Camille Giglio
Democrat governor Brown of California has just vetoed the state’s budget plan approved in a partisan vote by his own Party. If the legislature was confused before they will be even more confused now. Many of the bills they want so desperately to approve would return the funding to programs such as Day Care, that was deleted in the last term. All these bills just might get put on holds, again. That’s the good news.
Other legislative news is not so good, included implementing the merging the department of Health’s programs with the Department of Education (bills passed in the last term) based on the requirements mandated in the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - PPACA (socialized medicine).
However, as stated in Assemblywoman Julia Brownley’s AJR 10, School-Based Health Centers, “The United States Congress authorized a school-based health center program in the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but did not appropriate money to fund it.”
Brownley’s Resolution in support of the federal school based clinics, AJR10, has passed the Assembly and is awaiting hearing on June 22nd in the Senate Education Committee. An AJR is a Resolution (without the force of a law, but which signals the intent of the legislators to do something). So, This Resolution holds the legislators to the intent of expanding school centered health services to all students.
To be Heard in Senate education committee on 6/22/11 fax number 916-445-7799.
This bill fits in very nicely with Sen. Mark Leno’s bill from last term which authorized minors to seek and contract for mental health services without parental involvement. Students won’t have to leave the school premises to get their head fixed right. It also creates a smooth pathway for Assemblywoman Toni Atkins’ AB 499, Minors: Medical Care: Consent. This will authorize minors 12 years of age and up to seek out prevention and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy prevention without parental involvement. That’s Planned Parenthood on campus interfacing with your child six hours a day.
This bill sailed through the Assembly on a partisan, Democrat, vote. It also passed it’s first Senate hearing in the Judiciary committee and is on a Senate floor second reading.
AB 499 to be heard on the Senate floor on 6/21/11. Call your state Senator and urge a NO vote.
If these two bills get signed by the governor funds will have to be found to accommodate the remodeling of school buildings or adding rooms. Further, even though Senator Joe Simitian,(D) and Assembly woman Susan Bonilla,(D-Concord) deny it, accommodations will also have to be made in school buildings for the addition of classrooms for the newly added year of kindergarten referred to as pre Kindergarten, SB 30, Kindergarten Admission Age. The intent is to divide the kindergarten aged children into two separate groupings by changing the age of admission to kindergarten. The older 5 year olds would attend Kindergarten. The younger Fives and the older 4 year olds would attend pre-K. Author Simitian claims that research shows that placing the 4/5 age groups into Kindergarten results in those students being the later drop-outs, academic failures and prison inmates.
All of the hype about California spending an inadequate amount of money on education is really about coming up with the funds for these extra-academic or non-academic projects. The special interest groups who will profit from setting up shop in the school rooms may now have to reach into their own pockets to, at least temporarily, finance these moves.
The other aspect of expanded use of the school setting and, therefore increased costs of education, is the expanded development of and investment in Workforce training and preparation, as mandated in the ARRA - American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - i.e., finding the funding for adding job training facilities and teacher training to teach the job training. This is the public/private partnerships between business and education implicit in the ARRA. I have already mentioned in a previous article that Oakland, California mayor, Jean Quan, has already announced plans to merge schools into community centers for health care and workforce training. This is also referred to as a one-stop-shopping type education plan.
Lest the reader think that senior citizens have been forgotten in the health care arena there is also SB 177, by Sen. Tony Strickland, (R), Congregate Living Health Facilities.
This seemingly compassionate plan to care for indigent, elderly, disabled seniors in group homes is of great concern to several Hospice type organizations who reject the assisted suicide program as a compassionate choice. The idea behind this is, of course, efficiency and conservation of funds. Hospices will be developed or expanded, in California. Elderly citizens will be moved out of their own homes, especially those living alone and without family and, of course their houses will be sold. These new Hospice type programs will provide beds in a “home-like setting” for up to 25 residents exhibiting a variety of life-threatening or terminal illnesses from illnesses of 6 months duration to possibly 5 years duration.
SB177 to be heard in Assembly Health Committee, 6/21/11. Dan Logue, (R) V. Chair, fax 916-319-2003.
The concern is over the negative psychological effects impressed upon the non-imminently terminally ill who will be constant witnesses to the deaths of the imminently terminally ill. All patients will be easily accessible by advocates of assisted suicide, already approved in the last legislative term. and living will salesmen who will then be able to ingratiate themselves with the patients and encourage them to consider end of life (non) health care palliative only plans that will shorten their lives prematurely.
This bill will be heard in the Assembly Health Committee on June 21. This bill has gotten the vote of every Democrat and every Republican - almost unanimously.
