Fare hikes, elimination of bus routes focus of CTA budget hearing

The second CTA fare hike in five years and a controversial plan that eliminates at least a dozen bus routes to free up money to add service on more crowded buses and trains were the focus of a public hearing Monday night on the CTA’s proposed 2013 budget.

The overwhelming majority of the 191 people who attended, amid tighter than usual security at CTA headquarters, wore yellow T-shirts calling on the CTA board to reverse its earlier decision to shorten the No. 11 Lincoln/Sedgwick bus route.

Pleas and demands to save the No. 11 bus route dominated the testimony. The  No. 11 route is being cut between Western and Fullerton avenues as part of a $16 million crowding-reduction plan that is slated to take effect Sunday.

Allan Mellis, a community activist in Lincoln Square, asked the CTA board to amend next year’s budget to find funds to restore the No. 11, which provides 5,800 rides on an average weekday, according to the CTA.

Ald. Ameya Pawar, whose 47th ward would lose a chunk of the No. 11 route, asked for time to work out a solution, including the possibility of using excess TIF funds from his ward. The CTA should not “fix a fiscal issue only to create a social problem” in terms of the toll the loss of No. 11 service would have on senior citizens and people living on fixed incomes, Pawar said.

The $1.39 billion CTA budget for next year erases a projected deficit by raising fares a total of $56 million and introducing $60 million in savings from labor unions and more than $50 million in management cuts and reforms, officials said.

But the price of one-day, three-day, seven-day and 30-day passes will increase effective Jan. 14 under the plan, while the full base fare will be frozen at $2.25 on the rail system and $2 on buses if transit cards are used to pay fares, or $2.25 for cash bus fares.

Reduced fares and passes for senior citizens and disabled people will also increase, and reduced fares for students will decline by 10 cents.

In addition, it will cost $5 instead of $2.25 to ride the Blue Line from O'Hare International Airport if a pass is not used.

No major service cuts or CTA employee layoffs will be needed to balance the budget, officials said.

CTA President Forrest Claypool said the changes in next year’s budget deliver fiscal stability to the agency’s operating budget and prevent the need for more fare increases over perhaps a decade.

The CTA, however, faces an estimated $15.9 billion backlog in major capital improvements to bring stations, tracks, viaducts and other infrastructure as well as buses and trains to a state of good repair over the next 10 years, according to a study commissioned by the Regional Transportation Authority.

A crowding-reduction initiative that is scheduled to begin Sunday  will cancel 12 bus routes and shorten two others. In addition, nine privately contracted CTA routes would be eliminated if subsidies provided by businesses aren't increased, officials said.

More service will be added to 48 bus routes and six of the eight rail lines with the goal of speeding travel times and making the ride more comfortable by reducing crowding by 10 percent to 15 percent during rush periods, according to the transit agency.

At Monday’s meeting, William Scott, a retired teacher who lives in Drexel Square, said other bus routes besides No. 11 suffer from serious problems too. He said it's difficult to find a seat on the No. 4 Cottage Grove bus.

Claypool responded that service will be added on the No. 4 under the de-crowding plan.
Neither Claypool nor CTA board Chairman Terry Peterson spoke about the possibility of altering the budget or the de-crowding plan.

Other people who testified complained about the CTA plan to more than double the fare, to $5, for trips beginning at O'Hare on the Blue Line.

Marge Demora, who works for United Airlines at the airport, said “it’s discrimination to single out O'Hare fares.” She said workers at restaurants and other jobs that pay minimum wages at the airport will be the hardest hit.

On buses that typically carry 70 passengers, the new target will be 45 to 55 passengers per bus, CTA officials said. Rail cars packed with 90 or more riders at maximum capacity are expected to have 70 to 75 passengers, officials said.

CTA officials said service will be increased on bus and rail routes used by 76 percent of the CTA’s total ridership.

But the bus service cuts, which the CTA board has already approved, have sparked vocal protests from some riders, particularly those who are rallying to save the No. 145 Wilson/Michigan Express and the No. 11 Lincoln/Sedgwick bus route, which is slated to stop operating between Western and Fullerton. CTA officials said the No. 11 service is redundant with the Brown Line between Fullerton and Western. A new route, the No. 37 Sedgwick, will be created.

jhilkevitch@tribune.com

Twitter @jhilkevitch

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Royal phone scandal highlights new media risks

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Back in 2007, as investigations were gathering strength into the UK phone hacking scandal involving journalists working under the umbrella of the Murdoch media empire, a comedy show based around prank telephone calls made a low-key debut in Britain.

