Science
Q&A: How to talk about politics with people who don't agree with you
![Q&A: How to talk about politics with people who don't agree with you Q&A: How to talk about politics with people who don't agree with you](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a77983a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4263x2238+0+408/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F0b%2Fae%2F7bbdc18940a8accf097c5d50340a%2Fhttps-delivery.gettyimages.com%2Fdownloads%2F1160284075.jpg)
These days, there’s no surer way to start a fight than to talk politics with someone who disagrees with you. And with election day drawing near, political conversations are increasingly difficult to avoid.
You could muddle your way through the next two months and hope for the best. Or you could take Tania Israel‘s advice and embrace the opportunity to help bridge America’s political divide.
Israel, a professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical and School Psychology at UC Santa Barbara, has been facilitating difficult conversations since the 1990s, when she brought together people on opposite sides of the abortion debate.
“It was a transformational experience for me,” Israel recalled. “It didn’t change anything about how I felt about reproductive rights, but it changed so much about how I felt about people who disagreed with me.”
Tania Israel, a professor of counseling psychology at UC Santa Barbara, says Americans should embrace the opportunity presented by the 2024 election to help bridge the nation’s political divide.
(Laurie Bailey)
In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, she stepped up her efforts to connect with people outside her bubble and wrote a book to guide others willing to do the same. “Facing the Fracture: How to Navigate the Challenges of Living in a Divided Nation,” inspires readers to listen to their fellow Americans rather than debate them.
Israel spoke to The Times about how individual conversations can help the country heal. The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Why does it seem like there’s more political conflict than there used to be?
People are struggling not just with arguments with their uncle, but arguments with their phone, with the news, and in their own heads. All of that makes us very emotionally activated, which is part of the reason stress-related political conflict is on the rise and keeps going up.
It’s not healthy for us, it’s also not healthy for our relationships, and it’s not healthy for our democracy.
Is it good to try to bridge the divide, or is it better for your mental health to steer clear?
I think what’s best for people is to build the capacity to be able to do both — to be able to have those conversations, and also to be able to know when it’s best not to.
What motivates people to engage with someone from the other side?
Some people say, “I want to maintain a relationship with somebody in my life and we’re having trouble doing that because of political conflict.”
Some people say they want to persuade or convince someone else.
Some people say they want to find common ground or heal the divide.
And then some people say, “I simply cannot fathom how people can think or act or vote like they do,” and they’re looking for some insight.
Are we so used to being on our phones and that makes it hard to deal with people in real life?
It’s much easier to have stereotypes of people when we’re engaging with them only as social media accounts. It distorts our understanding of who other people are.
Are stereotypes the only problem?
As humans, we have these cognitive biases where we see ourselves as being very rational, basing our ideas on solid information. But we see people on the other side as being irrational, illogical, and being brainwashed by misinformation. Both sides are seeing things this way.
My favorite cognitive bias is called motive attribution asymmetry, where we see ourselves as being motivated by protective, caring motives, and we see the other side as being driven by selfishness and by hostility.
How can we correct our cognitive biases?
Recognizing them is probably the most important thing.
We can recognize the other side’s biases. If we just recognize that we are susceptible to all of those same things, that can help us to have that curiosity to correct them.
If you find yourself in the middle of a polarizing argument, how can you turn things around?
The best thing we can do if we’re trying to find common ground, persuade somebody, or gain insight is to try to understand them better.
The way we do that is we listen. We encourage people to elaborate. We manage our own emotions. And when we do share with people, we share stories instead of statistics and slogans.
That’s not what people think they’re supposed to be doing. They think they’re supposed to be having a debate, where they’re bringing in all the information and the stats and the rationale.
Why are stories better than statistics?
When we’re using stats and arguments, we’re drawing those from our trusted sources, which are very often not the same as the trusted sources of the person that we‘re talking to.
Confirmation bias causes us to accept information that supports what we already believe to be true, and ignore or dismiss information that conflicts with our beliefs. So when we’re telling people things that are in conflict with what they believe, they are more likely to dismiss what we’re saying — and frankly, to dismiss us as a trusted source.
When we embed information in stories, people remember it better and they accept it more. It’s also how humans relate to each other. Not only is it more effective, it’s a more interesting conversation.
Scientists will say an anecdote is not data. But you’re saying an anecdote is better than data.
Right. We can have all of the information, but when we’ve got another human being involved, it turns out that just telling them all the information doesn’t help.
