Daily Archives: March 23, 2004

New Medicare projections

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This NY Times article reports on the Medicare trustees’ report today that Medicare will need to dip into its trust fund this year to pay increasing expenditures and that the program will become insolvent by 2019 unless changes are made in the program. The 2019 go-broke date for the Medicare trust fund is seven years sooner than what the trustees projected last year.
Here is a copy of the entire report.
The trustees report that Medicare’s deteriorating financial condition is largely the result of the new Medicare prescription drug law that will increase costs by more than $500 billion over the next 10 years. The trustees also noted that projected lower tax receipts devoted to the program and higher expenditures for inpatient hospital care also are contributing to the growing financial problem.
Thomas Saving, a distinguished economics professor at Texas A&M University is one of the Medicare trustees who figures prominently in the report.

Baseball Prospectus on the Astros’ bench

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Amid the mainstream media’s mindless analysis of Major League Baseball in general and the Houston Astros in particular, Baseball Prospectus provides an objective, and less than encouraging, analysis of the Astros’ bench players for the upcoming season:

We’ve put off discussing the Astros’ bench options this spring since the outlook is, in a word, depressing. They basically have Jason Lane and a bunch of guys who are, um, alive. Technically, anyway. But it’s time we got on with it.
Long-Time Farmhand, First-Time Backup: Speaking of the undead, someone has to be on hand in case Brad Ausmus is ever out of the lineup. With John Buck failing to develop at all, Raul Chavez has been tabbed for the duties this year. Unsurprisingly, PECOTA figures Chavez would likely out-hit Ausmus, but the latter’s glove and organizational track record results in zero chance that he’ll be pulled from the lineup until (and even if) Buck is ready.
Scrubs in the Infield: With Jose Vizcaino is entrenched as the fifth infielder for another year, and no obvious plan for the sixth spot, the competition would seem wide open, but most of the apparent candidates were eliminated from the get-go. Chris Burke and Tom Whiteman need to play every day at New Orleans to see if they’ll finally amount to something, so have no business rotting on the big club’s bench. David Matranga, who spent time in Houston last year, has long since been outrighted off the 40-man roster. That pretty much boils the situation down to Eric Bruntlett, who would most likely ride pine at either level, and the carcass of John Valentin, who was brought in to light a fire under a youngster to be named later, but has managed just a single in 21 at-bats this spring. Expect Bruntlett to emerge as a victor, as there’s no reason for Valentin to force someone through waivers, even in an organization this veteran-focused.
Outfield Depth: As mentioned above, Lane will server as the fourth outfielder, inspiring fantasy players everywhere to hope for an injury to Craig Biggio. Since the internal options for fifth outfielder are even worse than for the sixth infielder, Orlando Palmeiro was hauled in despite an uninspiring glove and a projected .240 EqA. Was it really that important to give him $750K instead of keeping Colin Porter or Henri Stanley around to play for the minimum? It seems impossible to believe, but given the insistence on re-upping guys like Ausmus and Vizcaino, it seems pretty clear that the front office is using an evaluation system even more peculiar than the A’s defensive system.

In this related Chronicle story, Astros’ owner Drayton McLane publicly denies the persistent local rumor that he is negotiating to sell the club to Houston restaurateur Tilman Fertitta, CEO of Landry’s, Inc.

Methodist trial of lesbian pastor

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My buddy J.D. Walt of Asbury Seminary passes along this NY Times article regarding the just concluded Methodist Church trial in which a jury of 13 Methodist clergy members found that a fellow minister did not violate Methodist church law by being in a lesbian relationship.
The prosecution had argued that the case for conviction was cut and dried, because the law of the Methodist church as set forth in the Book of Discipline has included a passage that says homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” The prosecution called only one witness. On the other hand, the defense team presented over 20 witnesses, including several Methodist legal scholars, who argued that the Book of Discipline and the Bible contain unclear and contradictory passages about homosexual relationships.
Although it appears that the prosecution may have thrown in the towel on this case before it ever started (one witness? no rebuttal witnesses?), the outcome nevertheless raises an interesting question on the related issue of gay marriage. That is, if Christian churches are allowing their leadership to be involved in gay relationships (note that the Episcopalians recently endorsed a gay bishop), and assuming that those same churches are not ready to endorse gay marriage, then are these churches going to support civil (i.e., non-religious) unions for gay couples?

Allergies? Sinusitis? How to Tell the Difference

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It’s springtime in Houston. You need to know the difference.

UH is hiring who?

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The University of Houston will announce today that it hiring 58 year old, former University of Texas basketball coach Tom Penders as its new men’s basketball coach.
This is one of the most puzzling coaching hires that I have seen in years, particularly for UH, which is famous for giving such coaching icons as Bill Yeoman, Guy V. Lewis and current baseball coach Rayner Noble their first head coaching jobs at a relatively young age and then sticking with them through thick and thin.
Penders was fired by the University of Texas in 1998, and UT couldn’t have been happier getting rid of him despite the fact that Penders restored a winning tradition to UT’s men’s basketball program. UT released Penders when a scandal broke out over his coaching staffs’ public release of a player’s grades after the player decided to transfer to another school. Penders allegedly authorized the release of former UT player Luke Axtell’s grades and then blamed it on others. After the ensuing scandal soured Penders’ prospects at UT, Penders received a $900,000 going-away present and soon took the head coaching job at George Washington University, where he lasted two seasons before resigning amid revelations of players using his son’s telephone account to make over $1,000 in telephone calls. Penders has recently been a color man on college basketball telecasts.
To give you an idea what type of fellow UH is hiring in Penders, one only needs to recall how Penders left his longtime assistant, Eddie Oran, who now sells cars in Bastrop, Texas, twisting in the wind when Penders left UT:

“If I had done anything illegal or wrong, you think they’d give me $900,000?” said Penders. “It’s trumped up and bogus. I’m not going to say anything other than Eddie Oran has to live in Austin and sell cars.”

Investment firm to buy U.S. Oncology

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Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a New York-based leveraged buyout firm, announced Monday that it will pay $1.7 billion to acquire and take private Houston-based U.S. Oncology, a publicly-owned manager of cancer treatment centers across the country. U.S. Oncology treats approximately 15 percent of newly diagnosed cancer patients each year through a network of 875 physicians in 32 states.

Well, this is an interesting way to try for a mistrial

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One defendant’s method.