So here’s my question for Betsy Butler. At what point did you decide you were running against me, Marta Evry, a part-time blogger, and not the three other candidates whose names will appear on the June 5th primary ballot for the 50th Assembly District race?

Let’s start with this post written by one of your surrogates which begins with this:

The 50th Assembly District was treated to a display of bullying last week: One of the candidates running against Betsy Butler’s bid for the new district launched a prolonged attack against her campaign promotion.

Does the author link to candidate Torie Osborn’s website? Or to the LA Weekly article about the 8,000 plastic baby bottles you dumped on district voters, an article which quotes candidate Richard Bloom as saying your team “is ‘milking’ her BPA legislation for all its worth.”?

No, instead she links to an article I wrote about the environmental concerns raised by district voters regarding those 8,000 foreign-made plastic baby bottles.

Also, imagine my surprise when I heard my name mentioned in the KCAL-TV follow up to the same baby bottle story. Why? Because the “reporter” for the story never bothered to contact me. But he was more than happy to take your word for it that a part-time blogger was somehow able to bully (there’s that word again) a sitting Assembly member with a war chest of half a million dollars.

Girlfriend, we need to talk.

This may be news to you, but this race isn’t about me. And it’s not about you. It’s about the people of the 50th Assembly District, the people of California, and how we have to solve the awful, intractable problems that decades of political dysfunction, indeed malpractice, has brought to this state.

I have nothing personal against you, Betsy. I supported you in 2010 when you ran against Tea Party candidate Nathan Mintz (for anyone who’s keeping score, I live in Betsy’s current district) and I was grateful for your support of Debra Bowen in the Bowen/Hahn race last year.

But for a whole host of reasons I believe you made a poor choice in abandoning your current district to run in AD50.

Mainly because:

A) In choosing to leave my district vulnerable to Republican takeover to run in another district where the registration advantage is so great, a democratic corpse could get elected, you’ve made it that much harder for the Assembly to reach the 2/3rds majority needed to break Republican obstruction in Sacramento.

B) You seem to have forgotten that voters like to make informed choices about who will represent them in Sacramento.

For better or worse, I find myself to be the only person writing about this campaign in a consistent and substantive way. Do I have a point of view? Absolutely. It is all out there on public display. But I think it also means I have to work twice as hard to make sure everything I write is accurate, sourced and backed up by the facts. Voters are already ill-served in this state by a news media unwilling to do even the most basic legwork to inform the public, and by politicians willing to exploit that weakness to their own advantage. I shouldn’t be adding to the problem.

So this isn’t complicated, Betsy. If you want me to stop writing “negative” (i.e.: accurate) posts about your campaign, then stop doing things like this:

So let me conclude with this – each of the four candidates running in the 50th Assembly District race bring unique strengths and weaknesses to the contest, but it does voters a huge disservice when you try to obfuscate your resume through the kinds of tactics you’ve chosen to pursue. So if you want to debate what I’ve written on policy grounds, I’m more than ready to have that conversation. I think that’s exactly what voters are hungry for, and what they deserve.

However, if you and your surrogates insist on playing the victim by equating me to multi-billion dollar oil and tobacco interests, good luck with that.

Because if you think a part-time blogger can bully you, how are voters supposed to believe you’ll stand up to the actual bullies, the lobbyists and special interests in Sacramento who come knocking on your office door Every. Single. Day?

Consumer advocates and patients facing May 1 rate increases delivered a blank check to health insurance companies representing the hundreds of millions more that one million Californians will pay for their insurance, today in Santa Monica and outside Anthem’s San Francisco offices. They called on voters to sign the official ballot initiative petition to require health insurance companies to get permission before raising rates.

One million Californians – the “May Million” – will pay premium increases as high as 20% for their health insurance with Anthem Blue Cross, Health Net and UnitedHealthcare on May 1st.

This week, Anthem Blue Cross parent company CEO Angela Braly told investors that California doesn’t need the health insurance rate regulation initiative because federal law adequately protects patients. Braly made $13.2 million in compensation in 2011. Anthem Blue Cross will raise rates by more than $100 million for over 700,000 Californians even as it delivers rebates for overcharging consumers last year and raked in $856 million in profits in the first quarter of 2012.

Harvey Rosenfield, author of insurance reform Proposition 103 which has saved drivers $62 billion since 1988, said: “CEO Angela Braly told investors that California already has plenty of oversight of health insurance prices and doesn’t need our ballot measure. She should tell that to the 700,000 customers of Anthem Blue Cross in California who will pay over $100 million more when their health insurance premiums go up on May 1st. A CEO who made $13 million last year is completely out of touch with patients who can’t afford double-digit rate increases because premiums are rising at five times the rate of inflation.”

Jessica Blacher from Santa Monica is one of the “May Million” who was faced with a rate increase on May 1st. The proposed 23% hike in Jessica’s premiums was the fourth in just two years, and she was forced to trade her coverage for a catastrophic plan with lower benefits and higher out of pocket costs, including $9500 she must pay out of pocket every year on top of her premium.

Alison Heath, a self-employed mother from San Francisco, is also one of the “May Million,” and will pay a 19.7% rate increase on May 1st. Alison’s increase will be the third in less than two years, hiking the monthly premium on the Anthem policy that covers her and her husband to $1767 a month.

In her comments to investors Braly said California’s rate review process was “effective,” yet just last month a rate increase was implemented even though state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones found it was unreasonable, because no one in California has to power to prevent unreasonable rate increases.

