Here & Now

Here & Now for Oct. 20, 2017

Frederica Freyberg:

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here and Now,” a first look at the reorganization of the University of Wisconsin. Then, a look ahead into the tax cut plan in progress in Washington. And an inside look at one county’s plan to go after pharmaceutical companies to share the cost of the opioid epidemic. It’s “Here and Now” for October 20.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here and Now” is provided, in part, by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

Frederica Freyberg:

For many across the state, it’s still sinking in that the UW System wants to restructure the way it does business. Wisconsin Public Television is part of the UW System and would be affected by these changes. We will revisit the details of the plan in a moment. But first, this background. It's certainly not the first time in the university’s 169-year history that changes, mergers and consolidations have happened. But some people we’ve talked with have concerns the mission of the university, with its underpinnings in the Wisconsin idea, is at risk in this new political era. The Wisconsin Idea, that the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state, firmly took hold at the turn of the last century when then UW President Charles Van Hise established the Extension division to help farmers and industry and the environment by bringing UW’s research knowledge to people across the state. Two-year colleges opened in the 1940s to serve people returning from war time service. Now to today, the new plan would help avoid closing two-year UW colleges by combining the 13 of them with four-year campuses into kind of regional institutions. It would also move UW Cooperative Extension, best known for county agents, into UW-Madison. Additionally, Extension Continuing Education Division of Business and Public Broadcasting would move to UW System administration. And so with many questions about the “why” of the move and the “how” of it, we turn to UW System President Ray Cross, who expects to present his plan to the Board of Regents next month. Thanks very much for being here.

Ray Cross:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, so you want to improve student access by merging the two-year colleges with the four-year schools, but isn’t it really about maintaining access because without this kind of move there would be the danger that those two-year colleges would have to close down?

Ray Cross:

I think it’s both. It’s not only maintaining access, which is really important, especially for those two-year campuses. But it also involves expanding it because part of the plan would be to bring additional three and four year level course work to some of these campuses. So that’s expanding access. And in some of these communities working closely with the businesses and community leaders to determine exactly what they need for those kind of degrees.

Frederica Freyberg:

Extension and Colleges, as you know, just reorganized suffering some kind of 110 layoffs to weather a $250 million budget cut in the last budget. How many money will be saved by having Madison and System take over Extension functions eliminating duplicative services?

Ray Cross:

We don’t know now. I’ve been asked that question a number of times. Preciously, “What are you going to save from this?” I can’t answer that. Many people will say, “If you can’t answer that, why are you doing it?” What I do know is that the consolidation of services, what we would refer to as administrative support services, by consolidating a bunch of those or standardizing those processes, what we achieve is some savings. That clearly is self-evident. How much, I don’t know. And I think it’s going to take time for us to work through these steps to figure out exactly what will be consolidated, centralized, standardized, et cetera.

Frederica Freyberg:

How usual is it to have a plan and put it out and not have the details?

Ray Cross:

I think it’s actually quite common, because now it’s up for public discussion. Enough details within the concept to say, “I like this or I don’t like that.” Most of the concerns that have been expressed at this point relate to “How did you get here?” rather than “I don’t like the plan.” So I think the process itself is being scrutinized and that’s fine.

Frederica Freyberg:

In terms of that process, many stakeholders, I would suggest, I think most stakeholders, were not included in devising this plan or necessarily even notified of it. Why not?

Ray Cross:

I think a part of what we were attempting to do is study the data. So internally a number of folks have been studying the data. Externally, so have many others. So while they may not have been involved in the plan that we ultimately put on the table, they were certainly looking at a lot of the same data that we were studying: declining enrollment, demographic issues, transfer issues. All of those issues were front and center.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of transfer issues, I know that a lot of people, you know, in these schools or thinking about going to these schools want to make sure that there’s some kind of seamless transfer process. Will there be?

Ray Cross:

Absolutely. In fact, I hope it’s much better in the future. I’ve had concerns for quite some time about the inability to always consistently, course by course, accept transfers and that this will help that course by course, but it will also push us to do more block course transfer. A number of credits — we’re not going to make you retake courses within that. Hopefully it’s seamless and it’s easy and it’s received well by those that are involved.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, others have raised this, saying that they are suspect of the move of putting public broadcasting into UW System administration, concerned, among other things, that editorial freedom would be diminished. What do you say to that?

