In his review of Atul Gawande’s Checklist Manifesto, NewTalk founder and NewTalker Philip K. Howard argues that although a careful checklists that ensures cleanliness and safety might be life-saving in an operating room, Dr. Gawande’s theory falls short when he attempts to make the broader point that formal checklists are a key to success in nearly all aspects of daily life—as Dr. Gawande puts it: ”Checklists seem able to defend everyone, even the experienced, against failure in many more tasks than we realized. They provide a kind of cognitive net. They catch mental flaws.” Dr. Gawande goes so far in one example as to suggest that a proper checklist can successfully delegate authority, which he contrasts with an ineffectual centralized bureaucracy. On the contrary, Howard contends that “giving someone the authority to use her judgment means relying on individual creativity and improvisation—the opposite of a checklist.” Howard notes that “bureaucracy is nothing but checklists.” “Accomplishment is personal,” Howard concludes. “Dr. Gawande is right to note that checklists are indispensable in situations where a small mistake can lead to tragic consequences, as in surgery. But his call for a broad checklist regime would be counterproductive—fraught with all the dangers of bureaucracy and excessive law.” [Wall Street Journal]

In his most recent column in the National Journal, NewTalker Stuart Taylor addresses the “calcification” of American democracy, arguing that “governments at all levels” are seemingly unable to meet America’s challenges. Taking up an argument often made by Philip K. Howard, Taylor states that special interest groups - who, since the 1960s have “pressed governments and courts to elevate their ‘rights’ … over the public good" - are partly to blame for this governmental dysfunction. Taylor quotes Howard who argues that, over time, this deference to self-interests “has created a ‘jungle of law, growing denser every year, that has submerged individual responsibility to do what makes sense under a deluge of rules and rights, and paradoxically undermined everyone's freedom.’” Taylor quotes Howard further, relating his argument that: “Individual responsibility should be the principle by which America reforms its public institutions …. Americans increasingly feel frustrated and powerless because law has corroded the hierarchy of responsibility needed for anything to work.” [National Journal]

In an op-ed for the New York Daily News, NewTalker Philip K. Howard argues that, with the American health care system’s estimated $1 trillion of wasted spending every year, reform needs to focus on containing costs.  “That's the only way America can afford universal care,” Howard writes.  He continues that “[w]hat's missing in American health care is a basic principle essential to all human accomplishment: Individual responsibility, in this case responsibility for prudent use of health care resources.”  To achieve this, Howard outlines a four-pronged overhaul to the current system: “(1) pay doctors based on overall results, not piecework reimbursement; (2) require patients who can afford it to pay a meaningful portion of their care; (3) minimize defensive medicine by creating a reliable system of medical justice; (4) reduce bureaucratic overhead and complexity (which also clears out the thicket in which fraud can hide).” 

For a more detailed explanation, read the entire article on the New York Daily News website.

On December 11, 2009, Philip K. Howard sat down with NPR's Robert Siegel to discuss medical liability reform as part of the Maxwell School/Public Agenda Policy Breakfast Series.

Watch the video below:

[Public Agenda]

NewTalk founder (and frequent NewTalker) Philip K. Howard has two recent pieces of note:

• In a posting at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Reform Galaxy blog, Howard discusses the value of health courts as a tool not just for reliable justice, but for improved care and cost containment as well. Referencing Common Good's December 10th forum, "Fulfilling the Promise" - organized with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - he argues that, despite the trial bar’s opposition to reform, “patient safety experts, consumer groups, providers, as well as editorial boards and the public at large, all overwhelmingly support trying to create a reliable foundation of justice.” [Health Reform Galaxy]

• “Strong leadership, respect for authority, and perception of fairness are essential to create a positive, productive school culture,” Philip K. Howard writes in a piece for EducationNext. "And yet the encroachment of due process into daily discipline decisions has undermined all three.” Citing a 2009 study by Richard Arum and Doreet Preiss showing that the real threat of litigation has harmed the learning process, Howard suggests that educators "reverse course" by re-enforcing the role of teachers as leaders in the classroom, and by fostering a culture that will "encourage all members of the school community to participate in promoting the values and discipline protocols in schools." [EducationNext]

NewTalk's parent organization, Common Good, with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will hold a forum on December 10th, 2009, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.  The forum, titled "Fulfilling The Promise: Advancing Patient Safety and Medical Liability Reform Innovations," is intended to educate "states, health care systems, and other interested entities and individuals...about patient safety and medical liability reform innovations, and how to develop viable proposals for submission to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality next January."

