Rollback

Fifty-eight California insurance companies, including some major firms, have asked for exemptions from a 20% rate rollback under Proposition 103, the state Department of Insurance said today. The rollback, to rates 20% below November, 1987, levels, was upheld by the state Supreme Court last Thursday. But the court said insurers could get exemptions as needed for a "fair return" on their investment, a standard to be determined by Insurance Commissioner Roxani M. Gillespie. The ruling also allows insurance companies to put their rates into effect once they have filed with the department for an exemption.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel is pushing to reopen talks with the city's employee unions over a recent decision to reduce public employee pension benefits, sparking alarm from some at City Hall. Looking to differentiate herself from City Councilman Eric Garcetti on labor issues, the city controller has asserted for months that Los Angeles leaders failed to properly negotiate with its unions before hiking the retirement age and rolling back pension benefits for newly hired civilian city workers.

President Bush's speech Friday outlining how his Administration will approach policy toward the Soviet Union recalls U.S. efforts to deal with its primary adversary during the early years of the Cold War. Forty years ago, the United States adopted a policy of "containment" toward an expansionist Soviet Union. In the early 1950s, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration went further, calling for a "rollback" of communism that would force the Kremlin to release the East European nations it had subjugated after World War II. The policy of "rollback" died in 1956 when the United States did not help Hungarians who rebelled against Moscow.

Donald Fehr, executive director of the NHL Players' Assn., said Friday the union remains opposed to the league's proposal that players make significant financial givebacks to promote economic stability among wealthy and have-not franchises in the next collective bargaining agreement and said he can't answer the obvious question of whether a lockout will occur. "I wish I knew the answer to that too. I've got about 750 guys out there that would like to know the answer to that," he said during a conference call after the second of four meetings with players.

KABC-TV Channel 7 was first on the air with the Califronia State Supreme Court's verdict on Proposition 103 Thursday, but the station's hurried and unscheduled initial report got it wrong. KABC interrupted its morning talk show, "A.M. Los Angeles," and mistakenly reported that the Supreme Court had "struck down as unconstitutional" the 20% rollback called for by the initiative that was approved by voters last November. After KNBC Channel 4 and KCBS-TV Channel 2 broke into their own regular programs a few minutes later and reported that the Supreme Court had in fact upheld the rollback, KABC reporter Mark Coogan again interrupted the station's usual programming to correct the error--about 20 minutes after his first report.

Re your July 31 editorial on Proposition 13: Your article was well taken except, in my opinion, it should have also focused on the larger tax benefits accruing to the owners of business and commercial property. As I recall, this segment of the taxpaying community received from Proposition 13 a greater rollback of assessments, and it experiences a much slower turnover rate. Your readers ought to be reminded of this situation as well. ALAN P. FRASER Placentia

The Times' editors have obviously fallen for the Bush Administration's bait and switch routine regarding the rollback of Social Security payroll taxes. The Social Security surplus is being used to operate the government, and as such amounts to deficit spending. Some of these surplus funds coincidentally go to current recipients, but most of the money is intended for the "general purposes of government," as Moynihan said. Depriving the budget-makers of these funds does not threaten those currently receiving Social Security benefits.

The day after Proposition 103 passed, I received my insurance bill with a 20% increase, and I've had no tickets or accidents. Included with my bill was a pre-printed letter that explained: "The exchange issues or renews more than 52,000 policies every month and has not yet been able to calculate and apply the rates required by Proposition 103. Moreover, the exchange would be threatened with insolvency if it were forced to provide the reductions required...

How many readers remember that sales tax rates were increased in the past to provide funds for an emergency, the most recent increase being a quarter-cent to provide funds for San Francisco earthquake relief? We were promised in each case that the rates would be rolled back after the need was met. The rollbacks were never initiated. Gov. Pete Wilson now proposes to lower taxes--income taxes, that is (Jan. 10). The most simple and honorable way to reduce taxes would be to review the history of sales tax increases and reduce them by a combined rollback.

As a "working writer," I think the most frustrating aspect of the current writers' strike is that we aren't striking for substantial gains in our contract, but rather to hold on to what we already have. Unfortunately, Michael Cieply's June 30 article and, indeed, most of the press coverage the strike has received thus far, has failed to acknowledge the climate in which the writers' strike is taking place. That is, like virtually every other strike that has occurred in America since the infamous air controllers' strike of 1980, this one is a by-product of the "rollback mentality" that has become so popular during the Reagan Enchantment.

