We begin this morning with some inside baseball.

Barring unexpected obstacles, and perhaps delayed due to a brief hiatus on the part of the fellow in charge (see note at end), something new is likely to appear on these pages within a week or so: Advertising.

Present plans are for the ads to appear underneath the “Log in” selections but above “Archives” in the column over there on the right.

These ads will be text. Just words, no logos, picture or other graphics, at least not for now.

The purpose of these ads, like the purpose of all advertisements in all news operations, is to provide said operation with revenue.

In this case, the revenue to be provided is likely to end up somewhere between paltry and minimal. Indeed, the mere appearance of the ad provides not a penny. The pennies (and we are talking pennies) start to flow only if a reader clicks on an ad.

(No, don’t click just to create revenue for the News Guy. That’s not cricket. Click only if you are interested in the good or service being advertised).

For the foreseeable future, then, the financing of this web site will continue to depend largely on: (1) the personal resources of its proprietor-publsisher-writer-editor-researcher-floorsweeper; (2) donations from readers.

Of late, the News Guy has been gratified by the noticeable increase in the number of people who have registered so they can get ‘Twitter’ updates about the posts and so they can comment should they wish.

Alas, this increase has not been matched by a concomitant increase in the number of donors. All who have not donated, are hereby invited to do so. Just hit “Donate” (under “Pages,” top right) and follow directions.

The News Guy accurately quoted the fellow who said the $112,000 that would be saved by hiring union workers for the new Lake Champlain bridge amounted to less than one percent of the roughly $1.7 million that could be saved by instituting a Project Labor Agreement (See “Non-Union Blues,” April 28)

But as a couple of readers pointed out, $112,000 is more like 6.25 percent of $1.7 million.

That’s still a small percentage of the total projected savings, but the News Guy should have thought to check the numbers. (And did, briefly. That post was written the evening of the big snow, in constant fear of losing Internet connection if not electricity, so it was written and published hastily. But that’s not really much of an excuse).

In another recent post (Political Health, April 24) the News Guy promised to explain soon why a single-payer health care system, whatever it advantages as a nationwide system, might be disastrous if adopted in one state. Herewith, the explanation.

In a single-payer system, health care is paid for with tax money. That’s actual tax money, from the taxes we call taxes, not the ‘taxes’ we call health insurance premiums.

Here’s an undeniable fact about taxes: it’s hard to raise them. People don’t like tax increases. Neither do politicians, who try to find some alternative. Any alternative.

There is no reason to think that health care costs will not continue to rise. Single-payer advocates argue that universal service itself will restrain costs. They’re probably right. But no one has presented persuadable evidence that simply covering everyone in and of itself will be enough to keep health care from getting more expensive.

So every once in a while, the Legislature and the governor will have to raise taxes to pay for the higher cost of health care. Or try to find an alternative.

One alternative is all but sure to be reducing pay to providers. That’s jargon for paying the doctors less. We know that this is likely because it is  what Congress has done for years; as health care costs rise, Congress regularly reduces provider pay for Medicare and Medicaid services.

Doctors don’t like it, but what can they do? They can’t go anywhere. Where would they go? To Canada? But Canada has a single-payer system. To Mexico? Not likely. In fact, almost nowhere in the world do doctors earn nearly as much as they do in the United States. It’s one reason U.S. health care costs so much more per person than it does in the rest of the world.

A few doctors refuse to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. But not many. That’s an awful lot of patients to give up.

But if Vermont starts cutting physician fees, it’s no trick for physicians to go elsewhere. Many of them wouldn’t even have to move, residentially speaking. They could stay right in their present house and just move their practice to New Hampshire, New York, or Massachusetts.

In other words, if Vermont all by itself adopts a single-payer system, Vermont all by itself could find itself short of doctors in a few years.

Because it is the big guy on the block, the Burlington Free Press has often been the butt of criticism at this web site. So it’s only fair to point out that the paper has committed some first class journalism in recent weeks. Much of it has been the work of Candace Page, who seems to have returned from her recent leave of absence with renewed energy.

But she’s not the only one.  The duo covering the Legislature, Nancy Remsen and Terri Hallenbeck, are doing a good job. Time constraints (two reporters are really not enough for legislative coverage, especially as the session nears its end) prevent them from probing as deeply beneath the surface as some (probably including the two of them) might like. But they get the important stories and they get them right.

