Viewpoints: Poizner A Stellar Choice For Insurance Commissioner
A selection of opinions on health care developments from around the state.
The Mercury News:
Poizner Is Best Choice For Insurance Commissioner
No state official — outside of the governor — touches the lives of the average Californian more than the insurance commissioner. The person stepping into the office of outgoing Commissioner Dave Jones for the next four years will have a big voice on the future of health, auto and homeowner insurance rates. The job requires a person who understands the need to balance consumer and business interests. Steve Poizner, who would be the first independent to serve in a statewide office, is the best choice for voters on June 5. His record as insurance commissioner from 2007-11 was stellar. He followed through on his promise to keep politics out of the job and worked to make it a non-partisan position, as it should be. Poizner stood up for policy holders while also doing everything in his power to maintain a healthy insurance industry. (4/7)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Defeat Of California Housing Bill Reveals A Crisis Of Political Courage
Among those who didn’t treat state Sen. Scott Wiener’s transit-friendly housing bill as a latter-day Stamp Act warranting revolution, one popular tactic was to declare sympathy for it in “concept.” It was just the details, countless officials claimed — the precise building heights allowed, the level of affordable-housing set-asides, the strength of displacement protections — that kept them from offering full-throated support. (4/18)
Los Angeles Times:
Tax Policy Is A Bore, Until They Take Your Social Security And Medicare Away
Tax cuts do not pay for themselves — not the Trump tax cuts, nor in any other case in modern U.S. practice. So we face only two possible courses of action: Either we tax ourselves more, or we dismantle the social safety net (in particular, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) that protects Americans from destitution or disability. Which is the right direction for our country to pursue? One political movement has its answer at the ready: Slash the safety net. (Edward Klein, 4/15)
Sacramento Bee:
San Joaquin Valley Can Replenish Its Groundwater
California’s biggest agricultural region also has the state’s biggest groundwater deficit, which has long-term consequences for the region’s economy and farming. The San Joaquin Valley — where decades of unchecked pumping has depleted reserves, resulting in a long-term deficit of nearly 2 million acre-feet per year — has about a generation to bring its groundwater use into balance to comply with the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Storing more water underground through “groundwater recharge” can help, reducing the deficit by as much as a quarter. (Ellen Hanak and Sarge Green, 4/18)
Los Angeles Times:
Garcetti's Plans For Homeless Shelters Raise As Many Questions As They Answer
In his state of the city speech Monday, Mayor Eric Garcetti eloquently conjured the image of a child who sees a homeless woman sleeping on a bench and asks whether she has someone to take care of her. "The answer is yes," Garcetti said. "The city of Los Angeles is going to take care of her and bring her home." Certainly, the new plans that the mayor laid out in his speech for financing shelters across the city of Los Angeles are a start toward finding at least temporary housing — about 1,500 beds, he estimates. But his plans raised as many concerns as they addressed. (4/17)