Posted on 09/02/2006 2:25:27 PM PDT by FairOpinion
Sadly, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to veto Bill 840, thus denying medical care for seven million state residents
Sacramento (1 September 2006) - California legislators are poised to vote for a Canadian-style health-care system by passing Bill 840, a measure that would outlaw private health care throughout the state.
The legislation was approved earlier by members of the state assembly and was endorsed Thursday by the state senate. If enacted, the bill would provide free medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage for all California residents by 2009 through a state-run agency. Arnold Schwarzenegger expected to terminate Medicare
The only problem is that California's Republican governor, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is expected to veto the measure, thus stopping it in its tracks. He has the power to do so under the state's constitution.
No one knows exactly how much Californians spend on health care, but it's somewhere between $150 billion and $200 billion a year. Medical care has become the state's largest single industry, accounting for roughly 10% of the state's massive economy.
Yet despite its wealth (which Schwarzenegger symbolizes) an estimated seven million California residents (out of a population of 37 million) have no health care coverage at all. Across the country some 50 million Americans (one out of six) lack coverage of any kind and many more live without adequate coverage.
Inspired by Canada
The inspiration for Bill 840 from the beginning has been Canada's national medicare system, which provides universal basic medical care for all at far less cost than private alternatives.
"We've learned from the Canadian system and integrated it into a plan specifically for California," says Sara Rogers, a spokesperson for Senator Sheila Kuehl, the sponsor of the bill.
"A universal health-care plan is the only way California can solve its health-care problems.... Studies by the World Health Organization show that Canada spends about half of what we do on health care, but the overall health outcomes are comparable."
Support for universal medical care has been growing in many areas of the United States, despite fierce opposition from the massive, for-profit, private medical care industry and its political supporters, including Schwarzenegger.
San Francisco, which has long had a reputation as one of the most progressive cities in the country, has gone ahead with its own version of universal care. Earlier this month, Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a law that would make the city the first in the U.S. to offer health care to its 82,000 uninsured residents.
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The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) has been fighting for many years in Canada to defend and preserve Canada's public medicare system, which is also under attack from private, for-profit health care providers and right-wing Canadian politicians. NUPGE
National Healthcare = Stethoscope Socialism
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1691689/posts
It would be bad enough if national healthcare merely offered patients low-quality treatment. Even worse, Ridenour finds, it kills them.
Breast cancer is fatal to 25 percent of its American victims. In Great Britain and New Zealand, both socialized-medicine havens, breast cancer kills 46 percent of women it strikes.
Prostate cancer proves fatal to 19 percent of its American sufferers. In single-payer Canada, the National Center for Policy Analysis reports, this ailment kills 25 percent of such men and eradicates 57 percent of their British counterparts.
After major surgery, a 2003 British study found, 2.5 percent of American patients died in hospital versus nearly 10 percent of similar Britons. Seriously ill US hospital patients die at one-seventh the pace of those in the U.K.
“In usual circumstances, people over age 75 should not be accepted” for treatment of end-state renal failure, according to New Zealand’s official guidelines. Unfortunately, for older Kiwis, government controls kidney dialysis.
According to a Populus survey, 98 percent of Britons want to reduce the time between diagnosis and treatment. Unlike America’s imperfect but more market-driven healthcare industry, nationalized systems usually divide patients and caregivers. In America, patients and doctors often make medical decisions and thus demand the best-available diagnostic tools, procedures, and drugs. Affordability obviously plays its part, but the fact that most Americans either pay for themselves or carry various levels of insurance guarantees a market whose profits reward medical innovators.
Why, then, do Canadians come to U.S. Hospitals for major medical treatment (at least those who can afford to).
"We've learned from the Canadian system and integrated it into a plan specifically for California," says Sara Rogers, a spokesperson for Senator Sheila Kuehl, the sponsor of the bill."
Yet another bank breaking bill from this deranged B*&ch.
Poll suggests Canadians unhappy with timeliness of health delivery
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/060824/x082436.html
The Decima poll of 3,000 Canadians suggests 81 per cent of households needed some kind of medical care in the previous three months - and many who sought treatment felt the wait was unreasonable.
Among total respondents, 37 per cent said someone in their household had waited too long for medical treatment.
The number was even higher among households where someone needed emergency care or a meeting with a specialist.
About 45 per cent of those respondents said they faced an unreasonable delay before seeing a specialist or getting emergency treatment.
Well its a socialist state anyway why not have socialist medical care?
I hope they drown in red ink.
Meadow Muffin
If they do this, you'll see an influx of indigent people coming into the state to get the free benefits, and a tidal wave of productive people fleeing the state in order to save their lives.
This will be a big bit of what Hillary runs on in 2008.
Arnold will veto it.
The people did NOT vote this in, this is the queer legislators who did this.
1:..."lack coverage"
lacking coverage DOES NOT MEAN LACKING HEALTH CARE...sometimes, it might mean you get better health care because you simply show up at the nearest ER and get seen.....none of that calling and making an appt....and if you need a specialist, just get yourself admitted to the hospital and walaaa....you see the specialist that day or next, not the several weeks that most of us have to wait.....
@:.....that figure of $200 billion for California citizens health care.....you can just see the state bureaucrats just peeing in their pants over the thought of having ALL of that money to distribute to their favorite groups..... .
I can see it now - another economic boom for Nevada. Medical clinics beside the casinos. Californians with money will go there in droves. A yearly check-up and a little fun.
If the state of Ca cannot provide good schools, what makes anyone think they can do health care? Get the schools fixed first, before you take on more. and btw, what are they going to do about the DMV?
12.9% payroll tax would be required to pay for this sham.
The Dems are disgusting in their ploys and tactics.
Yes. California is controlled by short-sighted morons who are unable to figure out that "if you build it, they will come".
"Sadly, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to veto Bill 840, thus denying medical care for seven million state residents Sacramento"
Sadly, these socialists wouldn't know the truth if it bit them on the nose.
Even those without comprehensive medical insurance get healthcare provided to them via a number of programs, whether it be medicaid or CHiPs or the other programs.
Even an illegal alien showing up at a clinic gets care.
Then there is simple fee-based care.
The idea that only Govt can 'provide health care' is socialist nonsense.
"lacking coverage DOES NOT MEAN LACKING HEALTH CARE.."
Exactly so. And there are Govt programs galore for such people.
This is like saying we have to communize the farms across the country because some people dont have "food insurance".
Just be glad you dont live there.
All doctors accept cash and many provide financing and lower prices to those without insurance. I would call that medical coverage.
There is a growing population of people that choose not to pay for their health care costs because the state will pick up the tab. Why bother?
Everyone needs food and shelter to live, more so than free medical care. Why are the socialists not out to make food and rent free at taxpayer expense?
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