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Insurance industry gets tax break from state
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ATLANTA - Georgia's budget woes aren't stopping the state from ringing in the new year with a hefty tax break for the insurance industry.
Among the new Georgia laws that will take effect Jan. 1 is one that will eliminate the state and local taxes for insurance carriers that offer high-deductible health plans.
The tax break is expected to save insurers $146 million over five years. They lobbied hard for the measure, which passed on the final day of the 2008 session. It was derided by critics as a "sweetheart deal" for the industry.
Georgia is facing a budget shortfall that could top $2 billion for the current fiscal year and has been slashing programs, furloughing state employees and boosting fees for college students.
The tax break will reduce the money flowing into state coffers during tough economic times. Still, Gov. Sonny Perdue isn't pulling his support. The law was part of his legislative agenda last year. A Perdue spokesman said the governor continues to believe it will provide cost savings down the road by covering some of the roughly 1.7 million Georgians who lack health insurance.
"The whole thought behind this is that if we make these plans more affordable and that we get more folks insured," spokesman Bert Brantley said.
High-deductible health plans are a favorite of Republican health policy. Participants typically put money in tax-free health savings accounts to pay medical expenses out-of-pocket until they meet a high yearly deductible, which can be several thousand dollars. Some preventive care - like annual pap smears and "well baby" visits - are covered by the plans before the deductible is reached.
Such plans are particularly attractive to people in their 20s and upper-income residents. Participants are likely healthy and don't expect big medical costs but are worried about catastrophic coverage for something like an accident or cancer.
Critics question whether the plans will do much to reduce the number of uninsured in the state.
Most have modest incomes and would be unlikely to afford thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket health expenses, said Linda Smith Lowe, a Georgia consumer health advocate.
Lowe said it is more likely that the bill will encourage employers to switch their current health care coverage to riskier high-deductible plans.
A study by the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund found that the plans discourage the use of prescription drugs and primary care visits because of the high out-of pocket expenses. The group also determined that while participation in the high-deductible plans grew in 2007 it is still just a tiny part of the market.
Alan Essig, executive director of the nonpartisan Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, said he's skeptical the tax break will lead to costs for the plans actually going down in the state.
"The only thing we know for sure is that they get a tax break," Essig said.
But Kirk McGhee, executive director of the Georgia Health Plans Association, said if the insurers want customers they will have to price the plans competitively.
"Cheaper products will get more people into the system," McGhee said. "And getting more people insured helps everyone."
McGhee acknowledged that the plans are aimed in particular at what he called "the young invincibles," those in their 20s who are healthy and shun coverage as a luxury item.
High-deductible plans are already being sold in Georgia. But the office of Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said the state has no statistics on how many are in effect and if they have drawn consumer complaints.
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Book review: Author digs into mining's complicated past and present in 'River of Lost Souls'
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Jonathan Thompson will speak about his book "River of Lost Souls" at the King's English Bookshop on Tuesday, April 3 at 7 p.m. - photo by Amanda Olson
"RIVER OF LOST SOULS: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Spill," by Jonathan Thompson, Torrey House Press, 275 pages (nf)

Plenty has been written about the very small world of a mining town and the very broad reach of a beleaguered industry. From Loretta Lynns iconic song "Coal Miners Daughter," to the 2010 nail-biting coverage of 33 trapped Chilean miners, to the hit Broadway musicals "Paint Your Wagon" and "Billy Elliot," mining is a global story, and its one of heartbreak, hard work and hard times.

Jonathan Thompsons "River of Lost Souls" examines the many facets of risk involved in taking resources from below the earths surface. An environmental journalist, Thompson has reported on southwest Colorado for over 20 years. This book is special, however, because the Four Corners area of Colorado is his current and ancestral home. Thompson is writing about minings ecological, social, financial and political impact on his land, his landscape, his water, his people. That makes "River of Lost Souls" more than a regular reporting job.

Thompson begins with the Gold King Mine wastewater disaster of 2015, which the EPA caused while attempting to drain water near the mines entrance. The spill sent 3 million gallons of waste and tailings into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River and part of the San Juan River watershed which drains into the Colorado, affecting the Utah, Colorado and New Mexico parts of that watershed as well as the Navajo Nation.

From there, Thompson jumps into far stretches of time to 1765, when a Spanish explorer named the Animas River; to 10,000 years earlier, when Paleo-Indians roamed the rivers valley; to the meridian of time, when the ancestors of the Zuni, Hopi and Rio Grande Pueblo people inhabited the land for 500 years; to the mid-1800s and the Swedes who came to Silverton, Colorado, to mine.

Its a grand scope, but telling any story of landscape is telling a very grand story.

It also makes a complex story difficult to follow. Thompsons time warps are important, but they are jarring. His time jumps need clear dates, and Thompson doesnt always make them available. A map would also be useful. Thompsons writing is good, but his sentences can be dense and require readers to do their own mining for the riches the writing embeds. The work is worthwhile, however, as there are many moving parts in any story about mines land, culture, policy, history, money, inevitable disaster and Thompson works to examine all of them.

"River of Lost Souls" is a thoughtful read, but not a quick one. Because Thompsons writings come from 20 years of his newspaper reports, the overall feeling can be disjointed and sparse, which is distracting if one is expecting to follow a tenable thread. This is not a typical narrative with a cast of characters and a traditional story arc. Readers should approach this text as the investigation it is: puzzle pieces of a larger-than-life story that is eons old. If you are the kind of reader who wants it laid out cleanly, this is not that book. But, to Thompsons point, nothing is clean about mining that has never been the case.

Thompsons best writing is in his descriptions of people and places. His telling of how he came to Silverton is familiar and engaging. If readers approach the book with care and attention, they will be rewarded with savoring these descriptive passages when they happen.
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