Posted on 09/04/2006 9:32:33 AM PDT by BenLurkin
As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The problems come about when something is broken and the involved parties can't agree on how to fix it. Such is the state of health care coverage in California.
The state Assembly on Aug. 28 approved Senate Bill 840, which would provide health insurance to all residents, making California the only state with government-operated universal health care. The state Senate approved it Thursday on a party-line vote, sending it to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Democrats want to establish a system controlled through creation of a California Health Insurance Agency. A health insurance commissioner appointed by the governor would run the agency.
Republicans, concerned about the legislation's impact on business in the state and with a single-payer system for health care, point to government's history of inefficiency.
The bill's author is Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, no stranger to proposing polarizing legislation. Kuehl, the Legislature's first only homosexual member, is the one behind a measure that would have prohibited instructional material that reflects adversely on persons due to sexual orientation. That measure also would have required history textbooks used in California's public schools to highlight the contributions of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people in state history, but that provision was dropped in the version of the bill approved Aug. 29 by the Assembly.
Under Kuehl's health care bill, the state's health care overhaul would be partially financed by converting existing governmental programs to the new system. The rest would come from consumers and their employers in place of private insurance.
In effect, this makes the government the middleman, another level of red tape that must be cut through in the rendering of health care.
Adding the government's hand to the issue would create another bureaucracy most Californians could do without.
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
The bill's author is Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, no stranger to proposing polarizing legislation. Kuehl, the Legislature's first only homosexual member....
She and "one bill Gil" have to be the absolute worst legislators in California history.
I can't wait for the bills that will outlaw US citizenship and require babies to be grown in test tubes and placed in state creches at birth.
According to an independent analysis, the state would save nearly $8 billion in the first year in administrative costs.
Stop paying for the education, incarceration, and health care of illegal aliens. That will save us even more money.
Part two, cut the legislature down to part time, and eliminate their pensions.
Well I hope they have figured on the massive disruption to the system in transition. As major health care providers move out of state, and offer incentives to many of the skilled providers to go with them.
Already there is a huge shortage of emergency rooms in California due to the un-reimbursed costs of treating illegals. A government created crisis.
This bill will expand that from the big cities to the entire state, and drag the rest of the health care system into the same crisis that the emergency room system in LA County is in today.
As I've stated previously I believe California *CAN* lead the way in demonstrating the futility, idiocy and hubris of liberalism. A completely broken Cali with producitve natives fleeing by the millions (as they already are) and a uneducated, immigrant, illiterate, illegal "new majority" voting themselves more and more goodies while the finances supporting the welfare state collapse is a wonderful object lesson for other states.
I hope Arnold signs it !
As a California residient with PRIVATE health insurnance, I don't particularly want to live through the problems this bill will cause.
And I can't "flee", because I have older parents here who will not leave.
Whatever happened to "I bid you stand, Men of the West?"
It seems nothing less than remarkable that the Governor of California is a Republican and yet there is uncertainty regarding whether he would sign this bill.
Let's hear it for all the Republicans who are more interested in winning the election than in running the state responsibly.
I have a similar problem because my wife's family is here. If it was up to me we would have been gone years ago.
I intend to help such a wonderful program realize the success it deserves by making frequent and thorough use of it. A sprain a week. That's all we ask.
Government needs to get out of healthcare, with their stupid mandates that certain procedures must be covered. Insurance companies should only offer catastrophic, long-term care, or emergency healthcare coverage. Routine/general medical care, dental, vision, prescription drugs should all be paid in cash out of pocket by the consumer.
I guess that would be the only thing TO be done. Drive it into the ground.....
But I am hoping that sanity overrides our insane and evil legislature in the form of the Governor.
Not sure, but hoping.
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