Posted on 12/27/2007 1:23:16 PM PST by SmithL
San Francisco asked a federal appeals court this morning to let the city extend health coverage to all uninsured adult residents next week, despite a federal judge's ruling that struck down a key provision requiring employers to pay part of the cost.
City Attorney Dennis Herrera's office and a group of labor unions are seeking an emergency stay from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that would allow the expanded health care ordinance, including the challenged employer fee, to take effect next Tuesday as scheduled while the city appeals the ruling.
"Without this stay, tens of thousands of San Francisco residents and workers will be deprived of critically necessary health care services," Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria said in papers filed with the court.
He said Wednesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, which found that the city was intruding into federal regulation of employee benefits, contradicted past decisions by the appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court in similar cases.
The city's health benefits ordinance, passed in 2006, was the first of its kind in the nation and was widely viewed as a model for local and state expansion of health coverage in the absence of national legislation. White's ruling, if upheld on appeal, could pose an obstacle to a state health insurance plan that won state Assembly passage this month with the support of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It would be partly funded by an employer fee, which would require approval by the state's voters.
As written, San Francisco's ordinance would require private employers with at least 20 employees, and nonprofits with at least 50 employees, to provide health coverage at certain minimum levels or to pay a fee to the city. The fee would pay part of the cost of a $200 million-a-year...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Well, I want another Ferrari and I can’t pay for it so SF had better start making the engines of economic success in this country - small buinesses - pay for it, and pay for it right now. - I have a great deal lined up at only 642k.
I very grateful for San Francisco, showing those less enlightened souls how truly screwed up the left is. What will they do when you can’t buy health care coverage in the city at any cost because the carriers don’t want to go broke? Or is the city already self-insured?
I also don’t have a problem with businesses relocating outside of SF or choosing to reduce their employees number to below the 20 stipulated in the regulation.
The City idiots can regulate what it takes to have a business license within their city. And businesses have the right to move away if they don’t like the taxes, the services, or the additional expenditures the city requires. It does not have to be health insurance either. similar regulations exist for garbage collection, inspections, signage etc. If you are a business owner and don’t like SF’s restrictive business environment .... MOVE.
Sooner or later, the City will loose enough businesses that it will become a blighted city where there are no jobs and there is not enough money to pay for services. Then property values go down, people move away, and the libs will once again destroy another city. And it will either remain that way for a long time limping along in it's pity me state, being the but of many a joke, or some real fiscal conservative will come in, clean things up, and reestablish sound fiscal spending and other ordnances to encourage businesses to return.
Nothing new here, it is all on "the wheel" and has been done before and will be done once again because the libs never learn their from history.
Watch this one. The district court judge just held that a 20-25 year-old federal law (I think it is ERISA) prohibits states as well as local governments from taxing employers to pay for health care for the employer’s own employees. That would shoot down the Governator’s proposed statewide plan.
$228/month ... sounds a little fishy - are the uninsured residents all healthy 18-year old males?
Wonder what the real cost will be?
Notice that the Chronicle doesn’t even pretend to be even handed in the article. Most papers would give a line or two about the other sides position.....”hurts business....” but no the Chronicle.
They just ignore it all together.
Maybe labor unions should pony up the cash from their bloated pension funds if they want it so bad. Instead of picking MY pocket.
Hoboken.
Atlantic City.
What are the current costs of a person’s treatment for living with HIV/AIDS?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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