Category: Government

Government: who rules us.

You and I live on a budget and so can Santa Cruz County and the state of California. Here’s how. Why? Out of control govt spending must stop.

Taxpayers can rein in government spending. Look at example of Cuomo in New York: no raise in New York taxes, cut most agencies 10%, cut Medicare by a billion. Get rid of automatic pilot spending “escalators”. And fix pensions so government workers are paid imiliar to private sector workers. Cap property taxes.

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How fix CA deficit? Do as New York plans: cut overall state expenditures by 2%. Hold taxes flat. Cut most agencies by 10%. Cut $2 billion in Medicaid. Cut prison costs. Layoff 9,000 state workers.

Then CA must make structural changes which so far New York avoids. The CA govenor should cap property taxes — so localities and schools are on a permanent spending diet. And CA must do pension reform so state and local government workers are comparable to private sector employees. And something California and every county including Santa Cruz should do is get rid of the services budgeting system with its automatic pilot spending “escalators”. It’s ridiculous to have automatic spending increases which are tied to other metropolitan areas. And on and on it goes.

When cutting Medicare CA and our local Santa Cruz County Mental Health system should look to Rhode Island which trimmed 1+ billion and improved quality of care for seniors.

So where are some local Tea Party supporters that can run the numbers how Santa Cruz County can make across the board cuts and get rid of the local “escalator” clause?

Written by DrCameronJackson@gmail.com

For informaton on what New York seeWSJ Opinion, 3-29-2011

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Aptos, CA psychologist: In 1994, Sari Kovats had no credentials yet selected as lead researcher for IPCC on how climate change affects people.

Climate change real? Look at the lack of credentials of someone who made the first report. Was a governmental agency using someone to get a particular opinion?

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Sara Kovats cited as an authority on climate change years before Ph.D. credential

DrCameronJackson@gmail.com
March 19, 2011
IPCC guru was a student when writing ‘authoritative’ reports.

So what is Sari Kovats doing now in her profession having authored as an uncredentialed student authoritative reports on climate change? Is she a recognized leader in her field?

In 1994 was a governmental agency — the IPCC — using her to get a particular opinion?

As she had no Ph.D. or other credentials, Sari Kovats obviously was not a recognized “authority”. What about her research methods? Can anyone fault her on her methodology?

See Sari Kovats’s Vitae below:

Here is her Vitae:

Sari Kovats BA MSc PhD
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Epidemiology
Room 233, 15-17 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9SH, UK
Tel: +44(0)20 7927 2962Get email addressvCard

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Affiliated to: SEHR.
Disciplines: Epidemiology.

Research areas: Climate change, Environment, Public health, Risk.

Background
Sari Kovats is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Teaching
Sari organises the Module “Environment, Health and Sustainable Development” in Term 1, and is a tutor to students on the MSc Public Health.

Research
Sari has researched health issues related to climate change since 1994 and has published widely on the health impacts of weather and climate, including extreme weather events (heat waves) and associated public health responses.

She was a Lead Author in the Human Health chapter in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC as well as contributing to the Second and Third Assessment Reports.

Sari is a member of Scientific Steering Committee of Global Environmental Change and Human Health Project of ESSP (Earth System Science Partnership), and is currently Chair of the Centre on Global Change and Health at LSHTM.

Selected publications
Kovats, R.S.; Ebi, K.L.; Heatwaves and public health in Europe. Eur J Public Health, 2006; 16(6):592-9
Hajat, S.; Kovats, R.S.; Lachowycz, K. Heat-related and cold-related deaths in England and Wales: who is at risk? Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2007; 64(2):93-100
Kovats, R. S. Heat waves and health protection British Medical Journal, 2006; 333(7563):314-315
Kovats, R. S.; Campbell-Lendrum, D.; Matthies, F. Climate change and human health: Estimating avoidable deaths and disease Risk Analysis, 2005; 25(6):1409-1418
Ahern, M.; Kovats, R.S.; Wilkinson, P.; Few, R.; Matthies, F.; Global health impacts of floods: epidemiologic evidence. Epidemiol Rev, 2005; 27:36-46
Kovats, R.S.; Edwards, S.J.; Hajat, S.; Armstrong, B.G.; Ebi, K.L.; Menne, B.; The effect of temperature on food poisoning: a time-series analysis of salmonellosis in ten European countries. Epidemiol Infect, 2004; 132(3):443-53
Kovats, R.S.; Hajat, S.; Wilkinson, P.; Contrasting patterns of mortality and hospital admissions during hot weather and heat waves in Greater London, UK. Occup Environ Med, 2004; 61(11):893-8
Kovats, R. S.; Campbell-Lendrum, D. H.; McMichael, A. J.; Woodward, A.; Cox, J. S. Early effects of climate change: do they include changes in vector-borne disease? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 2001; 356(1411):1057-68
Full publications listing (since 2001)

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“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose reports have motivated governmental action to cut carbon emissions, relied on an uncredentialed student named Sari Kovats for writing and supervising its supposedly authoritative reports. Donna Laframboise of NOconsensus.org brings us the shocking news.
In 1994, Kovats was one of only 21 people in the entire world selected to work on the first IPCC chapter that examined how climate change might affect human health. She was 25 years old. Her first academic paper wouldn’t be published for another three years. It would be six years before she’d even begin her doctoral studies and 16 years before she’d graduate.

IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri says this about how IPCC authors are selected:

There is a very careful process of selection…These are people who have been chosen on the basis of their track record, on their record of publications, on the research that they have done…They are people who are at the top of their profession as far as research is concerned in a particular aspect of climate change…you can’t think of a better set of qualified people than what we have in the IPCC. [bold added]

Academically speaking, Kovats was invisible back in 1994. That anyone connected to the IPCC could have considered her a scientific expert is astonishing.

I’m sorry to say that that was just the beginning. When it came time to write the next version of the climate bible, Kovats received a promotion. She was selected to be a lead author, again for the health chapter – despite the fact that her doctoral studies wouldn’t begin until the year the IPCC report was published.

What do we suppose happened with the next edition of the climate bible – the one that appeared in 2007, still three full years before Kovats earned her doctorate? Was she selected once again to be a health chapter lead author? You betcha.

But by then the IPCC, in its wisdom, had decided she was a scientific expert in other areas, as well. Kovats served as a contributing author for three additional chapters in Working Group 2:

•Chapter 1 – Assessment of Observed Changes and Responses in Natural and Managed Systems
•Chapter 6 – Coastal Systems and Low-lying Areas
•Chapter 12 – Europe
She was also an IPCC expert reviewer.

So how does a neophyte suddenly beome the “top of [her] profession”? The great Andrew Bolt, of the Courier Mail/Herald Sun in Australia has a good answer:

Maybe she just has the right opinions.

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Why not cut California prison guard salaries & govt union pension/ health costs instead of Medi-Cal payments to doctors & the most disabled served by regional centers & In Home Health Support?

DrCameronJackson@gmail.com
Cuts to doctors who see Medi-Cal will result in fewwer physicians taking Medi-Cal patients. That is counter productive.

A cut of $568 million to the developmentally disabled including the regional centers and a cut of $486 million to In Home Support Services are cuts that affect the weakest and most vulnerable citizens in California.

Why doesn’t Gov. Jerry Brown cut prison guard salaries? One in five at San Quintin guards makes over $100,000 a year. State wide in California, the number of prison guards making $100+ K in 203 was 180, 557 in 2004 and 2,386 in 2005.


Jerry Brown shrinks from real reform. Real reform could occur if Jerry Brown broke with the public-employee unions that helped elect him and force the unions to accept structural reforms.

California must get serious about tax reform, spending limits and stifling regulations.

California has 12% of the nation’s people and one third of the U.S welfare load. California has the highest taxes in the nation and a higher unemployment rate higher than Michigan.

A new statewide Field poll shows that 2/3s of Democrats want state and local employees ti pay more for their retirement. And 50% of California Democrats back the Little Hoover Commissioner’s proposal that CA create 401(k) type defined contribution pension plans and pare back the defined benefit plans government workers currently enjoy.

California needs a hard spending cap akin to the Gann Limit passed back in 1979. Had a real Gann limit been in place over the last 20 years California’s budget would be balanced now.

It’s time for conservatives to get a ballot measure curtailing what unions can spend on politics out of member dues. It is time that California union members had a real say whether they want to be a member of a union.

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Health and Human Services
Medi-Cal co-pay for hospital admissions of $200 and co-pay for each day in the hospital of $100 $151.2 million
A 10 percent reduction in what the state pays for Medi-Cal patients at all long-term care facilities $172.3 million
A 10 percent reduction in what the state pays to physicians who see people on Medi-Cal $567 million
A cap on Medi-Cal visits to doctors of seven per year, unless otherwise medically necessary $44.9 million
Medi-Cal co-payments of $3 (generic) and $5 (brand name) for prescription medications $140.3 million
An increase in premiums and co-pays, benefits, and elimination of vision care for the Healthy Families program $30.5 million
A broad cut to services for the developmentally disabled, including to regional centers $568.6 million
Reductions to the In-Home Supportive Services, a program that’s an alternative to nursing home care. $486 million
Eliminate Adult Day Health Care programs, which provide rehabilitation and social activities for elderly, disabled people. $90 million
General reduction for the medical supply stockpile and mobile field hospitals for major public health emergencies $5.8 million
Shift from early childhood development fund to the general fund for Medi-Cal expenses $1 billion
New Medi-Cal co-pay for physician and clinic visits of $5 per visit $152.8 million

Welfare and child care
Cut welfare grants for families by 8 percent $300 million
Reduce welfare limits from 60 months total to 48 months $171 million
Reduce all state contracts for child care, including pre-school, by 15 percent $267 million
Eliminate some child care services for 11- and 12-year-old children $38.5 million
Reduce state reimbursement for child care by 10 percent $109 million

Colleges and Universities
Unallocated cut to UC $500 million
Unallocated cut to CSU $500 million
Unallocated cut to Hastings College of the Law $1.5 million
Unallocated cut and a fee increase of $10 per unit for community colleges $510 million

Natural Resources
Reduce number of firefighters on Cal Fire engines from four to three $30.7 million
Closure of a yet undetermined number of state parks $11 million
Eliminate state funding for fairs and agricultural districts $30 million

Sources: California Department of Finance and Assembly Budget Committee

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/18/BA5B1IENKI.DTL#ixzz1H56Rjt2R

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