Gov. Jerry Brown is set on enacting major education reform. But he, and Californians, should remember that the state has an important role to play in setting standards and measuring performance, even while teachers and their supervisors are given more freedom to decide what goes on in the classroom. Daniel Weintraub’s weekly essay.
California Focus: Daniel Weintraub
As the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act approaches, the most important question might be this: how are employers going to react? Early indications suggest that many companies — and perhaps even unions — will drop coverage for workers and send them to the newly created, subsidized insurance exchanges instead. Eventually, this could create a series of defacto single-payer plans.
By Daniel Weintraub Film at eleven. Those three words became a part of our language thanks to local television news, which employed them to tease viewers into staying up late to see footage of the latest grisly crime scene. And that sensational crime coverage, in turn, has kept many Californians in the dark about just how much safer their streets are today than they were
As the New Year dawns, California politicians find themselves in a strange position. The economy is improving, the public is growing more optimistic, and the Democrats’ control of super-majorities in the Legislature should reduce gridlock –the one thing that’s always guaranteed to sour voters on government. But that also means that this is the year for the Democrats to produce — or stop blaming the Republicans for blocking all the great things they would otherwise be doing for California. Their to-do list is not a short one. From the state budget to tax reform, financing the schools, overhauling water policy and implementing federal health reform, the Legislature is going to be busy this year. Lawmakers will also need to keep close watch on two risky, only-in-California projects: the construction of a bullet train and the start of the state’s market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Daniel Weintraub’s essay.
A task force appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown has laid out a road map for California to become the healthiest state in the nation by 2022. The ten-year plan establishes 39 specific, measurable goals from cradle to grave. They range from infant mortality and childhood obesity to the management of chronic disease, preventable hospitalizations and the number of terminally ill people using hospice care.
Californians are suddenly feeling good about themselves. And their state. The economy is showing signs of life, employment is rising, and the state budget – and the schools – are in better shape financially thanks to voter-approval of Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to raise taxes. All of that is fueling a level of optimism about the state and its future that hasn’t been seen in these parts for years. See Daniel Weintraub’s essay.
It’s no secret that California’s population has been getting more diverse for decades. More recently, the composition of the state’s electorate has begun to mirror the population. But the people who actually showed up and voted on Election Day have remained whiter, and older, than the pool of registered voters. No more. It appears that for the first time, California Latinos, Asian-Americans and blacks voted last month in numbers roughly equivalent to their share of registered voters. About 40 percent of California’s electorate is now non-white. And ethnic voters made up about 40 percent of those who mailed in their ballots or went to the polls Nov. 6. Daniel Weintraub’s essay.
For as long as many Californians can remember, it seems, the state government has been struggling with budget deficits. Year after year, lawmakers and governors adopt a budget that is supposedly balanced, only to discover – shocking – that the assumptions behind the spending plan were fanciful, or conditions changed, and the red ink overflowed. Amazingly, this sad history might be coming to an end. An improving economy, voter-approved tax increases and, yes, spending restraint in Sacramento are combining to give revenues a chance to catch up to spending in the years ahead. Soon the debate in the Capitol might not be about what to cut, but about how to spend a surplus. Daniel Weintraub’s essay
Barack Obama’s re-election appears to have settled the future of the Affordable Care Act, the president’s health reform law. The law will evolve in the years ahead, perhaps in ways that no one now anticipates, but it will not likely be repealed any time soon. As a result, several million Californians who do not now have insurance coverage will get it, either through the government directly or by buying it with subsidies at a new online marketplace to be known as the California Health Benefit Exchange. But for all the hype and controversy over the Affordable Care Act, the law is really more about insurance than health. Insurance coverage is a good thing. But by itself it is not likely to make Californians much healthier. Chronic disease, which can often be prevented and can almost always be managed, accounts for 75 percent of all deaths in California and a similar percentage of health care costs. And here is the most striking fact: the worst of these diseases – obesity, diabetes, and heart disease – are all correlated with geography, and by extension, with income. Where you live tells us much about how healthy you will be and, ultimately, how long you will live. Daniel Weintraub’s essay.
The health of nearly 1 million California children hangs in the balance this month as the state prepares to shift responsibility for their care to the troubled, cash-strapped Medi-Cal program from a popular service that subsidizes private insurance coverage, known as Healthy Families. Daniel Weintraub’s weekly essay.