NYTimes stories and editorials I’m reading this morning:

• Israeli Court Orders Changes to Barrier in West Bank
  The Israeli Supreme Court today said the route of the country’s West Bank separation barrier is causing too much harm to the local Palestinian population.
• Thousands of Protesters in Hong Kong Take Aim at Beijing
  Tens of thousands of protesters on Thursday challenged Beijing’s refusal to allow them to elect their own leaders. 
• Dude, Where’s That Elite? (By BARBARA EHRENREICH)
  With Michael Moore as the left’s most visible spokesman, it’s time to retire the “liberal elite” label.
• Those Were the Days (By BRUCE BARTLETT)
  The publication of Bill Clinton’s memoirs has led many conservatives to reassess their memories of his presidency.

And some NPR Morning Edition stories:

• After Several Lean Years, States See Revenue Surpluses
  Last year, many U.S. states found themselves in serious financial straits. This year, tax revenues are up, and more than half the states have a budget surplus. But their budgetary woes are far from over. NPR’s Wendy Kaufman reports.
• Cassini Becomes First Craft to Enter Saturn’s Orbit
  After a six-and-a-half-year journey, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft becomes the first to enter Saturn’s orbit. The bus-sized spacecraft will spend the next several years exploring the planet, its rings and its moons. NPR’s Richard Harris reports.
• Ear Surgeries Seek to Heal Painful Saddam Legacy
  Among the legacies of Saddam Hussein’s reign are the thousands of Iraqis with missing or mutilated ears. Slicing off an ear was standard punishment for army deserters. Now the new Iraqi government is footing the bill for ear replacement surgery. NPR’s Emily Harris reports.

The NyTimes has a op-ed by Bob Herbert about how the insurance agency is cooking up a crisis about medical liability.

The A.M.A. has its crisis states marked in red on a map of the U.S. on its Web site. One of the red states is Missouri. But a press release in April from the Missouri Department of Insurance said, “Missouri medical malpractice claims, filed and paid, fell to all-time lows in 2003 while insurers enjoyed a cash-flow windfall.”

Another red state on the A.M.A. map is New Jersey. Earlier this month, over the furious objections of physicians’ representatives, a judge ordered the release of data showing how much was being paid out to satisfy malpractice claims. The judge’s order was in response to a suit by The Bergen Record.

The newspaper reported that an analysis of the data showed that malpractice payments in New Jersey had declined by 21 percent from 2001 to 2003. But malpractice insurance premiums surged over the same period. A.M.A. officials told me yesterday that they thought the New Jersey data was “incomplete,” but they did not dispute the 21 percent figure.

While I’ve heard some things about there not being a corelation between medical tort reform and medical insurance premiums. It’s intresting to note that the low instrest rates that we have used to boost up the economy has the downside effect of putting pressure on premiums.

There is no question that malpractice insurance premiums have increased sharply over the past few years. In some instances they have skyrocketed. But, as the Congressional Budget Office has noted, there are a variety of reasons for that, including the cost of malpractice awards, decreases in the investment income of insurance companies and cyclical factors in the insurance market.

“Insurance companies’ investment yields have been lower for the past few years,” the budget office said in a report in January, “putting pressure on premiums to make up the difference.

It’s nearly impossible this week to escape the stories about Reagan’s life. Two I’m reading and listen to today stand out. The first is a slate article about the how of Reagan’s winning the cold war. It talks about the mix of his hawk and disarmament policies and the extreme luck of having Mikhail Gorbachev as his opposite. The second is a NPR Morning Edition peice about how Reagan used far from factual anecdotes and rhetoric to deflect criticisms or make policy points. The points are told by Evan Cornog the author of “The Power and the Story.”