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Bacon Meme of the Week
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Virginia’s Fertility Rate — Nothing to Write Home About
Map source: National Center for Health Statistics Following up on yesterday’s post showing the variation in birth rates by Virginia locality… the National Center for Health Statistics map above provides a breakdown of fertility rates by state. Virginia falls in the middle of the pack (but bottom half) with a fertility rate for women aged 15–44 with 55.3 births per 1,000. It ranks 29th in the country. Meh.
University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox (a rare conservative at UVA) puts his spin on the data in this article published by the Institute for Family Studies (a rare conservative nonprofit headquartered in Charlottesville).
The 10 states with the highest birth rates are red while the 10 states with the lowest birth rates are blue. The birth rate for deep-red South Dakota is 2.01 births per woman. The birth rate for deep-blue Vermont is 1.3.
Wilcox argues that left-of-center policies to encourage fertility — government incentives and subsidies — don’t work very well. Families with children are moving out of blue states into red states. What matters more, he suggests, are job opportunities, cost of living (especially housing) and family-friendly culture.
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Billing, Upcoding and Hospital Revenues
Image credit: Bing Image Creator by James A. Bacon
As the investigation into alleged management abuses at the University of Virginia Health System and School of Medicine gathers momentum, several physicians have detailed their allegations to The Daily Progress. Perhaps the most damning charge is that senior Medical Center executives pressured physicians into “upcoding” procedures to overcharge patients and their insurers.
Upcoding is fraud. Sadly, the practice is widespread in the healthcare industry. Whether it occurred at UVA remains an open question. The Jefferson Council trusts the Board of Visitors investigation to appraise the validity of the charges leveled by 128 UVA Medical Center professionals over the past several months.
But I was curious about the business context in which upcoding might have occurred. Might financial pressures have incentivized senior management to take a more aggressive approach to billing? Such background information would be useful to the investigation.
Several major events have roiled the UVA Health System since 2020 when Craig Kent became CEO and 2021 when Melina Kibbe took the helm as dean of the medical school: the COVID epidemic, the jettisoning of litigious debt-collection practices, and accounting misstatements stemming from the acquisition of three community hospitals.
After a close review of Medical Center finances, here is my bottom line: allegations that UVA began billing more aggressively two to three years ago coincide with a surge in revenue per patient beginning in fiscal 2022. But many factors affect hospital revenues, so I am reluctant to draw any conclusion beyond suggesting that accusations of upcoding warrant a closer look.
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Virginia’s New Blue Collar Boom Town
by James A. Bacon
Don’t take this Chat GBT-generated image as an accurate rendering of what submarine construction looks like. But it’s more dramatic than a real photo. The Hampton Roads region will need 40,000 skilled workers over the next six years to support growth of the maritime and offshore wind industries, says Hampton Roads Workforce Council President and CEO Shawn Avery. Most of those jobs will require blue-collar skills now in short supply.
Newport News Shipbuilding will need workers to build two Virginia-class submarines annually and make modular components for Columbia-class submarines, reports Virginia Business magazine. That doesn’t include thousands more needed to build the USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise aircraft carriers or workers needed for the region’s naval shipyards that do repair and maintenance for the fleet.
Then there’s the offshore wind industry. The wind-turbine building boom for Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project will support an estimated 900 jobs, and when construction subsides, the wind farm will continue to support 1,100 direct and indirect jobs. Plus, there are signs that the regional effort to make Hampton Roads a major East Coast center of the wind-farm supply chain, including manufacturing, is paying off with more corporate investment and more jobs.
It’s not clear from the article if the 40,000 figure represents total maritime/wind jobs or net new jobs. Either way, it looks like a significant gain for an economically moribund region that has been a drag on Virginia’s economic performance for many years.
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Random Stats of the Day: Birth Rates
For the edification of Bacon’s Rebellion readers, I’m presenting some data compiled by Jim Weigand, our Lynchburg correspondent, on birth rates in Virginia. The table above shows the 10 localities with the highest birth rates. The thing that stands out: they’re all cities.
What’s with the City of Fairfax, by the way? The birth rate in surrounding Fairfax County is only 11.59.
Here are the localities with the lowest birth rates:
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Factoid of the Day: Toughest Driver Tests
Virginia has the toughest written driving tests in the country, according to a study by the Whitley Law Firm, a personal injury firm, and Journo Research. States the press release:
Virginia is the state where it’s hardest to pass the written driving test, with an index score of 21.39 out of 100. To pass the 35-question exam, one must score at least 86%, meaning examinees must answer at least 30 questions correctly. In addition, there needs to be a 15-day gap between one test and the next if participants were unsuccessful the first time around.
New York has the easiest written test, according to the study.
