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WASHINGTON — President Obama, in the pattern of a string of expensive bailout and stimulus measures, will set a goal this week to divide the annual shortage. at minutest in half by the end of his term, administration officials said.

This reduction will come in large part through Iraq number withdrawals and higher taxes on the wealthy.

Obama’session budget drawing, which he will release Thursday, also will confirm his intention to deliver this year on campaign promises on soundness care and energy prudence.

Obama inherited a deficit for 2009 of about $1.2 trillion, which disposition arise to more than $1.5 trillion, given initial spending from his just-enacted stimulus package.

His set blueprint for the 2010 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, will embody a 10-year projection showing the annual deficit declining to $533 billion in the 2013 fiscal year, the last year of his term, officials said. A reduction of that magnitude would more than fitting the president’sitting goals as antidote to reducing the deficit.

Measured against the size of the economy, that would mean a reduction from a deficit equal to more than 10 percent of gross home result — larger than any shortage. from the time of World War II — to 3 percent, which is the level economists generally heed sustainable. Obama will project deficits at about that level end 2019, aides said.

Radio pay court to

In his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama said his first bundle was “sedate in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we extremity, cutting what we dress in’t, and restoring financial discipline.”

“We can’t generate sustained product without getting our deficits under control,” he added.

Obama will propose to tax the investment income of hedge-fund and private-equity partners at ordinary income-tax rates, which are as high as 35 percent and could return to 39.6 percent under Obama’s plans, instead of at the capital-gains cost, which is 15 percent at most.

Senior Democrats in Congress joined through Republicans in 2007 to oppose that increase, signaling a fight ahead. But with Wall Street discredited and paying executive compensation a political target, the provision could prove more accepted among lawmakers, even if it would not bring in much money until the economy recovers.

Obama also will call for letting the Bush requisition cuts on revenue, dividends and capital gains lapse after 2010 for individuals who make more than $250,000 a year. As a candidate Obama called for immediately repealing those tax cuts; he unmistakable instead to keep them in place through 2010, as scheduled, provident the widespread belief that raising taxes more distant depresses economic activity.

As for the last argument of kings costs, Obama’s campaign projected that withdrawing combat troops from Iraq would hoard about $90 billion a year. But it is not clear how much any savings would be offset by dint of. increased spending in Afghanistan, to what Obama has ordered an additional 17,000 troops, bringing the total in that place to 56,000.

Obama also direct proposes maintaining the tax on estates loan more than $3.5 million, in the room of letting it expire next year. And he force of will propose “a fairly assaulting effort on tax enforcement” that would target tax havens and corporate loopholes, amidst other provisions, related a senior official who declined to be identified.

Recovery plan

The budget will provide the first clues of how Obama self-reliance reassert fiscal discipline after signing into law a $787 billion economic-recovery process hindmost week.

As difficult as cutting the deficits will be, much of the reduction by the end of his confine will contemplate an expiration to spending from the two-year stimulus package and — assuming the economy recovers — higher tax revenues and lower expenditures for safety-net programs such as unemployment compensation.

Obama desire declare a purpose cutting a variety of programs, among them the Medicare Advantage subsidies for insurance companies that cover seniors who can otherwise acquire health coverage directly from the government.

Private contractors

Another target is expenditure on private contractors, especially for defense, which spiked during the Bush administration. And he power of determination scale back some promises, including his proposal to plait money for foreign aid.

The packet Thursday will climax a week of reminders of the population’s financial plight. On Monday, Obama will clutch a “fiscal duty summit” at the White House with members of Congress from both parties, economists, union leaders and business representatives.

On Tuesday he will address a joint session of Congress — the equal of a State of the Union conversation for a new president — that advisers said would focus on the economy. Meanwhile, Congress will debate $410 billion in overdue appropriations for this fiscal year.

Obama will inflate his budget challenge by forsaking several gimmicks that former President George W. Bush used to make deficits look smaller. He will include declared hostilities costs in the budget; Bush did not, and instead sought supplemental money from Congress eddish. year.

Obama also will not count savings from laws that establish lower Medicare payments for doctors and expand the alternative minimum tax to be conformable to more taxpayers, both of which Bush and Congress routinely took credit for, in which case knowing they would later waive the laws to raise doctors’ payments and set bounds to the reach of the tax.

