(the latest in my Courage Campaign compatriot’s ongoing series – promoted by Todd Beeton)

From The Courage Campaign

Just before the holidays, Governor Schwarzenegger outlined his plan to fix California's broken correctional system.  Prior to the Governor's announcement, and as part of our continuing series on the Governor's promises and actions, The Courage Campaign noted Schwarzenegger's stated commitment to reforming our prisons.  The Governor's early proposal shows that this issue remains near the top of the agenda for the state as we start the new year.

Follow me over the flip for details and analysis of Schwarzenegger's new proposal. 

The first question political analysts and pundits will ask relates to the timing of Schwarzenegger's announcement.  Why did he unveil this plan in late December and not during the State of the State Address on January 9?  Perhaps Schwarzenegger moved early on this political hot potato as a "trial balloon," a way to gauge public reaction before a major speech like the State of the State.  After considering initial response, Schwarzenegger might tweak his proposal and put revised language in the State of the State address.  Perhaps Schwarzenegger will simply avoid the highly contentious prison issue completely in the State of the State address, but this seems very unlikely given the massive and very urgent crisis in the prisons.  As Schwarzenegger stated himself, a federal takeover of California's prisons (an all-too-real possibility) would result in federally mandated and severe cuts in health care and education.  Schwarzenegger says that his plan would avoid a federal takeover.

The centerpiece of Schwarzenegger's proposal calls for 10.9 Billion borrowed dollars (bonds) to build enough new prison cells for 78,000 additional beds.  The very large expenditure, which would put California even further into debt, led critics like SEIU to say that the plan is "too heavy on the bricks and mortar and too light on rehabilitation and reform."

On rehabilitation and reform, Schwarzenegger's plan calls for a permanent, semi-independent commission to suggest changes to California's sentencing system.  Such a system would be new to California, but eighteen other states have sentencing commissions similar to the one outlined in Schwarzenegger's proposal.  This is the most progressive part of Arnold's plan, but critics say it doesn't go far enough in changing the way that the courts send people to the bursting-at-the-seams penitentiary system.

Most progressives suggest that any real reform must address the controversial "three strikes law," which mandates heavy sentences for a third conviction, even if the third conviction is a trivial offense.  For example, someone facing a third conviction for shoplifting a loaf of bread might face decades behind bars.  Such long sentences inevitably lead to overcrowding.  Governor Schwarzenegger said that he refuses to discuss changing three strikes and would simply reject any alterations to that law.

Also absent from Schwarzenegger's proposal is any mention of a cap on the prison population.  Given the severe overcrowding, in which more than 16,000 people (and counting) do not have regular prison beds to sleep on, a cap on the absolute maximum size of California's prisons seems to be absolutely necessary.  Indeed, California has already started shipping people to private prisons in far away states like Tennessee.  A cap on the prison population would be one way to force a reduction in the already-untenable size of the prison population.

Also getting short shrift in Schwarzenegger's plan is the defunct prison health care system.  Only about 1/10^th of Schwarzenegger's bond dollars would go to improvements for the prison health system, a system so badly broken that it's has already been taken over by federal courts.

  Clearly, the details of the plan need work.  But the larger question is one of leadership.  Last year, Schwarzenegger was accused of backing down and failing to follow through on his ideas for reforming our prisons.  We'll see if there are any changes to the plan in the State of the State, and whether Schwarzenegger can display the bold leadership necessary to move a progressive plan through the Legislature while fulfilling his promise to repair our broken prisons. 

Due to circumstances beyond our control, Calitics has become one of the home bases for incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In addition to offering her staff the ability to post their own diaries, many of the front-page posters are constituents of Pelosi and we care very deeply whether she succeeds or fails.

During the last half a decade, the DC Press Corp has enabled some of the worst decisions ever made in the history of the United States. Which is why Pelosi would be wise to bypass them every chance she gets and talk directly to the people. It is technologically and physically possible, the only question is whether she will do it. I think the first recognition necessary to make this possible is that the smartest people don’t necessarily live in DC (by definition). Speaking of which, SoCal’s Digby says:

First of all, the idea that Nancy Pelosi has to reach across the aisle, work with George W. Bush and pass legislation that benefits the American people to prove that the Democrats are capable of governing is balderdash. The Republicans will pull every trick in the book to ensure that doesn’t happen and they will probably succeed. They are very good at being a minority and they have absolutely no intention of ever doing anything that will benefit the democratic party. At this point they don’t even have any intention of doing anything that will benefit George W. Bush.

Pelosi has two things she has to do. She has to keep the Republicans on the deefensive throughout the next two years and set the table for a Democratic win in 08. There is no “working with” George W. Bush. He is poison and his political advisors are doing nothing but trying to keep him from being chased out of iraq before he leaves office. Period. They have no other agenda.

Considering all of the attention to the Burtons, Pelosi should do what Phil Burton would do as long as she can communicate a better justification than Burton could for Why she is doing something (again, back to bypassing the DC set).

The DC Press Corps is going to do everything in their power to damn Pelosi for what they never even wrote about the Republicans doing. Pelosi needs to realize this and act accordingly.

She has two options, she let them give it to her the ugly way or she can circumvent those who have been proven wrong again and again. Only the latter will give the American People the policy we deserve.

