"Also, by the way, premiums in the individual market will rise by an average of more than 18%."
"Heck of a job."
READ MORE related to Health & Health Care: Obamacare insurance premiums to rise 18 percent next year, analysis finds -- The Chronicle's CATHERINE HO; When a Medicare drug plan formulary changes, you can appeal for an exception -- CHL's MICHELLE ANDREWS; At some California hospitals, fewer than half of workers get the flu shot -- CHL's JOCELYN WIENER
OP-ED: Two red flags that California's economy isn't as healthy as we think
SENATOR JOHN MOORLACH in a Special to the Bee: "Two recent financial tremors should caution California and its municipalities that they had better get their financial houses in order. The first came from Controller Betty Yee in her update on the state’s retiree health care liabilities."
"On January 31, she reported “the state’s cost for retiree health and dental benefits” has grown to $92 billion, up from last year’s $77 billion."
"This is only the second year she has issued this report, following the standards issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board. But it was a $15 billion increase."
READ MORE related to Economy: Sacramento sues Wells Fargo, says bank discriminated against black and Latino borrowers -- Sacramento Bee's RYAN LILLIS; Trump Organization says it has donated foreign profits to US Treasury, but declines to share details -- WaPo's DAVID A. FAHRENTHOLD/JONATHAN O'CONNELL
Oakland councilwoman, families challenge police homicide clearance rate
The Chronicle's JENNA LYONS: "Fewer people are getting away with murder in Oakland."
"That’s according to data published by federal law enforcement, which show that the city’s Police Department in one year went from one of the country’s worst agencies at clearing homicide cases to above the national average."
"In 2008, Oakland detectives solved 24 percent of homicides, according to the U.S. Justice Department. From 2011 to 2015, the city averaged a 40 percent clearance rate — still well below the U.S. big city average of 60 percent. But in an unprecedented improvement, Oakland’s clearance rate surged to 71 percent in 2016, well above the national average."
READ MORE related to Public Safety & Prisons: State Supreme Court limits length of prison time for youth offenders -- The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO
OP-ED: Don't let NIMBYs -- or weak-kneed politicians -- stand in the way of homeless housing
LA Times EDITORIAL BOARD: "“Homes end homelessness.” That was the simple and ultimately persuasive slogan of the Proposition HHH campaign in 2016. In November of that year, an overwhelming 77% of Los Angeles city voters opted to raise their own property taxes to pay for $1.2 billion in homeless housing — 10,000 units to be built over a decade. Politicians exulted in the win and vowed that after years of short-lived strategies and half-hearted measures, they would finally address the crisis with the resolve and the resources needed to bring it under control."
"Never in this city has so much money been available for housing the homeless. Yet the hard part is just beginning. Despite the overwhelming support for Proposition HHH, virtually everyone involved in the process now agrees that fierce NIMBY resistance to homeless housing in some communities and the lack of political will by elected officials in the face of that resistance are the biggest potential impediments to the rollout of housing on the scale and timeline needed to stem the increase in homelessness. There are more than 34,000 homeless people in the city of Los Angeles."
"We did the glitzy part, but now we have to get the work done, brick by brick, block by block” says Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who represents South Los Angeles. “I predict we’ll hit a wall — that we’ll get stuck."
For Asian Americans, the 2018 Winter Olympics brought unexpected joy and familiar anger
LA Times' FRANK SHYONG: "For any Asian American person who faces the constant, clumsy question of "Where are you really from?," the just-completed Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, offered us a few days of relief."
"The iconography answered the question for us: the American flag stitched on snowboarder Chloe Kim's coat and wrapped around her before the gold medal was placed around her neck. At figure skating, the announcer's voice boomed: "Mirai Nagasu from Arcadia, California!" During the commercial breaks, figure skater Nathan Chen's teeth were as white as any Coke-sponsored athletes' have ever been."
"These Olympics felt like a watershed moment because this time Asian Americans were not just members but the face of the team and among its best performers. But the joy I felt those two weeks was repeatedly interrupted by disappointment and anger at the way their stories were told."
OP-ED: The Nunes memo continues to backfire
WaPo's EDITORIAL BOARD: "REPUBLICANS HAVE conducted a campaign of misdirection and innuendo in a partisan effort to help President Trump discredit the Justice Department and the FBI. There was already ample evidence of this before Saturday. After the House Intelligence Committee finally released a Democratic responseto the notorious Nunes memo, the astonishing reality is even clearer."
"The Republicans’ central charge, embodied in the Nunes memo, was this: Federal investigators failed to fully inform judges that information in a secret surveillance warrant application against former Trump adviser Carter Page came from a biased source, a dossier containing wide-ranging allegations against Mr. Trump and his circle that former British spy Christopher Steele compiled on behalf of Democrats. The president has used these findings to argue that the Russia investigation is a politically motivated witch hunt."
"The Democrats’ response memo reveals that judges were, in fact, told that the dossier came from a source the FBI considered politically biased. Republicans shoot back that the disclosure was buried in a footnote and did not specifically name the Hillary Clinton campaign or the Democratic National Committee. How careless do they believe federal judges are? Any of the four judges (each of whom, incidentally, was appointed by a Republican) who reviewed the Page warrant could have demanded more information on the dossier’s provenance."
READ MORE related to POTUS45/KremlinGate: Bizarre legal brawl intensifies at Trump hotel in Panama -- WaPo's JOSHUA PARTLOW/DAVID A. FAHRENTHOLD; House Russia probe investigators set to question Hope Hicks, but will she answer? -- WaPo's KAROUN DEMIRJIAN; Trump's Russia outbursts steer clear of Mueller -- Politico's DARREN SAMUELSOHN; Mueller risk index warns of market declines as probe continues -- Bloomberg's SHANNON PETTYPIECE
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The Roundup is compiled by Associate Editor Geoff Howard. Complaints? Comments? Suggestions? Email him at geoff@capitolweekly.net
