"Abandoning the business lobby's traditional resistance to healthcare reform, a new coalition of 36 major companies
plans to launch a political campaign today calling for medical insurance to be expanded to everyone along lines Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing for California," reports Jordan Rau in the Times.
"Founded by
Steve Burd, chairman of the Safeway grocery chain and an ally of the governor, the coalition could boost efforts in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to overhaul healthcare laws. It also formalizes a growing division over the issue among businesses.
"The coalition includes some of the nation's largest companies: PepsiCo, General Mills, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., The Kroger Co., a number of Safeway vendors and grocery item manufacturers such as Bumble Bee Seafoods LLC.
"It also includes insurers and drug firms that probably would benefit from mandated health insurance: Aetna, Blue Shield of California, Cigna HealthCare, Eli Lilly and Co. and PacifiCare.
"Such large firms already provide medical coverage to their employees and have become increasingly frustrated as premiums have increased over the years. That has made them more willing to look to the government for solutions."
Dan Walters reports on some of the
turf wars in the healthcare world this year.
"
This year's hottest clash has been a renewal of the years-long conflict between psychiatrists and psychologists over legal authority to prescribe psychotropic drugs. This year's version of the psychologists' perennial bid for drug-prescribing power was Senate Bill 993, carried by Sen.
Sam Aanestad, R-Penn Valley. It didn't get very far, attracting just a single vote in the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee. The psychiatrists joined forces with other drug-prescribing medical specialists to administer a fatal dose of political medicine to the psychologists' bill."
George Skelton cautions that
the Morongo band might be overreaching in its campaign for a new compact. "'This tribe has been given bad advice by a whole cadre of high-priced consultants," asserts [Assemblymember
Alberto] Torrico, a former labor attorney. He says other tribes have been trying to compromise behind the scenes.
"The Morongo band is pushing too hard against politicians who are prone to push back — who can't be seen as bending to bullies and need some space to help their longtime labor allies.
"
Here's a good bet: The Morongo compact will be the very last one ratified — if it is ratified."
In New York, they're noticing our clout. The New York Times' Adam Nagourney reports on how the new political calendar has changed the way candidates view California.
"
Its sheer size, its concentrations of both liberals and conservatives, its status as a money tree for candidates and its role as fertile ground for policy innovation make California especially likely to wield additional clout this time around. The result is not just a change in tactics; it is
altering the dialogue of the presidential contest in substantive ways. It is forcing candidates to turn their attention to issues, debates and controversies that have historically drawn little attention on the early playing fields of Iowa and New Hampshire.
"
The most striking example is global warming, an issue that was rarely raised in the past two presidential campaigns.
Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, was reminded of this on Thursday night when he was asked on national television at the first Republican presidential candidates’ debate, in Simi Valley, if he thought global warming existed. (Yes, Mr. Huckabee said, though he skirted the issue of whether humans were primarily responsible for it.)
That is hardly the only issue California is putting on the table, as became clear as the presidential candidates from both parties campaigned through the state this week. In their travels they heard about, and talked about, issues that are dominating the politics of this polyglot state:
immigration, stem-cell research, protecting public lands and — reflecting the acute concern of the influential Silicon Valley software industry — the so-called Net neutrality debate over the allocation of Internet bandwidth."
No health care?
"Some state lawmakers
are calling California's dropout rate an educational crisis, and civil rights groups say it's a problem that's disproportionately affecting African Americans and Latinos," reports Judy Lin in the Bee.
"'We cannot afford to have thousands of young people without the education or skills they need to be productive adults in this society,' said Sen.
Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who is among several legislators embarking on a multiyear effort to address the dropout rate. He has introduced a package of bills focused on making schools and districts more accountable for the success of their students.
"At the heart of the package is a bill that proposes to tie a school's academic performance rating to its dropout rate. Steinberg's Senate Bill 219, which is now in the Senate Appropriations Committee, would change how the state calculates the Academic Performance Index, or API, to include students leaving a traditional high school during a school year to attend another high school or enter an alternative program."