‘Fonejacker’ proved such a hit with the British public that the next year the program, in which a masked caller bamboozles hapless victims, won a coveted BAFTA award for best comedy, underscoring the attraction of the prank call amid a blurring of a ceaseless news cycle with social media and entertainment.

But just such a prank telephone call, to a London hospital where Prince William‘s pregnant wife Kate was being treated, has sparked a firestorm in traditional and social media after the apparent suicide by the nurse who put the call through.

Much of the fury has been directed at laying blame for the nurse’s death on the Australian DJs who made the prank call, or the media in general, with the most vitriolic comments appearing on the public domains of Facebook and Twitter.

The social media outrage has become a story of its own, outlasting the original news value of a prank call, and has seen advertising pulled from the program which broadcast the hoax call and the suspension of the two radio announcers.

Shares in radio station 2DayFM’s owner, Southern Cross Austero fell 5 percent on Monday as the public backlash gathered strength.

Media commentators and analysts warn the rapidly changing traditional and social media worlds may have given people greater freedom of expression, but can unleash a genie which can have destructive or negative repercussions, without responsible behavior by both mainstream and social media operators.

“It’s all changing so fast that societal norms have retreated in confusion,” said veteran newspaper columnist Jennifer Hewett in the Australian Financial Review.

“What is clear is that we will soon look back to count the mounting costs and destructive force, as well as the great benefits, of the explosion of communication in an all-media, all-in, all-the-time world,” Hewett said.

Jacintha Saldanha, 46, was found dead in staff accommodation near London’s King Edward VII hospital on Friday after putting the hoax call through to a colleague who unwittingly disclosed details of Kate’s morning sickness to 2DayFM’s presenters.

Her death, still being investigated, followed still simmering outrage in Britain over phone hacking, as well as Australian anger over the power of radio announcers to plump ratings with a diet of shock, including a 2Day announcer who sparked fury by calling a woman journalist rival a “fat slag”.

And while in Britain the popular press were quick to seize the moral high ground and point the finger “Down Under”, Australian commentators pointed blame the other way, or at confusion over the changing role of media and voracious public demand for not only information, but increasingly titillation.

Australian newspaper columnist Mike Carlton said while 2Day FM and its parent company made good money by “entertaining simple minds”, for tabloid British papers to point “Down Under” over a ‘gotcha’ news genre they created was “towering hypocrisy”.

CHANGING MEDIA ETHICS

The social media condemnation of Saldanha’s death should prompt a re-think of ethics in the era of celebrity news, said Jim Macnamara, a media analyst from Australia’s University of Technology, Sydney.

“There is a lesson in this for media organizations everywhere, and for journalists and media personalities, and that is that they need to look at community standards and better self regulate,” said Macnamara.

The tragic fallout from the radio stunt has rekindled memories of the death of William’s mother Diana in a Paris car crash in 1997 and threatens to cast a pall over the birth of his and Kate’s first child.

Public amusement at the prank started turning when British media reported the call as a major security breach of the royal family’s privacy, despite the call never reaching Kate’s room and the information revealed by a nurse was already public.

But news of Saldanha’s death is what sparked the Internet firestorm, that once unleashed could not be controlled.

Hypocritically, some of the harshest criticism was on Twitter and Facebook, where people unleashed fury on Australian and British media, after having themselves publish news of Saldanha’s error under a Twitter topic #royalprank, which was repeated more than 15,000 times.

“When the twitterverse goes into meltdown, we all react with a chain reaction any nuclear plant would be proud of. I hope, in time, the world will learn to splash cold water on itself when these stories break and cool down, before we all get dragged into the mud of our own making,” Tristan Stewart-Robertson, a Glasgow-based journalist wrote in a blog on www.firstpost.com

(Editing by Michael Perry)

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“Homeland” creator: Stop using animals in military training

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Homeland” executive producer Gideon Raff is urging a cease-fire between the U.S. military and the animal kingdom.

Joining with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Raff has sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, asking him to halt the use of animals in medical training exercises in favor of high-tech human simulators.