NewTalk founder and frequent NewTalker Philip K. Howard will be among the speakers, listed below:

• Dr. Lucian L. Leape, Chair, Lucian Leape Institute at the National Patient Safety Foundation
• Michelle Mello, Professor of Law and Public Health, Harvard School of Public Health
• Randall R. Bovbjerg, Senior Fellow, Health Policy Center, The Urban Institute
  
• Nancy Foster, Vice President for Quality and Patient Safety Policy, American Hospital Association
• Dr. Albert L. Strunk, Deputy Executive Vice President, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
• Elaine Brightwater, Senior Project Coordinator, Center for Development and Disability, University of New Mexico
• E. Donald Elliott, Professor (adj) of Law, Yale Law School and Partner, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Washington DC
• Richard C. Boothman, Chief Risk Officer, University of Michigan Health System
• Gordon H. Smith, Executive Vice President, Maine Medical Association
• Dr. Alan C. Woodward, Former President, Massachusetts Medical Society
• Martin J. Hatlie, President, Partnership for Patient Safety
• David J. Oakley, Counsel, Healthcare, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
• Robert J. Walling, Principal and Consultant, Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc.
• Philip K. Howard, Chair, Common Good

Questions the forum will address include:

• How can projects be designed to address both patient safety and medical liability?
• What are the best ways to include key stakeholders in projects?
• How can projects be measured and evaluated?

The event will be webcast live, beginning at 8:30AM on December 10th, from the following site: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=64481.

[Common Good]

In a release featuring NewTalkers Philip K. Howard (our founder) and Will Marshall, the Associated Press reports a "boost" for the health courts concept, thanks to President Obama's "willingness to consider alternatives to medical malpractice lawsuits." According to the release, proponents of health courts, and similar proposals such as the one put forth by the American Hospital Association, will have an opportunity to to "urge the administration to provide funds for a pilot program" at a Health and Human Services hearing next week. "Obama has set aside $25 million to test a range of alternatives to malpractice litigation, and the hearing is the first step in deciding how to distribute it."

Philip Howard and NewTalk's parent organization, Common Good, are cited as long time proponents of the health courts idea. According to Howard, "all patients would benefit from such a system because it would create an incentive for doctors to follow clinical best practice guidelines."  "Defensive medicine," Howard argues, "is the result of distrust by doctors in situations where they are blamed when a sick person get sicker, but they didn't do anything wrong." The health courts concept is intended to alleviate this culture of fear and distrust while still providing fair compensation to injured patients.

Will Marshall supports the idea, according to the release. "There is a progressive opportunity here to leapfrog what has been a stereotypically polarized debate in Washington," says Marshall. "This serves both progressive and conservative goals. You wouldn't have to have a terrible injury and attract an enterprising malpractice lawyer to have access to court. And it would reduce malpractice premiums."

[Associated Press]

The lead story on CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” yesterday was a report on the impact of legal fear in America.   segment featured NewTalk founder Philip K. Howard, and discussed his latest book, Life Without Lawyers.  In an interview, Howard explained that “law is vital in a free society....But law is a framework for freedom.  It shouldn’t be a system of micromanagement where it gets in the way of everyone’s daily choices.”

The report also featured interviews with several supporters of Howard's message, including fellow NewTalker Randi Weingarten. “Phil Howard is one of our heroes,” said Weingarten, referring to Howard’s advocacy for teachers:

There's some notion that has seemed to leave us, that teachers have a lot of common sense. And if you actually left it to their own professional latitude and judgment, and their own common sense, they could do a really good job....To trust people is what he's saying. And I think that's heroic.

[CBS Sunday Morning]

Last Tuesday, Sepetember 29, found NewTalk Founder (and frequent New Talker) Philip K. Howard in the Wall Street Journal with an op-ed titled "Why Medical Malpractice Reform is Off Limits." In the piece, Howard laments that even though serious reform to the current medical malpractice system could save upwards of $200 billion annually, and even though there's broad support for it—including from a number of parient safety groups—"this is the one reform Washington will not seriously consider." This, Howard argues, is due in large part to the fact that trial lawyers are a powerful lobby, and among the largest contributors to the Democratic party. "Trial lawyers trade on the unreliability of [the current] justice [system]," Howard explains, and this creates a culture of litigation that is unequipped to distinguish good medical care from bad.