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Youngkin on Clean Election Rolls
Governor Glenn Youngkin released the following statement after the Supreme Court ruling upholding his executive order to keep non-citizens off Virginia’s voter rolls (my bold):
We are pleased by the Supreme Court’s order today. This is a victory for commonsense and election fairness. I am grateful for the work of Attorney General Jason Miyares on this critical fight to protect the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens. Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections. Virginians also know that we have paper ballots, counting machines not connected to the internet, a strong chain of custody process, signature verification, monitored and secured drop boxes, and a ‘triple check’ vote counting process to tabulate results. Virginians can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure, and free from politically-motivated interference.
I can’t speak for the other states in the union, but I’m confident that Virginia has a rigorous system for preserving election integrity. Voting fraud on a scale sufficient to alter an election outcome is impossible. Time to focus on getting out the vote. — JAB
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Bacon Bits: Good, Bad, and Ugly
All it took was picking up the phone. Radio IQ profiles Rina Shaw, a Central Virginia resident who was expunged along with 1,600 other Virginia residents from the voter rolls as part of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s purge of non-citizen voters. Shaw tells Radio IQ she accidentally marked “non-citizen” on her DMV paperwork and was disenrolled. After being informed of the fact, she tried unsuccessfully to correct her error by means of “mailed-in paperwork.” Youngkin’s action has been challenged legally and seems destined to a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Here’s what’s ignored in most articles I’ve read: Youngkin’s order requires the state to notify those whose registrations are flagged… as evidently happened in Shaw’s case. And the order gives them 14 days to provide proof of citizenship… which Shaw managed to do. Radio IQ notes toward the bottom of its story that she “was reenrolled after a call to her registrar’s office.”
Update: Minutes ago the Supreme Court upheld Youngkin’s executive order.
History is complicated. Colonial Williamsburg hopes to open a new attraction next year: the Bray School, which is touted as the oldest surviving school for Black children in America. A school roster from 1760 shows that three free Black children were enrolled and 27 were slaves. Historians are understandably delighted in revealing an aspect of Black history in Virginia that had been buried for so long. And I agree. We should tell the history of all Americans. In its article about the school, The Washington Post asks, who were the children? What did they do with their education? Good questions. But I’d like to know also… who built the school? Who paid its ongoing expenses? What were their motivations? Weren’t there laws against educating Blacks? The institution of slavery, I suspect, was far more variegated in practice than commonly depicted.
Image credit: Inside NoVa Sign of the times. To someone like me who attended school in the 1960s, images like the one above at Lake Ridge Middle School in Prince William County, are beyond bizarre. Requiring students to pass through metal detectors before entering school is an idea that literally never occurred to anyone back in the day. Now it’s hailed as a victory in the effort to keep students safe.
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Decked Out
A lame duck councilman’s race card doesn’t trump anything.
Councilman Chris Jones by Joe Fitzgerald
Imagine that you’re Harrisonburg City Councilman Chris Jones, perhaps without his driving record or his tax bills, but with his animosity toward the school system. You’re at the end of ten years on the council after coming in dead last in the Democratic primary. Is it time to rebuild bridges with the school system or to double down?
Maybe this offer by Jones concerning his final two months in office will help define what he chose: “If we want to bring financial comfort or pain to the school system, then bring that to me.”
Ten minutes into the latest School Board/City Council Liaison Committee meeting, Jones had already identified himself as a Black male twice. He’s in a room with nine city and school officials. Five of them are people of color and one is Jewish. Only two are White males and one of them has an adopted Black child. And Jones, speaking to two Black people, is demanding to know whether White people are deciding who’s on the Superintendent’s Task Force for Support of African American Students.
“I want to make sure we’re not being tokenized,” he says, with a straight face. “I don’t know who’s on your task force.”
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Is It Asking Too Much For Free And Fair Elections?
by Kerry Dougherty
Is it too much to ask for a little balance when it comes to American presidential elections?
I’m not talking about balanced news coverage. I know THAT’s not going to happen.
I mean a balance between making it easy to vote and making it easy to cheat.
Is that so hard?
Requiring a picture ID to vote, for instance, should not be controversial. Yes, I am aware that leftists have low opinions of African Americans and believe that they travel through our world without identification. I don’t happen to believe that. I believe that people of all races have IDs and should be required to produce one to vote.
Here in Virginia if you don’t have a picture ID a current utility bill with your name and address can substitute.
Idiocy.
Produce a picture ID or you don’t get to vote.
This isn’t hard.
Then there’s the question of non-citizens voting. This is illegal under both federal and Virginia law.
But when Gov. Glenn Youngkin notified more than 1,000 self-identified non-citizens that they were coming off the voter rolls, leftists scurried to court to block the move. Continue reading.