In his letter, Raff – a former paratrooper in the Israeli Defense Forces – claims that research by the IDF Medical Corps indicates that military personnel are better prepared for battlefield medical procedures when they’re trained with human stimulators and given real-life experience with patients than when they utilize “crude animal laboratories.”

“Having served as a paratrooper in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), I have the utmost concern for the health and security of the heroic service members – like those portrayed on my shows ‘Homeland’ and ‘Prisoners of War’ – who risk their lives to protect our safety and freedom,” Raff wrote in his letter to Panetta. (“Homeland” is a U.S. adaptation of his Israeli series, “Prisoners of War.”)

“But the U.S. Department of Defense is not saving soldiers’ lives by shooting, dismembering, blowing up, and killing thousands of animals each year for crude medical training drills,” he added. “I am troubled that this violence still goes on when more humane and effective ways of training medics and doctors are available, so I have joined PETA’s campaign to end this cruel practice.”

The letter concludes, “Caring for the well-being of animals and preparing the troops serving our countries are not mutually exclusive. In this case, sparing animals pain and death in training drills means that military personnel receive better medical training and ultimately better care if they are wounded on the battlefield.”

Raff, a vegan whose pro-animal crusade includes lobbying against monkey experiments in Israel, isn’t the only famous former military personnel to protest the U.S. government’s use of animals in allegedly cruel capacities. Oliver Stone and Bob Barker have also condemned the practice.

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Concussion Liability Issues Could Stretch Beyond N.F.L.

Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee, via Associated Press

Insurers could raise premiums with a higher risk of lawsuits for concussions, like the one 49ers quarterback Alex Smith sustained a month ago.

As the N.F.L. confronts a raft of lawsuits brought by thousands of former players who accuse the league of hiding information about the dangers of concussions, a less visible battle that may have a more widespread effect in the sport is unfolding between the league and 32 of its current and former insurers.

The dispute revolves around how much money, if any, the insurers are obliged to pay for the league’s mounting legal bills and the hundreds of millions of dollars in potential damages that might stem from the cases brought by the retired players.

Regardless of how it is resolved, the dispute could hurt teams, leagues and schools at all levels if insurers raise premiums to compensate for the increased risk of lawsuits from the families of people who play hockey, lacrosse and other contact sports.

The N.F.L., which generates about $9 billion a year, may be equipped to handle these legal challenges. But colleges, high schools and club teams may be forced to consider severe measures in the face of liability issues, like raising fees to offset higher premiums; capping potential damages; and requiring players to sign away their right to sue coaches and schools. Some schools and leagues may even shut down teams because the expense and legal risk are too high.

“Insurers will be tightening up their own coverage and make sports more expensive,” said Robert Boland, who teaches sports law at New York University. “It could make the sustainability of certain sports a real issue.”

The N.F.L. contends that the insurers, some of whom wrote policies in the 1960s, have a duty to defend the league, which has paid them millions of dollars in premiums. The question for the N.F.L. is not whether the insurers are required to help the league, but rather what percent of the league’s expenses each insurer is obliged to cover.

The 32 insurance companies have varying arguments against the league. Some wrote policies for a limited number of years and contend their obligations should also be limited. Others contend they wrote policies for the N.F.L.’s marketing arm — for licensing disputes, for example — not the league itself.

A few of the companies went bankrupt or merged with rivals. Some insurers wrote primary policies that covered up to the first $1 million of claims; the rest insured obligations in excess of that amount.

Creating a formula for how to apportion liability will in some cases depend on the broader case between the league and its players now in federal court in Pennsylvania. If the N.F.L. persuades the judge to dismiss the case, the league will be left trying to recoup its legal costs from the insurers. If the judge allows the players’ case to proceed, the definitions of when, how and whether a player’s concussions led to his illness will become critical in shaping the insurers’ exposure, and could take years to sort out.

“This is baby step 1 in the process for everyone figuring how deep in the soup they are,” said Christopher Fusco, a lawyer who has worked on similar insurance cases but is not involved in the N.F.L. litigation. “Baby step 2 will be to figure out the facts.”

Fusco and other lawyers said the facts would largely come from the underlying suit between the league and the more than 3,000 retired players, including determining when the players sustained the head trauma and their injuries. This will probably be a long process because many of the retired players in the underlying suit, some of whom are now having memory loss, played decades ago, when concussions were often undiagnosed or not recorded.