Ray Cross:

Perhaps I should ask you, do you feel that editorial freedom is diminished today? I don’t think so. And you’re part of the UW System. Nothing should change with that regard.

Frederica Freyberg:

In fact, because that editorial freedom is kind of enshrined in the UW System policy and you’re telling us that it would continue to be so under this kind of transfer of BAMI to your administration.

Ray Cross:

Technically it’s under my administration today in some way, so I see no changes. In fact, I would hope that as a pillar of principle, public television, public radio, which functions, in my opinion, in a very, very ethical, center path, but not afraid to ask questions on either side, probe questions. I hope that continues and perhaps becomes even more effective in that role.

Frederica Freyberg:

As you know, we take that extremely seriously.

Ray Cross:

I think you do it well.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what about concerns — and there are some — that folding Extension either into UW-Madison or System administration could erode the Wisconsin Idea?

Ray Cross:

Well, I differ with that. Obviously, Cooperative Extension at one point was a part of the land grant institution, and in every other state that I know of, the land grant institution actually administers Extension. And it brings the application or the evidence-based application in the field more tightly to the research side, which fuels the evidence. These are the things we know work through research. It tightens that relationship. So I think the Cooperative Extension piece of this makes good sense. I think it will help the university. It will help serve the counties, the businesses and the people of the state well.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there. Ray Cross, thanks very much.

Ray Cross:

Thank you, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

In tonight’s closer look, we check in with an expert in the topic we just covered with President Cross. He’s Director at the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, which describes itself as supporting the pursuit, sharing and implementation of promising ideas for addressing fundamental challenges in postsecondary education in Wisconsin, the United States and internationally. Noel Radomski is here. Thanks very much for being here.

Noel Radomski:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, so what is your first reaction to the plan to merge the two-year campuses with the four-year schools?

Noel Radomski:

The first reaction is it’s very interesting and it has great promise. To some degree, it’s kind of going back in the past because the — what we now call UW colleges were called UW centers and prior to that, they were called Extension centers. And they were all branch campuses of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So it’s almost as if we’re going back in time.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why do you think it has promise?

Noel Radomski:

It has promise because then you have the two-year UW colleges that are closest to the four-year university and that way it allows students to move back and forth. Maybe they’re working on a baccalaureate degree or an associates degree and they can move back and forth. So that’s the concept. Very interesting.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about putting Cooperative Extension within UW-Madison?

Noel Radomski:

Again, same thing. It goes back in time. In 1965 they divorced Extension from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So now basically they’re going pre — this is 1964.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think about the way it was kind of unveiled?

Noel Radomski:

Yeah. Unfortunately, that’s the negative side, because not only — you can say, “Well, it should have done better. It’s just process-oriented.” And people hear that, like why. But the problem is if you unveil it and you have poor planning, the likelihood of success is going to be very low. So they haven’t thought out the details. They haven’t consulted with the, for example, county executives that pay for the buildings of the UW colleges. They had minimal consultation with faculty who are going to have to move around, among many other issues like what happens — where does a student apply? Do they apply to UW-Marathon County or UW-Stevens Point? All those issues haven’t been discussed and planned out.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do we know that they don’t have an ironclad plan? Before it goes before the Regents really soon here.

Noel Radomski:

Yes.

Frederica Freyberg:

I mean, they could have a plan. They just haven’t shared it?

Noel Radomski:

No. If they do, perhaps we’ll hear today or tonight. But when I have talked to legislative staffers, when I've talked to county executives around the state, they don’t have it. So why wouldn’t they have it? If there’s a plan beyond the October 11 press release, why haven’t they shared it?

Frederica Freyberg:

You also say that there needs to be adequate time to put this in place.

Noel Radomski:

Yes.

Frederica Freyberg:

Once this planning is put in place.

Noel Radomski:

Right.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is by July enough time?

