California

Over two million Californians have medical debt. These residents find it difficult to access needed health care or affordable credit. Even after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, an estimated 80% of farm workers, who are undocumented, will continue to struggle with being uninsured and accessing healthcare. This can lead to medical debt that makes it harder for them to pay other bills and leads to financial and mental stress. For residents with medical debt, both their physical and financial health are at risk.

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
Do you have ideas to offer on initiative reform? Great. Now should be your moment.

Over two million Californians have medical debt. These residents find it difficult to access needed health care or affordable credit. Even with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, many Los Angeles residents will continue to struggle with medical debt that makes it harder for them to pay other bills and leads to financial and mental stress.

For Immediate Release - September 13: Olivia Calderon, California Legislative Director at the New America Foundation, released the following statement in response to the U.S. Census numbers:

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
Tim Leiweke, president & CEO of the sports and entertainment companies known as AEG, and the point man on the Los Angeles football stadium, pulled off the political trick of the year last week.

He not only won a special exemption from state environmental laws for his plan to build a stadium in a downtown LA. He helped open up a major new hole in the law itself - a hole that will ease other big projects and change the political balance of power in the state.

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
If Gov. Jerry Brown succeeds in eliminating the optional single-sales factor as the method for calculating corporate taxes (thus raising taxes on companies with out of state operations, and using the money for tax incentives for hiring and manufacturing in California), he may have someone unusual to thank: Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the Republican presidential frontrunner.

Unlike in previous jobs speeches, where he's been a cheerleader for clean energy and a green economy, President Obama didn't say the word "green" once in his address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night. That seems to fit the mood of the country, but in fact, Obama is missing a stimulus program in every American gas tank.

What's Next California, a documentary report produced by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and hosted by Judy Woodruff, will air on PBS SoCal tonight at 8:30 pm and again at 7 pm on Tuesday, September 13th.

The program offers a glimpse into the deliberations of the 412 Californians who attended and participated in the Deliberative Poll in Torrance over the weekend of June 24-26, 2011.

For additional broadcast dates and times near you, click here:

http://action.nextca.org/schedule

Barack Obama’s jobs speech last night was not the speech his critics from the left had been asking for.

The fact that this question is being asked speaks volumes about Washington's self-destructive mindset, and says very little about California. The state is merely acting in its own economic interest. California is required to support the K-12 educations of all students, even undocumented ones. So why waste that investment by making it impossible for them to attend college?