Many of the insurance companies named in the suits declined to comment, citing the continuing litigation. The N.F.L. also did not comment.

The two-tiered battle between the league and its former players and insurers echoes the litigation stemming from asbestos claims because both cases center on long-tail claims, or injuries that could take years to manifest themselves.

One of the critical points of contention in those cases was how to define an occurrence to determine an insurer’s liability. In the context of the N.F.L. case, the question will be whether a player’s injuries should be treated as a single claim or a series of claims based on the number of concussions he received or the number of seasons he played.

“This is an issue that gets to the crux of asbestos and environmental litigation,” said William M. Wilt, the president of Assured Research, an insurance advisory firm. “If an occurrence is defined as each player and each season he played, you could hit the policy limits multiple times.”

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'Dollar Menu' sparks McDonald's rebound

McDonald's took Wall Street by surprise Monday morning, with a November same-store sales report that beat expectations and showed particular strength in the U.S. business.

The news follows a weak performance in October that had some investors speculating about the future of the world's largest restaurant company.

The Oak Brook-based burger giant reported U.S. same-store sales up 2.5 percent on the strength of its breakfast business, value offerings, beverages and limited-time offers like the cheddar bacon onion sandwich. In Europe, same-store sales grew 1.4 percent, and 0.6 percent in the chain's Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa division.

Overall, same-store sales increased 2.4 percent, beating various expectations for a roughly flat performance.

McDonald's has taken a tough stance on slipping U.S. sales as revived rivals like Wendy's and Burger King crank out new premium and value products. Days after releasing a report that showed October's rare drop in monthly same-store sales, McDonald's said its U.S. president, Jan Fields, had resigned and would be replaced by Jeff Stratton, who had been the company's global restaurant officer.

"We are strengthening our focus on the global priorities that are most impactful to our customers — optimizing our menu, modernizing the customer experience and broadening accessibility to our brand to move our business forward," McDonald's CEO Don Thompson said in a statement.

While the sales report is likely to be a boost for the fast-food chain, investors don't expect company performance to return to normal levels until early 2013.

"One month does not a trend make … but it's a nice sign to see them rebound after a horrible October," ITG Investment Research analyst Steve West said.

Analysts expect volatile industry sales in the coming quarters as countries around the world grapple with economic woes and high unemployment. Profits could get squeezed as diners shop around for deals and restaurants respond by keeping prices down.

"We are concerned about the margin outlook in this more promotional environment," said Lazard Capital Markets analyst Matthew DiFrisco.

McDonald's "ramped up its value messaging, focusing heavily on the Dollar Menu to help drive traffic," Jefferies & Co restaurant analyst Andy Barish said in a research note.

The company has been promoting both the Dollar Menu and its Extra Value Menu, which includes offerings like 20 Chicken McNuggets for $4.99, to lure diners.

Baird analyst David Tarantino raised his fourth-quarter earnings estimate by a penny per share Monday morning following the sales announcement. He wrote that while company performance "could remain soft" through the first quarter, "the November sales report supports our thesis that McDonald's can achieve better performance in 2013 as a whole, with results aided by planned initiatives (including increased emphasis on value plus premium offerings across markets), fewer cost pressures, and less negative currency translation."

McDonald's shares closed up 93 cents, or 1 percent, at $89.41.

Reuters contributed.

eyork@tribune.com

Twitter @emilyyork

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Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera feared dead in plane crash

The wreckage of a small plane believed to be carrying Jenni Rivera, the U.S-born singer whose soulful voice and unfettered discussion of a series of personal travails made her a Mexican-American superstar, was found in northern Mexico on Sunday. Authorities said there were no survivors.

The singer's father, Pedro Rivera, said he thinks his daughter was on board the plane and that her brother will travel to Mexico on Monday to identify what they presumed were her remains.

Born in Long Beach, California, Jenni Rivera was at the peak of her career as perhaps the most successful female singer in grupero, a male-dominated regional style influenced by the norteno, cumbia and ranchero styles.

A 43-year-old mother of five children and grandmother of two, the woman known as the "Diva de la Banda" was known for her frank talk about her struggles to give a good life to her children despite a series of setbacks.

She was recently divorced from her third husband, was once detained at a Mexico City airport with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, and she publicly apologized after her brother assaulted a drunken fan who verbally attacked her in 2011.

Her openness about her personal troubles endeared her to millions in the U.S. and Mexico.

