As Single payer (SB840) Nears Passage/Veto, what's next?

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Single Payer cleared another hurdle by passing out of Assembly committee in Sacramento this week, but it seems to be on a sort of death march to Arnold's veto pen. That is unfortunate, but that is reality. And while it probably requires no further explanation of how wrong our system really is, it's really wrong:

Blue Cross of California refused to extend her policy after she used the plan once for a minor infection, Campbell said, and in a pinch she bought another short-term policy from Blue Shield of California. Last summer, she worked a Friday shift, got sick over the weekend, and a week later was diagnosed with two aggressive forms of cancer -- rhabdomyosarcoma and adenosarcoma. On July 20, her health insurance policy runs out and no one will insure her, Campbell told the Assembly Health Committee on Tuesday while testifying in support of Senate Bill 840.
*  *  *
"I'm too young for Medicare, and I make too much money for Medi-Cal," Campbell, 53, told the panel. "But one eligibility worker told me how I could get Medi-Cal: 'Get pregnant, get the Medi-Cal card, abort the baby, and keep the card.' This is my only option." (SacBee 7/4/07)

So, we doom somebody else because saving them isn't profitable for an insurance company.  Ugh, just go see SiCKO, I don't need to repeat everything here. I'm not saying the insurance companies did anything wrong, it's that they exist in the first place that is the wrong.

But where do we go from here? Well, here in San Francisco, we have Healthy San Francisco, which signed up its first 29 applicants on Monday.  Follow me over the flip...
There are some really great things about Healthy San Francisco.  Tom Ammiano worked very, very hard to craft good policy. He had to fight the Golden Gate Restaurant Association and the Mayor, but he got it done. It's why he'll be a bulldog in the Assembly.  It helps cover the people that can't get Medi-CAL nor can they afford regular insurance.  But this isn't true insurance.  The main drawback? Well, you can't really leave the City/County of San Francisco and expect any care.  Your pseudo-insurance card only works in the City, and is worth about as much as a Jack Taschner (who?) baseball card outside of the city.

So while it is billed as universal care, it's not really. So, what else? Well, we have the possibility of whatever reform Assembly Speaker Nunez and Senator Perata can come up with. Of course, it better be business friendly, or you know Arnold will veto it. So, do we end up with some sort of plan that still leaves Ms. Campbell out in the cold?  My crystal ball seems a bit foggy, but I'm not convinced that the reforms being touted will truly address the inequities at the heart of the InsCo health care system.

I'd love to be wrong, though.