Noel Radomski:

No. Absolutely not. One, November's not enough time. We don’t know what the fiscal–there’s no fiscal–we don’t know what the cost is. Number two as it relates to July implementation, students are already applying. My son’s a senior in high school. So he’s applying. So no. There’s no chance. And then all the really operational details; are admission staff going to stay at UW-Marathon County or are they going to move to UW-Stevens Point? Are the faculty at UW-Marathon County going to stay there or are they going to move to UW-Stevens Point? All these very — and when you look at past restructuring efforts in Wisconsin as relates to issues like this, at a minimum, at a minimum, it’s been two-year planning processes.

Frederica Freyberg:

I want to get to this. You called the proposal to move three Extensions divisions to UW System highly suspect.

Noel Radomski:

Yes.

Frederica Freyberg:

You're including in that Wisconsin Public TV and Radio. Why do you call it highly suspect?

Noel Radomski:

Because what the proposal is doing is moving educational, informational divisions of UW-Extension into administration. And you don’t want that. You want that independence. You want that separation between public radio, public television and other entities that are involved in knowledge, dissemination of knowledge, creation, when you interview people. So if it’s part of administration, what type of influence will they have? There’s a potential conflict of interest. We’ve never done this in the state of Wisconsin. We’ve always had a separation between those entities that are involved in preservation of knowledge, dissemination of knowledge, creation of knowledge. And if you put those, not as reporting to a dean or chancellor, but put it into administration, that’s a recipe for failure.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We need to leave it there. Noel Radomski, thanks very much.

Noel Radomski:

Thank you very much.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now to Washington, where the U.S. Senate passed a bill Thursday that puts Congress on schedule to pass a tax measure by the end of the year. The bill sets in motion a $1.5 trillion tax cut. It lands in the House of Representatives as soon as next week. Earlier this week, House Speaker Paul Ryan was in Madison, where he said, “There’s an urgent need for tax code changes.”

Paul Ryan:

We think the tax rates are far too high. We think the tax code is far too riddled with loopholes. We think the tax code is rigged. We think it’s basically a system of all these carve-outs and loopholes and special interest groups which artificially raise people’s tax rates.

Frederica Freyberg:

In response to the GOP tax plan and other moves in Washington, we talked with a Democratic member of Wisconsin Congressional’s delegation this week, Congressman Ron Kind of La Crosse joined us in our studios midweek. Congressman Kind, thanks very much for being here.

Ron Kind:

My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

We wanted to start by asking your position on the tax plan being put forward.

Ron Kind:

It's been 31 years since we’ve taken a serious run at the federal tax code. It’s long overdue. I’d like to simplify it. Like to make it more competitive. Make it fair to our families back home here, small businesses, family farmers. It’s way too complicated with special interest tax loopholes that have been included through the years with powerful groups in Washington. But we need to do this in a fiscally responsible manner too. No big budget deficits blowing up. So we have to pay for it. That’s where it gets complicated pretty quickly.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because there is an analysis that suggests that over ten years would be causing a deficit. So how do you offset that?

Ron Kind:

It's hard. That’s why it’s been 31 years since we’ve had significant reform of the federal tax code. It’s one of the issues I speak to small business owners in Wisconsin about a lot, the complexity of the code, the compliance, how much time they waste just making sure they don’t run afoul of the IRS. So for the sake of that and for people’s peace of mind overall, simplify, simplify it and make it more competitive. But I don’t want to see just more trickle-down tax cuts at the very top, expecting to benefit everyone else and not paying for it so that we leave a legacy of debt. Inevitably that leads to huge cuts to Medicare and Social Security in the future. So that can’t be the tradeoff here.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaker Ryan does say that it is not designed to favor just the super wealthy, but it certainly does benefit them. Who do you think the winners and losers are in this current plan?

Ron Kind:

As soon as we get more details — and there’s been a lack of details so far. This is a moving target and details do matter in something like this. But it has to be, I think, distributionally fair to working families and not just more trickle-down at the top. We’ve gone that route before. It’s led to every-increasing income inequality in our country. And it hasn’t produced the economic bump that they keep trying to sell it for.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you don’t think that these kind of tax cuts invigorate the economy?

