The $13 billion settlement with the Wall Street banking house JPMorgan Chase includes a hefty chunk of dough for CalPERS, the nation's largest public pension fund.
From the AP's Don Thompson: "JPMorgan Chase will pay nearly $300 million to California's public employee and teacher pension funds as part of a settlement related to mortgage-related investments, state Attorney General Kamala Harris announced Tuesday."
"The $299 million in damages will settle claims that the company misrepresented the value of residential mortgage-backed securities sold to the California Public Employees Retirement System and California State Teachers' Retirement System between 2004 and 2008."
"JP Morgan Chase profited by giving California's pension funds incomplete information about mortgage investments," Harris said in a statement. "This settlement returns the money to California's pension funds that JP Morgan wrongfully took from them. The settlement is part of a broader, $13 billion settlement between the investment company and the U.S. Department of Justice."
Down in San Diego, it looks like Faulconer vs. Alvarez in the general election.
From the U-T's Craig Gustafson: "Republican City Councilman Kevin Faulconer easily won a spot Tuesday in the runoff to be San Diego’s next mayor while Councilman David Alvarez appeared likely to join him as the Democratic challenger."
"Faulconer led the crowded field with 43.6 percent of the vote as of 12:10 a.m. Wednesday with all precincts reporting, but the real contest was for second as a surging Alvarez pulled ahead of Qualcomm executive Nathan Fletcher, also a Democrat. Alvarez had 25.6 percent compared to Fletcher's 24.3 percent."
"Former City Attorney Mike Aguirre, a Democrat, finished a distant fourth with less than 5 percent and seven lesser-known candidates each received less than 1 percent."
A former state regulator at the Department of Managed Health Care -- the state office that rides herd on HMOs -- is under investigation for leaving the DMHC and going to work for Kaiser Permanente.
From the LAT's Chris Megerian: "California authorities are investigating whether laws were broken when a government regulator went to work for healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente, a company she spent years investigating for the state."
"Marcy Gallagher was a supervising attorney at the California Department of Managed Health Care, where she participated in several investigations of Kaiser. Last year, she left state employment and joined the company, where she works in a unit that responds to California regulators."
"Documents reviewed by The Times show she was placed on a Kaiser team that was addressing some of the problems identified by reviews she participated in for the state. California's Fair Political Practices Commission opened an inquiry after a health workers' union filed a complaint about Gallagher's move."
Nobody says California's high-speed rail project was going to be cheap. And it isn't, even though construction hasn't started yet.
From the Fresno Bee's Tim Sheehan: "The latest accounting by the California High-Speed Rail Authority to state lawmakers indicates that the agency has spent almost $600 million on engineering and environmental consultants -- all without turning a shovelful of dirt on construction."
"In the twice-a-year report sent to legislative leaders on Friday, the agency is sticking to its estimated price tag of $68.3 billion to build its San Francisco-to-Los Angeles bullet-train line. The agency earlier this year approved a $987 million contract with a team of contractors to design and build the first 29-mile stretch of the line from Madera through Fresno."
"But while contractors Tutor Perini Corp., Zachry Construction and Parsons Corp. have been given a green light for engineering and other pre-construction activities, the authority has offered no estimate of when ground may be broken ."
California leads the nation in a number of categories, but how 'bout this one -- the number of medicos who prescribe name-brand drugs?
From the Daily News' Susan Abram: "California’s doctors led the nation in prescribing name-brand drugs, with a small chunk of those costs coming from physicians in Los Angeles County who chose the pricier brands over cheaper generic versions, according to 2011 federal data."
"Almost 65 million Medicare Part D claims totalling $7.5 billion were filed by internal medicine, family medicine and general practice physicians from the Golden State for their patients. And almost 22 percent of those claims were for name-brand drugs such as Crestor, according to federal data collected by ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit news organization."
"Analysts from the organization gathered names of physicians, the number of claims they made and the drugs they prescribed and found that four physicians, two from Glendale and two in downtown Los Angeles, were the highest prescribers of certain name-brand drugs in the nation. Together, those four physicians filed 252,924 Medicare Part D claims and prescribed a total of nearly $25 million in drugs, including some generic brands."
And from our "Bon Voyage" file comes word that more Americans are renouncing their citizenship, mainly to skip out on U.S. taxes. But there's some irony here.
"The Treasury Department recently published a list of 560 former citizens who have chosen to no longer be Americans, with 2013 on pace to set a record for what are called “expatriations,” breaking the previous mark set just two years ago."
"While it’s impossible to know the personal motivations of each ex-citizen, the desire to avoid paying U.S. taxes is often thought to be a primary reason..."
"But before you burn your U.S. passport, there is one important fact to consider. The United States currently boasts among the lowest taxes in the world, among economically developed nations."
Right, how do you think France, Germany, England and the Scandinavian countries get all that great health care? They pay for it...
