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January 28, 2008
Information alert: Senate committee rejects Schwarzenegger-Nunez health insurance bill
Dear FCL Supporter,
Just moments ago, the Senate Health Committee rejected a controversial health insurance bill. AB X1 1 was a bipartisan compromise between Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Governor Schwarzenegger who vetoed a previous version of the bill. Following a 10-hour hearing last week to give the bill serious scrutiny, Democrats joined with Republicans today to vote down the bill which contained an individual mandate requiring consumers to prove that they carried insurance. The bill also requires employers to pay up to 6.5 percent of their payroll to provide health insurance or cover their employees and dependents in a state pool, commonly referred to as "pay or play."
Democrats expressed concerns that for many people health insurance would not be affordable. Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) said that there are "individuals in my city making $50,000 or $60,000 per year, who would sit down at the table and decide whether to buy clothes or buy health insurance." Yee added that "it pains me to turn my back on this bill".
Both Democrats and Republicans expressed concerns over potential funding shortages contained in the Legislative Analyst's Office analysis of the proposal. Senator Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) said the bill contained too many assumptions about the revenues that would fund the increased coverage and noted that in her budget subcommittee legislators were being asked by the governor to approve $2.9 billion in cuts to Medi-CAL and Healthy Families. Senator Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) said that employers with older employees would have an incentive to "pay rather than play" and noted that the tobacco tax which would partially fund expanded health insurance is a declining source of revenue.
Speaker Nunez and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kim Belshe acknowledged that AB X1 1 was not a perfect bill and urged lawmakers to measure it against the status quo which everyone agrees is unsustainable. California has 6.5 million uninsured and health care costs have been increasing at four to five times the rate of inflation.
Senator Sheila Kuehl, chair of the Senate Health Committee questioned whether Governor Schwarzenegger, in vetoing her universal health care legislation in 2006, was voicing his satisfaction with the status quo.
Steinberg noted that with all the bill's problems, that it is "easy to forget the upside," namely that 800,000 kids and millions of adults would have obtained coverage.
"No" Votes
Aanestad
Cox
Kuehl
Maldonado
Negrete McLeod
Wyland
Yee
"Yes" votes
Ridley-Thomas
Not Voting
Alquist
Cedillo
Steinberg
Sincerely yours,
Jim Lindburg
Legislative Advocate
Friends Committee on Legislation
717 K St., Suite 500-B
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 443-3734
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