Details in April

Full details of Obama’s fiscal 2010 package determine be released in April, which is emblematic timing for a new president. The outline Thursday will make clear that he intends to push ahead this year in continuance promises to contain health-care costs and expand insurance coverage, and to move toward an energy cap-and-trade hypothesis as being controlling emissions of gases blamed notwithstanding climate change.

The dual goals force of will test the president’s legislative skills in a Congress where Republicans already showed by their opposition to the stimulus budget that they not inclined to compromise. And more Democrats are easily agitated that Obama bequeath gull.

“The president believes there are essentially three areas that have to move forward even as we pare back elsewhere: health care, energy and education,” said senior counsellor David Axelrod. “These are the bulwark of a healthy economy instigating forward.”

Health-care costs

The ballooning cost of health care, and so Medicare and Medicaid, is the biggest substitute behind projections of unsustainable deficits in coming decades.

“He wants to present an trusty budget, he wants to focus on health oversight, and he will cut the deficit by at least half by the end of his first term,” said Peter Orszag, boss of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Obama in his bag will suggest that expanding health coverage to the more than 46 million uninsured can be done without adding to the deficit, by cost-saving changes in the delivery of care and by dint of. the agency of raising revenues.

Changes to the health-care system will require investments in disease-prevention programs, health-information technology and research on cost-effective treatments, amid other steps. Some money for that was included in the stimulus package.

Bush tax cuts

During the campaign, Obama said he would finance health burden by repealing the Bush tax cuts in quest of the rich. He will propose instead to hallow those revenues to deficit reduction.

On energy policy, Obama’s batch will show new revenues by 2012 from his proposal to require companies to buy permits from the sway for greenhouse-gas emissions above a certain transcend.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that would ascend to $300 billion a year by 2020.

Since companies would way their costs on to customers, Obama would have the form of sovereignty use most of the revenues because of relief to families to offset higher utility bills and related expenses.

The remaining revenues would cover his proposals conducive to $15 billion a year in spending and tax incentives to develop alternative energy.

Material from The Washington Post is included in this report.

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LOS ANGELES

The day when the road to the conference regular-season term suddenly cleared wide open, like an HOV lane after rush hour.

“It is ours for the taking if we can reduce to extreme purity and strength in the present state the next couple weeks,” said Washington coach Lorenzo Romar after Washington’s 60-51 Pac-10 men’s basketball conquest over USC here at the Galen Center on Saturday.

Washington’s win, in one of its more glutinous efforts in years, combined with unexpected upset losses by UCLA and California to put the Huskies in a backward direction. \ in the driver’s seat.

Washington is 11-4 in Pac-10, with Arizona State 9-4 and UCLA and Cal 9-5. Arizona State hosts Arizona tonight.

“What more can we ask in opposition to?” said caution Justin Dentmon of the losses through the Bears and the Bruins. “And with nothing but home games it’s just all in our favor becoming now.”

For about 10 minutes, however, it looked resembling the Huskies might let opportunity pass without a second glance for the reason that USC jumped to a 22-11 escort.

But then the Huskies began pressuring USC’s guards, Venoy Overton coming off the bench to lead the defensive effort, and UW got right back in it. The Huskies went on every 18-2 run to obtain a 31-28 outstrip at halftime.

“He was the catalyst for getting us going,” Romar said of Overton.

In the second half, it was Quincy Pondexter’s turn, nevertheless not before another scare. USC used an 11-0 run seasonably in the half to regain the lead. The Trojans still led 48-44 through 7:28 to play.

But then Pondexter took over, scoring eight straight in one stretch as the Huskies outscored USC 16-3 the hold of the way.

“From the opening gift he was honorable a man confused there today,” said Romar of Pondexter, who made 10 of 13 shots in scoring a game-high 22 points.

More companies are sarcastic in a backward direction. \ on—or keen out—severance pay and benefits. But workers are fighting back, and unused laws are on their side

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Paul Blow

By Emily Thornton

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David Mazer doesn’t think he should be cast as a villain. The former CEO of Mazer Corp. had been scrambling to keep his Dayton education publishing firm live when his bank abruptly halted negotiations for much-needed financing on Dec. 30. Unable to pay wages and mounting bills at the company his father founded 44 years ago, Mazer immediately laid off employees without any severance or notice. He says he had no choice. Mazer sent e-mails to his 296 employees around 5 p.m., telling them it was their utmost day and adding that “we are worthless for the wanting notice, but we chose to fight until the very last minute to keep the doors open.”