(I missed Todd’s post, but I’ll leave this one up. I have a somewhat different take. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Today, the first part of a new Field poll came out on health care (here-PDF), and what it says will likely not come as a great surprise to anybody in Sacramento. The poll of registered voters shows that 81% of the state’s voters support  the statement that “It should be public policy that government guarantee that all Californians have access to affordable health care insurance or other health care coverage.”

Much of the poll goes on to give reasons why the voters think that health care is too expensive.  Many of the reasons are accurate, others…well, not so much.  Follow me over the flip for the reasons and some more analysis.

So, here’s a quick rundown of the “reasons” why health care is expensive, according to our voters:

• High profits made by drug and insurance companies, (65%)
• Waste, fraud, and inefficiencies in the current system, (60%)
• Paying for the health care costs of the uninsured (57%)
• People not doing enough to keep healthy, like exercising and eating right (54%)
• The increasing number of older age residents and the higher costs associated with providing them care (47%)
• Too many malpractice lawsuits against doctors, hospitals, and health plans (46%).
• People getting too many unnecessary treatments and medications (38%)
• The use of new and expensive medical technologies, procedures and treatments (36%)
• Little incentive or ability for insured residents to comparison shop for health services (31%)
• Doctors and hospitals making too much money (28%)

A consensus is slowly building around the concept that PhARMA is too powerful, too profitable, and doing more harm than good.  Of course, the problem with that consensus is where does it really leave us?  We can either have state-sponsored health care research, or we can have for-profit companies.  There’s very little in between the two poles, and for-profit companies will always act in the way that does the most benefit for their stockholders, not their customers.  And furthermore, at the state level, we only have limited leverage overPhARMA .  Sure, we can force them into drug discount programs and the like, but only the federal government can truly address the underlying faults in our health care delivery system from top to bottom.

Of course, a full overhaul would also draw in reason #2, waste & inefficiencies.  The ultimate inefficiency in the system, is really the system, isn’t it?  At least 15% of every healthcare dollar ends up in the pockets of insurers.  Is that efficiency?  Hardly.  Conservatives have often argued that government couldn’t possibly be responsible for making these kinds of life/death decisions.  That these decisions of what is covered must be left in private hands.  And in the end, these private hands are insurance companies.  Blue Cross, Kaiser, etc.  Now come on, is it really any better to have Kaiser in charge of what health care you receive than the government?  Is a bureaucrat at Blue Cross really any more compassionate than a bureaucrat in the government?

At the state level, we have several options, including one which passed both houses of the legislature last year.  Single payer, which was embodied in Sen. Kuehl’s bill that was vetoed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is still on the table.  The Massachusetts program of mandatory insurance seems flawed as applied to California, due primarily to the size of the state.  And socialized medicine seems unlikely at the state level.  The question ultimately will be whether the state is willing to cough up the dollars to pay for a program that can guarantee affordable health coverage for everybody in the state.  Given Arnold’s rigid anti-tax stance, is that a real possibility this year?

(Cross-posted from The Courage Campaign)

It's rare but, in politics, sometimes doing the right thing and doing the easy thing are the same. And for California politicians, tackling healthcare may have just gotten a whole lot easier…politically anyway.

According to the new Field Poll, eight in ten (81%) Californians believe

“it should be public policy that government guarantee that all Californians have access to affordable health care insurance or other health care coverage.”

That is the actual wording from the question asked to respondents. Remarkable.

In addition, 78% agree (44% strongly) that government has a responsibility for providing health care coverage for people who can’t afford to pay for it.

More…

These findings would seem to signal that one of the the greatest hurdles to expanding healthcare coverage through government policy, distrust in government to efficiently implement a healthcare system better than the current one, is no hurdle at all.

Another question that loomed over whether people would support an overhaul of the healthcare system was whether the majority with adequate health insurance would get behind reforms that benefitted the minority who are un- or under-insured. The poll answers that question resoundingly. From The Chron:

The survey also found that while a majority of voters are satisfied with the current system of coverage, there is much anxiety about losing coverage in the future and not being able to pay the costs of a major illness or injury. Indeed, 77 percent said they worry that they might not be able to pay for a major injury or illness.

With rising healthcare costs, which employers are increasingly passing onto employees if not lowering coverage altogether, there is a significant amount of insecurity about health coverage out there, even among the middle class. Which means for the pleaser in chief, our governor, passing healthcare reform is a no-brainer.

Adam Mendelsohn, Schwarzenegger's communications director, said the poll results are "another clear indication" that the governor's emphasis on health care this year is welcomed by the voters.

"The system is broken, costs are going up and people are concerned about the future of their health care, which is exactly why the governor is taking this on," he said.

The LA Times is reporting that Schwarzenegger will lay out his plan to fix California’s healthcare system in a speech he’ll deliver on Monday. Let's hope the results of this poll embolden the governor to go further than he might ordinarily go. He likes to say his first priority is to do the people's business. Well, governor, the people have spoken.

The Courage Campaign will be holding a conference call next Thursday to discuss the governor’s plans for 2007 with an eye on healthcare in particular. We’ll have details for everyone soon, I hope you will join us.