IASPS
Quarterly Report
Spring 2000
Comments of the President
The Director's Column
Media
Focus on Fellows' Research
Koret
Fellows
Form a Corps of Teachers
The Internet/Telcom Corner
Institute Hires Executive Director
Reality: Israeli Citizens Against Government Waste
Dignitaries Discuss Mideast at IASPS
Back to the IASPS Homepage
Readers of past Quarterly Reports may perceive some redundancy in an update of the IASPS Koret Fellowship Program that opens with: "The IASPS Koret Program is setting the public policy agenda in Israel..." but there really is no other way to open such an update: We are setting the agenda.
Witness: Headline in the Jerusalem Post, March 14, 2000: "Call to end `monopolization' of health services." Post reporter Judy Siegel gives a thorough account of Koret Fellow Limor Menirav's
just-published Policy Studies No. 45, "Nursing Homes in
Israel."
The Post's opening paragraph: "An independent Jerusalem/Washington institute has issued a report calling for an end to Health Ministry
'monopolization' of geriatric hospital services, encouraging private geriatric insurance, and restricting the ministry's authority to regulate the medical system. The report claimed that $200 million a year is being
'wasted' by ministry control of state, public and private geriatric nursing care."
Or, witness: Headline in Globes, Israel's leading financial daily newspaper, April
4-5, 2000: "Study: Eliminate the phenomenon of public housing." Globes reporter Dalia Tal presents the findings and evidence developed in IASPS
Policy Studies No. 46, "Public Housing in Israel: A Proposal for Reform," written by IASPS Koret Fellow Bar Dadon.
The Globes article quotes Dadon as reprimanding the government for asserting that discounts granted to residents of public housing who purchase their units, actually constitute a state subsidy that can be calculated. (The government has spent long months and years trying to calculate the exact cost of this subsidy, rather than acting on the issue.) Dadon is quoted as saying that the "calculation is irrelevant since these assets do not produce income and the rental income from residents does not even cover maintenance costs or the costs of the housing companies. The proper approach in selling the housing units should be cutting the annual loss and reducing the burden on the taxpayer."
Significantly, Dadon's study played a a role in follow-up articles the next week. When Absorption Minister Julie Tamir warned of a possible "catastrophe" involving public housing, Dadon's research on the failures of state involvement in the sector was cited by the reporter. And in a news item reporting that a work slowdown by employees of the
state-supported public housing system was preventing the planned sale of even a minimal amount of units by the government, Dadon was once again cited to put the sector and the sale in its real perspective.
While the Fellows in Israel were holding the ills of state involvement in the economy up to public scrutiny, two Fellows were flying to Capitol Hill for a
one-month Fellowship there.
Uri Resnick carried out research in the office of Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Aging. Resnick studied the regulation of the nursing home industry in the United States.
Roni Azoulay's month in Washington was spent in the office of Florida Senator Connie Mack, who is chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. Azoulay worked closely with Professor James Gwartney, head of Senator Mack's economic team, on new parameters for the Economic Freedom Index that was developed by Professor Gwartney.
While in Washington, both Fellows participated in briefings at IASPS/DC and, through IASPS, they met with other policy professionals and think tanks, including Citizens Against Government Waste and the Cato Institute.
Upon their return to Israel, they rejoined the Koret Fellowship team that is setting the policy agenda for the Jewish State