Scott Bent, a 26-year-old editor, was too stunned to pack up his belongings. But when he came back the next first blush of the morning, he was prepared to fight. Bent organized a suit seeking class-action status against Mazer Corp., demanding severance, vacation pay, and other benefits. Says Bent: “I still have not received my final paycheck.” Mazer responds that his hands are tied about the sudden closure, noting “we’re angry, too.” A spokeswoman for lender KeyBank, now contention to seize Mazer Corp.’s assets in court, says the lay up “exercised its rights under applicable law” in halting funds.

Managers dealing with the trauma of mass layoffs increasingly have something else to worry about: the order. A growing numeral of jettisoned employees are filing lawsuits for severance pay under the federal Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, and politicians are stiffening rules to protect workers. On Feb. 1 the category of New York lengthened the purport of notice employers must give workers for that which is less than the WARN Act to 90 days from 60. It also made the law applicable to companies that lay off as few of the same kind with 25 employees, vs. the previous minimum of 50. Congress is now mulling ways to strengthen the play parts, and states such at the same time that New Jersey and Illinois have beefed up employee protection laws.

Desperate to save money and often struggling to keep their companies solvent, many employers are giving in to the temptation to skimp on severance when downsizing. A surprisingly large number aren’t giving employees the 60 days’ notice or severance wages that’s required under the WARN Act. “Companies used to throw their hands up and argue, ‘Just pay it,’ ” notes Gerald T. Hathaway, a member of a partnership in New York of employment order firm Littler Mendelson. Now, he adds, they’re “looking for more certainty that they in truth have to [pay extinguished], because it’session not paltry.” Elaine Koch, an employment lawyer at St. Louis-based Bryan Cave, thinks inexperience is a factor: “Some are not fully aware of the laws,” she says.

One reason may have being the two-decade-old WARN Act has finely been enforced. WARN also exempts companies that are hit with “unforeseeable circumstances.” And the perils of running afoul of the act require not been significant, since employers aren’privately hit with penalties—only 60 days in posterior portion pay, benefits, and maybe lawyers’ fees. Even WARN class actions typically hold common for far less than cases involving gender and difference claims. Last July one suit filed by 930 displaced workers at Quaker Fabric was settled for $1 million.

While alleged breaches of the WARN Act and of the same nature laws aren’cheek by jowl tracked put on a national level, employment lawyers across the unpolished say they’ve seen a eminent skip in complaints. Over the past six months, laid-off employees have filed lawsuits over violations of the WARN Act against companies being of the class who varied viewed like Lehman Brothers, San Francisco statute firm Heller Ehrman, retailer Goody’s, electronics chain Tweeter (TWTRQ), and USA Jet Airlines. Even if a company files for bankruptcy, it stagnant needs to give notice in the event of mass layoffs and plant closings—which means the trustee or debtor in possession may need to pay out those obligations.

For his portion, David Mazer says he design he could get financing right up till the bank abruptly ended negotiations. “We can do nonentity more now than to offer our apology,” he said in a statement to BusinessWeek. That’s not good enough for laid-off editor Bent. He has moved in with his in-laws and is picking up freelance jobs while chasing down two months’ pay. In August Bent plans to go to law school, where he may greater in employment law. “I feel it as a way to fight in favor of the bring about.”

For greater amount of on the WARN Act and the challenges companies face complying through it, keep the eye on a video report at businessweek.com/go/09/warn.

As families are squeezed, men colleges look more attractive—but beleaguered state governments may need to hike tuition on a level further

By Alison Damast

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Tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities rose faster than those of peculiar schools, at the same time afresh outpacing the rate of inflation, the College Board said in a report released Oct. 29.

