For Profit

If you are a teacher in debt, there's good news and bad news. There are literally dozens of programs that could potentially help wipe out your student loans. But most of them have narrow requirements that may lock you out. Just ask Troy Dale, a high school counselor from Ellis, Kan. He and his wife have $23,000 in student loans that they've been paying down for nearly a decade. At their current rate, they'll still be paying off their student debts when their oldest child enrolls in college.

Most people have probably encountered Avery Dennison Corp. products without even knowing it. The Pasadena company makes self-adhesive labels used on a wide variety of consumer goods: beer and wine bottles, shampoo and personal care items, pharmaceuticals and food. It also makes labels and tags attached to clothing. You know those annoying plastic fasteners that connect price tags to shirts, dresses and other clothing? Yep, they make those too. "We're everywhere you look, and you don't think about us a whole lot," said Dean A. Scarborough, the company's chief executive.

Four for-profit colleges encouraged undercover applicants to commit fraud, and all 15 visited by undercover investigators made "deceptive or otherwise questionable statements," according to a government report released Wednesday. The pervasive nature of the problems found by the Government Accountability Office appeared to contradict the for-profit industry's previous assertion that problems in the sector are limited to a few bad apples, senators said. "GAO's findings make it disturbingly clear that abuses in for-profit recruiting are not limited to a few rogue recruiters or even a few schools with lax oversight," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)

It's hard enough having a serious condition like cancer or kidney failure. It's even worse, some might think, when your health insurer says you have to buy your medicine from the pharmacy of its choice - or pay the full amount for expensive life-saving drugs elsewhere. Yet that's precisely what Anthem Blue Cross is telling people who require so-called specialty medicines, which are used for complex conditions and can cost thousands of dollars a month. As of Jan. 1, the insurer says, such people can either buy their drugs from the mail-order pharmacy CuraScript or pay full fare at a retail drugstore.

For-profit colleges are booming as the unemployed turn to education, but some members of Congress and Obama administration officials say they are growing at the expense of taxpayers and that students are often exploited. The average profit among such publicly traded higher education companies soared to $229 million in 2009, up from $150 million the year before, with the lion's share of their revenue coming from federal student aid. For example, federal dollars accounted for 86% of revenue at the University of Phoenix, which has more than 458,000 students.

Your exceptional article describing the Christian outreach work of Pastor Matthew Barnett was well-written and an inspiration for our religious community ("On Faith Alone," by Bob Emmers, July 21). Barnett's efforts have followed Jesus Christ's command: You must love and help your neighbor just as much as you love and take care of yourself. The traditional church was one built on faith and good works. As the King James Bible says, faith that doesn't show itself by good works is no faith at all--it is dead and useless.

We're learning that competition between for-profit airplane companies on the basis of price may bring low-cost fares but also less safety. We're learning that competition among for-profit health insurance companies on the basis of price may bring low-cost health insurance but also less quality. We have been led to believe that unregulated competition among corporations would bring efficiency, low cost and quality. The facts we are living and dying with tell us differently. Doris Isolini Nelson Los Angeles

In a March 20 article, "Maxicare's Ills Fuel Debate Over Benefits of HMOs," Howard Greenwald of USC was quoted as saying that "any for-profit HMO is going to be in trouble." Greenwald apparently has not considered that HMOs vary greatly in size, structure and depth of experience. There are 643 companies in the United States loosely referred to as HMOs. As with companies in any other industry, some are well managed, some are not. The Times article implied that for-profit HMOs are somehow inferior to not-for-profit HMOs.

As a small businessman, I can well understand the desire of Michael Talla and other owners of for-profit health clubs to eliminate or at least lessen the competition wherever legally possible. This would permit them to make more money. What I cannot understand is the willingness of the Los Angeles Times to provide a forum for the health clubs' attack without at least commenting on the obvious public policy question that is being raised. Namely, should the state and federal governments subsidize through tax policy charitable organizations that compete with for-profit organizations?

The detailed survey of employment opportunities in the "Southern California Job Market" supplement, March 6, will aid both those seeking a change in career objective and the forthcoming June graduates. As a vocational instructor in the public school system, I was particularly interested in "Learning a Trade Without College." While there are acceptable for-profit schools, the cost is prohibitive for most of the working class. The electronic course that I teach--at no cost to the students--is usually priced at $2,000 to $4,000 at private trade schools.

