League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Los Angeles County, CA November 2, 2004 Election
	Cesar N Castellanos Answers Questions Candidate for State Senator; District 27

Read the answers from all candidates.

Questions & Answers

1. What does California need to do to address the current budget crisis?

Root out waste and fraud in present budget. Cut overlapping bureaucracies. Cut unneccessary programs. Cut budget uniformly 3%-5%.

2. What should the state's priorities be for K-12 education? For the Community College System?

Make English-only a requirement. (No bilingual education) Create incentive based system to reward good teachers. Provide trade/technical schools for students who will not be attending college.(Nursing, computer, blue collar)

Increase funding for trade/technical schools in the Community College System.

3. What measures would you support to address California's water needs?

Make water more expensive for agriculture to waste and give tax credits to efficient users of water.

In the mean time, start to develop waterways from north to transport water to the south.

4. What should the Legislature be doing to address the needs of Californians without health insurance?

People don't buy health insurance because:

1. Too expensive

2. Don't want it. To address the needs of un-insured, make insurance less expensive for those who want it by controlling costs:

1. Control frivolous lawsuits and lawyers. (doctors should practice medicine without having to worry about ordering extra tests, 'just in case I'm sued.' Doctors pass on costs of this threat to patients. Health care costs rise.)

2. Reduce burdensome regulations on health care providers. (ex; Earthquake retrofitting all hospitals in California is a good idea, but unintended consequences mean that hospitals spend less on patient care, and end up closing hospitals because of lack of money to carry out the retrofitting. Health care costs rise.)

3. Consumers need to have a stake in the cost of their own healthcare costs. Costs could be kept in check if consumers shared more in the cost of medical services and products. The single-payer insurance system gives no incentive for consumers to shop for better or less costly health care. Cost is paid by the insurance company and the consumer is usually removed from this important audit.