Covered California Looks To Expand

October 18, 2019 at 3:25 AM PDT

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 01:01 Speaker 1: 01:22 Speaker 1: 02:25 Speaker 3: 03:21 Speaker 1: 03:33 Speaker 3: 03:45 Speaker 1: 03:54 Speaker 4: 05:24 Speaker 2: 06:49 Speaker 5: 07:38 Speaker 2: 07:46 Speaker 5: 07:55 Speaker 2: 08:01 Speaker 5: 08:25 Speaker 2: 08:31 Speaker 4: 08:45 Speaker 1: 09:03 Speaker 6: 09:21 Speaker 4: 09:51 Speaker 6: 10:00 Speaker 7: 10:13 Speaker 6: 10:13 Speaker 8: 10:24 Speaker 6: 10:35 Speaker 7: 10:53 Speaker 6: 10:56 Speaker 8: 11:01 Speaker 7: 11:14 Speaker 8: 11:14 Speaker 6: 11:21 Speaker 7: 11:41 Speaker 4: 11:41 Speaker 8: 11:54 Speaker 6: 12:11 Speaker 7: 12:27 Speaker 9: 12:27 Speaker 6: 12:38 Speaker 8: 12:45 Speaker 7: 12:54 Speaker 8: 12:55 Speaker 7: 13:19 Speaker 6: 13:20 Speaker 7: 13:45 Speaker 6: 13:45 Speaker 7: 14:05 It's Friday, October 18th I'm Deb Welsh and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS coming up. Covered California is working to expand health coverage in the state and enrollment now open following last week's power outage in Northern California. Regulators are demanding that Pacific gas and electric do a better job next time around. From here. We had to throw everything away that and more coming up right after the break. Thank you for joining us for San Diego news matters. I'm Deb Welsh, covered California is working to expand health coverage in the state and enrollment is now open. Covered California was created to offer state residents subsidized health insurance under the affordable care act. Executive director, Peter Lee told KPBS that a new state law requires California's to have health insurance in 2020 or face a penalty on their state taxes. The bigger penalty isn't writing a check to the franchise tax board, which is who you'd write the check to. It's showing up in the emergency room and walking out with an $80,000 bill. It's going without insurance and deciding you don't get that checkup, that diagnosis cancer early. That's what people should avoid and people want health insurance if they find out how affordable it is. Covered California enrollment period for health coverage in 2020 runs through January 31st two thirds of people booked into San Diego County jails in 2018 had been homeless in their lifetime. That's up from 50%. Back in 2007. KPBS reporter Prius there breaks down a new SANDAG study for decades. The San Diego association of governments has tracked drug use among prison inmates. In the most recent study, they dug deeper into the housing status of people. Arrested CN dogs, director of research, dr Cynthia Burkes says 77% of those people arrested in local jails said they first became homeless in San Diego and the average age of the respondents became homeless was 26. We care about that population because they're a high risk population, but they also could be, um, show us what trends me becoming for the general population. The study also found that inmates with a history of homelessness were more likely to have a mental health disorder and test positive for drugs at the time of their booking. Prius Sri, their K PBS news. This week marks the 30th anniversary of the deadly Loma Prieta earthquake that hit California's Bay area. The earthquake killed 68 people and injured 3,800 others. Back then we didn't have the technology to send early detection signals, so you have time to drop cover and hold on. KPBS is Maya troubles. He says a new state app is being launched to give us a warning next time an earthquake hits. Do you remember the California earthquake early warning tests sent to your phone in June? If you don't, then maybe you didn't. The alert, it's a federal system that uses motion sensors to detect earthquakes before humans can feel them in those alerts. Once an earthquake is detected, the information is sent to FEMA than sent to cell phone companies who distribute the signal. If you're close to the epicenter of a quake, you may not get a warning in time. Holly Porter with the state office of emergency services says seconds can make a difference. There's a lot of things that you can do in a few seconds. You can pull your car over to the side of the road safely. So there are a number of things that people can do that will prevent injury just with even a few seconds of notice. The office of emergency services as launching. Another way to receive a life saving warning. It's an app called my shake and it's not meant to replace the wireless emergency alert, but to layer your notifications. We hope you get both. We want there to be multiple ways to inform people of potential evacuations or instructions that will help keep them safe. The my shake app was developed by UC Berkeley seismology lab and is available for download today. My Maya trouble, C K PBS news. The public's getting a first time look at how much drug companies are hiking the price of prescription drugs. New data shows a median increase of 26% from 2017 to 