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Jan. 6 panel to receive Secret Service texts after data loss Tribune Content Agency
Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local
Bernadette Moordigian in front of the Fresno City College library on July 5.
Health care costs keep rising; a new California agency aims to fix that Kristen Hwang And Ana B. Ibarra CALMATTERS
In 2017, a rare viral infection hospitalized Bernadette Moordigian for three weeks and paralyzed her for nearly nine months. Although she had health insurance, the hospital sent her an $80,000 bill. She appealed and got financial aid but was still on the hook for $10,000. In 2018, Shelly Tsai, a lawyer with Neighborhood Legal Services Los Angeles, took on a client who opted to give birth at home with a midwife. Insurance wouldn’t foot the $8,000 bill despite it costing three times less than a hospital birth. Last year, Laila Dellapasqua reduced her family’s health insurance coverage yet again as premiums increased. Collectively their yearly deductibles are more than $31,000. Stories like these three are increasingly common. California
and the country are in the midst of a health care affordability crisis. The Golden State has taken a multipronged approach in its effort to get a grip on skyrocketing costs – its latest effort being a new Office of Health Care Affordability whose job will be to investigate the causes behind price increases and hold health industry players accountable. In California and nationally, the most cited reason for people being uninsured or underinsured is cost. Even those with robust insurance sometimes struggle to afford hospital bills and their medication. Some take extreme measures, such as rationing their dosages or traveling south of the border for more affordable care. Half of Californians skipped or postponed medical care in 2021 because of costs, according to a California Health Care Foundation report. “For all the talk of inflation in the last year, if gas prices went up
the same rate as health care prices over the last couple of decades, we wouldn’t be seeing $5 to $6 a gallon, we’d be seeing $30 to $40 a gallon,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer rights group. “What is raising people’s concerns about inflation these days has been the case for health care for decades.” The recently approved state budget includes $30 million to create the office, whose key responsibility will be to set and enforce limits on cost growth for the industry, including hospitals, health insurers and physician groups. The office has been years in the making, with industry representatives, legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom haggling over specifics. In its final form, it will be seated in the Department of Health Care Access and Information and led by See Costs, Page A8
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol assault expects to receive text messages it has subpoenaed from the Secret Service by Tuesday, panel member Zoe Lofgren said. A government inspector general told the panel last week that the agency wasn’t cooperating with its inquiry into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack by supporters of former President Donald Trump, prompting the committee to subpoena the records. A U.S. Secret Service spokesman said Saturday the agency will cooperate “by responding swiftly” to the subpoena. “We need all of the texts for the 5th and 6th,” Lofgren, a California Democrat, said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “I was shocked to hear they didn’t back up their data before they reset their iPhones.” Some of the most riveting testimony from the panel’s televised hearings concerned then-President Trump’s actions after he addressed a rally near the White House on Jan. 6. A former aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, said she was told Trump wanted to join the mob then marching on the Capitol but was blocked by his security detail and a physical altercation took place. The text messages could provide insight into that episode as well as security concerns surrounding then-Vice President Mike Pence, who had gone to the Capitol to preside over the Electoral College certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. The committee plans to wrap up public hearings with a prime-time session on See Panel, Page A8
Alex Wong/Getty Images/TNS file
Members of the House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol assault are seen during a hearing in the Cannon House Office Building, in Washington, D.C, June 13.
Uvalde report details ‘systemic failures,’ ‘egregious decisions’ Tribune Content Agency DALLAS — For families in Uvalde, Sunday brought with it the weight of the most exhaustive account of their loved one’s final moments yet. In a long-awaited, 77-page report, a Texas House committee told them there is not one person to blame, but instead a long series of “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making” that allowed the deadliest school shooting in state history to unfold May 24. The report, reviewed Sunday by The Dallas Morning News, is the second to examine the law enforcement response in the past two weeks. On July 6, a 26-page report by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University, commissioned by the Texas Department of Public Safety, detailed three missed opportunities to slow – or even stop – the gunman before he entered Robb Elementary school, killing 19 children and two teachers. The three commit-
tee members – Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock; Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso; and former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman – first shared their findings during a private meeting with Uvalde residents Sunday. The committee said the goal was to create a comprehensive account the Legislature can use to craft policies in hopes of preventing future massacres. They dedicated the document to the 21 people killed. “The Committee issues this interim report now, believing the victims, their families, and the entire Uvalde community have already waited too long for answers and transparency,” the report says.
376 officers Law enforcement has been widely criticized for the response in Uvalde. Eighty minutes elapsed between the first call to 911 and police confronting the shooter, who fired at least 142 rounds, according to a timeline from Texas Department
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Lola Gomez/Dallas Morning News/TNS file
An Operation Lone Star Police car passes by a memorial in honor of the 21 victims, 19 children and two teachers, of a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, June 1. of Public Safety director Steve McCraw. In an uncoordinated effort that stretched over an hour, 376 officers responded. Of that, 149 were U.S. Border Patrol, 91 were state police, 25 were Uvalde police officers and 16 were Uvalde sheriff’s deputies. Only five were Uvalde school district officers. “These local officials were not the only ones expected to supply the leadership needed during this tragedy,” the report said. “Hundreds of responders from WEATHER 92 | 58 Sunny. Five-day forecast on B8.
numerous law enforcement agencies – many of whom were better trained and better equipped than the school district police – quickly arrived on the scene.” The remaining officers were made up of neighboring county law enforcement, U.S. Marshals and federal Drug Enforcement Administration officers. Law enforcement officials across the state have agreed the decision to not confront the shooter sooner cost lives, with most placing the blame
on Pete Arredondo, the school district police chief, who said afterward he didn’t believe he was in charge. Yet, as one of the first responding officers, Arrendondo prevented officers from entering the classrooms, even though children and teachers were still in danger. In interviews conducted or obtained by the committee, police officers said they either assumed Arredondo was in command or did not know who was in charge, with some describing the scene as “chaos.” Redirecting the blame thus far largely focused on Arrendondo, the report went on to note that no
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other agency attempted to take the lead, either, until Border Patrol agents decided they would breach the classroom without seeking permission from Arredondo. “In this crisis, no responder seized the initiative to establish an incident command post,” the committee wrote. “Despite an obvious atmosphere of chaos, the ranking officers of other responding agencies did not approach the Uvalde CISD chief of police or anyone else perceived to be in command to point out the lack of and need for a command post, See Uvalde, Page A8
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