A real mean looking group of revolutionaries.
Posted on 10/05/2006 3:20:12 PM PDT by ElkGroveDan
As Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger looks toward a second term, he has vowed to make access to health care a top priority. Schwarzenegger intends to unveil a major health-care plan in January, if re-elected. In preparation, Schwarzenegger has hired a top-level staff to actually write the proposal that includes ranking health-care experts from former Gov. Gray Davis' administration.
Richard Figueroa, a veteran health-care consultant and go-to person for health issues on Davis' executive staff, is joining Schwarzenegger's team next week, according to Capitol and private sources with direct knowledge of Figueroa's new position. They confirmed that Schwarzenegger intends to release his proposal in his 2007 State of the State address.
Just days ago, Schwarzenegger vetoed universal-health-care legislation authored by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, which would have established a government-run program to provide health care for all Californians, regardless of income.
The governor has not said what his own proposal will include, although Capitol sources say it is likely to entail some form of public-private partnership, in which workers and employers both bear a portion of the costs.
After his veto of Keuhl's bill, Schwarzenegger penned an op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune. "Affordability is the key to making our system work for everyone, and affordability is exactly what we are dedicating ourselves to," he wrote, dismissing Kuehl's bill as "socialized medicine."
Schwarzenegger's new health-care team already has begun meeting with major stakeholders in the health-care world, including business, medical and insurance groups. All have indicated the governor is serious about making health care a focus of his second term.
Health-care advocates hope Schwarzenegger's plan will include preventive care, and programs to deal with chronic afflictions and the costly care that often is required near the end of life.
"From the patient standpoint, it should allow two things, preventive care and chronic-disease management, because they address both quality and cost. The percentages are huge, 60-to-80 percent of the cost. I don't mean you can eliminate them, but you can address them and reduce them," said Bob Gore, a spokesman for Californians for Patient Care.
Figueroa, who declined to discuss his new job with Capitol Weekly, serves as a member of the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, which regulates HMOs. He is a health-insurance expert in the Department of Insurance under Commissioner John Garamendi, and earlier served as a health-insurance consultant in the Assembly. During his years in the Davis administration, he participated in major studies of state health-policy options.
"He would be incredibly valuable to the administration in trying to put an insurance-reform package together and expanding insurance in such a massive way. I think the governor would be wise to heavily rely on him. He has the technical knowledge of the insurance market to put it together," said Dustin Corcoran, the California Medical Association's top lobbyist.
Other newly hired members of Schwarzenegger's include John Ramey, a Republican and member of former Gov. George Deukmejian's administration. Ramey served as a consultant to the California Chamber of Commerce in its campaign against Proposition 72, which called for voters to decide whether to establish a health-care system heavily financed by employers.
Another member is Herb Schultz, an expert in HMO issues who served in the Davis administration and who helped write the legislation that voters rejected at the polls in Proposition 72.
The fourth member is Ruth Liu, a former analyst at Kaiser Permanente who now serves as a health-policy expert in the Schwarzenegger administration.
John Howard is Managing Editor of Capitol Weekly
Someone tell me again why we had the Recall?
Just terrible!
Why-am-I-surprised-? PING
Just makes you want to puke!!
Arnold has proven he is just a RINO. He is proving it over and over again.
FO will warn us that Angelides' will institute socialized medicine!!!
Oh, wait...
She'll slither in eventually. I get so sick of her third-grade taunts that I prefer to put it off as long as possible.
You need to read the rest of the article, Dan. He's got two market-based experts in John Ramey and Ruth Liu, balanced out by the "headline" guy Richard Figueroa, and former Davis staffer Herb Schultz. The plan here is to have these four duke it out and hammer out a proposal that can have broad support, to expand care for those who lack insurance, and yet not destroy the commercial market. To Arnold's credit, he's already come out against the dreaded single-payer scheme of the Kuehl bill. The rumor is that Arnold will propose something like Massachusetts enacted earlier this year, but the Mass. approach probably won't fly in California. As an aside, I know Herb Schultz. He used to work for the Amer. Association of Health Plans, an HMO advocacy organization. While he came out from DC to work in Calif., and took a job with the new Dept. of Managed Health Care when it was created during Davis' tenure, Herb understands the issues, and comes at them from the perspective of the marketplace. He's not that bad a guy.
You're missing the point. It's an allegedly Republican adminsistration. They don't need ANY democrat liberals.
Is there any chance that McClintock wins the Lt Governorship?
I wouldn't worry too much about that. Whenever FO is notified that Arnold's come out of the closet AGAIN, it ends up a very quiet thread. If not, there's a lot of activity that gets the lurkers to read it.
La Raza--appointments secretary. UGH.
http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/4265/
10/03/2006 GAAS:733:06 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the following appointments:
(Snip)
Alberto Roldan, 40, of Sacramento, has been appointed deputy appointments secretary in the Office of the Governor. Since 1992, he has served as a deputy district attorney with the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office, where he specialized in the prosecution of vehicular manslaughters, prison crimes, officer-involved shootings, domestic violence, financial crimes against the elderly and career criminals. Roldan is a past President of the La Raza Lawyers Association of Sacramento. He has also been a Visiting and Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis School of Law since 1995 and is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $99,500. Roldan is a Democrat.
As a matter of fact there is. This is the only bright hope in this election in CA. From Tom's website:
Two new polls released this week show John Garamendi losing support in the race for Lt. Governor. On Saturday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Tom McClintock had a one-point lead 42% to 41%. The prestigious Field Poll released today shows Garamendi has “lost traction with voters while support for McClintock…has held steady.”
meanwhile....
<FO>"I see you are campaigning for Angelides again by publicizing more of Arnold's dirty liberal secrets. Well Angelides would have made this guy Chief of Staff. At least Arnold is holding him down as Deputy Appointments Secretary where he can do far less damage " </FO>
Arnold stopped being a "Republican" at least a year ago. I've given up expecting anything from Arnold. But I will say that by bringing together a diverse group of advisors, he's trying to anticipate all the angles of the debate next year. That's his rationale, and he's not turned over the whole issue to ex-Davis staffers, as most of the commenters on this thread assume.
The "La Raza Lawyers Assoc." is a non-descript organization of Mexican-American (Latino) attorneys. It is not the radical "La Raza" group.
Bet you these "market-based" experts won't tackle the illegals using CA's healthcare.
A real mean looking group of revolutionaries.
Probably not. But maybe. Who knows? Are you privy to their mandate?
There are links to La Raza, LULAC, and MALDEF on most of their websites.
http://larazalawyers-santaclara.com/_wsn/page5.html
That's good enough for me.
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