Updated Oct 11, 2019

By Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

JOHN REITMEYER | OCTOBER 10, 2019

NJ Spotlight

Replacing lead service lines in Newark, September 2019

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Newark’s plan to spend $120 million replacing lead service lines in response to a drinking-water crisis should not have a significant impact on the city’s improving fiscal health, a major Wall Street credit-rating firm said yesterday.

A notice issued by Moody’s Investors Service highlighted $155 million in new lease payments the city will receive from the Port Authority and a recently enacted federal law that could free up even more dollars to help Newark pay off bonds that are being used to fund the project to replace the service lines.

“The new revenue sources available to pay for the debt will help avoid a roadblock in Newark’s financial progress, with finances having steadily improved since 2014,” the Moody’s report said.

LILO H. STAINTON | OCTOBER 9, 2019 

NJ Spotlight

Certified marketplace navigator Pamela Gray of Camden’s Center for Family Services

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The Trump administration has given New Jersey officials formal approval to create a hybrid federal-state health insurance exchange for the hundreds of thousands of individual market consumers expected to seek coverage for next year — and it is scheduled to open for business in less than a month.

The hybrid model is a first step in the state’s multiyear process to assert greater control over this system; under the plan, New Jersey will take full charge of the exchange and launch its own website in order to sell policies for 2021.

For the 2020 plans — on sale from Nov. 1 through Dec. 15 — the Trump administration’s approval gives the Garden State greater control over the enrollment process and plan design; the state has already committed to spend more than twice what it did last year on public outreach and sign-up assistance. But consumers will still need to purchase products through the federal healthcare.gov website and depend on officials in Washington, D.C. to approve their application.

Posted Oct 08, 2019

By Zina Spezakis

Medicare for All is as much an economic issue as it is a moral one. While pharmaceutical and health insurance companies reap ever increasing tens of billions of dollars of profits year after year, Americans have seen their health insurance premiums rise consistently over the past two decades.

The Affordable Care Act made real progress on expanding health insurance coverage, but we have much more work to do. 27.5 million Americans were uninsured in 2018, up nearly 2 million from the year before. Each year, 530,000 families file for healthcare-related bankruptcy, accounting for two-thirds of all bankruptcies filed, unchanged from before the ACA.

People are dying because they ration or cannot afford medicine. This isn’t just the uninsured. Health insurance companies refuse to cover the full cost of care, leaving ordinary Americans to make choices no one should have to make. Should I pay for insulin or the rent? Can I delay the start of my cancer medications due to cost?

Posted Oct 08, 2019

By Tom Moran | Star-Ledger Editorial Board

Tucker Carlson is defending President Trump, saying that soliciting Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election was not a serious enough wrong to justify impeachment.

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JOHN REITMEYER | OCTOBER 8, 2019

NJ Spotlight

Analysts are watching for signs of choppy seas ahead for the economy.

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New Jersey and many other states have been able to boost budget reserves during the long recovery from the Great Recession. But that doesn’t mean state budgets aren’t vulnerable to the next economic downturn — and perhaps New Jersey’s more than most because of its still relatively scant budget reserves.

A new analysis from The Pew Charitable Trusts raises several concerns for states as they get ready to face the next possible recession, including how a major downturn could impact already volatile revenue sources like the income tax, which is a major source of funding for New Jersey’s budget.

Meanwhile, a recent report by Fitch Ratings, a Wall Street credit-rating firm, suggested states could begin to lose out on federal funding if a recession triggers belt-tightening by the federal government. By contrast, New Jersey received millions in aid from the federal government in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 Great Recession, initially helping it avoid major cuts to things like K-12 school aid.

Posted Oct 07, 2019

By Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

State Sen. Ronald Rice, D-Essex, is pictured in 2015.

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Posted Oct 07, 2019

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board

Vote him out.

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TOM JOHNSON | OCTOBER 7, 2019 

NJ Spotlight

The proposal is for a cap on emissions from the transportation sector

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In what could amount to the most significant regional effort yet to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 12 states have issued a draft policy framework to create a cap-and-trade program to reduce global warming pollution from vehicles.

The proposal, developed by the Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI), is modeled somewhat after the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program that for the past decade has helped clamp down on carbon pollution from power plants.

This draft framework, while sparse in details, proposes to put a cap on emissions from the transportation sector by requiring state fuel suppliers to buy allowances, which would be auctioned off for the right to emit carbon.