California

I have an ongoing project in which “expected relocations” is a variable.  So I’ve been trying to keep tabs on word about just how bad the real estate market has become in certain portions of the country.

One influence on my variable is easy enough to understand: how many people are underwater on their mortgages?  Even if they’re keeping up with the mortgage payments, there is a certain amount of distress in the market brought about by folks who cannot sell their houses because they owe more than the property is worth.

So, this article at Bloomberg caught my eye:

Almost one-third of U.S. homeowners who bought in the last five years now owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth, according to Zillow.com, an Internet provider of home valuations.[…]

The highest percentages of homeowners with negative equity were located in California. In four of the state’s metropolitan areas — Stockton, Modesto, Merced and Vallejo-Fairfield — the number of homeowners whose mortgage debts exceeded the values of their properties topped 90 percent, Zillow said.

In five more California areas — the Inland Empire (Riverside-San Bernardino), Bakersfield, Yuba City, El Centro and Madera — the percentages were more than 80 percent.

With so many home-owers underwater…is it time to rename California as “Atlantis”?

While I was tied up with work and travel, a couple of interesting stories made it into my reading pile.  Together, they convince me that the concept of personal responsibility must be virtually illegal.

First, I saw this article in the Wall Street Journal (subscriber link):

Ian Perry, a Los Angeles city-council member, is spearheading legislation that would ban new fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and KFC from opening in a 32-square-mile chunk of the city, including her district. The targeted area is already home to some 400 fast-food restaurants, she says, possibly contributing to high obesity rates there — 30% of adults, compared with about 21% in the rest of the city. Nationally, 25.6% of adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While some cities have bans on new fast-food establishments, they typically are for aesthetic reasons or to protect local businesses. Ms. Perry’s initiative seems to be a rare instance in which a major city brings health issues into restaurant zoning. The fast-food ban would last a year, although Ms. Perry hopes to make it permanent. On Tuesday, a committee will make a recommendation on the measure before sending it on to the full city council for a vote.

I have to admit that I’m not particularly opposed to the idea of fewer fast food restaurants around.  The use of zoning laws to support a public health issue is the sort of creativity I appreciate.

But then, we have this story in the New York Times:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Friday that will prohibit restaurants and other "food facilities" from using oil, margarine and shortening containing trans fats.

The intent is certainly admirable…but in the land of the free and the home of the brave, aren’t people permitted to make their own personal decisions?  Doesn’t freedom include freedom to make bad decisions, provided we accept the risk/consequences?

I’ve been tied up all day with work and the latest appeal in my and my wife’s long fight with our health insurance company, so I’m late to the party on this one…but it seems that the California Supreme Court has found on a 4-3 vote that prohibiting same-gender marriage is unconstitutional.   I’ll defer to this post at Daily Kos for the summary.

I guess congratulations will soon be in order for some happy couples.

Driving home this evening, I listened to a few talking heads on the radio regarding what this might mean. For example, here in Connecticut, it’s expected that the logic behind today’s ruling will appear in arguments in a pending lawsuit which argues that our civil unions aren’t an acceptable compromise on the subject of marriage.   In CT and probably a few other states, this ruling will likely reinvigorate efforts to amend state constitutions to institutionalize homophobia.

In other words, the GOP might have an issue to campaign on this fall…one which would perhaps distract a few sheeple away from other issues plaguing the pachyderms.

I’ll take this opportunity to repeat my thoughts on the subject:  If you view marriage as being religious in nature, than it is arrogant beyond all belief for the state to dictate whom God can or cannot join together.  State recognition of marriage should be a reflection of a relationship that has formed, not a set of guidelines as to who may have relations.  Such restrictions could be viewed as just as inane as legislation governing who may or may not be baptized or ordained.

If you prefer to view marriage as a social construct…well, the last time I checked, politicians and bureaucrats are frequently not the folks I want to emulate when looking for social guidance.  Recognition of relationships defined by society should recognize differences in interpretation and evolution in those social norms.

I would prefer to see states get out of the marriage business.   Have civil unions, gender-blind, as a means for packaging up a bundle of legal privileges and responsibilities.   People can informally/conversationally view some or all civil unions as “marriage” according to their norms, but the state avoiding dealing with such an emotion-charged term is probably the fairest treatment of all.

A couple of blogs I follow have mentioned that the May issue of Popular Mechanics includes a feature called, “10 Pieces of U.S. Infrastructure We Must Fix Now”. I’ve seen the feature mentioned in the context of Atlanta’s water shortage, but the entire list is actually rather interesting to me (not surprising, given my interests):

• Circle Interchange, Chicago
   
• Brooklyn Bridge Approaches, New York City
   
• Industrial Canal Locks, New Orleans
  (Ships can wait 36 hours for clearance to transit, creating a drag on the efficiency of the Port of New Orleans. PM doesn’t mention that survivors of the Lower Ninth Ward would like to see the canal itself fixed by being filled in….)
   