Let’s not, however, be too kind to the Freep. One thing its editors should seriously consider is doing away with those “My Turn” columns that regularly run on or across from the editorial page. Sure, it’s a cheap way to fill space (the writers are not paid), but the columns are full of misinformation.

Why wouldn’t they be? There is no requirement that the writers know what they’re talking about. Most are identified only by their town of residence: “Joe Schmoe lives in Colchester.” Living in Colchester is not a credential.

Sunday’s paper provided a perfect example. There one C. Joseph Soper (whose “credential” is that he lives in Burlington) pronounces himself “bemused” over opposition to the possible arrival of the new (and apparently quite noisy) F-35 fighter planes for use by the Air National Guard.

Only  Soper knows what bemuses him, and he may be right that the pluses of welcoming the new plane to South Burlington outweigh the minuses. But when he proclaims that “jobs disappear almost daily” in Vermont, he appears not to know that during this Recession they have disappeared more slowly here than in most states. All he had to do was check the unemployment statistics.

Pointing out that other sites are being considered for the F-35, Soper said, “ I strongly suspect the other installations involved have not adopted anywhere near the response we seem to be reflecting. In fact, theirs is most probably one of great excitement over the prospect of being chosen.”

Well, he may strongly suspect it, but he’s wrong. Some ten minutes of surfing the Internet could have told him that comparable opposition to the F-35 has sprung up in, among other places, Tucson, Key West, and Mountain Home, Utah.

This is not Soper’s fault, at least not primarily. He’s not in the news business, so he doesn’t know that a writer’s strong suspicion is insufficient. The rule is: Check it out. If your mother says she loves you, check that out, too.

But the editors of the Free Press are in the news business. They ought to edit those columns for accuracy or get rid of them. They may be good public relations. They are bad journalism.

NOTE: There will be no News Guy posting Wednesday, and perhaps not on Friday either, due to a death in the “family.” That’s in quotes because the person who died was not a relative, but a dear friend of many years.

But first, some correction and amplification:

Until about 1:15 PM Friday, readers of Friday’s post may have understood that the State Senate was toying with the idea of diverting $6.89, otherwise known as six dollars and eighty-nine cents, from one fund to another.

Presumably most readers of this web site are alert, more alert in this case than is, at least sometimes, the writer of this web site, and understood that what the meant was $6.89 million.

But what’s few zeros among friends? And thanks to the readers who noted the omission.

Also, Sen. Ann Cummings is chair of the Senate Finance committee, not, as Friday’s post said (again, until corrected), the Appropriations Committee. Susan Bartlett is Appropes chair.

Something else was absent from Friday’s post because it was not clear on Thursday, at least not to the News Guy, and apparently not to many legislators. That $10 million to be raised by considering some capital assets – expensive houses, stocks and bonds, etc. – when applying the “income sensitivity” provision on the statewide school property tax is not slated to go into the Education Fund.

Instead, for the first time, money from the school property tax would go into the General Fund.

Like any policy change, this one might be defensible, or even wise. But it does stretch if not violate the understanding that the school property tax would be used to support the schools, not the rest of state government. It’s only $10 million, but when it comes to taxes, experience shows that the first exception is rarely the last.

Now, to today’s main order of business, also inspired by readers who have communicated by email, old-fashioned phone calls, and even older-fashioned personal conversations (you may remember them; the kind where the conversers are actually in the same place at the same time).

The question: why, right after the entire United State Government adopts a comprehensive change in the health care financing system, is the Vermont Legislature passing a bill to study comprehensive change in the state’s health care system?

Good question, because it can be answered with one word: politics.

That’s a description, not a condemnation. Politics, the method by which free people govern themselves, is not a pejorative. It’s a reality.

The political reality against which lawmakers have based their political decision to pass S.88 http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2010/bills/Senate/S-088.pdf (in separate House and Senate versions that have yet to be resolved) is that Vermont is home to a politically significant  minority of voters who are convinced of the superiority of a ‘single-payer’ health care financing system—basically Medicare for everyone.

No, that was an understatement. These folks are not merely convinced of the superiority of a single payer system; they are committed to such a system with a fervor approaching that of a religious zealot’s  devotion to his faith, with comparable intolerance toward dissent.

