There's a good reason the 59-year-old La Habra woman I wrote about Sunday can't get health insurance for a condition that could cripple her.
It's the same reason the cost of prescription drugs is emptying the pockets of our elders and that corporate welfare grows while employee pensions disappear and that we can't clean our beaches or legislate better gas mileage even though the air is dirty and the planet is melting.
These are all matters of public policy, and public policy is rigged. It's a game of grease and money, and in Sacramento, it's played by future Hall of Famers.
Did you happen to see the story yesterday by my colleague Marc Lifsher? He reported that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top campaign guy is also on AT&T Inc.'s payroll in Texas.
Why worry, you ask?
Because the Schwarzenegger administration has been involved in negotiations over a bill that would allow companies such as AT&T and Verizon to bypass local review and compete with existing cable companies.
AT&T is drooling at the prospect, which may be part of the reason why the telecom behemoth and its recent merger partner SBC have given more than a quarter of a million dollars to Schwarzenegger and the committees he controls. This is the governor we elected on a promise to terminate special-interest politics.
But let's be fair and look across the aisle. The bill was sponsored by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), and let's see if you can guess who honored Nunez this past spring at a Pebble Beach clam bake that raised $1.7 million for the state Democratic Party.
Starts with an A and has two Ts.
You could kill a day arguing the merits of the Nunez bill, which could create new competition and jobs in cable but might leave some neighborhoods stuck with inferior service. What you can't disagree on, though, is the appearance that public policy is up for bid, even though politicians always seem to be shocked at the suggestion they could ever be influenced by cash donations.
I've written about this so often over the years, I probably should wear a helmet to protect myself from beating my head against the wall. Nothing has changed, at least not significantly enough to make a difference.
But now along comes Proposition 89, the so-called "clean money" reform plan that has qualified for the November ballot and could do what politicians have been too cowardly and self-interested to do.
