Posts Tagged: disabilities

Greater broadband access is critical to closing the digital divide

Illustration of a highspeed connections at a data center: >i>(Image: Anucha Cheechang, via Shutterstock)

by BILL DODD and MICHAEL LIZÀRRAGA posted 07.06.2021

OPINION: During the past year, as the pandemic inflicted incalculable heartbreak and loss, internet connectivity helped Californians get through the worst public health crisis in over 100 years. But while reliable, high-speed internet access became a lifeline to so many of us during the pandemic, this lifeline was not equally available to all of us.

CA120: California well prepared for vote-by-mail in November

A California voter casts a ballot by mail. (Photo: vepar5, via Shutterstock)

by PAUL MITCHELL posted 04.15.2020

When Californians went to the polls in March, the big news was the consolidation of the Democratic primary contest. Few would have expected that we were also effectively seeing the end of the primary election season — with subsequent elections throughout the spring either cancelled or run under the cloud of a viral pandemic.

An open letter to Gavin Newsom: Address California’s poverty

A pair of homeless men asking for money on a Los Angeles street corner. (Photo: Hayk_Shalunts, via Shutterstock)

by Western Center on Law & Poverty posted 12.04.2018

OPINION: Dear Gov.-elect Newsom: California has long stood out as a state that innovates and leads. As you begin your term, we at the Western Center on Law and Poverty are ready to work with you to ensure that California lives up to its ideals — including addressing poverty and its subsequent harms.

Drug industry clout, Medicare costs

Prescription drugs displayed across a counter top. (Photo: Motorolka, via Shutterstock)

by STUART SILVERSTEIN posted 10.18.2016

FairWarning: When the Republican-controlled Congress approved a landmark program in 2003 to help seniors buy prescription drugs, it slapped on an unusual restriction: The federal government was barred from negotiating cheaper prices for those medicines. Instead, the job of holding down costs was outsourced to the insurance companies delivering the subsidized new coverage, known as Medicare Part D.

Crux of Charter merger: the Digital Divide

Illustration by Kheng Guan Toh, via Shutterstock

by SAM OVERTON posted 03.30.2016

OPINION: The California Public Utilities Commission is about to make a landmark decision about the merger of Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks that will have a generational effect on closing—or possibly making permanent—the Digital Divide.

OPINION People who use IHSS, their advocates and the legislature asked: Where are the 40,000 new people ready, willing, qualified and able to do this work, at low pay, with no sick time, no vacation time and usually no health benefits – to take the places of the people already doing the work – some of them for decades?

OPINION: Seemingly every decade or so, California’s workers’ compensation system is deemed to be “fixed — once and for all.” And yet, like clockwork, each subsequent round of changes to workers’ compensation brings about unintended consequences once in effect.