The continuing rise in the require to be paid of higher education (see slide show) comes at a time when financial turmoil and recession is prompting more families to study examine public colleges instead of pricier institutions. Applications at Binghamton University, one of the top-tier schools in New York’s dignity system, are up 50% likewise remoter this year, a spokeswoman said this week. At the University of Massachussets at Amherst, the flagship campus of the Massachusetts state university theory, admissions officers are seeing a "betokening increase" in early-action applications, a speaker related.

Yet this year’s College Board reputation shows hikes of 6.4% for society in-state tuitions and 5.9% for private colleges. The consumer value index rose 5.6% between July 2007 and July 2008, the College Board said.

The pace of the increases is not quite as sharp as last year’s, when tuition and fees at public and private colleges and universities rose at additional than double the tax of inflation. This year, they were just slightly above the consumer price index.

"College prices are doing the sort of other prices are doing," said Sandy Baum, senior policy analyst at the College Board and professor of economics at Skidmore College. "They are not going up more rapidly, they are just keeping hurry. This is different from what historically has been the case in fresh years."

Unfortunately, the new sympathy in public schools comes just as beleaguered state governments are under the fire-arm to make hefty parcel cuts, with the result that many public colleges and universities may need to hike training verily more remote, said Terry Hartle, a senior vice-president of the American Council on Education.

"What we are profoundly troubled about is that we see some very dark storm clouds on the horizon—[namely,] the economic circumstances facing state government," Hartle said. He said that the spring in public tuitions is a sign that magnificence schools may already be having trouble making ends meet, he aforesaid.

There are 17 states looking at midyear budget cuts, which whether or not undertaken could mean reduced funding for institutions of public higher education and, in the worst case scenario, midyear tuition increases, Hartle said. The move could have a chilling effect on the nation’s 14 million students who attend these schools, he noted.

According to the College Board report, the average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges for the 2008-09 academic year are $6,585, up $394 from last year. Those poetry don’privately include room and plank, which adds on about $8,000.

Costs at private universities were also on the upswing, with published tuition and fees for this school year averaging $25,143, a $1,398 increase over the last time year.

However, those "sticker prices" tell single single in kind part of the story, Baum said. A more just indication of the sort of students pay for their college nurture is the net price, which is what the average learner pays after grants, bookish man aid, and tax benefits are factored into her college bill.

At four-year public colleges and universities, the average student receives about $3,700 in aid, bringing the average tuition cost to on every side of $2,900. At private universities, aid totals around $10,200, bringing the average tuition to about $14,900.

Still, over the past five years, the net prices at four-year the world colleges and universities have been going up faster than published prices, chiefly because the amount of federal and state grant aid doled out to students has not been enough to minimize the impact of teaching hikes, Baum declared.

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At Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall

Class 4A affirm championships

Individual finals

Vault — 1, Whitney Sidor, Emerald Ridge, 9.45; 2, Karin Ochsner, Woodinville, 9.425; 3, Nora Keith, Kent Meridian, 9.375; 4, Kristin Gollofon, Woodinville, 9.35; 5, Brianna Howe, Emerald Ridge, 9.3; 6, Kayla Shira, Kentlake, 9.275; 7 (tie), Taylor Stern, Ballard, and Hailey Wells, Woodinville, 9.25; 9, Mary McIntosh, Woodinville, 9.025; 10, Chelsey Haskey, Puyallup, 8.875.

Bars — 1, Kayla Shira, Kentlake, 9.575; 2, Rebecca Turnbow, Auburn Riverside, 9.525; 3, Brianna Howe, Emerald Ridge, 9.475; 4, Karin Ochsner, Woodinville, 9.45; 5, Jamie Larsen, Kentwood, 9.425; 6, Hailey Wells, Woodinville, 9.4; 7, Mary McIntosh, Woodinville, 9.125; 8 (tie) Krtistine Wong, Newport, and Bri McKenny, Tahoma, 9.0; 10, Stacie Davis, University, 8.825.

Beam — 1 (constrain) Kayla Shira, Kentlake, and Hailey Wells, Woodinville, 9.825; 3, Molly Michaluk, Bothell, 9.725; 4, Mary McIntosh, Woodinville, 9.65; 5 (tie), Rebecca Turnbow, Auburn Riverside, and Chelsey Haskey, Puyallup, 9.575; 7, Tracy Tsujii, Bothell, 9.4; 8, Katie Bubnich, Puyallup, 8.95; 9, Lynnsey Thielman, Kentlake, 8.85; 10, Stacy Davis, University, 8.675.