Howard proposes specialized, expert health courts as a potential remedy for the unreliable justice of medical malpractice litigation. Howard counters with a modest proposal the claim (often put forward by trial lawyers) that "any alternative to the current medical malpractice justice system...will only make it more difficult for injured patients to seek justice":

That's why you start with a pilot project. If these courts are unfair they will be rejected. But if they succeed—that is, are fairer to patients and doctors—they could provide a solid foundation for rebuilding an effective, less costly health-care system than we have today.

[Wall Street Journal]

In the October 3rd edition of the National Journal, NewTalker Stuart Taylor expands on Howard's theme in a piece titled "Wasting Billions, Doing Injustice.” Like Howard, Taylor aruges that America’s current medical liability system may be good for trial lawyers, but it's bad for patients and doctors, and a major factor in the overall high cost of health care because it encourages doctors to practice defensive medicine.

Taylor also endorses a system of expert health courts, calling it the “most promising proposal” to reform America's current liability system:

By efficiently separating valid from invalid claims, health courts could award malpractice victims more-timely, more-certain compensation, with far lower legal and administrative costs. Health courts would also better protect blameless doctors and thus reduce defensive medicine.

[National Journal]

Jay Greene hasn't been the only NewTalker advocating reforms.  NewTalk founder and frequent participant Philip K. Howard has been busy with his correspondence for TheAtlantic.com. Since the release last week of the Common Good- and CED-funded survey showing that a large majority of voting Americans are interested not only in medical malpractice reform but a system of specialized health courts to resolve malpractice cases (a cause for which both Howard and Common Good have long advocated), Howard has written two articles on the subject.

In Next Steps for Malpractice Reform, Howard calls on President Obama and Congress to listen to the popular voice's call for reforming the legal system to curb defensive medicine.

In The Menu of Malpractice Reforms, Howard expands on this idea, alluding to the President's pledge to "promote pilot projects to solve the problem of defensive medicine," and arguing that "creating special health courts is the proposal advanced by most serious observers to eliminate the incentives for defensive medicine—including by consumer groups such as AARP, patient safety groups, medical societies such as the AMA and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and by such thought leaders as Bill Bradley, Mark McClellan, Newt Gingrich, and David Brooks." Referring again to the survey, Howard further notes that the health courts proposal also has 67% approval from the public.

[The Atlantic]

The ever-growing community of NewTalk experts is full of thoughtful minds who frequently contribute to, or are featured in, the news.  Today, education professor Jay Greene—the moderator of NewTalk's 2nd forum on NCLB—discusses "The Problems With Special Ed" in the National Review Online.  Greene is concerned about the increasing number of public school children categorized as "learning disabled," and the dramatic variation from state to state.  He notes that nearly twice as many New Jersey students are classified as disabled as their California counterparts.  "There is no medical ‎reason," he argues, "why students in New Jersey should be 71 percent more likely to be placed into ‎special education than students in California."

Greene notes that over the last three decades, the number of students classified as disabled has increased 63%, and 86% of that increase has been in two categories—"specific learning disability (SLD, which includes dyslexia) and 'other health' (which ‎includes attention-deficit disorders—ADD)," which categories Greene describes as "relatively mild and ‎ambiguous.”‎

Greene aruges that the upshot of this is an alarming number of speciously-, or just plain wrongly-diagnosed Special Ed students—students who "may be struggling because they ‎have been taught poorly or because they have a difficult home life" but in fact have no true diability; "wrongly identified ‎as disabled who really need only remedial education.‎"

Greene cites various probable cuse such as extra federal funding given to schools for disabilities.  He also enumerates a number of dangers he sees in this systemic misclassification—ranging from inefficiencies and mountains of unnecessary procedural paperwork to detrimental stigmatization and inappropriately lowered academic expecations, as well as fewer available resources for the truly disabled students.

Greene's solution is to "develop procedures for identifying and auditing disability classifications independent of the school ‎systems, which suffer from obvious conflicts of interest. If reforms are not instituted," he says, "it won’t be ‎long until we live in a Lake Woebegone where all children are above average, and the ones ‎who aren’t are labeled 'disabled.'" [Nation Review Online]‎

A new nationwide poll (pdf) commissioned jointly by NewTalk's parent organization Common Good and the Committee for Economic Development, and conducted by Clarus Research Group, reveals vast public support for medical liability reform and specialized health courts—83% of American voters want Congress to address medical liability reform as part of any health care reform package, and 67% support the creation of health courts.

