grief and move on from the largest residential disaster in the nation’s history.

Yet for a president who works to separate his legacy in the gulf from that of his predecessor, President Bush, the administration’s handling of the BP spill links the two by the perceived inability of government to adequately respond to disaster.

“We are going to stand with you until the oil is cleaned up, the environment is restored, polluters are held accountable, communities are made whole and this region is back on its feet,” Obama said.

Obama made an unscheduled lunch stop before the afternoon speech, ordering a shrimp po’boy at the Parkway Bakery and Tavern, a 100-year-old restaurant in the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans, eating with the first lady and their daughters. The president greeted patrons with hugs and handshakes.

“We’re just going to keep on building, we’re going to keep on working, alright?” the president said, according to the pool report.
Obama, in New Orleans, promises to ‘fight alongside’ Gulf Coast

If Marine Lance Cpl. Kevin Oratowski was intimidated about briefing three visiting generals as he headed out on another overnight patrol chasing the Taliban, he didn’t show it.

“We’re ready to go,” the 23-year-old from Camp Pendleton said brightly, his enthusiasm seemingly undimmed by the fact that he had spent most of the last 60 days in the heat, danger and uncertainty of Helmand province.

A few hours later, he was dead from a Taliban roadside bomb.

As the three generals watched the next day, Oratowski’s casket was loaded aboard a C-130 to begin its journey home. The cargo plane lumbered down a runway that didn’t exist just a few months ago and lifted heavily into the southern Afghanistan sky.

Next to the runway, earthmovers pushed mountains of gravel for other construction projects at the base here, projects to expand the “footprint” of the Marines as they settle in for a long battle for Helmand.

A year since the U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan began with battalions of Marines descending on the Helmand River Valley, optimism about a quick defeat of the insurgents after early small-scale routs has given way to more sober assessments.

As the death toll steadily climbs, the top Marine warns that it could take as long as five years to defeat the Taliban and help the Afghan government establish a credible presence.

The massive assault in February on the Taliban-run town of Marja has not lived up to the U.S. prediction that it would prove a “tipping point” for the province. Two battalions of Marines are still assigned to protect Marja, but Taliban fighters spread messages of terror at night and plant bombs, killing Marines and villagers.

The provincial and national governments provide only a trickle of services. The vaunted “government-in-a-box,” a promise to establish a government in Marja as soon as the fighting stopped, was largely a flop.

“I think Stan McChrystal over-promised in regards to government-in-a-box,” Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway said, referring to the Army general who was then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Even as President Obama talks of beginning a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan next July, in Helmand, the talk is of “trend lines” and “metrics” rather than a quick knockdown.

In a series of meetings with Marines of all ranks, Conway said he expected Marines — whose numbers have doubled, to 20,000, in Helmand in the last 14 months — to be here until 2014 or 2015. Be prepared for a second or third tour, he said.

“We’re still going to have to convince these people who are fighting us that we are the strongest tribe,” Conway told several hundred Marines just minutes after the C-130 with Oratowski’s casket departed.

Conway and other senior officers say they remain confident of ultimate victory. It is a confidence born of the Marines’ experience in Iraq’s Anbar province, which in 2006 was branded as a lost cause by a Marine intelligence report but within two years was considered an example of the U.S. ability to defeat a ruthless insurgency.

“I’m an inveterate optimist,” Conway said in an interview at the end of his Helmand trip. “I found things better than I would have expected based on [media reports] and on intelligence I’ve been reading.”

The Western military has lately been touting the success of pinpoint special-operations raids targeting midlevel Taliban field commanders, particularly in the south.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said this week that coalition and Afghan troops had conducted thousands of raids that it said had fostered “a growing sense of distrust” among the Taliban, heightening the fear of spies in their midst.

The Taliban, of course, paints a much different picture. In a statement this week, spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi boasted of expanding influence in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, the insurgency’s spiritual home.

“Helmand is … a great example of the defeat of the enemy,” Ahmadi said in a statement posted on the movement’s website. “An example of this is the Marja operation, in which thousands of [Western] and Afghan soldiers took part. They made it sound as if World War III had started, but now they are ashamed to even mention the name of Marja, due to their disgraceful defeat.”

Marines in Afghanistan prepared for a long haul

Shirley Sherrod, forced from her government post after becoming a target for unfounded complaints that she was a racist, rejected an offer Tuesday to return full-time to the Department of Agriculture.

At a joint news conference after meeting with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Sherrod, however, said she would work as a consultant with the agency on civil rights issues.

“I enjoyed my work at USDA,” said Sherrod in turning down the offer. “I just don’t think at this point I can stay full time with USDA.”

Sherrod was the Agriculture Department’s director of rural development in Georgia until she was forced to quit after a conservative blogger published edited portions of a speech in which she appeared to make remarks that could have been interpreted as racist.

Vilsack and others in the Obama administration condemned the comments which were later found to have been taken out of context. The NAACP also condemned Sherrod, a black woman.

When her remarks were published in context, both the Obama administration and the civil rights group apologized for their reaction and for Sherrod’s departure. On Tuesday, Sherrod told reporters she expected to file a lawsuit against the blogger.

Vilsack repeated his apology Tuesday and took full blame during the televised news conference.

“This was my responsibility and I will continue to take responsibility tor it as long as I live,” Vilsack said. “I know that I disappointed the president. I disappointed this administration. I disappointed the country. I disappointed Shirley. I have to live with that. I accept that responsibility.”

Vilsack said he hoped that the incident would be a spotlight on efforts to deal with civil rights issues. He also said the department has changed its internal procedures to avoid the type of rush to judgment that was involved in the Sherrod case.

“The secretary did push really, really hard for me to stay and work from the inside,” Sherrod said. But “look at what happened. I know he apologizes and I have accepted that. I know a new process is in place but I don’t want to be the one to test it.”
Agriculture official, ousted in racial controversy, rejects new job offer at USDA

For nearly a decade, the Islamic Cultural Center of Fresno has held a carnival on the Saturday following the end of Ramadan, during a festival that has been called the Muslim equivalent of Christmas. With pony rides, carnival attractions, games and Middle Eastern food, it’s a popular event for the community’s children.

This year, the center’s leaders had a sense of foreboding when they noticed the date on which the carnival would fall: Sept. 11.

This week, after listening to escalating rhetoric over plans for an Islamic community center within blocks of the destroyed World Trade Center site in New York, the Fresno center canceled the carnival.