Gilbert Robles retired as a state parole agent at age 53, able to collect a $101,195 annual pension — 94% of his final salary. Last year, six months after he retired, the Arcadia resident accepted a political appointment with the same agency that pays an additional six figures. Scott Hallabrin took retirement as the top attorney for the state's ethics agency on June 29, 2009. The next day, he went back to the same post, as he prepared to watch his pension checks roll in on top of a salary.

Republican activists, increasingly optimistic they can win the White House and Senate next year, are beginning to lay the groundwork for a multi-pronged campaign in 2013 to roll back President Obama's sweeping healthcare overhaul. The push includes an effort to pressure Republican candidates to commit to using every available tool to fully repeal the law, a tactic pioneered by conservative activist Grover Norquist, who made an anti-tax pledge de rigeur for GOP politicians. Other conservative healthcare experts are developing an alternative to the law, an effort that could protect Republicans from past critiques that their healthcare plans left tens of millions of Americans without medical coverage.

Despite the political and economic risks, congressional Republicans are forging ahead with proposals for severe budget cuts this year, even though party leaders acknowledged the reductions could lead to job losses in the name of deficit reduction. Criticism mounted at the start of a House debate as Democrats took aim at GOP plans to maintain tax breaks for oil companies and the wealthy while cutting medical research, community policing and funding for "Sesame Street," calling the proposal a "mindless" exercise that would do little to address the nation's $1.5-trillion deficit.

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said Friday that rival Carly Fiorina's recent embrace of a November ballot measure that would roll back the state's landmark global warming law was evidence that the Republican was "in the pocket of big oil" and "dirty coal. " With California's unemployment rate at 12.3%, the three-term senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown have argued that the state's 2006 global warming law, which would cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels over the next decade, will play a crucial role in creating jobs and stimulating the green energy sector in California.

Despite falling revenue and enrollments, insurance giant WellPoint Inc. on Wednesday reported a 4% increase in profit for the second quarter. The Indianapolis company, the nation's largest health insurer by membership, earned $722.4 million, or $1.71 a share, in the three-month period ended June 30, compared with $693.5 million, or $1.43, for the same period the previous year. For the first half of the year, earnings were up 26% over 2009. WellPoint runs Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in 14 states and is the parent of Anthem Blue Cross of California, the state's largest for-profit health insurer.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won a major victory Wednesday in his push to rein in state worker retirement benefits when leaders of four unions, including those representing state firefighters and California Highway Patrol officers, agreed to a substantial and rare pension rollback. It has been years since any of the state's powerful public employee unions have consented to trimming their hard-fought retirement packages. The tentative contracts now face votes by union members and the Legislature.

Amwest Insurance Group, a Woodland Hills insurance concern, filed an application with the California insurance commissioner to maintain its premiums at rates higher than those called for by Proposition 103. The proposition was passed by voters Nov. 8, and the state Supreme Court last week upheld most of its features, including its rollback of premium rates to levels 20% below those in effect Nov. 8, 1987. The proposition covers various kinds of property and casualty insurance. But the court allowed insurers to apply for higher rates if they can show that the rate cut would prevent them from earning a "fair and reasonable" return.

Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush is socking it to consumers again, this time by his willingness to let a company that mismanaged its earthquake exposure and then withdrew from the homeowners and earthquake insurance market after the 1994 Northridge earthquake to come back in ("20th Century Will Resume Quake Coverage," Dec. 25). 20th Century Insurance Co., a notorious cherry-picker, had over-concentrated its risk in the San Fernando Valley, violating the fundamental tenet of insurance--spreading the risk--and its policyholders paid the price.

Maybe the saddest thing about California in 2009 is that the bad news was so predictable. It's a long list: the ongoing budget-process meltdown in Sacramento, the ugly combination of escalating fees and reduced programs and access at the California State University and University of California systems; the K-12 teacher layoffs and, along with them, the increasingly crowded classes; the Friday closings of state offices. Nor should we be surprised at the near-record voter-disapproval numbers for Governor Schwarzenegger and Legislature or the predictions from the state legislative analyst that, barring major fixes, California faces a $20-billion deficit in the 2010-11 budget year and more of the same for some years beyond.

Alexander H. Pope, who was a Westwood attorney when he became the Los Angeles County assessor in 1978 and soon faced the challenge of implementing property tax rollbacks newly mandated by Proposition 13, has died. He was 80. Pope, who later became executive director of the California Citizens Budget Commission, died Tuesday of complications of Parkinson's disease at his home in Berkeley, said his wife, Kate.