In his address to Congress last night, President Barack Obama proposed moving forward on a range of medical liability reform ideas that “put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine.”  Common Good’s health courts proposal, as explained by founder and chair (and frequent NewTalker) Philip K. Howard in this New York Times op-ed, does exactly that.

“The American people want the system of medical justice to change,” Howard stated in a press release announcing the poll’s results.  “They are saying it in very large numbers, and they want it to change as part of health care reform.”

You can read the full press release—which includes endorsements from Senators Mike Enzi (R-NV) and Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), and former Senator Bill Bradley—, and the pdf summary of the poll results on Philip K. Howard's website.

[PhililpKHoward.com]

In a recent interview with Learning Matters, Education Professor and NewTalker Diane Ravitch discussed the failures of government programs like No Child Left Behind, but explained that privatization of the public school system is not the answer.

"We know from the recent CREDO study at Stanford, that charter schools run the gamut from excellent to abysmal, and many studies have found that charters, on average, produce no better results than the regular public schools. Deregulation nearly destroyed our economy in the past decade, and we better be careful that we don’t destroy our public schools too."

She believes rather that the key is to find "the kind of leadership [in government] that can figure out how to improve our public school system" without resorting to a privatized sytem.

Fellow education NewTalker Neal McCluskey of the CATO Institute has taken issue with Prof. Ravitch's assertion that charter schools are an example of "privatization."  He explains, "Charter schooling - a system by which public schools are given a right to exist and largely held accountable by government - isn’t even close to 'privatization,' if by that we mean taking control from government and giving it to free, 'private' individuals." 

But McCluskey's main bone to pick with Prof. Ratvich is on the issue of what he calls "freedom in education."  McCluskey argues, "Ravitch’s apparent fear of freedom forces her to deny the only hope for making American education really work:  to empower all parents to choose, and to set educators free."  McCluskey says that rather than resting on the "reality-ignoring hope" that the right kind of government leadership will one day appear, America should adopt the same freemarket, deregulated approach to education that has given us the "powerful innovation and progress we take for granted in everything from consumer electronics to restaurants."


Sources:

• Taking Note: Privatization Will Not Help Us Achieve Our Goals: An Interview with Diane Ravitch [Learning Matters]


• Fear of Freedom Leaves Only Faith Healing for Our Schools [CATO@Liberty]

NewTalk founder and frequent NewTalker Philip K. Howard has been hard at work, contributing a timely series of op-eds on health care reform.

• As we mentioned in a previous story, Howard explained why Health Reform Requires Lawsuit Reform in the the Wall Street Journal on July 15.
• On July 31, Howard discussed Health Reform's Taboo Topic to readers of the Washington Post.  Excerpts of the piece were also circulated by the Dallas Morning News.
  
• And today, Howard continued his correspondence for TheAtlantic.com with the two-part "Fixing Healthcare" — Part One: An Inventory of Cost-Containment and Part Two: The Path to a New Healthcare System.
  

As always, you can keep up with Howard's op-eds on the Articles page of his website.

NewTalker Timothy S. Jost has a piece entitled Health Care Reform Requires Law Reform in the policy journal Health Affairs. Jost argues that as Congress moves forward with health care reform, it will need to "understand state law requirements to decide how much federal preemption is necessary for health reform." Reform may come at the federal or state level, or even with limited scope in the private sector. But, Jost says, assuming reform will come at the federal level, knowledge of existing state laws will help curb the risk for contradiction and/or unnecessary or detrimental lawmaking.

The article is filled with suggestions for how government should handle its policy role, regardless of the form health care reform takes.  Among the suggestions is one to reduce liability concerns and the practice known as defensive medicine:

"One approach that might not only reduce liability concerns but might also improve the quality of care would be for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to implement a statute that provides liability immunity for physicians who comply with practice guidelines standards created by Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs)."

Read the article [Health Affairs]

NewTalk founder (and frequent NewTalker) Philip K. Howard will appear today on CNBC's Power Lunch to discuss and debate health care reform and defensive medicine.

The segment begins at 1:20 PM ET.

NewTalk founder Philip K. Howard's latest op-ed, Health Reform Requires Lawsuit Reform, appears in today's Wall Street Journal. Howard argues that the only way to contain the cost of health care is to realign incentives away from providing unnecessary care. "Every incentive in the system now is to do more," he writes. "That's how doctors get paid and that's how doctors get protected from lawsuits."

