This thread will be for posting NJ news. If anyone has an article that they would like to have included here, please PM me with the article. The article will be posted if the article is approved for inclusion.

Thanks!

Chris
NJ State Leader

A compressed archive of previous news I've covered can be found here.

The article titles are sorted by date and most important keywords.

Codey welcomes a fight for mental health reforms
Opposition cites soaring insurance rates and infringement of patients' rights

Friday, April 01, 2005

BY SUSAN K. LIVIO
Star-Ledger Staff

Acting Gov. Richard Codey yesterday embraced a sweeping plan to improve the state's mental health system, pledging to enact a package of laws needed to make it happen by July 1.

But to get two of the most controversial elements of his agenda done, he will have to contend with business owners and insurers worried about the cost of mandating more generous mental health coverage. He also expects to clash with mental health advocates who oppose a proposal that would force resistant patients to undergo treatment or face commitment in a psychiatric hospital.

"By implementing these recommendations, we will move from the current 'take your meds, go to a program' to an approach that supports long-term recovery and wellness," Codey said during a press conference in Trenton, where he accepted a 263-page report from a task force studying the mental health system since November. "Today anyone who has lived with mental illness should know -- you are not alone," Codey added. "New Jersey is committed to helping you."

Codey said he expects plenty of opposition and there were signs that he would get it.

Carolyn Beauchamp, executive director of the Mental Health Association in New Jersey, said while she supported most of the report, she was disappointed with Codey's position on forcible commitment. "We have to fight this very hard," she said.

Beauchamp said she didn't understand how a report that calls for the expansion of services to the mentally ill can also contain a recommendation to "take legal action against people when they haven't broken the law. Those two don't fit together."

"The majority of consumers understand this is an egregious infringement on their rights," Beauchamp added.

Melanie Willoughby, senior vice president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, said Codey may also be in for a fight over his desire to broaden mental health coverage to include first-time benefits for people with nonbiological illnesses such as drug addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and eating disorders.

She said covering these illnesses would cause insurance premiums to soar. She also said that insurance companies already cover the most serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Willoughby also contends that most big companies will not be affected by Codey's bill anyway, because they are self-insured, and therefore immune to state laws. Small business owners, who insure only 28 percent of the work force, are subject to state laws and would be disproportionately affected by the bill.

"If (insurance) is prohibitively expensive, employers will drop coverage. If so, where are we? People won't have even basic health care," Willoughby said.

Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the state's largest health insurer, is taking a "wait-and-see approach until we know what the final details will be," company spokesman Tom Rubino said yesterday. "Obviously, health care costs are a major concern and additional mandates would cause those costs to rise," he said. "Our customers want the lowest costs possible."

"Obviously, health care costs are a major concern and additional mandates would cause those costs to rise. Our customers want the lowest costs possible," Rubino said.

Codey says opposition to his plan is short-sighted.

"Insurance companies are against mandates," Codey said. "But when you can get people help early, it actually cuts costs. Fewer people end up in hospitals."

Mental health advocates were by no means united on the issue of forced commitment.

Valerie Fox, a 62-year-old mental health activist from Parsippany who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, said she wants to help get the bill enacted.

Fox said she wished someone had forced her to take her medication two decades ago when she left her family to live on the streets of New York and Morristown for two years. The voices in her head told her she was safe -- even after she had been beaten and raped and nearly starved herself.

"This would apply to a very small population who don't know they are ill, and they are out there getting victimized or victimizing others," Fox said. "Some advocates say you are taking away civil liberties, but what about my civil liberties? I was ignored and allowed to walk around in a psychotic state. You call that freedom?"

Outpatient commitment laws have withstood legal challenges, said Mary T. Zdanowicz, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Network in Arlington, Va., which lobbies for the passage of commitment laws. Judges see the laws provide the patient an attorney and other due process protections, she said. "Courts around the country are upholding these laws, recognizing that to not treat these individuals is the travesty."

Codey has made mental health one of the top issues of his brief tenure as acting governor.

Four months ago he announced he wanted a question on the November election ballot asking voters to support $200 million in bonds for group homes and other housing programs for people with mental illness and developmental disabilities.

The task force's recommendations, based on 13 1/2 hours of public hearings and 200 meetings with families and experts, "represents the movement of New Jersey's mental health system away from the status quo, characterized by stigma and isolation toward wellness and recovery," task force Chairman Robert Davison said.

