[courtesy of California Progress Report]

[Editor’s note: These are the remarks Senator Sheila Kuehl delivered to the California Assembly Appropriations Committee on Wednesday on SB 840, her universal health care bill that is making progress towards the Governor’s desk. Kuehl is Chair of the Senate Health Committee.]

As you know, since most of you are co-authors of this bill, SB 840 is California’s plan to establish a functional, modern, universal health care system for the 21st Century.

This bill covers every California resident with comprehensive, affordable health benefits, contains the growth in health care spending while improving quality.

And most importantly it guarantees every patient with total choice of their doctors and hospitals.

Each year health care costs grow 2-3 times faster than wages. The Journal of Health Affairs recently reported that health care spending will nearly double over the next decade. This means that, in 10 years, healthcare will cost 20 cents of every dollar our nation produces.

With that kind of cost inflation, discussions about covering the uninsured are pointless. Our failure to address this problem is close to gross negligence.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Joel A. Harrison

By any measure, the United States spends an enormous amount of money on health care. Here are a few of those measures. In 2006, U.S. health care spending exceeded 16% of the nation’s GDP. To put U.S. spending into perspective: the United States spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in 2004, while Canada spent 9.9%, France 10.7%, Germany 10.9%, Sweden 9.1%, and the United Kingdom 8.7%. Or consider per capita spending: the United States spent $6,037 per person in 2004, compared to Canada at $3,161, France at $3,191, Germany at $3,169, and the U.K. at $2,560.

By now the high overall cost of health care in the United States is broadly recognized. And many Americans are acutely aware of how much they pay for their own care. Those without health insurance face sky-high doctor and hospital bills and ever more aggressive collection tactics—when they receive care at all. Those who are fortunate enough to have insurance experience steep annual premium hikes along with rising deductibles and co-pays, and, all too often, a well-founded fear of losing their coverage should they lose a job or have a serious illness in the family.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

State Senator Sheila Kuehl's single payer health care bill would cost California more than $210 billion and leave the state saddled with more than $40 billion more in debt in one year, according to a report by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst noted in an article today by the Sacramento Bee's Dan Weintraub.

That compares to the LAO's projection of a $1.5 billion deficit from legislation passed by Assembly Democrats and favored by Gov. Schwarzenegger. That legislation died in Senator Kuehl's Health Committee, with several senators expressing concerns about that cost.

To put that in perspective, the state is currently wrestling with a $17 billion operating deficit. And no one seems to know how that gap will be closed. Kuehl's single-payer bill would more than double that debt.

Weintraub notes that "Kuehl's current bill does specify a financing scheme," and the Senator admits the financing would be impossible to get through the legislature.

There's more...

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Even the conservative U.S. Supreme Court has sided -- for now -- with the City of San Francisco's requirement that employers chip in to provide health care. Republicans in the legislature, egged on by uber-right San Diego Union Tribune blogger Chris Reed, had said that any employer requirement was in violation of federal law. GOP Leader Mike Villines even called for hearings on it as part of their attack on the Democratic health care bill, AB 1x.
 
But the Supreme Court has derailed an attempt by San Francisco restaurant owners to stop the program in the tracks. Read the Chronicle story for details.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
 
The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is weighing in on the Fair Political Practices Commission today when it meets to consider new rules for the disclosure of expenses by political candidates, calling for "explanations" of the expenses far beyond what the state watchdog agency is proposing.
 
Yet this so-called "taxpayer and consumer group" refuses to provide any information to the press or to the state about who its donors are.
 
So in other words, do as we say, not as we do.
 
You would think that an organization that pretends to represent taxpayers and consumers would adhere to the same principles that it is calling for others to follow.
 
You'd think they'd own up to being a front for the California Nurses Association (which, as reported here, reported through their mandatory reporting that they've given the Foundation hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years) on the health care bill. Or Lord knows who else from the special interest world has helped fund their fact-deprived press conferences and media stunts.
 
But no.
 
It appears that the Foundation continues to live in its glass house: an organization with no members that are consumers or taxpayers, and failing to provide the very transparency they are calling on others to have.

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

Today the Senate Health Committee voted 7-1 not to advance AB 1x1 the massive health care reform bill championed by Speaker Fabian Nunez and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. That means health care reform legislation is killed for the year given the timing to make it on the ballot. Chron:

Shortly before the committee hearing, Senate President Don Perata, D-Oakland, said in a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that he does not support the measure because it lacks adequate funding and could worsen the state's budget problems.

The measure, which passed the state Assembly last month, needs the backing of a majority of legislators in each house before it can be sent to the governor, who supports it.

Schwarzenegger, speaking to the editorial board of the Chronicle, said he will do everything he can to keep the measure alive.

"I'm not taking 'no' for an answer," he said. "We've come a long way to get as far as we have ... this is the last mile."

read more »

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

"The problem with the 58-year-old Yee is his troubling tendency to do the wrong thing, for the wrong reasons, when he thinks no one is paying attention," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle last year when it endorsed Yee's opponent for the State Senate in 2006.

And now it appears Yee has once again done the wrong thing for the reasons.

But this time, everybody noticed. Including State Senate President pro Tem Don Perata.

Yee surprisingly announced his opposition to the Democratic health care bill co-authored by  Don Perata on Tuesday in a press conference sponsored by the California Nurses Association, one of his major campaign contributors. That was enough get Perata to tweek Yee in his opening statement to the Senate Health Committee for making his decision before the hearing and before reviewing the Legislative Analyst's opinion of the bill. As Capitol Weekly's "Roundup" put it on Tuesday: "... Leland Yee might want to make sure those keys to his office are still working this morning... ," a reference to Perata's changing the locks on the doors of other moderate State Senators who crossed the Democratic Caucus position on a key issue last year.

There's more...