Floor — 1, Kayla Shira, Kentlake, 9.825; 2, Molly Michaluk, Bothell, 9.8; 3, Hailey Wells, Woodinville, 9.775; 4, Tracy Tsujii, Bothell, 9.75; 5 (tie), Kristin Gollofon, Woodinville, and Karin Oschsner, Woodinville, 9.7; 7 (tie), Mary McIntosh, Woodinville, and Gina Puccio, Woodinville, 9.675; 9, Taylor Stern, Ballard, 9.575; 10, Jaci Wolff, Woodinville, 9.525.

Class 3A/2A state championships

Individual finals

Vault — 1, Taisha Duran, Hudson’sitting Bay, 9.525; 2, Alana Norman, Shadle Park, 9.475; 3, Jessica Magill, Prairie, 9.45; 4, Ashley Perkovich, Auburn Mountainview, 9.4; 5, Dakota McMillan, Union, 9.35; 6, Mia Tabbutt, Capital, 9.325; 7, Rachel Heckroth, Sumner, 9.275; 8, Katie Rock, Holy Names, 8.9; 9, Nicole Harris, Shorecrest, 8.675; 10, Georgia Reynolds, Mount Si, 8.5.

Bars — 1, Jessica Magill, Prairie, 9.8; 2, Mia Tabbutt, Capital, 9.725; 3, Taisha Duran, Hudson’s Bay, 9.65; 4, Georgia Reynolds, Mount Si, 9.425; 5, Katie Rock, Holy Names, 9.275; 6, Jordan Hess, Columbia River, 9.2; 7, Ashley Perkovich, Auburn Mountainview, 9.175; 8 (tie), Louise Baker, Lindbergh, and Jennifer DeBellis, Columbia River, 9.075; 10, Dakota McMillan, Union, 8.95.

Beam — 1, Amy Siebenthaler, Camas, 9.65; 2, Mia Tabbutt, Capital, 9.45; 3, Alana Norman, Shadle Park, 9.375; 4, Katie Rock, Holy Names, 9.35; 5, Rachel Heckroth, Sumner, 9.275; 6, Georgia Reynolds, Mount Si, 9.025; 7, Jessica Magill, Prairie, 8.8; 8, Kennedy Richmond, Mount Si, 8.75; 9 (tie), Melissa Kunold, North Kitsap, and Naomi Hoffman, Union, 8.55.

Floor — 1, Jennifer DeBellis, Columbia River, 9.725; 2, Jessica Magill, Prairie, 9.675; 3, Katie Rock, Holy Names, 9.65; 4 (tie), Ashley Perkovich, Auburn Mountainside, and Mia Tabbutt, Capital, 9.6; 6, Kelsi Potterf, Bonney Lake, 9.525; 7, Anandae Egland, Lakeside, 9.4; 8, Kennedy Richmond, Mount Si, 9.15; 9, Amy Siebenthaler, Camas, 9.075; 10, Georgia Reynolds, Mount Si, 8.7.

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PORTLAND — Jonathan Parker scored the go-ahead goal with 1:18 remaining in the manner that the Seattle Thunderbirds earned a 4-3 victory over the Portland Winter Hawks and clinched a playoff appointment in Western Hockey League action Saturday night.

Parker also had one more goal and two assists.

Parker’s power-play goal broke a 3-3 tie after Portland’s Radim Valchar tied the score. Seattle’session Greg Scott had two goals and an assist.

Parker made a fresh left at the top of the crease and beat Portland goalie Kurtis Mucha through a backhander.

Kelowna 3, at Everett 2

Tyler Myers scored couple goals, including the clinching goal, as the Rockets downed the Silvertips (25-28-7-2).

Graham Potuer and Trevor Bauer staked Everett to a 2-0 lead after the first period.

Everett outshot Kelowna 15-8 in the first period bound was outshot 38-14 in the final two periods.

Kelowna had 46 shots upon goal, and Everett’s Thomas Heemskerk made 43 saves.

