"Shared Responsibility?" Doesn't Seem Like it From New California Labor Federation Report on Schwarzenegger Health Care Plan Th

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Governor’s Plan Likely to Cost the Average Middle Class Family Between $8,100 and $13,000 a Year

By Frank D. Russo

The California Labor Federation released a report yesterday that finding that Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed health care plan looks like it will cost the average middle class family between $8,100 and $13,000 a year, forcing many Californians to choose between their financial security or breaking the law.

The report, is titled “Unfair, Unaffordable, and Unacceptable: An Analysis of the Schwarzenegger Health Reform Proposal’s Impact on Low and Middle Income Families,” and can be read online and printed out.

The Labor Fed has been criticized by groups such as the Bay Area Council which is supporting the Schwarzenegger plan as "swinging their hammer against Governor Schwarzenegger’s healthcare reform efforts, possibly shattering the last great hope for healthcare reform in California and perhaps nationwide." And the Schwarzenegger Administration has issued statements that the report is based on "fuzzy math" and is based on the proposal they made in June.

But what are the real numbers? Where is the real refutation of the report issued yesterday? Seems to me that the fuzziness has come about all along from the lack of the Governor's proposal being in bill form, in print and being a concept paper for so long because he couldn't (and still can't) find an author. There is just recently a more definitive version available, but it has its own obscurity. Gone is the $5,000 cap on annual deductibles long proposed by Schwarzenegger, for instance, but in its place is a provision for the administration to set the level by an administrative determination. Seems to me that the best assumption is that that is the most probable level that will be adopted by this administration. Otherwise, analysis is impossible and we get a pig in the poke and will find out later.

Note the name at the end of the report on page 5 of Emily Clayton. She came to the Labor Federation from the California Public Interest Research Group (CalPIRG), a consumer group known for its dedication to the public interest and straight shooting approach to public policy. White hat people.

In six pages, footnoting most sources from the Governor's office itself, it comes to the following conclusions:

• Any Californian earning over $36,000 a year (just over 350% of the poverty level) will receive no help paying for insurance. Similarly, an uninsured single mother with two children, earning $61,000 a year, would be left to pay all her household expenses and the full cost of health care for her family.