Staff Writer Edward Silverman contributed to this report. Susan K. Livio covers health and welfare issues from the Statehouse Bureau. She can be reached at slivio@starledger.com or (609) 989-0802.

Codey: Flood cost will "balloon" past $52 million

4/8/2005, 5:39 p.m. ET

The Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Floods that wrecked homes and sent thousands of residents fleeing to drier ground after last weekend's torrential rains caused at least $52 million in damage, the acting governor said Friday.

The total is expected to grow because it does not include estimates for Warren or Morris counties, two of the nine counties where flood damage was reported. Nearly 6,000 New Jersey residents were forced from their homes.

Some 4,500 homes are known to have been damaged, but estimates are still being tabulated, acting Gov. Richard J. Codey said.

"So that figure is going to balloon," he said.

All 1,300 residents of Trenton's water-logged Island neighborhood along the Delaware River were able to return to their homes by Friday morning, said Carolyn Lewis-Spruill, city director of health and human services. About one-third of the 275 houses had electricity back on.

Lewis-Spruill advised homeowners to shop around for the best deal among contractors needed to inspect houses where electrical panels were submerged, because some were overcharging for their services.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it had vacuumed about 2,500 gallons of oil-contaminated water from Island basements. With the Coast Guard, the agency said it has recovered 13 55-gallon drums, mostly empty, that had become dislodged from unknown locations in the flooding.

A regional spokeswoman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency said teams of workers fanned out Friday to assess flood damage in nine counties: Passaic, Sussex, Mercer, Hunterdon, Morris, Bergen, Essex, Gloucester and Warren.

President Bush granted federal disaster assistance two weeks after rain from Hurricane Ivan caused flooding in New Jersey last fall, which the state said caused property damage not covered by insurance of at least $30 million.

Elected officials, including U.S. Sens. Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg, who toured flood-damaged areas Friday, said they would push for a disaster declaration.

"People who barely had pieced their homes back together from September 2004 now face higher water — and higher bills to pay," said Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer.

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On the Net:

National Weather Service: http://www.noaa.gov/wx.html

Federal Emergency Management Agency: http://www.fema.gov/

Political unknown to challenge Corzine in Democratic primary

4/8/2005, 7:30 p.m. ET

By JEFF LINKOUS
The Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Just days before the state deadline, only two of the eight formally announced candidates have filed the required paperwork to run for New Jersey governor.

But the candidacy petitions that were filed before Monday's 4 p.m. deadline did include a surprise new player: a political unknown from Camden County who has opted to challenge U.S. Sen. Jon S. Corzine for the Democratic nomination.

Francis X. Tenaglio, 56, of Haddon Township, has taught social studies at South Philadelphia High School for 14 years.

Tenaglio filed a petition Thursday with the signatures of 1,152 registered voters, 152 more than the required figure. His filing lists the slogan "New Jersey Healthcare Plan Candidate," and a single-page flier he has distributed calls for guaranteed health care and employment for all state residents.

"I'm not running against anybody," Tenaglio said Friday. "I'm giving the people of New Jersey a choice. The cost of health care is causing a lot of problems; businesses can't afford to hire because of what it costs them."

Such underdog candidates pop up from time to time, usually with "an ideological point to make," said David Rebovich, director of the Rider Institute for New Jersey Politics in Lawrence.

Corzine's office declined to comment Friday. Corzine himself has not yet filed his petition but was expected to do so on Monday, his campaign office said.

The senator announced his candidacy in December and easily positioned himself as the front-runner. His only apparently viable competition for a primary race, acting Gov. Richard J. Codey, decided in January not to seek a full term in the office he inherited when Gov. James E. McGreevey resigned last November.

Among the seven Republicans who announced they are running in the June 7 primary, only Bret Schundler and Steve Lonegan had filed petitions as of Friday.

Schundler was the party's unsuccessful candidate in the 2001 governor's race. Lonegan is mayor of Bogota in Bergen County.

The other five Republicans are expected to file their petitions on Monday. They are: Doug Forrester, a Mercer County business executive; John Murphy, a Morris County freeholder; Paul DiGaetano, an assemblyman from Passaic County; Todd Caliguire, a businessman from Bergen County; and Robert Schroeder, also a Bergen County businessman.

Here's a good link for info...

http://www.njpolitics.com/