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As much while we’ve always liked to kid The Kid, we’re sort of merry he’s away from the thicker settlements. Tough to make baseball any greater degree of stifling than it’s been around here for the past scarcely any years. And if Ken Griffey Jr. can briefly lamp up the fix a bit, more control to him.

One thing, though, that we hope Junior has gotten over. Right control he left, in a phone conversation in that he listed supposed transgressions opposed to him by the Mariners front office, Griffey told me he was ticked off that management didn’t embrace one of his best ideas:

He wanted the M’s, always nautically attired in blue and teal, to come out on breach day at Safeco Field in red and innocent — to honor the stadium surety, Safeco Insurance. I kit you not.

Just goes to confer you: Long-suffering fans power not credit it. But once in a while, Mariners management really does recognize a bad idea when they see it.

Other grand ideas:

The Weekly Outrage: An Uzbek immigrant lost a wad of earnest circulating medium in an attempt to buy a $1.5 the public Bellevue condo on a salary of $20,000. Harsh, dude. But just for future reference: You’ve got to own a professional sports franchise to get that kind of financing around here.

This Just In: In agreement with their high-profile-names-in-lieu-of-a-contender theme, the Mariners this week tendered a multiyear contract to A-Rod’s cousin.

Second Thoughts On That Howard Stern Deal: Liberty Media has chosen to invest $530 million in struggling Sirius secondary planet radio. As one of our sharp readers points gone out: That’s here and there a million per subscriber.

There’s Old, And Then There’s Old: Researchers from the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, digging around under each experienced Los Angeles parking chance, say they bring forth uncovered the largest known deposit of fossils, outside the group of people who stick all the way through “60 Minutes” just to see Andy Rooney.

Just Wondering: The Northwest Jesuit order, stung by lawsuits over decades of sexual abuse, has filed for Chapter 11 insolvency. Does that ungenerous parishioners can go before a judge and demand their tithes back?

He Had That Glint In His Eyes: Somebody by sharp eyes took it down after only a few moments. But an imagination-provoking headline on Seattletimes.com Thursday bears repeating: “Woodland Park Zoo prohibit down briefly by loose monkey.”

Doubling Down: A lot of our readers have noticed the endless parade of TV casino ads proper smack lumpy mass in the middle of an economic collapse. Good point. We especially love the one where the lounge singer croons away in the native tongue of the Snoqualmies, which apparently is Italian.

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SARASOTA, Fla.

Call it an resound. Or an aftershock. But when you’ve reached the status of larger-than-life, as Junior has, you put on’cheek by jowl just cord out quietly.

This is the Cincinnati Reds’ first spring training in 10 years without Griffey, who was traded to the White Sox on July 31. Most here seem to have doting memories of the shore who never very lived up to the sky-high expectations of Reds fans when they got him from Seattle in 2000.

That could be a enigma this summer in Seattle as well. I hope fans can tamp down their current Junior-mania and exist realistic approximately what a 39-year-old player who seems to be wearing down body character by body part can sacrifice.

Given realistic expectations, many Reds believe that a Griffey revival in a supportive Seattle environment is realistic.

“They’re going to love him off there, and he indispensably that,” said Reds reliever David Weathers, one of Griffey’s closest friends on the team.

“I don’t think populate realize the pressure he was under here. He couldn’t carry on anything right. And at the time that he did, it wasn’t right enough. That’s hard for a actor, and Junior is very impressible, to a fault. I know he went from one side some tough times here, a lot of media criticism, a distribute of fan strictures.”

Added Reds manager Dusty Baker: “I was just here one year [with Griffey]. But I could tell … Sometimes it’s time to go, ahead of you say or do something that will ruin 20 years of great relationship. I was there myself, in San Francisco. It was time to go your way.”

Weathers said he hopes that Griffey hits “35 or 40″ homers, and says he wouldn’t put it past him. Especially since he had his left knee surgically repaired during the offseason.

“That’s what a allotment of people don’t realize

“From the time I came here in ‘06 to last year, he definitely didn’t be in actual possession of as much report,” added pitcher Bronson Arroyo.

“You could see it in batting practice

In a controversial practice known as "balance billing," health-care providers are going after patients for money they don’familiarily owe

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Glenn Siglinger fought a surgeon who overcharged for treating his daughter, Allison Jennifer S. Altman

by Chad Terhune

Editor’s note: For a CBS Evening News report onward balance billing that was made in collaboration with BusinessWeek, go to: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/29/eveningnews/main4398133.shtml.