Reform solutions are out there—in particular, a system of special health courts to replace juries in medical suits and bring reliability to medical justice (a familiar Common Good proposal). But, Howard fears, Congress may be unwilling to make hard decisions, lest they offend special interests. "Like a crash in slow motion," Howard writes, "you can see Congress tumbling down toward the lowest common denominator—a reform package that will do little to contain costs, but will offend the least number of special interests."

The special interest of particular note are the trial lawyers who, along with likeminded representatives in Congress, have rejected experimenting with health courts even on a pilot basis. "Congress is mortgaging our children's future," Howard concludes. "Cost containment must be a goal. Protecting trial lawyers is not the solution."

Read the article [Wall Street Journal]

In a piece today for Forbes.com, NewTalk participant John P. Avlon discusses the causes and effects of New York City's culture of litigation.

"New York City spends more money on lawsuits than the next five largest American cities—Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Philadelphia—combined...[and] now allocates more taxpayer dollars to settling personal-injury lawsuits than it does to parks, transportation, homeless services or the City University system."

Avlon says that 90% of the city's claims are personal injury cases, and that medical malpractice suits are the priciest of these, "draining $145.3 million from city coffers in fiscal year 2008."

Citing a number of outlandish cases—including a man who won $2.3 million for drunkenly stumbling onto subway tracks and losing a leg, and a judge who broke his knee and sued a courthouse and cleaning woman for "negligently using a mop and soapy water"—Avlon argues that the reason New York City is so litigious may be rooted in state laws. "While many states restrict lawsuits against municipalities to state claims courts, which are overseen by only a judge and tend to restrain damages," he explains, "New York allows citizens to sue municipalities in jury trials."

Among his recommendations, Avlon proposes establishing a Court of Claims for municipal cases "to restrain outsize judgments."

Avlon closes his piece with a memorable quote from another NewTalker, former Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith: "If you can get criminals under control, surely you can get lawyers under control."

Read Sue City at Forbes.com

Philip K. Howard (the founder of NewTalk, and a frequent NewTalker) has become a correspondent for The Atlantic.

• His latest piece discusses the Supreme Court’s Ricci decision and the "illusive quest for workplace fairness." Read the article at TheAtlantic.com.
  
  You can also read his past Atlantic articles: Spring Cleaning in Washington and Cutting Healthcare Costs: Back to Basics.
  

You can always follow Howard's activities at PhilipKHoward.com. You'll find a complete archive of articles, upcoming radio, TV, and public appreances, as well as Howard's blog.

Starting in late September 2009, NewTalk will join forces with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government to present a special series of discussions on civic entrepreneurship.

Led by Harvard Kennedy School faculty members Stephen Goldsmith (a frequent NewTalk participant), Frank Hartmann, and Mark Moore, this will be an online interim virtual session of the Kennedy School's Executive Sessions program, and represents the first public forum for the sessions. This is an exciting opportunity to engage leading experts on issues of public policy that seem "both intractable and, at the same time, ripe for a leap forward."

The members of the Executive Sessions on Civic Entrepreneurship are some of the top thought-leaders and policymakers in the nation, including past NewTalkers Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and Alan Khazei (CEO and Founder of Be the Change, Inc.).

The first discussion runs September 23-25. Topics, participants, and following dates to be announced.

As usual at NewTalk, the public is invited to join in the conversation by contributing Reader Comments. Sign in, or register if you don't already have an account.

Happy Spring!

It appears that April has been a busy month for our Education NewTalkers:

• Diane Ravitch, Andrew Rotherham, Randi Weingarten and Frederick Hess are all featured in the recent Education Week piece, "Obama Echoes Bush on Education Ideas."

• Andrew Rotherham has penned an op-ed for U.S. News & World Report, "Education Reform Requires Symbols for the Movement to Embrace."

• Neal McCluskey has been interviewed for EducationNews.org about federal aid for education and its implications for the affordability of higher education.

• And finally, Frederick Hess has co-authored a profile of the state of charter schools.

Keep it up, guys!

NewTalker John Avlon has a piece in today's New York Post on corruption in state governments, "Tsunami of Sleaze"

Avlon participated in "Infrastructure: What and How?"

NewTalk founder and frequent participant Philip K. Howard has a new opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal, "How Modern Law Makes Us Powerless."

NewTalker Diane Ravitch (bio) is featured in The Washington Post with advice for the incoming Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. Read the full text here.

You can now follow us on Twitter to receive up-to-the-minute updates on NewTalk news, upcoming topics, discussion postings and much more!