• Atlanta’s water system
  (PM estimates 18% of the daily water consumption in ATL is the result of leaky water mains)
   
• Alaskan Way viaduct, Seattle
   
• Lake Okeechobee dike, Florida
   
• Dover Bridge, Bonner County, Idaho
  (Northern Idaho bridge for US95, scores 2 out of a possible 100 in sufficiency rating.)
   
• Wolf Creek Dam, Kentucky
  (Kentucky River dam deemed in enough danger of collapse that TVA reduced the water level behind it, to reduce flood risk to downstream towns, including Nashville.)
   
• Sacramento River levees, California
  (Remind me not to write flood cover on the Arco Arena, or on SMF.)
   
• O’Hare

None of those are surprises, and many of them are slated for repairs in the next few years, assuming funding remains available. However, it’s nice to be reminded every once in a while of some neglected priorities.

(How much money have Presidential candidates raised to date for this election cycle?)

I’ve been getting a little queasy-feeling every time I drive past a gas station up here in Connecticut, and see diesel above $4/gallon.

I suppose that I’d become downright nauseous if I were driving Highway 1 down California’s Central Coast. Seen in the New York Times:

The reason for the consumer agita is that the station, on the Central Coast of California, is serving up what may be the costliest gas in the land. On Tuesday morning, as crude oil flirted with $110 a barrel and petrol prices set records nationwide, a gallon of regular at Amerigo was going for $5.20. Premium was fetching an eye-popping $5.40 a gallon, though Mr. Willman said that included a free copy of a local newspaper. (The newspaper was free anyway.)

For a rather impressive gas pump picture, check out this post on the Los Angeles Times’ L.A. Now blog.

Seen in the San Francisco Chronicle:

A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution.[...]

[T]he appeals court said state law has been clear since at least 1953, when another appellate court rejected a challenge by homeschooling parents to California’s compulsory education statutes. Those statutes require children ages 6 to 18 to attend a full-time day school, either public or private, or to be instructed by a tutor who holds a state credential for the child’s grade level.

“California courts have held that … parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children,” Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. “Parents have a legal duty to see to their children’s schooling under the provisions of these laws.”[...]

“A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare,” the judge wrote, quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue.

Even though I am uncomfortable with the motivations of at least one stereotype of a typical homeschooler, I find this ruling rather disturbing on several grounds.

First, given how bad some public schools can be (especially if a student has special needs or is gifted), I’d be very concerned if a parent didn’t have as a fallback option the ability to homeschool his/her children. If the best option available is homeschooling, and if some reasonable minimum standard of education and a common curriculum are being verfiably met, then virtually nothing should be held aside as an avenue for a parent to provide the best education they can for a child.

Second, I have from time to time considered becoming a teacher. The low pay and the amount of B.S. required in getting fully credentialed have been the factors that have kept me from heading down that path. To require that everyone who teaches a child be encumbered with that B.S. is very troubling to me.

Third, on general principle, I object to unnecessary intrusions of the government into citizens’ private lives. It seems to me that part of that includes accepting that parents have broad latitude in deciding how they will raise their kids. I may disagree with some of the choices they make…but I’m OK with that, within reason, if it means that the same lassiez-faire attitude is adopted about how I might raise my hypothetical/future kids.

And finally, while the attitude is understandable especially given the era in which it was formulated, that last quoted paragraph above just seems creepy to me. A public education should not have as a primary purpose the indoctrination of possibly blind loyalty to the state. It should be limited to providing a common base from which a child can eventually become a productive member of society.

Presumably a part of such an education would involve exposure to quite a bit of information about our country’s government, history, and society…the good and the bad. If done right, I’d like to believe that a child would come to appreciate the U.S., have a healthy respect for its advantages, an awareness of the blemishes in our past, and have some opinion about the pros and cons of different ways we can move forward.

But the state’s promulgation of loyalty and patriotism indoctrination seems just a little too totalitarian for my tastes.

I wrote earlier this week about some “fun” my wife and I are having with our health insurer.

It seems that Aetna might not be the only health insurer behaving badly. A post on CAHwyGuy’s Livejournal directs readers to an article in the Los Angeles Times regarding another insurer’s antics:

Blue Cross of California is sending physicians copies of health insurance applications filled out by new patients, along with a letter advising them that the company has a right to drop members who fail to disclose “material medical history,” including “pre-existing pregnancies.”