If we believe in science, we also need to believe in the science that says that’s not the way you get someone to change their behavior.
Why would someone who doesn’t trust your facts trust your story?
Stories feel more true. And you can’t argue with stories, you know? “Here’s my story of my life.” You can’t argue with my story of my life. Also, if there’s some emotion in the story, people connect with that.
We often put our ideas out there to say, “Here are my ideas. This is why you should believe it.” Or to say, “Here are my ideas. This is why this justifies what I think or do.” We very rarely put our ideas out there to say, “Here are my ideas. Here are the limits of my understanding of this. What am I missing?”
That is a completely disarming approach because it brings intellectual humility into it. We can have very strong beliefs but still have curiosity about and respect for views that might be different from our own. That’s going to help to broaden our understanding.
It seems like you’d have to be in the right mindset to want to talk with someone you’re used to disagreeing with, no?
We have to work up the capacity to do this. There are habits we need to form and habits we need to reform. All of that training is going to help us be able to face political division, as well as other challenges in our lives.
What’s involved with that training?
The first step is to reduce polarizing input. We can consume news more wisely, use social media more intentionally and correct our cognitive biases. That’s going to help us be in a space of equilibrium.
Next is building our individual capacity through emotional resilience. That’s being able to face a person or a lawn sign and not completely melt down.
Intellectual humility helps us broaden our minds, and you’re absolutely right that you have to want to do that. It’s about having the curiosity to recognize that you might not have the full story and that there’s something more you can learn.
And then there’s compassion. You’ve got to take all these steps before you can even get to building empathy and compassion.
Once you’ve done all of that, now you’re ready to strengthen connections.
How?
If you want to engage across the divide, you want to do so effectively — listening to others, telling stories, all of that.
It’s also engaging with our communities and our country. Civic engagement is a really important activity. Do something meaningful to support the causes that you care about. Volunteering not only benefits us as society, it also benefits our mental health.
Posting something on social media is not a very effective form of advocacy. Turning away from our screens and engaging with other three-dimensional human beings is probably the best thing we can do for any of these issues.
There’s also this thing most people have never heard of, which is the bridging movement.
What’s that?
There are over 500 organizations that are working on bridging divides and strengthening our democracy. If people join that movement, it’s great. But just knowing that that’s happening can make people more optimistic about their fellow Americans, and about the future of our country.
![](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/np-logo.png)
Science
Climate warriors fighting some of the 'greatest crises humanity has ever seen'
![Climate warriors fighting some of the 'greatest crises humanity has ever seen' Climate warriors fighting some of the 'greatest crises humanity has ever seen'](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/3991364/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x1575+0+213/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F15%2Fef%2F06663e4546a994e011798c3c718e%2F1436064-me-0414-climate-protest-1-rcg.jpg)
Aru Shiney-Ajay’s awakening to the climate crisis began in her late teens. On visits to family in India, she watched in horror as loved ones endured one disaster after another: deadly floods in her parents’ home state of Kerala and record-shattering air pollution in Delhi among them.
Aru Shiney-Ajay is arrested along with other Sunrise Movement members as they protest in July outside the Washington office of Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who has since become the Republican vice presidential nominee.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
“The climate crisis was not just something in the background, but something that was already here,” she said. “That’s really what drove me to get involved in Sunrise.”
The Sunrise Movement was founded in 2017 by young climate activists frustrated by the mismatch between an accelerating global disaster and the staid pace of existing environmental organizations.
Theirs would be different: a movement organized for and by young people that would be unafraid of confronting powerful figures directly and dramatically.
They broke onto the national stage just a year later, when some 150 members staged a sit-in at the office of incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) to demand that the newly elected Democratic majority commit to a Green New Deal.
![Protesters hold a banner that reads, "Talk about climate change"](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/d0496a1/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1840x1232+0+0/resize/2000x1339!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3c%2F8f%2Fb73b8cba41eab11a173900b59a77%2Fozzy-simpson.jpg)
In September 2020, members of Sunrise L.A. Youth protested at CNN’s L.A. office to “demand that they connect the climate crisis with the wildfires, with the hurricanes.”
(Sunrise Movement)
Then a Swarthmore College student and volunteer trainer, Shiney-Ajay had helped coordinate the highly publicized action on Capitol Hill. After its success, she made the decision to leave college and work for Sunrise full time.
Last October, after a months-long search and a 95% confirmation vote from Sunrise’s volunteer delegates, Shiney-Ajay was named the organization’s executive director.