The Chron's Michael Cabanatuan writes that
CalTRANS is starting to get respect. "[A]fter the Department of Transportation's speedy response to the collapse of a section of the MacArthur Maze a week ago today, many Bay Area residents find themselves in the unfamiliar position of hailing Caltrans for its plan to reopen one damaged section of the maze this week and another by the end of June."
"Transportation officials, politicians and neighbors of such major Caltrans projects as the repair of Highway 1 at Devil's Slide and the reconstruction of the San Francisco approach to the Bay Bridge say this is no anomaly. In the past couple of years, they say, the agency has made a U-turn -- becoming more responsive, meeting deadlines, cooperating with local government and communicating with the public.
"'Caltrans has really made an effort to change their image -- and they're doing a good job of it,' said
Charise Hale McHugh, executive director of the Half Moon Bay Coastside Chamber of Commerce, who was impressed by the agency's performance in rebuilding Highway 1 at Devil's Slide after huge cracks and rockslides forced its closure last spring.
"Many transportation officials and politicians credit Caltrans Director
Will Kempton for the changes. They say he's brought a businesslike attitude to the organization and created a culture in which collaboration with local transportation agencies and communities is encouraged."
For those of you keeping score at home, Malcolm Maclachlan has
the latest in the madness over at the state chiropractic board. "An attorney has filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) alleging conflict of interests and other misconduct by two employees of the state Board of Chiropractic Examiners (BCE).
The complaint filed on April 30 by chiropractic attorney Roger Calton claims Maggie Craw, chiropractic consultant to the board, sent freelance work from the board to her live-in girlfriend. Craw also reviewed her own work while serving at two different state agencies, the letter claims. It goes on to charge that the Board's now-demoted executive director Catherine Hayes helped cover up this misconduct."
"
Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles, has
requested the board members to appear today at 1:30 for a hearing of the Senate Committee on Business, Professions and Economic Development. According to an April 26 letter sent to board members, "the hearing is for the purpose of reviewing recent and prior actions of the Board relating to passage of a resolution supporting manipulation under anesthesia," a practice considered controversial by some."
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
called Sunday for a 60-day cooling-off period in a contract dispute between 1,100 bus drivers and the Orange County Transportation Authority.
"Lawyers for the state are expected to seek an injunction today against a strike by Teamsters Local 952, which represents the drivers. More than 200,000 people use the buses daily.
"On April 30, the governor blocked a strike for seven days by appointing a panel to gather facts about the dispute. That panel issued a report Sunday, not taking sides but saying that a strike would hurt the county."
"Lawmakers are poised to make it official:
No more idiots, lunatics or imbeciles -- in California's law books," writes Jim Sanders in the Bee.
"Not everyone is a genius, perhaps, but pending legislation would ensure that nobody is a dunce in the eyes of the law.
"Assembly Bill 1640 would remove from old statutes words that are derogatory now but once were commonly used to describe people with mental disabilities.
"'Language matters -- and they're absolutely hurtful,' said Sen.
Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. 'I cringe even repeating them.'
"The legislation, by Assemblyman
Doug LaMalfa, R-Oroville, was approved unanimously last week by the Assembly Judiciary Committee."
And from our
Pardon Me Files, the move to get
Gov. Schwarzenegger to pardon Paris Hilton is officially underway. "Hilton's fans began sending messages of support as news of the jail term spread. One fan,
Joshua Capone, wrote to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger asking him to intervene and keep Hilton out of jail.
"
She provides hope for young people all over the US and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives," Capone wrote in a letter to Schwarzenegger posted online on Hilton's Myspace page.
Doesn't Josh have last one reversed?
Anywho, Hilton quickly responded on her Myspace page.
"I just want to thank Joshua so much for his kind words of love and support. God Bless. Love Paris."
