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Patt Morrison

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Thursday March 11th

UP THURSDAY: The feds want to put broadband access everywhere. Sound good? Not to everyone. The head of the FCC, Michael Copps, lays out the administration’s internet equality plan, and where he expects to hit some bumps in the information superhighway; And blue-fin tuna is so popular, it’s near extinction. A fishing ban is coming, but will anyone honor it?

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Patt Morrison for February 8, 2010

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Feb. 8, 2010|9 comments

Anthem Blue Cross says it will raise premiums by nearly 40% --with health care overhaul down for the count, will insurance companies cash in? And the state teachers' pension could go broke by the time a lot of current teachers are ready to retire--who should contribute more to the fund? Patt also looks as treating chronic pain in children and talks with Lee Daniels, producer and director of the Oscar-nominated film "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire"

  | 21 comments

Anthem Blue Cross, the state's largest for-profit health insurer, has announced that beginning March 1 they are raising their rates on approximately 800,000 individual subscribers. Some have seen their rates rise by as much as 39% since the company raised rates last year. Are the back-to-back hikes due to "rising health costs" as Blue Cross claims or are these rate hikes in anticipation of a health care reform bill? Insurance commissioner Steve Poizner's office claims they will investigate but will it be in time to save more and more Californians from falling into the ranks of the uninsured?


  | 0 comments

Out of the ten movies up for the best picture Oscar, there is one that seems to have left the most meaningful impact on audiences—"Precious," the film adaptation of the novel Push by Sapphire, deals head-on with the immensely uncomfortable subjects of incest, abuse and poverty. Director Lee Daniels has earned a Best Director nomination for his work on "Precious" but this isn’t his first dance with the Oscars—he was the first African-American sole producer of an Academy Award-winning film for producing "Monster’s Ball," yet another envelope-pushing movie. Lee Daniels joins Patt for our first in a series of conversations with Oscar nominees.


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Public employee pensions have been having problems across the country, on state and municipal levels, but here in California there is a troubling blend of circumstances that make our pension situation especially desperate. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the nation’s second largest public pension fund, is reporting a $43 billion shortfall and without drastic action the fund could be completely broke within 35 years. The potential fixes, increased contributions into the fund from teachers and by the state government, look both politically and economically untenable given the continued flagging economy and the hostility toward public workers. Can CalSTRS stay solvent, and what happens to teachers’ retirements if it can’t?


  | 4 comments

For a parent, watching your child suffer is an excruciating experience. For some parents this struggle is a horrifying daily reality. With treatments that very from intensive prescription drugs to holistic solutions - how is a parent to know what is right for their child? Patt talks with a leading expert in the field of pediatric pain management about the differences in acute and chronic pain, why some children heal and others continue to suffer and takes your questions.


Maria
1 month ago

Regarding insurance increases: I just switched to Anthem Blue Cross and was told my rate would hold for two years. I certainly hope the company doesn't try to renege on that. I switched because my prior insurer, HealthNet, continued raising my rates every year (and I hardly had any claims), and last year they raised my rates approximately 40 percent. I guess I had to help pay for the CEO's $1.5 million annual salary. There will be no health reform and reduction in costs until we go to a one-payer system. The middle-men, for-profit insurance companies need to be taken out of the mix. They essentially have a license to steal. The other part of any real reform must include getting people back on track with healthy lifestyles. Obesity is causing a large amount of our health problems. A tax on soda pop and processed foods with high sugar content could have helped pay for some of health care, but the companies that produce these products successfully lobbied to kill these proposed taxes.

Juan Miguel
1 month ago

If you believe the numbers on the recent Harvard study, 44,789 people a year die from lack of health care coverage. That's 3660 people a month. The equivalent of a 911 happening every month.

If politicians don't care about people that can't afford health insurance why do you think they would care about you if you have it, are loosing it, or can't afford it.

They don't care.

Jacquelyn
1 month ago

If you haven't heard of the former CEO of a major Health Insurance Company, turned whistle-blower, I recommend you do...
http://www.prwatch.org/blog/35267

Andrea
1 month ago

My 22 year old daughter had cancer in 2007-thanfully it's in remission now and thankfully she got a full time job last November. Having graduated from college last June she was no longer eligible for coverage under my husband's employer sponsored plan as of January of this year.

Had she not gotten a job she would surely be uninsured due to her pre-existing condition.

IT IS BEYOND MY COMPREHENSION THAT ANY ELECTED OFFICIAL WOULD NOT STRIVE TO FIND A SOLUTION TO THIS CRISIS.

Late last year I was at a protest in West LA and a single young girl with no health care issues snapped at me ,"take care of your own family!" We are all being effected by this problem.

It seems those who object to a solution are those who are in good health and have decent coverage. BELIEVE ME, they are just one step away from disaster. When my daughter was diagnosed, we were shocked. No one could have predicted this would happen to our family. I can only imagine what it would have been like had we not had insurance!

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