Word: panels
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Klein's "Hot Buttons" [June 15]: How long must we endure this controversy over Judge Sonia Sotomayor's decision in the Ricci v. DeStefano case before the media learn to ask the right question? Sotomayor, the junior judge on a three-judge panel, did not endorse New Haven's decision to discard the promotion test for a group of firefighters when not enough minority firefighters passed the test. She merely declined to step into the matter--as an activist jurist might have done--to tell New Haven that discarding the test was the wrong thing to do. Those are different...
...Shalala says. "If Congress is going to be involved in the nitty-gritty payment details, reform is dead." Obama wants to let another independent agency, similar to the military-base-closing commission, recommend how to pay for quality, which would limit political haggling. But even if such a panel focused on clinical effectiveness rather than cost-effectiveness - so that taxpayers would cover vastly more expensive approaches as long as they were slightly more effective - the shift would still be dramatic for Medicare, which currently covers just about any possibly effective treatment with virtually no regard for cost. If Medicare takes...
Warren's dealings with Geithner hit some bumps early on too. After he took office, the panel requested for months that Geithner testify before it; he ignored the request at first but eventually relented. "The most generous interpretation would be that he was staggeringly busy, and to be well prepared for a hearing takes time," Warren says of Geithner, who testified in April. "The less generous interpretation would be that ... we were not on the best of terms." She insists that things are now going more smoothly...
When asked what the biggest challenge is, in terms of getting important data, former New Hampshire Senator John Sununu, the second Republican on the panel, pauses for a long time. "Working with Treasury is like working with any other government entity," he says. "If you're talking to the right person and have a good relationship with them, you can get access to information in a timely way. If you're not successful at making your request a priority for them, it may take a while...
...Smith Goes to Washington Warren was an unlikely choice to head the oversight panel, not least because of her lack of familiarity with Washington parlor games. Her academic specialty is bankruptcy law, especially as it pertains to the American middle class. She emerged on the public stage in 2003, when she published the book The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke, co-authored with her daughter. The book argues that women and middle-class couples were driving themselves to ruin trying to buy houses in good public-school districts: "Having a child is now the single...