California Health Care in the Special Session: An Analysis of the "Working Draft" of Legislative Language That No One Claims to

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

An orphan is born
The mountain has labored and brought forth a mouse

By Anthony Wright
Executive Director of Health Access California

This week, the game changed, and things got much more urgent and intense. And I am not just talking about the super-exciting Rockies-Padres game that ushered in the baseball postseason on Monday.

We have legislative language! Sort of.

There's a 200-page “working draft" that was distributed to stakeholders and media in the last several days. The reason it hasn't made news is because nobody is claiming ownership. It is “orphan” language.

When we got it, we had major caveats as well: That many of the provisions are merely placeholders; that major sections, including the financing, are not included; and that there is significant disagreement among the Governor and the legislative leaders about the provisions included.

We are disappointed that we seem to back to square one with something very similar to the Governor’s January proposal, with only a few of our comments and concerns raised over the course of the year addressed. While we would have preferred having the Governor’s language much earlier in the year, we do appreciate having the language to seriously respond and react to--if that is what it takes to move the conversation forward.

It's like when you work really hard on a document, but then the computer crashed, and you have to reboot and start again. It's frustrating, but the goal doesn't change.

While the orphan “working draft” in unowned by any policymaker, as we said, it is remarkably similar to the Governor’s proposal, about which our opinion was mixed, liking many elements, but strongly objecting to other pieces—including the individual mandate without regard to whether coverage is available or affordable. Our preliminary analysis of the Governor's proposal, available on our website still holds up.

This “working draft” would have been appropriate for release in March or April, rather than October. However, we appreciate seeing the draft, to better engage in the dialogue. Insurance agent Alan Katz has posted the full document(!) of the orphaned legislative language on his health reform blog, along with his own commentary.