"I am the same as the public, as my fans," she told The Associated Press in an interview last March.

Rivera sold 15 million records, and recently won two Billboard Mexican Music Awards: Female Artist of the Year and Banda Album of the Year for "Joyas prestadas: Banda." She was nominated for Latin Grammys in 2002, 2008 and 2011.

Transportation and Communications Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza said "everything points toward" the wreckage belonging to the plane carrying Rivera and six other people to Toluca, outside Mexico City, from Monterrey, where the singer had just given a concert.

"There is nothing recognizable, neither material nor human" in the wreckage found in the state of Nuevo Leon, Ruiz Esparza said. The impact was so powerful that the remains of the plane "are scattered over an area of 250 to 300 meters. It is almost unrecognizable."

Rivera's father told dozens of reporters gathered in front of his Los Angeles-area home that "I believe my daughter's body is unrecognizable."

"My son Lupillo told me that effectively it was Jenni's plane that crashed and that everyone on board died," Pedro Rivera said.

Rivera said his son would travel to Monterrey early Monday morning.

No cause was given for the plane's crash, but its wreckage was found near the town of Iturbide in Mexico's Sierra Madre Oriental, where the terrain is very rough.

The Learjet 25, number N345MC, took off from Monterrey at 3:30 a.m. local time and was reported missing about 10 minutes later. It was registered to Starwood Management of Las Vegas, Nevada, according to FAA records. It was built in 1969 and had a current registration through 2015.

Media and celebrities in Mexico sent condolences to Rivera's family even though authorities still had not confirmed that she was aboard the plane and said an investigation would be conducted.

"My friend! Why? There is no consolation. God, please help me!" said Mexican pop singer Paulina Rubio on her official Twitter account. Singer Miguel Bose, who appears on the Mexican show "The Mexican Voice" along with Rivera, wrote on his Twitter account: "My dear Jenni, you will always be in my heart. Forever. I love you."

Also believed aboard the plane were her publicist, Arturo Rivera, her lawyer, makeup artist and the flight crew.

Though drug trafficking was the theme of some of her songs, she was not considered a singer of "narco corridos," or ballads glorifying drug lords like other groups, such as Los Tigres del Norte. She was better known for singing about her troubles in love and disdain for men.

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RIM offers biggest clients incentives to adopt BB10

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd on Thursday outlined a program of incentives to encourage its biggest customers to run its soon-to-launch line of BlackBerry 10 devices, seeking to persuade corporations and government users to stick with its secure smartphones.

RIM is betting that the devices, to be launched on January 30, will revive its fortunes. That will depend to a large extent on the response from RIM’s enterprise customers — the business users who value BlackBerry’s strong security features.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, once a smartphone pioneer, has bled market share to Apple Inc’s iPhone and devices powered by Google’s market-leading Android operating system, even among the business customers who once used BlackBerry exclusively.

RIM says its new devices will be faster and smoother than previous BlackBerry phones and will have a large catalog of apps, which are crucial to the success of any new line of smartphones.

It now plans to phase in a BlackBerry 10 Ready Program for enterprise customers, initially offering online training and webcasts, and then providing free trade-ups of licenses and services.

“We will be aggressively reaching out to our customers to make sure they are aware of this program,” said Bryan Lee, senior director of enterprise at RIM. “We see this as really the linchpin for helping our customers to transition to BB10.”

Early adoption of BlackBerry 10 by government and corporate clients will go a long way in easing the concerns of both RIM’s clients and investors. Many fear that a lackluster market reception to BB10 could seal RIM’s fate.

RIM, which does not say what percentage of its business comes from the enterprise customers, said its online training and webcast series are already in place. Trade-ups, including free upgrades on the licenses for BB10 operating system, will be available ahead of the January 30 launch.

Evercore Partners analyst Mark McKechnie said RIM’s step-by-step program to woo enterprise customers was a positive move, though it highlights the challenges RIM faces.

“We are encouraged with an ‘all out’ marketing campaign with the right incentives to motivate enterprises to upgrade,” he said in a note to clients. “Our take is that this will remove a roadblock for those already planning to upgrade, but likely won’t push too many who prefer to wait.”

McKechnie, who has an “equal-weight” rating on RIM’s stock, said the move is unlikely to tempt back customers who have already abandoned the BlackBerry in favor of iPhones and Android devices. RIM offers support for the rival devices, but needs corporates to update to Blackberry Enterprise Service 10 so they can power and run BB10 devices on their networks.