2019 capital public is healthcare reporter Sammy K. Olay explains this new report is about the list price, what drug makers charged to wholesale purchasers like health plans and the state, so it doesn't account for rebates, insurance coverage and other factors that change the price for consumers. The state will now release wholesale price changes quarterly thanks to a law that took effect this year. The pharma industry says the wholesale price isn't why your medicine is expensive. They point to a bunch of other things like insurance plans, overspending, and then passing the cost to patients. But patient advocates say price hikes at the top ultimately trickle down the list. Price for tetracaine, a pain reliever jumped 110% one blood pressure medication, so a 200% spike. Sammy Carola cap, radio news, Pacific gas and electric is under fire again. The California public utility commission is called an emergency hearing today to question company leaders about the recent power outage that left over 700,000 homes and businesses in California without electricity for days as part of our California dream collaboration capital public radio, Scott rod reports to Verna Pellegrini set empty last week as the rolling blackouts left the East Bay enclave of Orinda without power for days instead of serving up wine and feel cutlets to the usual dinner rush owner Darrio Hutcheon was busy throwing away food at risk of going bad. The red meats, the burgers, the lamb chops, pork chops, that stuff there is very delicate from here. We had to throw everything away. Most of the shelves in the walk-in fridge had to be cleared when the temperature crept above 50 degrees. All of this stuff here that go back there was, you know, the only other way to find out is if somebody gets sick and I wasn't going to take that chance. How'd Gian says he ditched up to $1,500 worth of prepared food and ingredients, a substantial loss for a small restaurant on top of having to close for a couple of days. He says, PG&E gave adequate notice that because of dangerous weather conditions and the risk of wildfires, the electricity might be turned off. But once everything went dark, the utility provided little help. I tried to get on their website to see their maps and stuff. None of that worked. They, it was just non-existent. You know, I called PGNE multiple multiple times and, uh, no answer. You know, those things would have helped a little bit. The lack of information and assistance from PG and E frustrated hundreds of thousands of customers. Now the state is demanding answers and action as the public safety outages could become the new normal. We're seeing the scale and scope is something that no state in 21st century should experience. What's happened is unacceptable and it's happened because of neglect. That was governor Gavin Newsome speaking at the state office of emergency services during the shutoff. He has called for an investigation into PG. And E's, quote astounding lack of preparation and the state utility commission is demanding PG and. E make substantial changes to the system ahead of future outages, including better coordination with local governments, hiring additional staff to handle customer calls and upgrading equipment in areas most vulnerable to fires. P genie spokesperson Jeff Smith says the company stands by the decision to shut off power due to the risk of wildfires, but acknowledges it's not a perfect solution. We do understand it. It's really frustrating for customers. We understand that in some consensus much more than just an inconvenience. That is, it's a real hardship. PG and E is currently gathering feedback, but Smith says because the utility can't control the weather, it has no plans to reimburse customers for damages caused by the outage. Well, customers certainly are always welcome to file claims. Typically in these instances, claims will not be paid. Do utility declared bankruptcy earlier this year after facing tens of billions of dollars in potential liabilities in the wake of last year's devastating fires, it plans to invest up to $3 billion in a wildfire mitigation program, which would require equipment upgrades and vegetation reduction along thousands of miles of power lines. But Steven Weissman says, if these kinds of planned outages are indeed going to become more commonplace, the utilities should do more. PTSD can be cheerleader for having onsite generation and storage rather than resisting it. Wiseman is a lecturer at UC Berkeley and a former administrative law judge at the utility commission. He argues PG and E should begin promoting and even funding power solutions like micro grids that could help protect customers in the event of an outage. Hi Gian, the owner of Taverna, Pella greenie and Orenda would love to become more self sufficient. The next time around. I'm in talks with eh electric contractor to get it back up, but it's costly. He says he hasn't budgeted for the upgrade, but the restaurant can't afford to close