Author: sherlockj
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Federal COVID Funding to Virginia K-12 Schools
by James C. Sherlock The federal government allocated a great deal of money in each of two different pieces of legislation in 2020 to provide COVID-related relief to K-12 schools. I will endeavor here to explain briefly what that means to Virginia. The two pieces of 2020 federal legislation that provide funding to K-12 schools…
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Unlikely to Go Well – Unimaginable Amounts of COVID-Related Money and the Rush to Spend It
by James C. Sherlock The federal government is charged to distribute $7 trillion in supplemental COVID-related supplemental funding already appropriated or pending. Real money, and we will have borrowed every penny. Hard to comprehend that much money. That is 7 million million dollars. I will try here to reduce that to human scale. At full…
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Consumer Reports Misleads on Virginia EV Bill
by James C. Sherlock Few media outlets are as influential with their readership as Consumer Reports or as active in soliciting direct contact of public officials on issues that management feels are important to that publication’s political values. That is their right, but false statements in support of their positions is a violation of public…
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Virginia’s Legendary Corruption Blocks Antitrust Enforcement
by James C. Sherlock Readers of this blog have indicated an unquenchable appetite for information about and discussion of Virginia’s Certificate of Public Need (COPN) law and its administration. This essay informs on the negative impacts of the COPN law and the Virginia Antitrust Act (the Act) itself on the enforcement of antitrust laws against Virginia’s…
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Virginia’s Physicians and Nurses Must Take – Yes, Take – More Influence Over Virginia Health Policy
by James C. Sherlock As I have studied and reported upon Virginia’s struggles in COVID response, many things have come into focus that need to be done better in healthcare. I have reported on a lot of them here and called for changes. One major, overarching flaw needs attention. Virginia’s physicians and nurses do…
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Dysfunction Exposed in COVID Demands Overhaul of Virginia’s Government
by James C. Sherlock We all like to discuss the politics of things. That in many instances is appropriate. But political leadership is neither the problem nor the solution I will discuss here today. We will spend every day between now and November’s election debating how the politicians responded to COVID. And we should. But…
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Probably a Coincidence – COPN, the Monopolization of Health Care and the Marginalization of the Poor
by James C. Sherlock I have been asked many times about how freer markets in healthcare can coexist with our need to treat the poor. I will try to briefly cover some of the complexities of the answer to that question. And I will show that of all of the government healthcare control systems, COPN…
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COPN Scores a Kill
by James C. Sherlock More than eleven months ago I wrote an essay titled, “The Legal Corruption of (Virginia’s Certificate of Public Need) COPN.” That system needs overhaul, not adjustment, and the people of Hampton Roads need help. The Governor needs to lead in both efforts. Today I offer the third in a series (first…
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A Horse Built by a Committee
by James C. Sherlock Updated Jan 31 at 8:46 AM Virginia’s Attorney General has offered a bill to create a new state bureaucracy to handle the opioid settlement money about to flow into the Commonwealth to support prevention, treatment, and recovery. It is going to be a lot of money. The state opioid settlements will…
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DePaul Hospital’s Closing Presents a Unique Opportunity for Hampton Roads
by James C. Sherlock Not too long ago, before the decline of the malls and COVID, the healthcare community coined what they called the Nordstrom Rule. The meaning was that if you wished to optimize profits in your healthcare business, build it close to a Nordstrom. The theory was that Nordstrom had already done the…
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Better Angels
by James C. Sherlock “Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” Abraham Lincoln, first inaugural address, March 4, 1861 DePaul Hospital Closing The DePaul Hospital closure announcement…
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Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics
by James C. Sherlock Jim Bacon commented yesterday upon a study underwritten by the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) that said Virginia hospitals were getting shortchanged by health insurers, and that the insurers were charging too much to consumers. We can’t stand still for that, can we? It may have been published in support…
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Looking for a Do-Over – Secretary Qarni, the Fairfax County School Board and the Left’s War on Asian Americans
by James C. Sherlock President Biden yesterday signed a couple of executive orders on race. “We must change now,” the president said. “I know it’s going to take time, but I know we can do it. And I firmly believe the nation is ready to change. But government has to change as well.” From the…
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Labeling “Ineffective Teachers” in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock My last post about new legislative attempts at reforming public education led to a very appropriate discussion of the term “ineffective teacher” used in that legislation. Bestowing the “ineffective teacher” tag with some patina of objectivity requires a major effort that does not exist in Virginia. The studies that showed the Virginia…
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Proposed Standards of Quality Changes and Their Fiscal Impact
by James C. Sherlock This essay will present the changes proposed to Virginia public school Standards of Quality proposed by the Board of Education and put forward in identical School Equity and Staffing Act bills in the General Assembly. They represent very significant change. I have annotated each change in law in that bill…