Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez On the Assembly Passed Health Care Reform Bill

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Fabian Nunez
Speaker of the California Assembly

I first unveiled a health care reform plan one year ago today. It’s been a long struggle with a lot of input and intense discussions with stakeholders across the spectrum. It was a huge undertaking to reach the historic vote taken in the Assembly this week, and while I understand several contributors on this site will never like any reform plan that isn’t single payer, the progressive community deserves to hear the reasons I think AB 1x1 deserves widespread support.

Let’s start with basic principles: Everyone should have insurance – and no one subject to a mandate should be denied by any insurer. Most of the uninsured are working people who can’t afford it - we’re making it affordable to them. We’re also helping out people in the middle who are struggling paying for their insurance. Of course, there will be back and forth over details – this is a complicated proposal after all. But we cannot forget that people are suffering now, and we need to help them. Portraying serious reform as “Christmas for the insurance industry” or “Patriot Act-lite” does nothing to advance the major changes that must be made. We don’t have the opportunity every day to change people’s lives for the better and we don’t have a lot of days to wait this time.

The Health Care Security and Cost Reduction Act and a companion statewide initiative anticipated for the November 2008 ballot will significantly reduce the numbers of the uninsured through public program expansions and increased employer participation in the health care of workers. This bill will organize and improve the health insurance market for individuals, advance innovative strategies to reduce health care costs and improve quality. The bill will also protect California's budget through dedicated revenues that make the proposal self-financing.

Now, some specifics:

Once this proposal is implemented, 71% of California's 5.1 million uninsured -- most of whom are low-income working individuals and their families -- will no longer be uninsured for health care. That includes 800,000 children.

• We establish a state-administered health care purchasing program to be administered by MRMIB.

• We ensure that California businesses compete on a level playing field by placing on the November ballot the requirement that all employers meet a minimum spending level on health care for their workers.