Ron Kind:

Well, it’s not going to pay for itself. Unfortunately there’s a philosophy in Washington believing tax cuts alone will promote economic growth and additional revenues to pay for it. We’ve never seen that in the past. There’s no economic data that supports that. So we need to be careful we don’t fall into that trap.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, at the same time that Republicans are pushing the tax cuts, the president is slicing parts of the Affordable Care Act, including payments to insurance companies for low-income care. He also declares Obamacare a disaster. This week I know there’s some talk about some kind of bipartisan plan that is kind of on again and off again. What’s your response to these actions to dismantle Obamacare?

Ron Kind:

The president right now because he wasn’t able to get repeal and replace enacted into law is doing everything he can to create chaos in the health insurance market. That’s unfortunate cause you’re playing with people’s lives. The analysis that we saw with his elimination of cost-sharing reductions payments will increase uninsured by over $2 million and increase premiums for everyone else. That’s taking us back to the old system, where you have more uninsured, rising costs, businesses large and small being less competitive because of the cost of health care. It’s not solving problems. We have to stop playing politics with people’s lives. We ought to recognize what’s working, fix what isn’t in the health care system and stay focused on health care costs and what we can do to bring them down to make it more affordable to everyone.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is this possible?

Ron Kind:

We need to do it because chaos benefits no one, Republicans, Democrats, independents. We’re all in this together. We all need access to affordable and quality health care in our lives. For us to sustain a growing, vibrant economy, we’ve got to get the health care system fixed so it is affordable.

Frederica Freyberg:

How would you fix it?

Ron Kind:

Well, there’s things going on under the Affordable Care Act. I know the president doesn’t want to hear this, but delivery system reform by working with our health care providers so we have a more integrated, coordinated, patient-centered health care system. And then the item I've been especially focused on, payment reform. So we’re paying for the value of the outcome of care that’s given and no longer the volume of services that are rendered.

Frederica Freyberg:

Isn’t that part of the Affordable Care Act already?

Ron Kind:

It is, and we’ve seen per-capita spending on health care at a 50-year low. If you’re an employer – I mean employee in an employer-sponsored plan, those premiums have been relatively steady and stable over the last eight years. Clearly there were problems in the small group and individual market, especially for those who aren’t receiving any subsidy payments. They’re getting hammered right now. But that’s roughly 5%, 6% of the population. We can focus on them to provide relief.

Frederica Freyberg:

How have your constituents weighed in on what’s happening with health care?

Ron Kind:

Tremendous amount of confusion and angst which is unfortunate. Many of them in the insurance marketplace are wondering if they’re going to be able to continue to be there, whether they can afford the plans that are being offered. In rural Wisconsin, it’s hard to attract more plans for the competitiveness because they don’t know what the rules are going to be from month to month, yet alone year to year. That’s unfair to them. The best thing we can do is, as you mentioned, the bipartisan work that’s taking place in the Senate, short-term market stabilization, focus on the small group market and the raising cost. And let’s do something about drug prices. That’s one of the big cost drivers in the health care system. We’re not even having hearings in Congress over that.

Frederica Freyberg:

As for immigrant families in your district, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was recently terminated. What do you think should happen now?

Ron Kind:

The president has given us six months — this Congress to fix this and I hope we do sooner rather than later cause it’s patently unfair to do this to these students who are as American as anyone else’s children. To threaten to round them up and kick them out and send them to a country that they’ve never been to and they have no ties to. These are very bright, hardworking kids. I’ve been having DACA meetings throughout my Congressional district to try to reassure them that I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that’s not done to them. We’re just shooting ourselves in the foot economically if we’re going to get rid of this talent that exists right in our communities today.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you think Congress can come up with a solution?

Ron Kind:

I hope so. I hope there’s enough compassion with my colleagues that we don’t resort to what the president is calling for now and that’s kicking them out, even though they did nothing wrong. They were brought here when they were really young children. Many of them are serving in our military, willing to sacrifice their lives for the future of our country. You would think there’s a compassionate middle ground to be had here.