BB10 READY

RIM’s Lee said he sees tremendous excitement from enterprise customers who want to use the new platform, but he would not speculate on how many would be ready to transition to the new platform come launch day.

RIM said last month that its BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10, which runs the devices on corporate networks, is in beta testing with around 20 key government agencies and corporates.

Feedback on the BB10 devices and platform has been largely positive from both carriers and developers. Financial analysts remain divided.

Some have upgraded their ratings and targets on RIM’s share price in anticipation of a successful launch of BB10, while others believe the new platform has little chance of succeeding.

TD Securities analyst Scott Penner on Wednesday raised his price target on RIM to $ 12 from $ 9.50, but said RIM still faces significant hurdles.

RIM’s stock has surged over the last two months from multi-year lows around $ 6 as the launch date for the new devices nears. The stock is still more than 90 percent below the 2008 all-time high around $ 148.

The latest TSX data indicates that short positions in RIM shares have fallen dramatically in the last two weeks. The total short positions in RIM, a bet that the stock price will fall, on the TSX fell to 15.2 million as of November 30, down from 20.6 million in the prior two weeks.

RIM shares slipped 0.4 percent to $ 11.89 on the Nasdaq on Thursday. The Toronto-listed shares ended down 0.3 percent at C$ 11.81.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Jeremy Laurence, Janet Guttsman and Leslie Adler)

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U.S.-Mexican singer Jenni Rivera dies in plane crash

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera died in a plane crash after the small jet she was travelling in went down in northern Mexico, her father said on Sunday.

A spokesman for the state government of Nuevo Leon said investigators had found the remains of Rivera’s Learjet, which disappeared from the radar 62 miles from the northern city of Monterrey at about 3:30 a.m. local time/4.30 a.m. EST.

Speaking after the wreckage was discovered, the singer’s father, Pedro Rivera, told Telemundo television all seven of the people on board the plane, including two pilots, had died.

“Everyone was lost,” Rivera said, flanked by two sons.

Investigators are still searching the crash site in the municipality of Iturbide, south of Monterrey. The transportation and communications ministry said the wreckage was strewn so far and wide that it was hard to recognize anything.

It was not clear what caused the crash.

Rivera, 43, was heading for the city of Toluca in central Mexico after a concert in Monterrey on Saturday night.

Born in Long Beach, California, to Mexican immigrants, Rivera sold some 15 million records in her career, won several awards and received Grammy nominations, her website said.

A mother of five, Rivera was a renowned performer of the Nortena and Banda musical styles.

(Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Philip Barbara and Stacey Joyce)

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Interest Groups Push to Fill Margins of Health Coverage

The chiropractors were out in force, lobbying for months to get their services included in every state’s package of essential health benefits that will be guaranteed under the new health care law.

“We’ve been in constant contact with our state chapters, just telling them, ‘Look, you’ve got to get in the room,’ ” said John Falardeau, senior vice president of government relations at the American Chiropractic Association.

The acupuncturists were modest by comparison, ultimately focusing on a few states, like California, where they had the best odds of being included.

“Our profession really didn’t have a million dollars to spend on a lobbyist,” said Jeannie Kang, the immediate past president of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Instead, they mobilized 20,000 acupuncturists and their patients in a letter-writing campaign.

Both efforts seem to have shown results. Most of the roughly two dozen states that have chosen their essential benefits — services that insurance will have to cover under the law — have decided to include chiropractic care in their package. Four states — California, Maryland, New Mexico and Washington — included acupuncture for treating pain, nausea and other ailments. It is also likely to be an essential benefit in Alaska and Nevada, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

“To me, six is huge,” said Ms. Kang, an acupuncturist in Los Angeles, who helped coordinate the lobbying effort.

The main goal of the health care law has always been to guarantee medical coverage to nearly all Americans, but as states finalize their benefits packages, it is becoming clear that what is received will depend partly on location.

According to proposals that the states have submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services, insurance plans will have to cover weight-loss surgery in New York and California, for example, but not in Minnesota or Connecticut. Infertility treatment will be a required benefit in Massachusetts, but not in Arizona.