Wellpoint’s 1st quarter financial report notes that medical costs increased just 4.8%, but California patients will see rate increases of up to 19.9%, more than four times that amount.

Consumer Watchdog Campaign, and supporters including U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, AARP, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, Courage Campaign and Consumer Federation of California, have emailed millions of voters across the state, asking them to download, print, sign and return the petition at www.JustifyRates.org. The campaign has gathered more than 500,000 of the 795,000 signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot, with just three weeks of signature-gathering remaining.

Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog and proponent of the ballot initiative, with Jessica Blacher of Santa Monica.

The ballot initiative, the “Insurance Rate Public Justification and Accountability Act:”

• Requires health insurance companies to publicly disclose and justify, under penalty of perjury, proposed rate changes before they take effect.
• Makes every document filed by an insurance company to justify a rate increase a public record, and requires public hearings on some proposed rate increases.
• Gives Californians the right to challenge excessive and unfair premium rate increases.
• Prohibits health, auto and home insurers from considering Californians’ credit history or prior insurance coverage when setting premiums or deciding whether to offer coverage.
• Gives the insurance commissioner authority to reject unjustified health insurance rate increases.

As a recent graduate of San Francisco State University, I am thrilled that there is finally momentum gaining in the movement to achieve real public higher education reform in California. In particular, the Middle Class Scholarship Act is an economically feasible way to make public higher education more affordable for all Californians.

California’s public college students are continuing to struggle. The CSU Board of Trustees’ recent decision to close Spring 2013 enrollment is just one of the devastating blows that our public higher education students have been forced to endure, with no end in sight.

Luckily, help for California’s public university students and their families could be on the way. The Middle Class Scholarship Act recently proposed by California State Assembly Speaker John A. Perez is exactly the kind of public higher education reform that California’s students and their families need in these difficult financial times.

If it is approved by two-thirds of the California State Legislature, the Middle Class Scholarship Act will provide scholarships to approximately 150,000 CSU students and roughly 42,000 UC students who have family incomes less than $150,000 and whom do not already have their fees covered. These Middle Class Scholarships will slash student fees by two-thirds. Additionally, our California Community Colleges will receive $150 million to address their unique needs. The Middle Class Scholarships will be paid for in full by closing a wasteful corporate loophole that only benefits out-of-state businesses.  

The Middle Class Scholarship is an innovative solution to California’s public higher education crisis that will help students achieve their dreams, while at the same time, ensure that our Golden State has a strong workforce that is prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century economy.

I know that as a student, it is difficult just to make time to study and to work but I strongly urge all of California’s UC, CSU and Community College Students to do whatever they can to help pass the Middle Class Scholarship Act and to fight for the higher education reform they deserve. From signing and sharing this petition and tweeting and posting Facbook messages to your State legislators and Governor Brown (if you don’t know who your State legislators are, you can look them up here) to organizing on campus and gathering signatures, no action is too small or insignificant. Keep the faith and, most importantly, keep making your voices heard.

If California’s public college students continue to come together and rally the support of our State legislators to pass the Middle Class Scholarship Act, I think we will finally see the dawn of real public higher education reform in California.

Ballot Measure to Regulate Health Insurance Prices Will Let Voters Decide Whether To Regulate Health Insurance Prices

A new analysis at followthemoney.org finds that health insurance companies gave $11.6 million in campaign cash to California politicians, including $7.4 million to candidates for the California legislature, between 2000 and 2010. The largest health insurance donor in California over the last decade was Wellpoint, the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross, which will increase health insurance premiums as much as 20% for nearly 600,000 California policyholders on May 1.

Click here to find the report, “Health Insurance Interests Invest Heavily in California Campaigns.”

Health insurance companies have wielded their influence in Sacramento to kill legislation introduced every year for the last decade that would have required health insurers to get approval before increasing patients’ insurance premiums. The largest recipients of health insurer money were lawmakers that voted against or blocked reform. They include: Lou Correa ($119,967), Gloria Negrete-McLeod ($135,610), Ron Calderon ($65,700) and Juan Vargas ($42,122).

A ballot measure proposed for the November ballot will go around the insurer roadblock in the legislature to let California voters decide whether to regulate health insurance rates, said Consumer Watchdog Campaign today. Dario Frommer, who received $150,388 from health insurers while in office, now works for the industry and wrote the industry’s analysis of the ballot measure for the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

“Health insurance companies paid California politicians an $11.6 million bounty to kill rate reform over the last decade. But we’re lucky in California, because when compromised politicians stand in the way of reform the voters can take charge. This ballot measure will let voters decide if it’s time to force health insurers to rein in skyrocketing rate hikes,” said Carmen Balber with Consumer Watchdog Campaign.  The analysis issued at followthemoney.org also found:

• The top four health insurance industry contributors, Wellpoint, Kaiser, Blue Shield and Health Net, gave $5.5 million to candidates. (These companies are also the four largest health insurers in California.)
• More than half, $5.3 million, of the money given by health insurers to candidates went to members of the Health or Insurance committees responsible for bills that regulate the industry.
• Health insurance companies also contributed $2.9 million to support and oppose ballot measures.

The ballot measure to regulate health insurance rats can be downloaded to print and sign at JustifyRates.org. It would require health insurers to publicly justify rate changes, under penalty of perjury, and give the state insurance commissioner the ability to modify or deny excessive rate increases. Health insurance premiums in California have gone up at 5 times the rate of inflation over the last decade.