Concerns over Proposed New Health Insurance Regulations
This article was first published in
today’s Los Angeles
Daily News
Despite
alarm raised in many corners over costly new regulations, the California
Legislature is pursuing AB 52 to clamp new regulations on health insurance
premiums.
The
purpose of the bill, according to the author, Assemblyman Mike Feuer, is to
control dramatically rising health care costs by giving state regulators the
authority to deny or moderate proposed insurance premium increases.
Once
again a measure that purportedly is designed to protect consumers ignores the
cost of doing business. Ironically, the increased cost of regulation will find
its way to the consumers either through increased costs or reduced services.
LA Mayor Makes the Case for a Referendum on the Senate Lines
They say that in life, timing is everything. That certainly can be applied to politics and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proved that this week. On the very same day that a referendum was filed to preserve balance in the California State Senate and prevent tax increases, the Mayor asked for a crushing new tax on employers. Now, more than ever, the business community needs to back a public referendum on the Senate lines.
California, like the nation, has been in a seemingly endless series of budget crises. The reflexive answer from the Democrats, and specifically Mayor Villaraigosa, is to raise tax rates. Democrats now want to roll back Prop 13 protection for businesses and attempt to force them to pay higher real estate taxes. Every business will pay for those increases, whether they own land or not, because land owners/landlords will pass on those higher taxes to tenants. Those increases will weaken the California economy further and result in higher unemployment and larger deficits.
The Democratic Divide: Action vs. Inaction, Small vs. Big
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s speech in Sacramento already
has political tongues wagging. Reporters wonder if the mayor reading a
statewide run. Dan Walters asks if he is preparing to challenge Gov. Jerry
Brown from the left. Does this represent some sort of north-south political
divide?
Villaraigosa’s
speech does expose a divide among California Democrats. But the divide isn’t
about ideology or geography. It’s about attitude, and about strategy.
The
attitude divide was clear in the difference between Villaraigosa’s speech and
an interview
Brown gave this week to the LA Times.
The mayor’s attitude was all about action, and the need to
not dither or delay in tackling the state’s problems. "We are at a point in time in California where we can no longer afford to go on patching the leaks and hoping they will hold for another season,"
he said in a speech that included lines like,
"Let’s go for it with gusto."
California’s cap-and-trade needs to be well-designed to protect manufacturers
California has lost a third of its manufacturing sector and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) continues to try to implement the state’s AB 32 carbon reduction program in a cost-effective manner. The rest of the country has lost a large portion of its manufacturing as well, but at least temporarily given up on mandatory carbon reductions.
Cap-and trade is the policy with which CARB intends to produce about 20 percent of the state’s carbon reductions but it is targeted at about 600 facilities during the first three years. Under the program cap, a facility will either have to pay for more expensive equipment to produce less carbon, pay for an offset, or purchase credits in a market.
California industry is famously efficient due to decades of higher than average energy costs, including 50 percent higher electricity rates than the rest of the country.