Posted on 08/25/2006 7:00:03 PM PDT by FairOpinion
August 25 -- Once again, a Santa Monica resident is ahead of the pack, leading the state -- and possibly the nation -- in progressive, and highly controversial, reform.
State Senator Sheila Kuehl – often seen tooling around Sunset Park in her red Porsche – is taking a shot at changing legislative and health care history with her “California Health Insurance Reliability Act,” which comes up for a vote in the State Assembly next week, most likely on Monday.
“The increasing costs of health insurance premiums are bankrupting our state, our businesses and working families,” Kuehl wrote in an editorial in the Sacramento Bee Sunday, defending her bill, SB 840. “Universal health care is the best answer, and it is possible now.”
Calling the plan mandated by SB 840 “Medicare on steroids,” George Savage, Director of the Los Angeles Chapter of Health Care for All, said the single-payer health insurance system is “elegantly simple.”
The plan would cover all residents -- including undocumented residents and California retirees living out of state who pay into the system -- for a comprehensive range of medical costs, including dental care, prescriptions, mental health care and hospitalization.
Although another finance bill will be required to complete the reform, SB 840 has been amended to draw on current public funding and additional premiums paid to the system.
Savage speculated that employers and employees could share the costs of the premiums.
But although the bill has already passed in the Senate and is expected to pass in the Assembly, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who calls it a “tax increase,” will probably veto it, according to Kuehl’s staff member Emily Gold.
At that point, the political free-for-all will begin.
“There’s going to be a huge fight to make this happen,” predicted Savage, whose organization is leading a year-long public relations blitz to raise the consciousness of voters throughout the state.
A public event a day will be held, covering 365 communities from Los Osos to Sacramento. Santa Monica’s turn will come May 28, 2007.
And next Wednesday, Kuehl is calling for supporters to rally at noon on the south side of the State Capitol in Sacramento.
Even if SB 840 falls under Schwarzenegger’s veto, it will be back, Kuehl’s staff promise.
If Schwarzenegger is reelected, SB 840 supporters will keep up the heat, and if Phil Angelides wins, he is expected to sign the health care reform into law, Gold said.
The ideological war is already well underway.
One in five Californians went without health insurance in 2003, according to a letter Kuehl is asking supporters to send to Schwarzenegger.
“Half of all bankruptcies in the United States are now related to medical costs,” the letter goes on to say, and “(t)he United States spends twice as much per person as every other industrialized country on health care.”
The new system would cut health care costs by as much as $8 billion in the first year, according to an analysis by the Lewin Group, a national health care consulting firm.
“Most importantly, our health care system ranks at the bottom of industrialized nations, according to the World Health Organization,” the letter continues.
But opponents counter that access to health care would be limited under a single-payer system because care would be rationed and the latest medical technologies would no longer be widely available.
They also argue that the reform would result in a multi-billion dollar tax hike, and the state’s population would explode as people moved to California to take advantage of the new system, according to Senate and Assembly committee reports which list arguments for and against the bill.
The reports list hundreds of supporters for SB 840, including the City of Santa Monica, the League of Women Voters of California, Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante, the American Nurses Association of California and the California Physicians Alliance.
The same documents list fewer than a hundred opponents, including the California Chamber of Commerce, Blue Shield of California, the Association of California Life and Health Insurance Companies and the Insurance Brokers and Agents of the West.
For more information, pro and con, see www.healthcareforall.com and the California Chamber of Commerce website.
Angelides, on the other hand is on record that he would sign it.
By vetoing it, Arnold save CA from disaster -- by signingin it, Angelides would push CA into a chasm, that we could never get out of.
She's just mad that her gay agenda bill failed.
Retarded.
But although the bill has already passed in the Senate and is expected to pass in the Assembly, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who calls it a “tax increase,” will probably veto it, according to Kuehl’s staff member Emily Gold.
if Phil Angelides wins, he is expected to sign the health care reform into law, Gold said."
Did any of these California kooks look at Romnay's plan? From all I've read it provides coverage while allowing for competition, private enterprise - and, it won't bankrupt the state!
But California is already Chapter 11. Maybe Arnold can float another bond issue -- this time for a trillion dollars. That way the millions of illegals can also get on the dole.
"Savage speculated that employers and employees could share the costs of the premiums. "
That's called the existing health care system. They are supposed to share the costs of the premiums.
What you say about the Massachusetts plan is false. If you read the legislation you will find that it extends Medicaid coverage to 300 percent of federal poverty level, gives government huge powers to tell doctors how to treat you and imposes price controls. It forces employers to pay $295 per employee tax or pay for at least 33 percent (which may increase) of employee health premiums. There are extensive subsidies for people that the Massachusetts connector authority (a new bureaucy empowered to collect a surcharge on every health plan in the state in order to fund itself)can provide at its discretion as it picks and chooses the health plans that can be offered in the state and fixes their prices and standard features.
