Wow a Meeting and Hospital Fee May Be Back

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

Considering the fact that these guys have not met lately, this should be a pretty important meeting to determine the likelihood of coming to an agreement on health care reform legislation. Sen. Don Perata was sounding overly pessimistic, and his comments were pretty unproductive to the overall reform efforts. Nunez and Arnold were much more upbeat. SacBee:

In a prepared statement, Núñez said he remains "an eternal optimist," and added, "I will fight 'til the end for health care reform."

The speaker has said he plans to introduce the governor's health care plan himself and ask lawmakers to consider it this week.

The governor remains committed to achieving health care reform this year, said Sabrina Lockhart, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger.

"He looks forward to working with leaders on both sides of the aisle to get it done," Lockhart said.

Weintraub has an interesting column today, suggesting that the fee on hospitals aspect of the governor's proposal may not be dead in the water. He points out that a similar fee was passed on the nursing home industry, after they requested it.

The state's nursing home industry supported a 6 percent charge as a way to draw more federal money to California for Medi-Cal, the health care program for the poor. The federal government matches the state's spending on Medi-Cal. So for every dollar California collected in fees from the homes and then spent on Medi-Cal, the nursing homes, as a group, got an extra dollar back from Washington.

Republicans are opposing many other elements of the governor's plan. However, it looks like the negotiations with the hospitals have moved it towards a more common fee structure that may not require a 2/3rds vote. Arnold is continuing to work on it, despite some resistance from the Democrats.

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