This too is description not (except for the intolerance part) condemnation. Clearly, there is a case to be made for a single-payer system. It is how most civilized (prosperous, democratic) countries finance health care. In those countries, everyone is covered, they live longer, healthier lives than Americans, and it’s all done for a lot less money per person.

The focus here today. Though, is not on the policy, but on the politics, the first requirement of which is, in the words of  Richard J. Daley to “know how to count,” raising the question of how big is this constituency of single-payer enthusiasts.

Not very. Nobody has polled on the matter, but we are almost surely talking about less than 10 percent of the adult Vermont population, though probably more than five percent. For purposes of discussion, then, let’s say seven percent, or about 20,000 voters.

Ah, but it’s a strategically positioned seven percent. Just about every one of them identifies with either the Democratic or the Progressive Parties. Furthermore, just about every man (and woman)-jack of them will vote. Unless the Progressive Party puts up its own candidate for governor, most of them will vote in the Democratic primary in August. In what is likely to be a low-turnout election, this faction will make far more than seven percent. It could come close to a majority.

Obviously, then, two outcomes Democrats – and especially Democratic candidates for governor — want to avoid are: (1) Displeasing these primary voters and (2) Annoying the Progressives so much that they decide to find a gubernatorial candidate of their own, who would siphon off more votes from the Democratic contender than from Republican, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie. Months ago the Progs declared that Democratic support for a single-payer health care system was among their sina qua nons for staying out of the race.

So it should be no surprise that Sen. Doug Racine, one of the five Democrats running for governor, introduced the bill to engage a consultant to study health care reform, with specific directions to look into the single-payer option. No surprise either that few Democrats opposed it.

There is no suggestion here of insincerity or cynicism on the part of Racine or the other Democrats. Racine has long been a single-payer proponent. He no doubt thinks it would benefit Vermont, and he could be right.

(Or not. If there is a strong case for the entire nation to adopt a single-payer system, there is an equally strong case for a single state to avoid it, for reasons to be discussed in another post soon).

Nor is the earnestness of other Democrats and Progressives in the Legislature open to doubt. Judging from a couple of overheard conversations outside the second floor cafeteria in the Statehouse the other day, some of them are so solemn and intense about the subject that they may have lost touch with reality.

But sincerity and political self-interest are not mutually exclusive, and there seems little doubt that whatever else they may be doing, the Democrats are pandering to one of their core constituencies. Absent that intense minority of single-payer enthusiasts, this bill might never have come before the Legislature.

Again, this is observation, not condemnation. All political factions pander to constituencies. Gov. Jim Douglas, for instance,, has of late been pandering to the home builders and the all-terrain vehicle riders. Politicians not only have to pander, but up to a point they should. It’s part of democracy.

The point at which they should not pander, of course, is reached when the interest of the pandered-to constituency is actually contrary to the public interest. But that does not seem to be the case here. The worst that can be said about this consultant study is that it will spend $250,000 that may not have to be spent. As unnecessary expenditure, this is small potatoes, and for a function likely to be more productive than the comparable expenditure on the pointless pornography-detecting software the Douglas Administration is in the process of installing on state computer systems.

Besides, the process might do some good. The consulting firm is likely to look at the possibility of replacing the fee-for-service method of paying doctors. Many health care economists consider fee-for-service second only to the high price of prescription drugs as an explanation for why health care is so much more expensive in the U.S. than elsewhere.

But the consultant report will not pave the way for Vermont to adopt a single-payer health care system. That’s because Vermont, on its own, is not going to adopt such a system, not now, and possibly not ever. Federal law forbids it until at least 2017, and while Congress could theoretically grant the state a waiver from the prohibition, the prudent Vermonter would be advised neither to hold his/her breath nor to bet next month’s mortgage payment on that outcome.

The real – if not, it should be stressed, the intended — purpose of this legislation is not to change Vermont’s health care system. It is to send a signal to a small but potent constituency. It seems to have worked.

The News Guy is hot on the trail of several complicated and controversial stories, none yet ready for public consumption.

But fear not. He will not leave you in the lurch, There are always some tidbits, none worth a major take-out on its own, but interesting in small doses.