Follow our updates here:

http://twitter.com/NewTalk

NewTalkers Hara Marano and Richard Arum have been featured in this week's The New Yorker! In The Child Trap, Joan Acocella reviews Hara's latest book, A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting (Broadway, 2008)and also features Richard Arum's 2003 book Judging School Discipline: The Crisis of Moral Authority (Harvard University Press, 2003). The issues raised in Acocella's piece touch on aspects of a few of our conversations: School Discipline, National Service, Obesity...

Philip Howard will be speaking Thursday November 20, 2008 a the Committee for Economic Development's Annual Fall Board Meeting about his upcoming book, Life Without Lawyers (W.W. Norton & Co, 2009). As attentive NewTalk watchers know, frequent NewTalker Charlie Kolb is the President of CED.

Philip Howard is also delivering the keynote address of the Education Law Association’s 54^th Annual Conference on Saturday, Nov 22. The ELA’s Annual Conference provides a forum to discuss current education law issues with experts from around the world. The conference format stimulates dialogue among attorneys, professors, and practitioners and also provides for specific role groups to meet and share ideas and resources.

Public Agenda announced today that NewTalker Philip Howard, Vice Chair of Covington & Burling, LLP and founder of Common Good, is joining its board of directors.

For over a quarter of a century, Public Agenda has been providing unbiased and unparalleled research that bridges the gap between American leaders and what the public really thinks about issues ranging from education to foreign policy to immigration to religion and civility in American life. Nonpartisan and nonprofit, Public Agenda was founded by social scientist and author Daniel Yankelovich and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in 1975. Public Agenda's two-fold mission is to help American leaders better understand the public's point of view. Citizens know more about critical policy issues so they can make thoughtful, informed decisions.

As NewTalk readers know, we work closely with experts from Public Agenda, such as Steve Farkas, Jean Johnson and Ruth Wooden.

Read the full press release here

NewTalk Founder Philip K. Howard has started to blog about NewTalk topics on the news blog The Huffington Post.

His first post is a follow-up to the NewTalk forum on obesity:

Recently, the head of a major hospital told me over half his hospital beds were filled with people with diabetes-related diseases -- almost all caused by obesity.

Obesity qualifies as an epidemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control. One in six children is obese, and almost all of these will develop chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Almost 80 million Americans have obesity-related diseases -- resulting annually in over 86,000 foot or leg amputations and 24,000 cases of blindness for diabetics. The cost to society is also crippling -- estimates of direct costs start at $100 billion annually. By 2020, at current rates, over 40 percent of the American population will be obese.

David Walker, President of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, appears in a new documentary on the national debt, I.O.U.S.A.

In the NewTalk forum on “Can the next President break Washington's addiction to short-term goals and special interests?" Walker talks about another deficit, the leadership deficit:

"I agree fully with John Rother that the greatest deficit is the leadership deficit. That point is made clearly in the film I.O.U.S.A. This country only has one CEO and that is the President of the United States. That person must take the lead and work on a bipartisan basis with members in the Congress who will put America's long-term interest above their short-term political interest."

The Foundation Center chose to feature NewTalk in the "On the Web" section of their Philanthropy News Digest. This section features nonprofits using outstanding and innovative web features. Thank you PND!

 

Professor Anthony J. Sebok, who participated in the NewTalk forum on "Would "loser pays" eliminate frivolous lawsuits and defenses?" published an article about the debate in the trade publication FindLaw. Read the article.

The National Review Online's Media Blog (8/19) commented on the caliber of the "Would 'loser pays' eliminate frivolous lawsuits and defenses?" discussion on NewTalk: "It's worth the time, and about eleven times better than anything you'll see on your daily newspaper's op-ed page."

The New York Sun profiles NewTalk Founder Philip K. Howard and commends NewTalk for bringing together thought leaders from both sides of the aisle:

"Mr. Howard is known for his bipartisan approach. It makes sense that someone who has worked for Vice President Gore as well as a former U.S. senator of Georgia, Zell Miller, has created a Web site that features commentary from such political stalwarts as Bill Bradley, Mayor Bloomberg, and Bob Kerrey.

Mr. Howard said real legal change usually requires consensus, and even then is rare.

'Once something gets passed as a law, changing it is like trying to scrape away concrete and Washington is this huge edifice of legal concrete,' he said.

He said Newtalk, by getting experts together from all political parties, strives to build this consensus."

Click here to read the entire article.

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Download the NewTalk launch press release (PDF).