Over all, the law requires that essential health benefits cover 10 broad categories, including emergency services, maternity and newborn care, hospitalization, preventive care and prescription drugs. But there is room for variation in those categories. Whether insurance will pay for hearing aids, foot care, speech therapy and various medications will vary significantly by state.

The Obama administration originally planned to impose a single set of essential benefits nationwide, so groups like Ms. Kang’s lobbied federal officials at first. But last year, amid accusations that the health care law was too rigid, it decided to allow each state to choose its own guaranteed benefits within the 10 broad categories.

The law stipulates that starting in January 2014, the essential benefits will have to be covered by insurance plans offered in individual and small-group markets. These are the plans that people will shop for to comply with the law’s mandate that almost everyone have health coverage or pay a penalty. They will be available through health insurance exchanges, online markets where the uninsured can shop for coverage, often with federal subsidies to help pay for it.

The essential benefits will not be guaranteed to people who get coverage through large employers, but such plans already tend to be relatively generous. In comparison, many plans currently sold on the individual market do not cover maternity care, for example, or mental health services.

For the most part, states are defining their essential benefits as those provided by the largest health plan in their small-group insurance market. In Washington State, for example, that plan covers 12 acupuncture visits and 10 chiropractic visits per year. It does not cover in vitro fertilization, weight-loss programs or routine foot care for anyone except diabetics.

“Everybody really was conscious of the cost impact that the plan was going to have,” said Stephanie Marquis, a spokeswoman for the state’s insurance commissioner. “That’s something we’re working very hard at keeping an eye on and making sure we’re not adding benefits unnecessarily.”

Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy, said that while the essential benefit packages vary at the margins, they are similar over all. Every state’s package will cover visits to primary care doctors and specialists, for example, and diagnostic tests like X-rays and blood work.

“To people who care about particular diseases or conditions or provider groups, these don’t feel like the margins,” Mr. Weil said. “But at the end of the day, the core benefits are very standardized, and the differences are at the periphery.”

Some states have declined to choose an essential benefits package, saying that the law does not give them enough latitude. In those states, the default will be the largest plan available in their small-group insurance market, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Gov. Dave Heineman, Republican of Nebraska, chose an insurance plan with a high deductible as his state’s benchmark, reasoning that such lower-cost plans were popular in the state. But the Obama administration recently informed him that the plan did not meet the requirements of the law, he said.

“The point we were trying to make is that the minimum coverage should not be above what people need,” Mr. Heineman said. “The overriding concern is that the cost will be too great.”

Other states delayed choosing a benchmark plan on the grounds that the Obama administration had not provided enough guidance. Last month, the administration published a proposed rule that sought to answer outstanding questions.

The rule makes clear, for example, that insurers can substitute one covered service for another as long as they are in the same broad category and “substantially equal.” It clarifies that pediatric services, one of the 10 required categories, must be provided to everyone 18 and under.

States can still change or choose a benchmark plan, but they are running out of time. They generally have until Dec. 26, when the comment period for the proposed rule will end. So far, 23 states and the District of Columbia have chosen plans, according to Avalere Health, a consulting company.

Interest groups that did not succeed in getting a particular service covered may have another chance to do so. States will most likely be able to change their benchmark plans after 2015. So groups like the Obesity Action Coalition will keep making their case.

“There’s going to be a great deal more effort on this issue,” said Chris Gallagher, a policy consultant for the coalition. “At a minimum, if plans are going to try to exclude obesity treatment services, there must be some kind of exception for medically necessary treatment. It’s a serious medical condition that affects one in three Americans.”

Likewise, Ms. Kang’s group will keep presenting state decision makers with patient testimonials and research studies on the benefits of acupuncture. Its next targets are New York and Florida, which have more licensed acupuncturists than any state except California.

The chiropractors, meanwhile, are focused on California, where the essential benefits package that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in September does not include chiropractic services. Mr. Falardeau said the American Chiropractic Association was still hoping for a change.

“We’re ready, if we have to, to go to war on it,” he said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 10, 2012

An article on Thursday about the way in which benefits under the new health care law will vary from state to state, using information from the Department of Health and Human Services, misidentified a state that has proposed making infertility treatment a required benefit. It is Massachusetts, not New Hampshire.

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Huppke: Don't be afraid to hire people with disabilities

One of the best experiences of my life was watching Jamie Smith, a young man with autism, leave his routine in Chicago, travel to the Special Olympics World Games in the chaotic Chinese city of Shanghai — and succeed.

