Monthly Archives: August, 2009
Healthcare status quo is truly scary
Reform that rewards insurers could be worse
In recent weeks, orchestrated outrage and loony scare tactics have drowned out the most basic fact about health reform: The status quo is far more frightening.
High and escalating costs. Rationing of care. Restricted choice. Long waits for care. Even “death panels” (read: insurance claim-review departments). Our private insurance system imposes all this already — on people lucky enough to be insured.
A fee for paying your taxes
The bottom line is that businesses in San Diego pay the least for license fees among any of the cities for any type of business, at an average of a fifth of the average paid by businesses in the 10 largest cities in California.
Growth of business generates a demand for city services such as police, fire fighting, libraries, parks and road maintenance, for which the city cannot raise revenues except through a ballot measure. The post Proposition-13 dilemma that the city faces is to either stop business expansion, or undergo an expensive and politically charged election.
Public records acting up
One of the most significant embarrassments of public service is transparency — the government truly does not have much to hide behind. Transparency is the ability of anybody, anytime to peer into the privacy of any public employee, which is unparalleled in the private sector. Everything from how much the employee makes, to how she does her work is public record. The naked intrusiveness of Public Record Act (PRA) requests in regular business would make major corporations and their executives blush.