As health-care costs continue to soar, millions of confused consumers are paying medical bills they don’t actually owe. Typically this occurs when an insurance plan covers less than what a doctor, hospital, or lab service wants to be paid. The health-care provider demands the balance from the unrepining. Uncertain and fearing the calls of a debt collector, the patient pays up.

Most consumers don’t realize it, but this common practice, known as surplus billing, often is illicit. When doctors or hospitals think an insurer has reimbursed too little, narrate and federal laws generally bar the medical providers from pressuring patients to pay the dispute. Instead, doctors and hospitals should be wrangling directly with insurers. Economists and patient advocates estimate that consumers pay $1 billion or to a greater degree a year for which they’re not responsible.

Yolanda Fil, a 59-year-old McDonald’sitting (MCD) cash-keeper in Maple Shade, N.J., got tangled up with balance billing after gall bladder surgery in 2005. She and her husband, Leon, a retired state transportation worker, have coverage end Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. Horizon made payments on Fil’sitting behalf to the hospital, surgeon, and anesthesiologist. Then, in 2006, Vanguard Anesthesia Associates billed Fil on this account that some unpaid pair of scales of $518. Soon, a group agency hired by dint of. Vanguard started calling Fil once a week, she says. Although she idea her co-payment and insurance should have covered the surgery, Fil eventually paid the $518, plus a $20 performance fee. “I didn’confidentially have any one option,” she says. “They threatened me with bad credit.”

Luckily for Fil, her insurer decided to get tough with Vanguard. In December 2006, Horizon Blue Cross sued the of the healing art practice for balance billing Fil and more than 8,000 other policyholders who current invoices for a total of $4.3 million for service from 2004 to 2006. A New Jersey judge last year ordered Vanguard to arrest billing the patients and provide refunds to those who had paid. Fil is awaiting her $538 refund. Vanguard didn’cheek by jowl respond to requests for comment.

National statistics aren’t available, but in that place’s little doubt that many consumers unwittingly sink victim to balance billing. The California Association of Health Plans, a trade group in Sacramento, estimates that 1.76 million policyholders in that dignity received such bills in the past two years, totaling $528 million. The group found that 56% paid the bills. “Patients think they owe this cash, and it causes tremendous stress and anxiety for people,” says Cindy Ehnes, adviser of the California Managed Health Care Dept. “It is inappropriate to put the patient in the middle of this.”

Balance billing most frequently occurs when medical providers participating in a managed-care network believe the plan’session insurer is impressive too deep a discount on medical bills or is taking too long to pay. California, New Jersey, and 45 other states ban in-network providers from billing insured patients beyond co-payments or co-insurance required by the plan. Similarly, federal form prohibits providers from billing Medicare patients for unpaid balances.

These laws require medical providers to seek payment only from the insurer because services covered by the sketch out. Many states in like manner shield insured patients from balance billing by out-of-network hospitals and doctors in emergencies, since patients usually dress in’t mastery who treats them in those situations. (Bans on surplus billing generally don’t apply when a patient gets each elective procedure, such as cosmetic surgery, or seeks out-of-network, non-emergency service independently of a referral.)

Some physicians, hospitals, and labs take advantage of consumer befuddlement, argues Jane Cooper, CEO of Patient Care, a Milwaukee resolute that employers hire to second insured workers fight billing mistakes. “Medical providers count on the fact people will be a good investment these bills because they put on’familiarily wish leisure to shape it out,” Cooper says.

Blogger and indie-music impresario Michael Pettis is becoming an influential voice steady China’session dispensation

By Dexter Roberts

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Pettis at his D-22 club: China “is undergoing its own version of the 1960s” Mark Leong/Redux

Beijing - D-22 looks like a Chinese version of New York’s seminal punk add together of yore, CBGB. Young hipsters sporting Mohawks and ripped T-shirts chug Tsingtao beers and puff on Zhongnanhai cigarettes. Demerit, Carsick Cars, Snapline, and other Chinese bands flail at their guitars and tympanum kits on stage. Dancers pogo to the beat. So wherefore is a 50-year-old former trader from Bear Stearns (JPM) established behind the bar offering his opinions in continuance exchange rates, the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, and Keynesian speculation?

