April 29, 2009 show – The Vanguard interviewed Senator Mark Leno on his universal health care legislation, SB 810. SB 810 is the latest incarnation of a bill first introduced by former Senator Sheila Kuehl that attempts to address one of the latest and growing crises in this state–the state’s health care crisis in which an estimated 7 million Californians are left uninsured. The crisis only continues to worsen as more Californians lose their jobs, and as a consequence, their employer-sponsored health care benefits. Surveys such as those done by the Kaiser Family foundation have found that health insurance premiums grow annlually four times faster than wages and have rised 87% since 2000.
Yes, but is universal health care the answer? Massachusetts thought so, and found out otherwise (see E. Roberts Musser article). Does CA want to make the same mistake?
Last Saturday I interviewed Assemblymember Dave Jones from Sacramento, he spoke to the issue of Massachussets and felt that they did a number of things wrong there that we have learned from.
[quote]Do you see health care as an issue that will be resolved primarily at the federal level or the state level?
“I think we need to resolve it at both levels. I think we here in California can play an important role in informing the debate in Washington, DC about health care reform. If you look at what President Obama is proposing, a lot of that proposal comes out of what we did in California in the last two years when we were debating health care coverage expansion, and health care reform.
One of the things that I think they need to consider is including the sort of proposal that I have in AB 1218 in the national health care model. Because if they don’t, there’s a real risk that if they go forward with an individual mandate, guaranteed issue requirements, and a subsidized pool for insurance, that what will happen is exactly what happened in Massachusetts where they’ve did those things. That is, premiums continue to go up as people have been mandated to purchase health insurance. So unless you have some sort of review of the insurance rates, you may very well see nationally the very thing that sort of happened in Massachusetts. So I think we in California have a lot to say and a lot to add about that.
The other thing I think we need to do here in California, is we need to continue to look at important reforms of our market. We can’t just wait for the federal government to ride to the rescue. That’s why I’m pushing very hard on a number of bills that would help reform our market and also participating in the debate at the national level.”[/quote]