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January 22, 2008
Oppose the Health Insurance Juggernaut!
Dear Friend of FCL,
On Wednesday, January 23rd, the Senate Health Committee will take up AB X1 1, the Schwarzenegger-Nunez-Perata health insurance juggernaut that includes an individual mandate to purchase insurance with no cost controls or minimum levels of coverage for consumers. The 200-page bill breezed through the Assembly with speed that suggests that few Members understood what they were voting for. Senator Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) chairs the Senate Health Committee and has promised the "longest hearing ever" to fully air this proposal. This is welcome news, especially when considering the following:
AB X1 1 controls costs only for employers -- not consumers -- with no caps on premiums or out-of-pocket expenses. Employers would have to contribute up to 6.5 percent of their payroll to purchase insurance, or pay the same amount into a state fund. Employers would have incentives to reduce coverage, with employees bearing a greater share of the cost, or to drop coverage entirely and to pay into the state pool. As health care costs continue to rise, employees who currently have good insurance provided by their employer could be dumped into the state pool and would receive care only in public hospitals. While this legislation increases subsidies for the poor, only premiums would be subsidized. There are no subsidies for out-of-pocket expenses.
AB X1 1 does not define minimum levels of coverage. For the state fund, minimum levels of coverage would be determined at a later date by the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board whose members are not accountable to the public. For all others, there are no minimum levels of coverage specified in the bill. AB X1 1 is certain to increase the proliferation of high deductible, bare-bones insurance policies that cover only catastrophic medical losses.
AB X1 1 is political expediency at its worst. It does not provide universal health care. Those who are exempted from the individual mandate by the bill's vague reference to "affordability" will go without. An alternative proposal, SB 840, has been seasoning in the Legislature for five years and provides truly universal health care that is affordable with comprehensive benefits. While some have argued that this proposal is utopian because it requires eight Republican votes, public support for single-payer, universal health care has grown significantly in recent years.
Too often, people with "good insurance" have been denied health care by insurance companies. Do we want legislation that mandates them five million more customers?
TAKE ACTION NOW!
Please fax letters and e-mails in opposition to AB X1 1 to:
Senator Sheila Kuehl
Chair, Senate Health Committee
State Capitol
Room 5108
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: (916) 324-4823
Email: senator.kuehl@sen.ca.gov
and to:
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez
State Capitol
Room 219
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: (916) 319-2146
Email: Assemblymember.nunez@assembly.ca.gov
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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