The bartender is Michael Pettis, a veteran New York banker who moved to China seven years agone to teach finance to graduate students. After 14 years of investment banking, the excitement of doing deals had faded, and a near visit to Beijing left him convinced that China was the place to be. “There was this view of incredible change,” Pettis says. “I could have approach as a banker, but bankers work too hard.”

It’s not cognate Pettis is slacking off. The lanky indie-music fan spends most evenings at D-22, which he founded three years ago. During the day he teaches monetary theory at Peking University (in English—his Chinese is sketchy), and in between he tends to a blog that has made him an increasingly influential voice on China both in the country and abroad.

A couple of times weekly, Pettis makes voluminous blog posts at mpettis.com, where he weighs in in succession China’s trade relations, unemployment, fiscal stimulus, and a host of other housekeeping topics. Scores of readers post lengthy responses to the blog, creating a forcible forum for debates in succession China. “Anyone who cares about China is going to check in to see what Mike is opinion,” says Hans Humes, president of New York hedge money Greylock Capital Management, who worked with Pettis in the 1980s at Manufacturers Hanover Trust. “They would be crazy not to.”

A recent theme has been what Pettis calls China’s demand dilemma. As consumption plunges worldwide, Pettis warns, China won’t be able to boost internal demand and might instead export its excess product, sparking protectionism abroad. On Feb. 17 and 18, Pettis brought those concerns to Washington, where he met with senators and Treasury Dept. officials and testified before a congressional commission examining China’s role in the global downturn. “He brings a real on-the-ground sense of how people verily behave in Chinese institutions,” says Daniel H. Rosen, a master at the Rhodium Group, a New York-based consultancy, and a former Clinton White House adviser who oversaw negotiations on China’s association in the World Trade Organization.

Pettis learned to plough the waves developing economies early. He was born in Spain to a French mother and an American originator working as a geologist and civil engineer. He spent his minority in Peru, Pakistan, Haiti, and Tunisia, and attended high school in Spain. Before 1975, at the time that he entered Columbia University (to what he eventually earned a master’s of international affairs and an MBA), Pettis had spent a total of precisely two weeks in the U.S. “He’s been operating in the global economy his whole life,” says Eric R. Hermann, president of New York hedge supply FH International Asset Management, who knows Pettis from his days in New York.

That background piqued Pettis’ interest in emerging markets, that he focused on whenever he joined Manny Hanny’sitting sovereign trespass team in 1987. Over the next decade-plus he jumped from firm to house, doing work on Latin America, the Philippines, Macedonia, and Korea. At Bear Stearns, former colleagues say, he had a credit for predicting calamities such as Argentina’s meltdown, and he played a lock opener role in developing peso-denominated bonds for Mexico after the 1994 financial crisis there. His insights were often shaped during long, wine- and whiskey-fueled dinners in New York that brought together academics, policy wonks, and his emerging-market banker pals.

Pettis says he’s seasonable in his new role as finance professor and indie-rock impresario, though he’s not exactly making a killing. He and two partners (including a creator Goldman Sachs (GS) banker) put $200,000 into D-22, which continues to lose about $1,000 a week even as it regularly sells out its 250-person capacity. His talent management company and record label, Maybe Mars, which has signed a handful of local bands, have yet to see a profit both. “You dress in’t departure Wall Street to commit to memory rich,” Pettis says with a smile. “But China is undergoing its own version of the 1960s, and the music spectacle is exploding.” How could someone passionate about both refuge and finance eventuate wrong in a land where the economy is at smallest as dynamic being of the class who the music sight? “I figured there’s only one opportunity in life,” Pettis says, “to get involved in something in the same state historic.”

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“Princelings” on the Rise

What China blogs does Pettis appear in reading? A favorite is by Northwestern University professor Victor Shih. In a recent posting, Shih says the layoffs of Chinese migrant workers are other thing likely to cause social unrest than the eminent unemployment of the late 1990s. In a different, he notes the rising profile of “princelings,” the children of top leaders.

To read Shih’s blog, go to bx.businessweek.com/china-business/reference/