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But, But… Illegal Aliens Are Mostly Peaceful
Ortiz by James A. Bacon
I have been assured by the smartest people that it’s a myth that illegal immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans. But it is indisputable that some illegal aliens do commit crimes. Here in Virginia, the individual arrested and charged in connection to a double murder in a Loudoun County parking lot, Marlyn Medrano-Ortiz, is affiliated with the criminal Salvadoran gang MS-13.
Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s racist and xenophobic to single out instances like this. Except it’s really not. Indeed, one could argue that it’s racist and xenophobic to sweep the crimes of illegal immigrants under the rug. The reason is that their victims are disproportionately likely to be of the same ethnicity. You see, criminals usually commit violent offenses against people whom they know personally or mix in the same circles.
Here’s a photo of the murder victims:
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Virginia’s Expanding News Desert
by James A. Bacon
Source: “Medill State of Local News Report 2024“ The “news desert” is expanding in Virginia, as it is across the country. Twelve Virginia counties have no local news sources, and 81 counties have only one, according to a study by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
There is a shred of consolation. As traditional newspapers continue to lose circulation, digital media are popping up all over. But even that good news comes with a caveat: digital publications are found mostly in urban areas, not rural counties where the news drought is most pronounced.
Nationally, the United States has lost more than one-third of its newspapers since 2005, and the survivors have cut back their news operations.
“This research shows that the crisis in local news is deepening, and fewer Americans have access to news they need about their communities to be informed citizens,” said Tim Franklin, director of the Medill Local News Initiative.
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An Expensive Test
Richardson Carter Bell, on trial for voter fraud. Photo credit: Cardinal News by Dick Hall-Sizemore
In one of the rare trials in Virginia for voter fraud, a Nelson County jury recently found a man not guilty.
As reported by Cardinal News, on Nov. 4, 2023, Richardson Carter Bell voted early for the General Assembly and local races. On Nov. 7, Election Day, he went to his precinct and presented his ID to vote. When the system indicated that he had already voted, the election worker sent for the chief of elections. While waiting for the chief, Bell explained that he was only testing the security of the system. Apparently, officials were not amused and Bell was charged with trying to vote twice, a Class 6 felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
When questioned by the State Police, Bell said, “I was messing to see if they were gonna let me vote again to see what kind of fraud was going on. But I went in and gave them my ID and then it showed up [that] I’d already voted. So I was doing a little detective work.” The Commonwealth’s attorney took the position that Bell was not authorized to test the system and compared his action to pulling the fire alarm to see if the sprinklers work.
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Lock the Liquor Cabinet!
Image credit: Chat GBT Sign of the times: Shoplifting in ABC stores in Hampton Roads is on the rise. The thefts are creating such a strain on the resources of local law enforcement that Virginia Beach’s police chief is calling for the Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority’s Bureau of Law Enforcement to take over primary responsibility for investigating liquor thefts.
Reports The Virginian-Pilot:
Roughly 31,000 bottles of alcohol worth more than $1.6 million have been stolen from Virginia ABC stores so far this year, according to data provided by the authority from Jan. 1 through Oct. 16. In the Hampton Roads region, Norfolk has had the most thefts to date with 6,199 bottles of booze stolen at a total value of more than $233,000.
The Pilot did not say how much thefts increased statewide compared to the previous year, but it did note that shoplifting from ABC stores in the City of Chesapeake rose by 90% from 2022 to 2023.
The worst theft problems at ABC stores have been by organized crime groups in Northern Virginia, said Tom Kirby, ABC chief operations officer. Thieves have such a predilection for Cognac that the Authority is considering putting bottles in clear lock boxes on the shelves. — JAB
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When 70%+ Is Actually 37%
Image credit: Grok by Todd Truitt
The claim that 70%+ of Virginia schools would be in the bottom two of four summative categories of the new accountability system has spread in the press and on social medial for almost two months. One activist group claimed it “makes schools all over Virginia ripe for takeover, reputational damage, and privatization” (never mind that the Virginia Constitution would likely not permit a state takeover of a school). The Washington Post reported on allegations that the new system is a “politically driven decision to paint schools in a bad light.”
In fact, the “up to 70%” claim had been an off-the-cuff estimate by Virginia Board of Education (VBOE) member Anne Holton based on partially modeled data during the VBOE meeting on August 28, 2024. In response, Superintendent Lisa Coons had warned, “I think we’re making assumptions before we have data so I caution us to make assumptions without that information.”
The press ran with such claim anyway, and it was pushed on social media to the extent it became common knowledge. In particular, state politics reporter (not opinion columnist) Anna Bryson of the Richmond Times-Dispatch (RTD) gave the incomplete data such breathless coverage that one has to wonder about her motivations.
The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) finally debunked this claim in an FAQ last week, clarifying that the amount is 37% based on more complete data (along with debunking other misinformation, like tracking of students into the military and with English Learners). Here is the relevant excerpt:
