Posted on 01/28/2007 12:41:24 PM PST by calcowgirl
The last time California passed a major health reform law, Gray Davis was governor. And in just more than a year, both he and the law were gone.
Now, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who won office when voters ousted Davis in 2003 and played a role in overturning his health care law, is trying another health expansion.
The question is whether his reform will meet the same fate.
Just like the law Davis signed, Schwarzenegger's plan has support from Democrats but not Republicans and upsets some business interests. But the Davis law had the backing of unions, doctors, hospitals and some insurers, while Schwarzenegger's plan has the potential to offend all of them at once.
"This is going to be a tough one to pull off," said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. "I don't think you can take on the doctors, nurses and the business groups and labor."
The 2003 Davis law, authored by former Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, a Democrat, would have forced businesses to pay most of the cost of insuring their workers. The next year, retailers and restaurants convinced voters to overturn the law in a referendum.
Schwarzenegger wants to share the cost of covering the uninsured among individuals, employers, doctors, hospitals and the federal government. Insurance plans also would have to take steps that could cut into their profits.
Schwarzenegger says his "shared responsibility" approach will help everyone by lowering health care costs and drawing billions more in federal funds.
But he is having trouble selling the plan, in part because of the anti-tax rhetoric he used during his re-election campaign. Schwarzenegger wants to raise $4.5 billion through fees on employers, hospitals and doctors. The governor says the fees are not taxes, although he said the opposite during his re-election campaign when he criticized the health-care ideas of his opponent, Democrat Phil Angelides.
Republicans are not buying the governor's argument, and a small business group already has produced attack ads on the subject to influence opinion leaders in Sacramento. One features a rubber duck that quacks while a narrator says, "Call the governor today and tell him, if his plan looks like a tax and sounds like a tax, it must be a tax one that Californians cannot afford."
The fee-or-tax argument is likely to figure in any referendum campaign against the governor's health plan. The only way Schwarzenegger can prevent a referendum is if he musters a two-thirds vote in the state Legislature. But that would require Republican support, and so far, there appears to be little if any.
A two-thirds vote also would protect the governor from any future lawsuit that argues the fees he wants to levy on businesses, hospitals and doctors are really taxes. Taxes require a two-thirds majority, while fees can be passed with a simple majority.
Democrats, who have been trying to expand health coverage for years, are Schwarzenegger's natural allies. But to win them over, the governor may have to change his plan in ways that make it even more objectionable to Republicans, the traditional allies of business groups.
Democrats and their union supporters want to see employers pay more and individuals pay less under the governor's plan.
In a strange political twist, the same unions that fought the governor so effectively in his 2005 special election are now looking at ways to encourage Republicans to support the governor's health plan, perhaps by waging ad campaigns in their districts.
The unions and the governor have cause for optimism because so far, at least, public opinion is on their side. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that two-thirds of voters, including 55 percent of Republicans, like the governor's approach of sharing the cost between employers, health care providers and individuals.
That support could erode in the face of a well-funded referendum campaign, although if the past is any guide, the contest is likely to be close.
In the 2004 referendum, businesses spent about as much fighting Burton's law as unions did defending it. Out of 11.6 million votes cast, businesses won by fewer than 200,000 votes, or less than a percentage point.
hey he cant be far off from our POTUS who wants socialist health care.
Can someone explain again why the people fired Davis?
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Global warming,, our brains fried when the electricity went off in the blackouts and heat waves. :-}
well, that's just one theory. ;-)
LOL
Schwarzenegger's health plan could meet same fate as Davis'
I often lament the fact that more people didn't vote for Tom McClintock. Now I think we've gotten to the point where I would be happy if we had elected Mary Carey or Gary Coleman.
Even Bustamante's proposed $8 billion dollar tax increase (vs. today's $100 billion borrowing binge, global warming regulation, and ArnoldCare) looks like conservatism!
Yeah. This guy is becoming like The Hildabeast - something to laugh at & then ReCall them both.
Extremely doubtful Schwarzenegger would face the same fate as Davis as Schwarzenegger has an insurance policy Davis lacked. That's a popular Democratic Lt. Governor that would likely replace Schwarzenegger if a recall came about.
"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
We already have de facto socialized medicine in California. People without money/insurance simply walk into any emergency room and receive 100% free (to them) care.
This cost is then passed on to those who do pay for health care, or in many cases, emergency rooms simply shut their doors.
As punishment for the Electricity fiasco, and other things. The new Guv didn't learn a thing from Davis. Looks like it's time for another TOTAL RECALL!
Assuming it passes (and survives a legal challenge for violating the two-thirds vote requirement), it'll be wiped off the books if for no other reason than it violates the federal ERISA law. With federal and state law and a whole lot of pissed-off pressure groups arrayed against it, Arnold may as well name it the Titanic Health Care Act.
ROFL. TitanicCare! :-)
No matter the name, I like your prediction.
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