She is only the second person to lead the organization, which is based in Washington, D.C., and has thousands of members in 118 hubs in cities, towns and campuses across the U.S. There are 15 hubs in California alone.
“She is one of the sharpest and most compassionate leaders I have ever met,” founding director Varshini Prakash said in a statement last year. “I’m confident that under her leadership, Sunrise will reach new heights.”
Shiney-Ajay, 26, assumed leadership at a highly charged moment in U.S. politics. While the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has energized young progressive voters who were deeply skeptical of both President Biden and former President Trump, the outcome of November’s election remains a toss-up. Protests over the violence in Gaza and Israel have electrified university campuses. All the while, temperatures soar and acres burn, and the time left to save a sweltering planet seems to tick closer to zero.
The Times spoke with Shiney-Ajay this summer. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
![](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/723e3a5/2147483647/strip/true/crop/500x150+0+0/resize/133x40!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2e%2F58%2Faeb733f04b98a91043cd5a163792%2Fclimate-challenge-2024-break-boxy.png)
What does it feel like to lead Sunrise after having come up as a volunteer?
I feel like I get to live out my purpose in life. It’s given me a lot of meaning and energy to face down some of the greatest crises that humanity has ever seen, and do it with hope and determination, with people who I trust at my side. Sunrise gave me that when I was a member, and it feels like a privilege to be able to give that back to thousands more people.
What appealed to you about Sunrise as a new member?
I’d never seen an organization that had so much vision for what is needed to stop the climate crisis, and also so much seriousness about the power it took to get there.
They were like, “OK, the way that we’re going to do it is we’re going to push the Democratic Party to see the urgency of the climate crisis. We’re going to expose the corrupting influence of fossil fuel billionaires on our politics. We’re going to tie the issue of good, green, union jobs to climate change, to make it clear that it’s not a choice between jobs and climate.”
![People holding protest signs stand outside LADWP headquarters.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5ce6938/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3200x2133+0+0/resize/2000x1333!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5c%2F93%2F88ef6bf64718a4749cc1a01fa2bc%2Fla-photos-1staff-473107-la-me-los-angeles-gas-plant-utah-4-als.jpg)
Lynn Wang with Sunrise Movement L.A., left, addresses a coalition of environmental groups as they stage a protest at LADWP headquarters downtown in November 2019.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Those were really clear interventions that opened up a whole new arena of possibility.
What does Sunrise mean when you say you want a Green New Deal?
The easiest way is to think about the New Deal, which was not just one bill but a series of bills, executive actions and local rulings that happened over multiple years [during the Great Depression]. It changed the legislative landscape, and the economic and cultural landscape of society too.
That is what we need in order to stop the climate crisis. It’s legislation at every level of government, change in every sector of society. That’s what the Green New Deal is about.
What era is Sunrise in now? What are your priorities at this point?
After [Congress passed] the Inflation Reduction Act, we decided that it was time for us to take some of those wins and start racking them up locally. So that’s how we launched the Green New Deal for Schools and the Green New Deal for Communities.
It was a way for us to win things locally, but also to develop our leaders and build our base. We’ve been doing that for the last couple years.
No matter what happens with the election this year, we’re really shoring ourselves up to take the fight back to the federal level. We’re starting to do that this year with the Climate Emergency Campaign.
What’s that?
It’s a campaign to get President Biden to declare a climate emergency, which basically unlocks a lot of different executive action powers. We are facing record-breaking temperatures, floods, fires, hurricanes. This is a state of emergency, and we need to use the full might of the federal government to do everything we can to stop it.
![A Sunrise Movement protester](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/b8e650e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x2000+0+0/resize/2000x1333!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fbb%2F09%2F00204b3946c5a2a3b4b70a81000f%2F1436064-me-0414-climate-protest-2-rcg.jpg)
A Sunrise Movement protester outside Kamala Harris’ Brentwood home in April.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
What do people misunderstand about your organization and the people it represents?
What we are asking for is not unreasonable. It’s not impractical. It’s actually the thing that is most in line with the physical realities of the world. As you get older, I think you start to think within the limitations of the political imagination, rather than the limitations of what literally must be done to keep millions of people alive.
People sometimes think of the Green New Deal as idealistic or impractical. Actually, I think it is the politicians who are being impractical about the reality of our situation.
Sunrise is explicitly for young people. Do members have to pack up and leave once they hit 35?