Consider, for instance, the recent meeting of the Rural Sociology Association in Madison, Wisconsin. Like most gatherings devoted to rural America, this one seemed pitched mostly to the South and the Midwest; lots of talk about the pros and cons of ethanol. But there was also some information that could apply to small towns and rural areas everywhere, even in Vermont.

As reported by Bill Bishop in The Daily Yonder, several of the sociologists reported that their studies found that while rural and small town residents want to make money (who doesn’t?) that wasn’t all they wanted. It wasn’t even what they most wanted.

Terry Besser of Iowa State University studied “thriving small towns” which, she said, were more likely to be in remote areas than close to cities. That seemed to be because the more remote areas required more community involvement.

“You may have less income if you’re more remote, but you will have more connections,” she said.

Rural people who lived near a city were likely to work in that city, meaning they had longer commutes as well as weaker ties to the town they lived in.

Incomes were higher, but she said there was a sense that “people were just living in a place,” rather than really belonging to it.

On the other hand, residents of the tiniest towns and villages seemed less content than those who lived in slightly larger municipalities. In very small towns, she found (according to Bishop) “people burned out working on their communities. Communities of at least 5,000 residents ‘have an advantage over those 1,500 and below,”Besser said.

Similarly, Cheryl Burkhart-Kriesel of the University of Nebraska found that people moved to small towns in that state seeking “a slower way of life,” and closer ties with relatives. Only a third said they moved to take a higher paying job.

No doubt that’s true of many Vermonters. Not that anyone wants to be poor, or even low-income. But apparently a great many people have figured out that – contrary to what one reads in some circles – it isn’t necessary to be all that high income, either.

The lesson being that in pondering “economic development,” its costs, as well as the benefits ought to be in the mix.

Speaking of costs and benefits, here’s an item that the boys in biz school would probably warn against, as it comes under the heading of free advertising for the competition.

But have you noticed that there’s a new, on-line, newspaper in the state? It’s called vermontdailynews.com, and you are invited to Google away for it.

It isn’t really competition, since it: (1) concentrates on Chittenden County rather than statewide matters; and (2) seems to do little (or maybe no) actual reporting on its own. It aggregates nicely, though, and the photography is superb. Word has it that the guy who runs it is a photographer, but for some reason he doesn’t identify himself (or anyone else) in the “About” link.

Don’t be shy, fellas. Tell us who you are.

The health care debate is nationwide, and not specifically a Vermont issue, especially because it’s pretty clear that a substantial majority of Vermonters favor the Obama/Democratic approach to changing the system, if not changing it even more (you will note absence of the word “reform,” a word honest reporters ought not use; “reform” means “to improve by alteration.” Whether the proposed alteration is an improvement is precisely what is at issue).

But along with the other northern tier states, Vermont gets a little attention because it borders Canada, whose health care system is held up as a paragon of virtue by one side and as a sinkhole of horrors by the other. Many a Vermonter knows both: (1) a neighbor who sneaks over to Canada for less expensive prescription drugs; and (2) a wealthy Canadian who has come to the U.S. for elective surgery (paying for it out of pocket) rather than wait months to get the same treatment there.

How pleasing then to find a peer-reviewed, intellectually honest , comparative study of health care in the two countries by American and Canadian physicians and policy experts. It was actually a study of studies, and here’s how we know it’s intellectually honest: it says that for some ailments Canadians seem to get better treatment, but for others it’s the folks South of the border who get better results.

Anyone who resists the temptation to oversimplify and overstate his/her case should be taken seriously.

The study was limited to examining whether there are “differences in health outcomes (mortality or morbidity) in patients suffering from similar medical conditions treated in Canada versus those treated in the United States.”

Neither country “won” in every category. Even these folks, though, have to conclude that by and large the Canadian system serves its people better, not to mention a lot cheaper.

“Despite the limitations of the available studies, some robust conclusions are possible from our systematic review,” the report concluded. “These results are incompatible with the hypothesis that American patients receive consistently better care than Canadians. Americans are not, therefore, getting value for money; the 89% higher per-capita expenditures on health care in the United States does not buy superior outcomes for the sick.

“Canadian health care…produces health benefits similar, or perhaps superior, to those of the US health system, but at a much lower cost.”

But we knew that.