Massachusetts already requires guaranteed issue of insurance for everyone who wants it. But as people don't buy insurance until they get sick, premiums are rather high--say $400 a month for a 20 year old in good health versus $60 a month in states without regulation. The Romney plan is all about bilking taxpayers to pay for the high premiums that state regulation has caused.
The state that already tried such an expansion, Tennessee, almost bankrupted itself with TennCare and destroyed its medical system in the bargain. Plus, the reason that Romney had to come up with some plan is that Massachusetts Medicaid is so corrupt it has overcharged the feds millions of dollars and the Feds were threatening to cut off the funds.
So the plan Romney has comes up with will likely cost more in subsidies than it will halt in uncompensated care. Oh, and how the Romney plan will force illegals, the major source of growth in the uninsured, to cooperate is an open quesiton.
Don't believe everything you read, especially in health care.
Usually she is just pushing bills promoting homos and gun grabbers, this is new for her. Maybe she is just expanding her horizons. (at the expense of the liberty and tax burden of the citizens).
I'm sorry! I do NOT find that statement by one of Kuehl's sorry staffers binding on Schwartzenreneggenator, or reassuring in the slightest!!!
Your being such a wide-eyed syncophant to Schwartzenreneggenator, you just swallow it whole... hook, line and sinker!!! It's just pitiful to watch!!!
Here's my guess:
He'll veto it. The leftist media and FO will spam it endlessly on the threads.
In the meantime, other lefty bills will not be vetoed but instead buried under the limelight.
I almost hope California will stick itself with its own version of TennCare. It might be a dandy object lesson for the rest of the country, unless, of course, Washington decides to bail out the state when California sinks into bankruptcy or raises taxes to such level as it has not industry left. Taxes and Kyoto bid fair to convert California into Mexico Lite, maybe Mexico for real as it sucks in all the illegals.It all couldn't happen to a nicer state...
Knowingly posting deceptions and distortions on this forum will not win the hearts and minds of conservatives over to the CAGOP.
The FairOpinion account is well aware that Angelides has indicated he would not sign this legislation if elected governor.
The FairOpinion account is also well aware the bill was not a serious offering by legilsative Democrats, but rather a simple campaign tactic to weaken the Austrain's support among soft liberals.
Please come to our forum. Contribute. But if the FiarOpinion account wants to keep knowingly posting deceptions and distortions without disclaimers, the account is not welcome in my house.
I do NOT post unsubstantiate statements as facts, unlike you. Your post, the one I am replying to is a prime example. You were making it sound, as if I made up the fact, that Angelides will sign this atrocious, destructive bill. YOU were making assertions, that you cannot back up, because they are NOT based on facts, that Angelides won't sign it, because you are defending him. Your true colors, of trying to help socialism take over CA, are showing.
This article quotes Gold, Kuels's staff member, who is the one stating that Angelides will sign the bill.
"But although the bill has already passed in the Senate and is expected to pass in the Assembly, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who calls it a “tax increase,” will probably veto it, according to Kuehl’s staff member Emily Gold.
If Schwarzenegger is reelected, SB 840 supporters will keep up the heat, and if Phil Angelides wins, he is expected to sign the health care reform into law, Gold said.
Thanks for the details about the Massachusetts plan -- I was not aware of all that.
Thanks for the details about the Massachusetts plan -- I was not aware of all that.
From another article:
I already posted the relevant excerpts at FR also:
The campaign is scheduled to end next August when the Legislature is set to vote on SB 840. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger does not support a single-payer system, calling it a tax increase. Gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides has said he would sign the bill if he wins the November election.
The statements are clear, the choice is clear:
vote for Angelides and get socialized medicine, high taxes, business unfriendly climate, drivers liceses for illegals, homosexual marriage
OR vote for Arnold, who will VETO all of the above.
Given that voting for Angelides and WILL result in SOCIALISM in CA: socialized medicine, high taxes, income redistribution, business unfriendly climate, drivers liceses for illegals, homosexual marriage, while voting for Arnold will PREVENT all the horrible items above, NO REAL CONSERVATIVE would prefer Angelides. You blew your cover.
I did no such thing. More lies from the FO account.
I would say that jumping to Angelides' defense and attacking Arnold, as more and more facts come to light, demonstrating the huge differences between the two, with major consequences to California, qualifies as defender and promoter of socialist Angelides, hence socialism. It's just pure logic.
Of course, it'll still fail, because demand will inevitably outstrip supply.
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