As long as young people are leading, then we welcome all the hands we can get. There’s been a lot of over-35 people in hubs who help us run logistics for training or give us their wisdom on how to plan actions or pass legislation in their city.
What does this generation understand that previous ones do not?
This generation grew up with the effects of the climate crisis being told to us since we were in elementary school, and so we know that this is an existential threat.
I also think this generation is just really oriented to justice and equality. And we’re not quite single-issue voters in the way that people maybe thought about voters 15 or 20 years ago.
When we spoke earlier this year, before President Biden withdrew from the race, you said your membership was deeply discouraged by the prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch. What’s your position on the election now?
Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy and to our climate. Losing four more years to a president who actively promises to drill more fossil fuels would be planetary suicide. That’s why Sunrise will be doing everything we can to stop him from getting elected.
Vice President Harris’ record on climate is much more promising. As attorney general in California, she prosecuted oil and gas companies for pollution and sued the Obama administration for fracking. As vice president, she cast the tiebreaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, the country’s most significant climate legislation to date. With her in office, we actually have a chance at winning bold legislation that can tackle the climate crisis.
What is your message to young voters?
Our generation can turn the tide of politics. When we protested, voted and walked out in mass numbers, we won the climate legislation, an office of gun violence prevention, student debt relief, and a cap on prescription drug prices. If we vote for Harris this November, and then rally, protest and call for the scale of legislation we need, we will win the world we deserve.
Why has Gaza become an important part of Sunrise’s messaging?
We are a movement of young people, and the reality is that huge amounts of young people right now are speaking out against the war on Gaza. We think that it’s important to understand this as an election issue, alongside climate. The scale of death and destruction has been huge, and that has propelled it to a major issue for a lot of young people.
What are some of the harder decisions you see yourself having to make as a leader?
When legislation passes, there’s always a decision of how much to say, “That is not enough,” and how much to say, “I’m glad you did that.” It’s a strategic calculation every time.
One of the strengths of young people is that we are able to demand the biggest, boldest thing. But if you only ever demand the biggest, boldest thing, then it’s sometimes hard to ever feel like you’re winning, and people end up leaving because they feel like you haven’t won anything ever.
How have you evolved as an activist? Would anything about 2024 Aru surprise 2017 Aru?
I think I’ve gotten a lot better at being really disciplined about hope. It’s easy to feel like everything is falling apart when you look at the world. Something that Sunrise has taught me, and that I’ve learned from the world around me, is that hope comes through collective action but is also something that you need to practice. You don’t even know what spark will set something aflame. Just holding that hope within yourself can ignite that in other people.
Science
Video: Boeing’s Starliner Travels Back to Earth Empty
![Video: Boeing’s Starliner Travels Back to Earth Empty Video: Boeing’s Starliner Travels Back to Earth Empty](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/09/06/multimedia/06starliner-return-lkzf/06starliner-return-lkzf-facebookJumbo.jpg?video-overlay)
new video loaded: Boeing’s Starliner Travels Back to Earth Empty
transcript
transcript
Boeing’s Starliner Travels Back to Earth Empty
The two NASA astronauts who traveled on the spacecraft to the International Space Station remained there after NASA officials decided it would be safer for Starliner to return without crew aboard.
-
“And we just heard confirmation that the umbilicals are retracting and hooks are beginning to drive.” “Separation confirmed. Starliner is now backing away from station and starting its return to Earth. Starliner’s thrusters will then complete two short firings to gradually increase the separation speed to help the spacecraft carefully move away from the orbiting lab.” “The vehicle is now about two meters away from the International Space Station. At the time of undocking, Starliner and the International Space Station were flying approximately 260 statute miles over central China.” “During this burn sequence, Starliner’s thrusters will perform a series of 12 short firings. The entire sequence takes about five minutes to complete and allows Starliner to quickly break out to outside the approach ellipsoid, or A.E. And about four minutes into the burn sequence, Starliner will exit the keep-out sphere, or the K.O.S.” “We have one more burn to go, but they have confirmed that Starliner has crossed the keep-out sphere, or the K.O.S., which is an imaginary 200-meter sphere centered on the International Space Station that helps flight controllers here on the ground monitor the arrival and departure of visiting vehicles.” “Station, Houston, Space to Ground 2, Starliner has exited the keep-out sphere.”