These legislators are affecting the lives of every resident in California without understanding what they are voting for. Further, they are receiving erroneous information from their own legislative Aides who attend meeting with consultants and then bring that info back to their legislator. The Republicans are under funded and understaffed and those they have are poorly trained. The Democrats on the other hand are well funded with large numbers of well trained staff. The dominant political party holds the legislative purse-strings.
California Congressmen John Garamendi, (D), and George Miller, (D) both representing portions of Contra Costa County have recently come through town touting more health, mental health and nutrition services for the elderly and disabled. This has shown up as AB69, Senior Nutrition Benefits by San Jose Congressman Jim Beall. This has passed the Assembly on a partisan vote and is awaiting its first Senate hearing in the Human Services Committee.
To be heard in Senate Human Services Committee6/28/11. V. Chair Bill Emmerson, (R) Fax 916-327-2187.
The intent appears to be to sign up every senior citizen with food stamps by enrolling all seniors in the CalFresh Program. CalFresh is the name that California officials gave to President Barack Obama’s nutrition-for-everyone Executive Order. Every federal program that comes into California has to have a California brand on it. There’s MediCal, CalWorks, (workforce development) CalFresh (food stamps) CalKids (Advocates for all kinds of services to kids that no parent would ever want their kid experiencing).
Every single one of these above mentioned bills has little to do with the overt programs cited and everything to do with covert data collecting which is to be sent to the feds for analysis in order to develop “Best Practices” in health care and education training or “Core Curriculum Standards” or “communities of interest.” All in the name of prevention services which is another way of saying big government wants to care for you cause you can’t handle it.
Do you know what best practices really means? You should start by asking, best for whom? Data on various treatment methods are collected and analyzed for outcomes, lets’ say heart bypass surgery just for argument’s sake. And,, let’s say 80 out of 100 patients are successfully treated, but for 20% in the age group 65-85 the treatment fails. Of those 80 % successes, 50% have the best less costly results. So, benefits versus costs show as a positive. For the next 30% costs begin to rise in comparison to benefits (to the hospital and state interests) and for the final 20% the benefits drop sharply as the costs of keeping the patient alive rise sharply. If human life is only valued by the medical industry in proportion to the costs it takes to return people to some sense of health, who do you think is going to get the benefits of “best practices?” Not the 20%, maybe not too many in the 30%. It will depend upon how productive and worthwhile it is to the benefit of society to spend much money on this group. So, the younger, more productive (as defined by humanistic standards) will get the benefit of medical skill and knowledge while the rest get a pat on the back.
In my opinion this is what’s behind the sudden explosion of interest in the iCloud data storage systems being developed. Steve Jobs and Apple is not the only Internet data storage systems developer pushing this. There is a large industry developing for the collection and storage of medical data off-site. And, it won’t be in the clouds as the image makers indicate. All this data collected will be stored in profit making huge data collection centers with no guarantee that your data won’t be given/sold to the government or special interest groups.
But, I digress.
And, finally we have AB 200, Health and Fitness Award Program by Mary Hayashi, (D-Hayward). This bill will require school districts to include physical education in the course of study for pupils in grades 1-12 (guess she doesn’t care about the Pre-k and K). This will recognize schools that conduct their PE courses pursuant to model content standards. Improvements in physical fitness would be demonstrated by “using currently collected data and specified eligibility criteria to identify the schools to receive recognition. To quote from the bill:
“The bill would require that private funds be used to pay for all of the costs of implementing the program, including the administrative costs of the State Department of Education, and would authorize the Superintendent to receive donations of private funds for purposes of implementing the program. The bill would prohibit the state board from establishing the program unless and until the Department of Finance certifies to the Superintendent that private donations received by the state are sufficient to implement the program.”
To be heard in Senate Education Committee, fax 916-445-7799. V. Chair Robert Huff, (R).
The Departments of Health and Education are now rapidly moving up to take over much of the job of parenting. It is the silence of parents that has authorized this take over. Everyone was in an uproar when the Obama administration moved in to the auto industry and others. Charges of government take-over were heard in the media. No one seems to realize that the biggest government take over has been that of the duties of parent.
Large groups of eager volunteers come forward to help search for lost children. Parents are seen on television crying and begging for kidnappers to bring back their children and we all sympathize with all of that. Where are the eager volunteers and the desperate parents coming forward to take their children back from the government kidnappers?
For further information on these bills call California Right to Life Committee at 925-899-3064 or email at callifeadvocates@sbcglobal.net
Camille Giglio
Ca. Right to Life Comm.
