Opinion: In today’s pages: Reform for all!

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In today’s pages: reform. Reform of the health care system, reform of immigration policy and reform of fire retardant laws. Let’s start with health care.

The editorial board today takes a look at how to improve medical care while lowering costs in a reformed health care system, and suggests three ways to do so: invest in primary care, develop treatment standards for medical professionals and promote information technology that tracks patient care.

One encouraging thing about healthcare reform, however, is that improving the quality of care can help slow the debilitating increase in costs. It’s good for all. And although the changes required won’t be easy, they’re essential to the crucial third piece of the healthcare reform puzzle, which is providing coverage to all Americans.

The board is perturbed by the El Pueblo de Los Angeles historical landmark, and the businesses that are affiliated with it on Olvera Street. The site, which claims to be the location where Los Angeles was founded, has been costing the city money instead of paying for itself. The rents on the merchants’ stalls along the back alley are much lower than market rate, and the board calls for the city to reset the rents and make this historical landmark cover its costs.

On the op-ed side of the pages, health care again! Phil Lebhertz, director of the Foundation for Health Coverage Education, points out that many health care programs exist for lower-income folks, but many just don’t know about it:

If such a government health insurance option is implemented, will people who are uninsured sign up for it? The question is valid because one-third of the 47 million uninsured people in the United States -- that’s 15 million people -- are eligible for government coverage plans already in place but not signed up....

Perhaps a first step in fixing the current healthcare delivery system is to create legislation that mandates an effective communication system for any new program as well as the programs already in place.

And reform is again the word of the day, as Jeb Bush, Thomas F. McLarty III and Edward Alden broach the issue of immigration policy and the outcome of a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force they recently headed. Encouraged by President Obama’s call for change of the immigration system, the three politicians propose to make it easier for some illegal immigrants to gain citizenship, reward businesses that use programs such as E-Verify to check applicants’ immigration status, and align immigration policy with America’s competitive interests.

Russell Long, vice president of Friends of the Earth, urges California to stop requiring that fire retardant chemicals be used on baby products. Long says the chemicals are not proven to be fire-proof, and instead could be dangerous to the infant’s, and their parents’, health:

Making matters worse, California’s law has meant that baby products are often treated with the chemicals even in states that don’t require such treatment. To avoid manufacturing two separate lines, one for California and another for other states, many manufacturers make their products sold in other states to California standards.

Finally, columnist Gregory Rodriguez tries to find a link between the recession and the declining divorce rate. His conclusion? Our society has yet to find (or create) a marriage model that incorporates all of society’s changes and the choices both men and women have:

This fits right into the fact that we’re divorcing less in hard times. In the context of this recession, we have fewer choices, and fewer choices means we’re back to a good fit with the marriage model of old. Still -- and a little paradoxically -- the fact that there are untraditional marriages may also be helping husbands and wives withstand some of the emotional and financial stress of economic hard times. During the Depression, the ego blow to a man who lost his job caused marital problems. Today, if a man loses his job -- and his wife is the breadwinner -- it’s less likely to create as much unhappiness.