Recent episodes in Science
Science
California Health and Human Services chief Dr. Mark Ghaly to step down
![California Health and Human Services chief Dr. Mark Ghaly to step down California Health and Human Services chief Dr. Mark Ghaly to step down](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/09f93f9/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4928x2587+0+346/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5c%2F68%2F3a9f2ebf4d0d883a7e08743b24c6%2Fap20280768589085.jpg)
Dr. Mark Ghaly is stepping down as head of the California Health and Human Services Agency after an eventful tenure that included the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday.
Newsom called Ghaly “a driving force for transformative changes to make healthcare more affordable and accessible,” whose leadership during the pandemic “saved countless lives and set the stage for our state’s strong recovery.” The governor’s office also credited Ghaly with reimagining Medi-Cal, the California Medicaid program; overhauling the state behavioral health system; and launching efforts to make crucial medications more affordable, among other initiatives.
Ghaly was appointed in 2019 to lead the state agency, which oversees a slew of California departments and offices that handle public health, mental health, assistance to people with developmental disabilities and a range of other health and social services.
Ghaly will stay at the agency through the end of the month. Newsom is appointing California Department of Social Services Director Kim Johnson to replace Ghaly in October. The Times talked to Ghaly this week about his tenure.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What were the three biggest challenges you faced at Health and Human Services, and what are the three biggest challenges facing your successor?
One of the big ones was navigating, under the governor’s leadership, this state through our COVID response — that obviously is a huge one. The second one, I think, is really addressing a comprehensive overhaul of our safety net …. And then the third piece has been, how do we make sure that for all Californians, we’re making progress to keep these basic necessities affordable, like healthcare … ?
The successor will certainly need to continue implementing the really thoughtful policy agenda that has stitched together … this real tapestry of programs and services that, when implemented successfully, I think really changed the arc of the lives of a lot of Californians, in particular the most vulnerable.
The focus on the principles of equity … I have no doubt that will continue to be a focal point. And then just on the last point, there’s a lot of pundits and detractors on the affordability agenda: Can we make thoughtful policy decisions and implement them to make things more affordable for Californians?
Having started a year before the pandemic, if you knew then what you know now, is there anything that you would do differently, in terms of the COVID response in California?
If you had told me that we had to successfully navigate California — the largest state in the nation — with one of the lowest end death rates from the disease, with a very thoughtful path to economic recovery, and while achieving that, build up and grow the California Health and Human Services Agency’s investment by nearly 50% over these six years, I would have said, ‘Sign me up for that job any day of the week. What a privilege.’
But of course, there are things that happened during the pandemic, that as it goes on and you think through it, you hope you may do something different in the future. And I would say No. 1 on the list for me … is how we supported young people with learning and school.
You’ll remember early on, the question about how to handle … schools as places where people become infected and go home and infect other vulnerable people — we were learning more about this sneaky airborne virus that mutated as it went along. And we made decisions in this state to have kids stay home, [to] really lean into virtual distance learning, and it stuck much longer than I think people had hoped …. And the governor put together a number of programs that supported their education in all sorts of forms.
But I think knowing what we know now about both the virus, the length of the pandemic — some of that information would have been helpful in those early days, weeks, months, around how we supported kids in schools.
During your time at the agency, we’ve seen some major changes in how California handles severe mental illness: the opening of CARE Court and Senate Bill 43, which broadened the definition of grave disability for involuntary treatment …. Do you think it is bringing about the change that was hoped for?
When I say the full transformation of the safety net, I can think of no better issue, single issue to focus on than behavioral health. Under Gov. Newsom’s leadership, we have changed from a focus on mental health to behavioral health, to include the very real need to focus on addiction and substance use disorders, its connection to things like housing instability and homelessness, its connection to incarceration.
When I came into this job, in my actual interview with the governor before I was appointed, we talked about how much we wanted to change the trajectory of people with serious mental health and behavioral health conditions, because in so many ways, the often ending place for individuals was jail, incarceration, prison ….
[With CARE Court] our goal was not just to get people in the line, but to get people in the front of the service line that so often are left outside to decompensate … until they do something that gets them arrested, and then suddenly we start to wrap around some of the care that they need, but often in the worst environment possible.
I do think the governor’s many programs that focus on behavioral health … when you take a step back and look at it all together, it’s essentially giving Californians and local government tools that they never had to be able to dream differently and put together a program that, I think, really gives us a credible shot to catch people much earlier in their trajectories with the challenges of behavioral health conditions, rather than what we so frequently do ….
