Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

News: Ear to the Ground

Moving Day Dawns

The Knox Area Chamber Partnership is scheduled to move into the former Watson’s building on Market Square on Monday and Tuesday, although there have been so many moving dates scheduled, we hesitate to announce it. The retrofit has taken longer than scheduled. Movers were scheduled in August. And September. And October. And November. But this time it appears to be a go.

The building is owned by David Dewhirst and the Chamber lease puts more downtown workers on Market Square. The Central Business Improvement District, which promotes downtown, will once again be in the Central Business Improvement District.

Figurehead Wanted

There must be at least a dozen people who are concerned about who will become the new chair of the Knox County Republican Party to replace the departing Chad Tindell. The two-year term runs into 2006 when the state will be electing a governor and a U.S. senator. Not to mention county mayor and sheriff.

Knox County’s Republican Party is dominated by Sheriff Tim Hutchison and County Mayor Mike Ragsdale. Former school board member Brian Hornback, who is leaning toward running, would seem to have the inside track as chairman. He has worked in several campaigns, including several of Ragsdale’s. He was campaign chair for Ragsdale’s chief of staff, former county commissioner Mike Arms. He has also been a strong supporter of Hutchison. Since county officeholders retain control of the Lincoln Day Dinner, and its resulting revenue, the chair of the party is left to use jaw-boning skills and public relations as the weapons of choice. Tindell had a good working relationship with the officeholders while skillfully exercising the PR option.

Tindell, an attorney, has been put in an awkward position by reports that he did his duty as chair in order to run for judge. We’re sure he would want us to tell you that he loves all incumbent judges and would only be available should one of them get hit by a bus.

Reform Faces Further Peril

It is very likely that, in the upcoming session, Gov. Phil Bredesen will have to ask the General Assembly for hundreds of millions of dollars to again bail out TennCare. Two years into office and submitting his third budget TennCare reform remains elusive. Even if problems are resolved dealing with patient advocates and Judge John Nixon’s rulings, Bredesen may need as much as $600 million to get TennCare out of a hole.

Nashville insiders say while Bredesen is making advocate Gordon Bonnyman the fall guy if his reform plan fails, it obscures the fact that his chief money-saving provision is not a done deal in the nation’s capital. The lynchpin of Bredesen’s TennCare reform is cutting prescription drug costs, limiting the number of drugs that can be prescribed. The nation’s pharmaceutical industry is not taking that proposal lying down and officials are furiously lobbying the Health and Human Services agency that approves Medicaid plans to get the prescription limits out of the plan.

The Legislature approved additional money for TennCare for former HMO whiz Bredesen’s first two budgets in order to give him time to put his reform plan together. Being asked to cough up hundreds of millions more may produce the first fireworks of the Bredesen administration.

Running With Bloody Suit?

TennCare’s travails have not gone unnoticed in the nation’s press, and, as usual the view of the program is a Rorschach test for the writer.

A Wall Street Journal editorial, predictably, labeled TennCare as an experiment in what Hillary Clinton had in mind for America with her health care reform task force and cited Tennessee’s suffering as what could have happened to the nation. The editorial suggests Gov. Phil Bredesen tell Republicans in Washington and Sen. Clinton that government health care leads to perdition.

Meanwhile, Ron Brownstein, the Los Angeles Times columnist/reporter says TennCare’s problem is that the national government ought to shoulder more responsibility and calls TennCare the nation’s most ambitious plan to provide health coverage for working families. Brownstein notes that Bredesen, who has threatened to kill TennCare and go back to Medicaid, is the rare Democratic governor in a red state and a possibility for a national ticket. “But it wouldn’t be easy for Bredesen to step onto the national stage with TennCare’s blood on his suit.”

Saving Private Fulton

The corporate offices of Fulton Bellows have been moved to a building at Forks of the River industrial park and production lines may begin moving during the Christmas holidays. The 100-year-old Knoxville industry has been located at the edge of the University of Tennessee campus but the old buildings and outdated machinery have resulted in high utility costs and reduced productivity.

The new owners bought the company out of bankruptcy and are moving to making it a thriving concern as demand for its products remains strong. The company has been based on patents secured by Knoxville inventor Weston Fulton.