Jamie's success — managing in a foreign country and bringing home a silver medal — was the result of one thing: hard work. And I've yet to meet a harder worker than him, or a person who more appreciates the opportunities a job presents.

Our workplaces have grown diverse, but jobs remain far too scarce when it comes to people with autism or other intellectual disabilities. Unemployment rates vary depending on the study but hover around 80 percent, and people with disabilities who do get jobs are routinely paid less than other workers. A stigma surrounds people with disabilities, and employers fear that accommodating workers from this demographic might be cost-prohibitive.

Fortunately, some progress is being made.

Walgreen Co., for example, has for years welcomed workers with intellectual disabilities. In 2007, it opened a distribution center in Anderson, S.C., with the goal that people with disabilities would make up 33 percent of the staff and be paid and treated the same as any other employee.

That number now tops 40 percent, and the company opened a similar center in Connecticut in 2009. It also has begun a separate program that recruits people with disabilities to work in Walgreen stores.

The results, according to Deb Russell, a manager in the company's diversity and inclusion department, have been statistically excellent. Turnover among employees with disabilities is 50 percent lower than that among nondisabled employees, and accuracy and productivity measurements are the same.

"People think accommodations will be expensive and daunting," Russell said. "What we found, especially on the accommodations front, is that it's minimal. Over the thousands of people we've had in the distribution centers, we've spent less than $50 per person. A lot of the time, all the accommodation they need is an open mind."

She said that more than 100 Fortune 500 companies have toured the South Carolina facility to learn more about the program.

"We've been so proud to see quite a few companies coming out recently with programs that are similar to ours," Russell said. "They take what we're doing and make it their own."

What's important to realize is that when Walgreen and other companies hire people with intellectual or other disabilities, they aren't doing it as an act of charity. They're doing it because the people they're hiring are good employees who help the company make money.

Scott Standifer, a University of Missouri researcher who studies employment issues affecting adults with autism, said he's encouraged to see large companies such as Walgreen, AMC Theatres and the investment firm TIAA-CREF, to name a few, aggressively employing people with disabilities.

"For decades the employment specialists who work with people with disabilities have been saying things like, 'These people are very dedicated; they will really love the work; they'll be very loyal employees,'" Standifer said. "The business community knows these agencies are trying to sell their clients, they're trying to convince the businesses to hire them, so they're skeptical. And there hasn't been any data to really back up their claims.

"But now we've got some large corporations who have invested and are evaluating their disability employment projects and are able to talk to other corporations as corporate peers. It's one thing to have job developers coming and saying these people are good workers, give them a chance. It's another to have Walgreens say, 'We are making more money by hiring these folks.'"

Standifer wrote a paper titled "Adult Autism & Employment: A Guide for Vocational Rehabilitation Professionals," which provides a wealth of information for employers, from advice on interviewing people with autism to explanations of the disability. That paper can be found at: tinyurl.com/autismemploy.

He also said he hopes to see more coordination between people in the autism community and an employment resource found in every state — the vocational rehabilitation agency. This agency, overseen by the federal Rehabilitation Services Administration, focuses on finding jobs for people with physical disabilities, often veterans.

But Standifer believes these agencies may be better equipped than state groups to assist people with autism and other intellectual disabilities.

"It's hard for anybody to find a job," he said. "But these state agencies (that work with people with intellectual disabilities) don't have the 80 years of history that the vocational rehabilitation program has. One of the things that I'm excited about is that the autism community, as they start to understand vocational rehabilitation, will also start to lobby for increased vocational rehabilitation funding."

Standifer also pointed out that study after study has shown employing people with disabilities saves the country money.

"It has turned out to be cheaper and better to do whatever it takes to get people with disabilities working," he said. "When you support that, they don't need as many other social services. They're not needing Social Security disability income and other things. It's cheaper, it's better and it's healthier."

And, dare I say, it's the way things should be. Our workplaces have always benefited from inclusion.

We should aspire to work alongside people with disabilities, not as an act of good will, but with the hope that we might benefit by learning from each other.

TALK TO REX: Ask workplace questions — anonymously or by name — and share stories with Rex Huppke at ijustworkhere@tribune.com, like Rex on Facebook at facebook.com/rexworkshere, and find more at chicagotribune.com/ijustworkhere.

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