every time. PGNE decides to cut off the power in Orenda. I'm Scott. Rod San Diego opera launches. It's 2019 2020 season with a well-proven grand opera from Verdi, but KPB as ours. Reporter Beth lycomato Amando says that this production of Aida tries something different. When David Bennett took over San Diego opera in 2015 he introduced a program called detour, which was meant to showcase everything that was not grand opera. You think of the word of a detour. A detour is, you know, along the same direction, but maybe a different path, right? Getting you to the same place, but a different path. That program has led audiences to innovative productions of chamber opera, contemporary opera, and opera from other cultures that now perhaps grand opera is ready for a detour as well. That's actually very good metaphor, right? We actually have thought about that. We've talked about it. We said, why don't we think about applying some of the learning that we've taken from detour and see if we can put a little bit of that on main stage to kick off the new opera season? Bennett is doing precisely that with a scaled back version of the Verdi favorite. Aida [inaudible] technical director, Tim Wallace, painted Epic traditional sets for Aida back in 1995 and is now repurposing some of those pieces for a very different looking show. We're ever evolving and adapting into who we are and something fresh and something new that our audience hasn't seen. This is definitely the jumping off point for that on the main stage general director there for San Diego opera. Then it has to not only decide on programming choices, but also keep an eye on the budget. When programming this new season, he was looking for cost efficient ways to stage an Epic opera like Aida [inaudible], [inaudible], but necessity can lead to creative solutions that go beyond mere financial concerns. It says Wallace, just in the way that it's played, the orchestra is going to be on stage and the singers are all downstage on the thrust as opposed to being in the middle of the stage [inaudible] but he's ever been to see the symphony live just on their own. You know, that's a spectacle. We're bringing it all together, but all in full view. That means fewer expensive and massive set pieces and no live animals says 10 or Carl Tanner odds are the world's largest production of Aida with elephants and snakes and camels. And I've done scaled down versions of, of our UDA. It's all about the music [inaudible] that's what Bennett wants to emphasize. I think it draws attention to the beautiful writing of Verdi across the board. So Verdi actually made a comment, um, in his compositional style or referred to something in his compositional style right before he can post Aida of a new idea about composing operas. That's with sort of a, uh, intention across all musical spectrum of actually honoring the orchestra in the same way as he honors singers. And I think we're doing that with this production. So audiences will see the musicians on stage with the singers and Tanner will be a mere few feet away from the front row. [inaudible] for the people right down front, they're gonna feel a little overwhelmed with the sound maybe from the artists, maybe from the soloist, but I feed off the art audience energy when they're excited. I'm excited. And even veterans like Wallace who seen plenty of I EDAs is looking forward to what this production brings to the main stage. Tiny is gonna be exciting. I'm going to actually sit back and watch it and see what happens. [inaudible] it may not be the Epic production. People are used to that for a technical director. There are still a lot of moving parts. There are moving parts of this drops fly in and out, some scenery comes flying and some surgery moves across the stage. It's not just a concert version of anything is still very much a theatrical experience. [inaudible] but an experience that may allow audiences to hear Verity in a new and more intimate way without any elephants to distract them both like Amando, KPBS news, San Diego opera, as Aida opens this weekend, and we'll have four performances at the San Diego civic theater. [inaudible] [inaudible] that's it for San Diego news matters today. Consider supporting this podcast by becoming a KPBS member today. Just go to kpbs.org/membership [inaudible].

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Covered California is working to expand health coverage in the state, and enrollment is now open. Plus, two-thirds of people booked into San Diego County jails in 2018 had been homeless at some point in their lifetime, up from 50 percent back in 2007. Also, on today’s podcast, last week's power outage wreaked havoc on small businesses -- including restaurants and grocery stores -- across northern California. Now regulators are demanding PG&E do a better job next time around. And, California unveiled an early warning app for earthquakes on the 30th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake.