Blogs of the LA Area Chamber

Last week, more than 170 business and civic leaders spent two and half days in our nation’s capital, advocating for issues vital to the economic vitality and quality of life in the Los Angeles region. On the Chamber’s annual ACCESS Washington, D.C. trip, the delegation was joined by L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti; L.A. City Councilmembers Joe Buscaino, Mitch Englander, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, and Nury Martinez; elected officials from the cities of Glendale, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and West Hollywood; LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King; LAUSD Board President Steve Zimmer; and members of the Redondo Beach School Board.

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I am in Washington, D.C. this week with more than 170 elected officials, business and civic leaders for the Chamber’s annual ACCESS Washington, D.C. advocacy trip, so I decided to share with you an April 21 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times by former editor and columnist Jim Newton. The Chamber actively supports the subject of this op-ed: the Southern California International Gateway.

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On May 3, the Chamber will celebrate the 90th annual World Trade Week Kickoff Breakfast. This event, attended by 600 community and international leaders, ignites a month of activities highlighting the importance of global trade to families and businesses in Southern California. This year’s breakfast will feature Alan F. Horn, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, as well as special appearances by Congressman Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. The breakfast will include the presentation of the prestigious Stanley T. Olafson Award for promotion of international trade to Ilse Metchek, president of the California Fashion Association and Fred Latuperissa, director of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Southern California Inland Empire office.

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Rising cost-sharing for people with health insurance has drawn a good deal of public attention in recent years.  For example, the average deductible for people with employer-provided health coverage rose from $303 to $1,077 between 2006 and 2015.

While we can get a sense of employees’ potential exposure to out-of-pocket costs by looking at trends in deductibles, many employees will never reach their deductibles and other employees may have costs that far exceed their deductibles.  In addition to deductible payments, some employees also have copayments (set dollar amounts for a given service) or coinsurance payments (a percentage of the allowed amount for the service).  To look at what workers and their families actually spend out-of-pocket for services covered by their employer-sponsored plan, we analyzed a sample of health benefit claims from the Truven MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database to calculate the average amounts paid toward deductibles, copayments and coinsurance.

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Two weeks from today, more than 150 business and civic leaders from Los Angeles County will be in Washington, D.C. to advocate for our region. We’ll be joined by City of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, members of the L.A. City Council, LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King and Board President Steve Zimmer, and elected officials from Glendale, South Bay and West Hollywood. On the agenda will be legislation to improve our economy, transportation, energy, housing, health care, technology, education and workforce development.

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Yesterday, Governor Brown and legislative leaders gathered in Los Angeles to sign a bill raising California's minimum wage to $15 an hour - the highest in the country - by 2022. While discussions had been ongoing in the Capitol about a compromise to ward off two competing ballot measures for the November election, the language in the bill that was signed yesterday did not exist two weeks ago.

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The majority of nonelderly people get their health coverage through an employer-based plan. This issue brief uses data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to examine trends in employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) for different types of people and households.¹ While ESI remains the leading source of coverage for nonelderly people (those under age 65), the percentage covered by an employer plan has declined over the last fifteen years. A similar pattern exists with firm offer rates; fewer workers were offered health insurance from their employer in 2014 than in 1999. The decrease in offer and coverage rates has not been universal; families with low and modest incomes have been most affected by the decline. While coverage rates have declined over time, the percentage of the nonelderly population covered by ESI is similar between 2013 and 2014.

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Last week the National Basketball Association (NBA) chose Los Angeles as the host of the 2018 NBA All-Star Game. The 67th annual game will take place at STAPLES Center on Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018, and will be the record sixth NBA All-Star game in L.A. In announcing the selection, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said, "Los Angeles is known for first-class hospitality and entertainment..." This three-day event is anticipated to fill 20,000 hotel rooms and generate $100 million in spending.

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We've all heard the childhood superstition "Step on a crack, break your mother's back." The City of Los Angeles is currently grappling with how to repair miles of treacherous sidewalks -- without breaking the bank -- and establish who will be responsible for repairs going forward.

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 *UPDATE: Since the drafting of this Business Perspective, we have received word that the initiative effort led by Michael Weinstein has stopped collecting signatures, but may try to instead qualify for the March 2017 City Ballot.

Los Angeles is an exciting city in which to live and work right now. Cranes are a common part of the skyline, new rail lines are opening, Olympic momentum is building, and a new movie, City of Gold, celebrates this city's incredible food scene fostered by the diversity in our communities.

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