Westphal – SacBee “Boomers and Medicare”

Senior Fellow David Westphal currently heads the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting, and recently released a report on the rising demands of healthcare professionals and medicare payouts as the first generation of "baby boomers" turns 65 years old this year. Westphal told the Sacramento Bee that "[a]s citizens we all have work to do in deciding what government can afford to do – and not do – in subsidizing seniors' health care." [additional article can be found at SecondAct]……

Suro – WaPo “Dream Act”

The Washington Post published an article by Faculty Fellow Roberto Suro about Congress' recent vote against "the Dream Act." The bill, if passed, would allow for children of illegal immigrants with "good character" to attain US citizenship upon their completion of a college education or service in the military. "The immediate task is to clean up the mess caused by inaction," writes Suro "and that is going to require compromises on all sides. Next, we should reexamine the scope of policy proposals. After a decade of sweeping plans that went nowhere, working piecemeal is worth a try at this point."……

Seib in HuffPo – India

"At a conference in New Delhi," writes Faculty Fellow Phil Seib, "Indian diplomats, media executives, business persons, and others examined their country's "Public Diplomacy in the Information Age" and found that their efforts to reach the global public needs more coherence and imagination." Seib attended the conference in December entitled "Public Diplomacy in the Information Age." His findings of the conference can be found in his blog post on the Huffington Post…….

Suro – NYT “Immigrant Path”

Faculty Fellow Roberto Suro was cited in a recent New York Times article about the recent influx of immigrant workers to suburban neighborhoods throughout the country, according to the US Census Bureau. Suro noted several years ago that immigrants were migrating to areas with the largest demand for construction workers. "The leveraged asset was the work of the immigrants. The long-term payout was the social requirement to settle them and look after their children."……

The Game-Changer List

The Associated Press, as usual, released last week its editors' poll of the 10 top stories of the year. No. 1, with 54 first-place votes, was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The congressional passage of health care reform was second with 30 votes. The list by the men and women who actually edit our news continued: (3) midterm elections; (4) U.S. economy; (5) Haiti earthquake; (6) tea party movement; (7) Chile mine rescue; (8) Iraq; (9) WikiLeaks; (10) Afghanistan. All of those were obviously big stories. But hold the presses! It is not a list I would……