Posted on 01/22/2008 8:21:13 PM PST by NormsRevenge
A key state senator said Tuesday that he'll vote against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's health care expansion bill, leaving the measure's fate in doubt on the eve of its first Senate hearing.
The bill's supporters also got some bad news from the Legislature's budget analyst, who said the costs of running an insurance pool that would be established under the program could exceed revenues by as much as $1.5 billion a year in the fifth year of the program. That would lead to an overall deficit in the fund of $4 billion under the cost scenario the analyst said was most realistic.
Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat who could end up being the swing vote on the measure, said he didn't like that the bill would require most Californians who couldn't get health insurance through an employer or a government program to buy it on their own.
"Californians should be extremely skeptical of a law which requires them to purchase insurance but allows insurance companies to charge any amount for the policy," Yee said in a statement. "This is not a step in the right direction but a huge jump backwards for California's working families without insurance."
He said he reached his decision after talking to union members who urged him to oppose the legislation.
The bill would require employers to spend a certain percentage of their payrolls on health coverage for their workers, either by buying policies themselves or paying into a state health insurance pool.
Most Californians who couldn't obtain coverage through jobs or a government program would be required to buy insurance on their own.
The plan would be funded through employer contributions, fees on hospitals and an increase in cigarette taxes, in addition to premiums paid by consumers. Administration officials also are counting on getting additional federal funding to expand health care programs for the poor.
Supporters say the proposal would provide coverage for most of the 5.1 million Californians who lack health insurance and force insurers to take all customers instead of denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
But opponents say there are a number of problems with the bill, including lack of adequate insurance cost controls and no real minimum coverage requirements for employer-financed health insurance.
The 11-member Senate Health Committee is scheduled to take up the bill on Wednesday.
With Yee and the chairwoman, Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, opposed, the measure would need the support of at least one of the committee's four Republicans to survive. No Republicans voted for the bill when it passed the Assembly in December.
Despite Yee's announcement, the bill's legislative author, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, said he expected it to pass the Senate.
"This is a Democratic bill, and I believe it warrants the type of Democratic support that can be championed by people that truly believe in Democratic values," Nunez said in a statement.
"I think in the end we'll make the right arguments, and I see no reason why this bill doesn't pass out of committee, regardless of the makeup of the committee," he added.
Yee and Kuehl support a Medicare-for-all type health care system that Schwarzenegger vetoed in 2006.
The legislative analyst's report, released late Tuesday, looked at how much it would cost to provide coverage through the insurance pool through the first five years of the program using two assumptions.
Under one scenario, a monthly premium of $250 per person, expenditures would exceed revenue by $300 million in the fifth year, but the fund would still have a positive balance because collections of employer contributions and tobacco taxes would start before the program began.
Under the second assumption, with monthly premiums of $300 a person, expenditures would exceed revenue in the first year of the program, 2010, by $122 million. There would be a shortfall of $1.5 billion annually in the fifth year.
The analyst said that in order to get costs down to $250 per person per month, the state would have to negotiate a much lower rate than paid by the average employer or substantially reduce minimum benefit levels.
A Schwarzenegger adviser, Daniel Zingale, said the administration's assumption of a monthly cost of $250 per person was sound and that having $300 million in uncovered costs in the fifth year was small compared to the overall size of the program.
A spokesman for Nunez, Steve Maviglio, said there would be cost risks associated with any health care reform.
"Our job now is to move forward with bringing California closer to the goal of universal coverage and to work hard to avoid, contain and manage any realistic fiscal risks associated with the plan," he said in a statement. "The best tool we have for doing that continues to be the plan's explicit provision that if funds aren't available the plan doesn't take effect."
Austria is a great place, Arnold should go back.
lol, good luck out there.
It would be interesting to know what their estimate is of the number of chronically ill U.S. citizens will move to California just to take advantage of a legislated artificially low health insurance rate.
To say nothing of the number of sick Mexicans that will flood the borders....
These people are NOT serious people. They are charlatans, the guv and the dim co-sponsors.
All drivers are required to have auto insurance in CA and probably 20% do not. A lot of those are illegals that also enjoy free health care. What will change?
I’m sure there will be an industry supplying phony health insurance cards. And still more sick people arriving at emergency wards with no insurance. Not to mention pregnant illegals ready to pop.
What’s with these people? Unlike the Feds, they can’t just run the printing presses to make more money (and inflation in the process) or take loans from the Chinese... Where are they going to come up with the money to pay for this garbage?
I guess the illegal aliens werent closing them fast enough.
Woo hoo!! Down with socialist fascism!!
lol.. I hear ya,,
We’ll take a win where we can get it .. what a year ahead..
“When will the GOP wake up and smell the coffee!”
I have come to the conclusion this is the GOP today. Why else would there be such a profusion of Leftist RINO’s under the GOP umbrella? Duncan and Fred were the last two Conservatives running under the formerly acknowledged Conservative Republican/GOP.
It’s incrementalism. Now those becoming Politically aware today and within the next few years will be subjected to, and learn the new definition of what “Conservatism” is.
Conservative will become as we know it moderate Leftism, compromising and giving in to the Leftists.
Unchecked there will be no Free Republic Conservatism as we know it today in say...twenty years.
What was that? A tease?
So Kuehl and Yee are against it because it’s not big enough or costly enough. Yeah, you bet Yee, thanks for opposing this one. I’d hold out for the back breaker too. Being a dem and all what else can you do?
It was a lie.
"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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