California's largest for-profit health insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, is seeking to raise rates an average of 18% for more than 630,000 individual policyholders, drawing scrutiny from regulators and the ire of consumers already struggling with soaring premiums. Some Anthem customers may see rates rise as much as 25% in February under the company's proposal at a time when medical inflation is running at historic lows nationwide. The increases are among several others proposed by California insurers, including Aetna Inc. and Health Net Inc. California insurance regulators will take the next month to review whether these rate increases are warranted, but state officials don't have the authority to reject them for being unreasonable.

If ever there was a poster child for the law of unintended consequences, it is the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Down through the years, few government programs have enjoyed the almost universal approval of the GI Bill, enacted in 1944 and expanded in 1966. I'm one of its fans: It helped me buy my first home (a bungalow in Hermosa Beach) and sent me to law school. As the U.S. military became all volunteer in the 1970s and America enjoyed more than a quarter-century of peace, the GI Bill seemed less necessary and its benefits dwindled.

Several Roman Catholic organizations have challenged Obama administration rules requiring religious colleges and hospitals (but not churches themselves) to offer preventive healthcare, including contraceptive coverage, with no deductibles or co-pays. Even though the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of most of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), the courts still have to decide whether those institutions are exempt from the contraception requirement under a federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Our view is that church-affiliated charitable and educational institutions should offer such coverage, even if they are self-insured.

WASHINGTON - For-profit colleges are failing their students and saddling taxpayers with an enormous bill, a two-year investigation by the Senate education panel's Democratic staff concluded. The harsh report, released Monday by the committee's chairman, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), found that federal taxpayers spent $32 billion on for-profit colleges in 2009-10, while more than half of the students who enrolled in them dropped out without degrees after about four months in 2008-09. "In this report, you will find overwhelming documentation of exorbitant tuition, aggressive recruiting practices, abysmal student outcomes, taxpayer dollars spent on marketing and pocketed as profit, and regulatory evasion and manipulation," Harkin said.

In a class catalog, it probably would be listed as "College Promotion 101. " That's what it looks like along U.S. 101 in the western San Fernando Valley, where a proliferation of large directional signs point the way to local colleges and vocational schools. In all, school operators have managed to get 36 of the green signs placed along a seven-mile stretch of the Ventura Freeway in Tarzana and Woodland Hills. It's the largest cluster of college directional signs in the Los Angeles area.

In tight financial times, many cities save money by outsourcing municipal services such as clerical work to private companies. But there is no service more central to government and the people it serves than public safety, which should remain the responsibility of public agencies. The case of a fired lifeguard in Florida shows why. Beachgoers brought lifeguard Tomas Lopez's attention to a man floundering in shallow water. He raced to the scene; by then, the man had been pulled to the beach but had water in his lungs.

Re "Governors Write Their Own Prescriptions for Healthcare Crisis," Nov. 21 The Republican agenda is clear: Give Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security recipients a check and tell them they are on their own. If they need healthcare, their option will be the for-profit healthcare industry. If they want to provide for retirement, their option will be the for-profit investment industry. Public (taxpayer) funds are directed into private coffers -- for a Republican, what could be a better plan?

Re "Vaccine industry is being revived," Jan. 28 The Times hints at an upbeat future for vaccine development, thanks almost entirely to increased funding from government and charitable sources. However, the real story being reported here is that the for-profit pharmaceutical sector has sacrificed millions of lives around the world by refusing to carry out unprofitable vaccine research for many decades. This free-market failure has been exacerbated by the for-profit health insurance industry, which is disinclined to pay the cost of vaccines, further reducing the market and simultaneously creating a dangerously vulnerable population.

WASHINGTON - A federal judge has struck down a key provision in an Obama administration regulation that would have penalized education programs whose graduates end up with huge debts and low job prospects. The Education Department's "gainful employment regulations," which would have gone into effect Sunday, were designed to prevent career training programs, mainly at for-profit colleges, from leaving students with unaffordable debt and limited employment options. Critics of for-profit colleges expressed disappointment over the decision.

As the July 1 date draws near for the scheduled closure of up to 70 state parks, deals are being made to keep the gates open. When the dust settles, none of the targeted parks may actually have to close this year. But that doesn't mean they're saved either. Many of the agreements to keep them operating - whether by having local boosters raise money or by having a county or the National Park Service help out - are good only for the next fiscal year. The money that the Legislature intends to redirect to the parks from the state Department of Motor Vehicles and other sources is also only a temporary measure designed to buy time.