I think we’re going to see these programs really pay off as they become more deeply seated [and] we work through some of the obvious operational challenges.
California has been expanding Medi-Cal, its Medicaid program, to cover many more people, but there’s been concern from healthcare providers that it doesn’t pay them adequately, which results in a shortage of providers willing to accept Medi-Cal patients. How should California fix that problem?
A: I often tell the governor, ‘Look, there’s four basic things when you talk about health services. You think about benefits, you think about access, you think about quality, you think about eligibility.’ And I think the governor has addressed all of those areas ….
We made pretty big investments in some of what I’ll call the bread-and-butter rates in Medicaid, bringing them either to 100% or close to 100% of what Medicare pays in this part of the country. Because of some budget challenges, we had to back off some other planned investments for this coming year, but as that budget starts to hopefully turn around … I know those will be an ongoing place of focus.
Mind you, Medicaid has a lot of different ways for providers and plans to receive payment …. I think as you look at that in totality, the opportunities to recruit providers to take care of the Medicaid population is stronger than it was when Gov. Newsom took office six years ago.
That all said, this has to be an ongoing sort of balance and conversation about how we continue to support this program, because one in three Californians now depend on Medicaid. So many kids — more than 33%, closer to 50% of kids — are dependent on Medicaid. When you have that vital a safety net program, we must continue to keep our eye on all four of those elements: quality, access, eligibility and benefits.
Earlier this year, the Office of Health Care Affordability announced a target of 3% annual growth in healthcare spending, to be phased in over time. How do you anticipate that healthcare providers will reach that target, given the kinds of pressures that have ramped up costs in the past — things like labor costs and inflation?
I think it’s going to require some real movement away from our traditional views on how you operate healthcare. We’re going to really have to make some decisions about moving more things upstream — promoting prioritizing things like preventative care and primary care, helping support other access points for people where access is challenging, and frankly speaking, really looking at some of the benefits of each of the different entities in the whole healthcare delivery system ….
We don’t expect everyone in California to always be there. There will be some conditions that legitimately push the markets in a different direction.
But as a whole, if we don’t chase a target that is both aggressive and achievable, that affordability problem that so many Californians face won’t just not get better — it is likely to get worse.
Reporters who cover the Capitol have raised concerns about interviews like this becoming rare. I know for me, personally, it’s been unusual to get anyone from the Department of Public Health on the phone. Why aren’t these departments routinely speaking directly to the media, instead of sending written statements?
Frankly, it is less about a lack of interest in speaking directly to the media — often, the interviews allow directors and leaders to very clearly convey nuance and important points.
My experience has been, so often the questions that reporters want answers to have some ability to be answered very clearly in a written form. And so we’ve used that frequently — not to sort of hide behind something or avoid the live interview — but because it seems and has been adequate in many of those conversations or requests.
One of the things I know you’ve been working on lately is this state plan on services for Californians with developmental disabilities. In California, these services have long been coordinated through a system of nonprofits called regional centers, which contract with the state. Do you believe that system is working for Californians and their families, and if not, what do you think needs to change?
One of the most important themes that got amplified during COVID was this notion of building trust through transparency …. And in my time and experience, I have heard loud and clear [from consumers and their families] that this system is not as transparent as it can be or that it should be, and I agree with that.
So part of the work of this new strategic plan … is recognizing that Gov. Newsom did something unprecedented. He took a rate study from before he came into office and implemented it …. We’re on a trajectory to fully implement that soon [Ghaly is referring to increases in rates paid to regional center vendors that provide services to people with disabilities] …. To say it plainly, we — given the level of investment — should become a lot more of a system that’s able to say “yes” to consumers, rather than “no” or delay.
-
Politics1 week ago
Michigan becomes a top GOP Senate target as Mike Rogers ties with Dem opponent among older voters
-
Politics1 week ago
Gold Star families slam Kamala Harris for 'playing politics' over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery
-
World1 week ago
Taiwan court orders release of ex-Taipei mayor arrested in corruption probe
-
World6 days ago
Meloni says 'we are making history' as Italy’s FDI reviews progress
-
World1 week ago
Seven EU members hadn’t received any post-Covid funding by end-2023
-
Politics1 week ago
Margin of error race between Harris and Trump as 2024 election enters final stretch
-
World7 days ago
Israeli forces using ‘war-like’ tactics in occupied West Bank: OCHA
-
World1 week ago
Photos: Mass polio vaccination drive kicks off in Gaza amid Israeli strikes