Frederica Freyberg:

Ron Kind, thanks very much.

Ron Kind:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

More and more Wisconsin counties are signing on to a potential lawsuit against opioid drug manufacturers. This week, three more counties approved suing to recover costs related to the prescription drug epidemic, including Marathon County. It’s among at least six counties so far voting in favor, with more board of supervisors votes to come. The Wisconsin Counties Association hopes to see nearly all counties sign on to sue. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reports that 1,031 people died in 2016 of opioid overdoses, up from 872 the prior year. Marathon County Supervisor and former pharmacy technician Sara Guild joins us from Wisconsin Rapids. Thank you very much for doing so.

Sara Guild:

I’m honored to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

Frederica Freyberg:

Your board of supervisors voted 30 to 3 to sign on to a lawsuit. Why did you vote in favor?

Sara Guild:

I vote in favor in large part because of my pharmaceutical history. As you mentioned, I was a pharmacy technician. I actually trained at Mayo Clinic back in the early 2000s. I worked for them for a few years and then later I worked for the Oneida Tribes Clinic. During that time I saw firsthand what was happening with trying to get new drugs in front of our patients. And from what I'm learning in hindsight, a lot of the information that our doctors were being told during that time frame was skewed. It wasn’t accurate. It wasn’t upfront and honest about what the actual risks were for patients. They weren’t exploring and being given the opportunity to explore alternative therapies. Because of that, patients were being directed to drugs they didn’t realize had such painful consequences. And now here we are, a decade plus later, facing this horrible epidemic that is impacting so many parts of our counties and our lives.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the drug manufacturers were actually telling prescribers that these kinds of opioids were not addictive?

Sara Guild:

So what we are being told and what I have heard and what the evidence seems to indicate in a number of reports and things like that is that the pharmaceutical companies were providing, at best, misleading and at worst outright lies in the research and the risks associated with certain medications. This wasn’t isolated necessarily to opioids, but opioids is where the greatest risk was because that was opening up a lot more people to addictions that they’ve now continued on beyond that initial prescription from a doctor whom they’re supposed to be able to trust. And those doctors were prescribing on good faith as well.

Frederica Freyberg:

So, in other words, it’s the manufacturers allegedly to blame and not the users or the prescribers.

Sara Guild:

That is how it appears from the information that we’ve been getting. The manufacturers were giving this information out solely to increase profits and to increase those sales. And as far as I'm concerned, if we have a business that is misleading consumers about the risks of what they’re doing, intentionally misleading consumers, and that misleading leads to an epidemic, a health epidemic that spans beyond just a few people to where it’s now nationwide, that’s something that needs to be addressed.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what has been the cost in your county, both financially and in a human toll?

Sara Guild:

I’ve got to say I've been shocked. I’ve been on the county board for just a year and a half. And in that year and a half, we have been asked to increase the number of social workers, to increase the number of people in our DA’s office that are handling cases related to not just drug felonies, but to the consequences of children being taken out of their homes because their parents are so addicted to drugs they can’t handle raising their kids. Our foster services are overwhelmed. Our jails are overwhelmed. We are seeing more and more costs every year with fewer and fewer resources coming from state and federal government to help us offset those. We’ve got to have some kind of statement made here that this can’t happen.

Frederica Freyberg:

We need to leave it there. But we will be watching these counties as they continue to vote on joining on to this potential lawsuit. Sara Guild, thank you very much.

Sara Guild:

Thank you very much.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now for another Wisconsin news story of the week, a debate started this week over the longstanding motto that appears on Wisconsin's license plates. “America’s Dairyland” has been in place since World War II. The head of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce suggests the slogan could use an update. He suggested the state motto “Forward.” The Wisconsin Farm Bureau responded by saying, “No other product has more of an economic impact in the state,” though Wisconsinites weighed in as well. Appearing online this week were suggestions such as Land of 10,001 lakes or Ya hey der. Despite the discussion, no formal process has begun to change the slogan. And that is our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a great weekend.

Frederica Freyberg:

Funding for “Here and Now” is provided, in part, by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.