“Any condition not listed on the application that is discovered to be pre-existing should be reported to Blue Cross immediately,” the letters say.

BC points out that legislation and contract language permits doctors to disclose medical information about patients to their insurers. Doctors rebut by pointing out that patients may become reluctant to point out talk about their medical history if their physicians are going to be obliged to rat them out.

I know that some consumer-advocacy-minded folks would invoke a discussion on just how much preexisting conditions clauses suck. I’m somewhat cursed on that point by being able to see both sides of the issue, and I personally believe it’s one aspect of the larger question of “what are we going to do about health care in this country?”

Tabling that…I’m going to treat this story as yet another example of how my industry sometimes just doesn’t get it when it comes to customer and government relations.

Given that non-ERISA-governed health plans can and frequently do have pre-existing condition clauses, I agree with the idea that consumers with health issues may be tempted to misrepresent themselves on their insurance applications. And, if pricing doesn’t contemplate coverage of pre-existing conditions, it’s understandable that an insurer might want to enforce that language, to reduce pressure on rate adequacy.

But asking doctors to proactively tattle on their patients? Come on! Even presuming it is legal…it just doesn’t pass the “smell test”. If there’s a concern about misrepresentation on a particular insured’s app, I’ve got to believe that there are other ways to check up on that.

So, in addition to the Democratic and Republican party presidential primaries, California also saw the Libertarian Party’s presidential primary on Super Duper Fat Tuesday. Third Party Watch shared some entertaining speculation about the results:

However, it appears that Smith was beaten by “write-in votes.” The 12 ballot candidates received a total of 13,750 votes statewide, out of about 80,000 who are registered statewide.[...]

A check of major counties shows that, in each case, the number of “write-in votes” exceeded Smith’s total. For example, in Los Angeles, the largest county in the state (making up a third of the state’s population) reported 2,157 write-in votes, compared to Smith’s total of 746.[...]

Unfortunately, the write-in votes will not be counted, since no one filed as an official write-in candidate, but one can make an educated guess as to what candidate LP registrants would write in.

So, maybe Dr. Paul was possibly a winner someplace, for someone? Sadly, it seems we’ll never know.

Via All Headline News:

To address a state budget deficit of $14 billion for 2008, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing a variety of measures including a 1.25 percent levy on real property insurance policies. The state’s insurance industry is said to agree to the proposal to collect $12.50 for every $1,000 insurance premiums purchased in the state. He announced the measure at his fifth State of the State address on Wednesday.

The measure is expected to raise $125 million, to fund a larger state fire fighting unit including more crew, helicopters, fire engines and satellite tracking devices. A few years ago, San Diego voters often hit by bushfires, rejected a proposal to imposed higher local hotel taxes to improve the state’s firefighting capability.

Tax hikes suck, but at least this proposed hike seems to involve a logical connection between what’s being taxed and what the revenues will be used to fund.

Seen in the San Francisco Chronicle:

A federal judge’s ruling Wednesday invalidating part of San Francisco’s landmark attempt to extend health care coverage to all uninsured adult residents cast new doubt on the viability of a statewide program for covering the uninsured that is now pending in the Legislature. State attorneys said Thursday that they are studying the ruling, but critics of the sweeping state overhaul said the state plan could be challenged on the same grounds.

Both the city and the state have proposed a similar mandate on employers to provide insurance to their workers or pay part of the cost - a requirement that was struck down in the San Francisco case by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, who found that the city was intruding into federal regulation of employee benefits.[...]

The requirement [in California's reform legislation] that all employers either provide insurance for their workers or pay into a new state purchasing pool on a sliding scale of 1 percent to 6.5 percent of payroll based on company size is a key funding element of the plan and the one that may provide biggest obstacle to passage in light of White’s ruling, which San Francisco intends to appeal.

ERISA, for those of you not familiar with it, is a federal law that gives the feds sole authority to regulate employer-provided benefits. State laws (and local ordinances) that would seek to attempt to regulate, for example, employer-provided health insurance are completely trumped by federal authority.

ERISA was originally passed in 1974, as part of a federal effort to address a pension crisis at the time, as well as to protect industry from a hodgepodge of differing and frequently conflicting state regs. And, while it was arguably effective at instilling some stability, and even though it has been subsequently improved (e.g., via COBRA and HIPAA)… it probably could use significant updating.

For example, Judge White’s ruling, if it stands, could be interpreted as to put the brakes on state-level efforts to expand health care coverage by involving employers. Personally, I’d prefer that ERISA were opened up to tolerate such measures, as the alternatives (federal involvement and/or single-payer solutions) are rather unpalatable to me.

(If you’re interested in reading more about ERISA, Wikipedia might be able to help.)