Schwarzenegger Announces Veto of Universal Health Care Bill, SB 840; Reaction by Senator Kuehl and Others Indicate Era of Good Feeling is Receding

“The Governor errs in using the insurance industry’s ‘government run healthcare’ label for the bill. In truth, all providers of healthcare would have remained as they now are, public or private, under the bill. The big difference is that every person would have been able to select their own physician, dentist, hospital, or pharmacy, and there would have been no unreimbursed care. Doctors would have done a great deal better under this bill than they do now under the thumb of insurance companies.”

Regarding the Governor’s critique of the cost, Kuehl said, “The Governor makes an even bigger mistake in saying the bill would cost new money or there would be new taxes and no help to affordability. Such a statement shows that he has not read the bill, doesn’t understand the bill, or is being completely misdirected by his handlers.

In truth, premiums to be paid by businesses and individuals under SB 840 would have taken the place of all premiums, co-pays and deductibles we now pay, saving every person who now pays for healthcare significant money. In addition, where there are no cost controls at all now, and enormous administrative overhead and profit for insurance companies, there would have been a transparent system that actually would succeed in making healthcare coverage affordable in California”

Perhaps the most significant error the Governor makes is in his failure to recognize that SB 840 is exactly what he purports to be seeking. In his own words: “I want to see a new paradigm that addresses affordability, shared responsibility and the promotion of healthy living.” He has proposed no plan, and nothing has come out of his “health summit” that proposes anything to accomplish these goals. Only SB 840, which does exactly what he alleges to support, accomplishes this.

Finally, says Kuehl, by trying to distract readers of his veto messages with the fact that he supported a few small steps toward healthy living, the Governor reveals his real agenda: leave healthcare in the hands of private insurance companies and let working families lose coverage one family at a time, let hospitals close for non-payment of bills one at a time. In his own words, spoken only a few weeks ago “I don’t believe in universal healthcare.”

“With his statement that he plans to veto SB 840,” says Kuehl, “we see the real Arnold.”

Statement of Health Access California:

"The Governor has once again opposed a health care reform to expand coverage and provide financial security to hundreds of thousands of Californians, even though we are more likely to be uninsured than those in 45 other states," said Anthony Wright, executive director, Health Access California, the statewide consumer advocacy coalition, which actively organized in support of SB 840(Kuehl), as well as previous efforts. "The Governor has opposed every specific proposal that the Legislature has passed in the last four years, and yet he has never offered his own concrete proposal for addressing the health care crisis.

On major coverage expansions and health reforms, the Legislature has tried different approaches to expanding coverage, all of which have been opposed by Governor Schwarzenegger.

* In 2004, he campaigned against Proposition 72, (passed in the legislature as SB 2(Burton)), which would have required large employers to provide health coverage to their workers.

* In 2005: vetoed AB 772(Chan), which would have expanded public health insurance programs like Medi-Cal and Healthy Families to cover all children in California/

* In 2006: vetoed SB 840(Kuehl), which would have created a universal, publicly-financed health system to cover all Californians and control costs.

"This bill would have both provided the framework to provide health care and financial security for all Californians, and to control costs through prevention, planning, and administrative simplification. Despite the Governor's statement, the proposal would have addressed affordability, promoted prevention, and worked to establish financing through shared responsibility by individuals, businesses, and the government," said Wright. "With this veto, the Governor has failed to put forward his own specific plan for health reform, since in his three years he has only opposed efforts to secure and expand coverage for children, workers, and all Californians. He now needs to offer his specific alternative to achieve these urgent goals."

Statement of the Califonrnia Nurses Association, which has already endorsed Phil Angelides:

“Gov. Schwarzenegger is abandoning millions of Californians to health insecurity and potential financial ruin from un-payable medical bills,” said CNA President Deborah Burger, RN.

“His planned veto message demonstrates an appalling lack of sensitivity to the plight of California families facing a healthcare nightmare at a time when more than 6 million Californians are without health coverage, countless patients are unable to afford life saving medications, and our emergency response network is imploding while this governor sits idly by.”

Burger noted that the healthcare emergency is accelerating. She cited an Institute of Medicine study that some 18,000 deaths every year are associated with lack of health coverage, and noted that half of personal bankruptcies are linked to medical bills, all problems that would be solved by SB 840.

The veto decision “exposes the fraud of Schwarzenegger’s supposed ‘moderate’ election eve conversion, and demonstrates his continuing allegiance to HMOs, the insurance industry, and other big corporate donors to his campaign at the expense of everyday Californians,” said Burger.

CNA also castigated the governor’s deliberately deceptive comments in his veto message, from calling SB 840 “socialized medicine” which it is not, to saying it relies on “one source” for care, when it retains private providers, to reducing physician choice, another falsehood, Burger noted.

“For three years this governor has ignored our exploding healthcare crisis. He has vetoed bills to expand coverage, to make prescription drugs affordable, to reduce hospital and emergency room closures, all while raking in millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the healthcare industry,” Burger said.

“Now with an election fast approaching, he is endorsing a few baby steps that will do little to stem the crisis while continuing to protect his healthcare industry donors,” said Burger.

“The veto of SB 840 could not make it more clear,” said Burger. “We need a governor who cares about California. That man is not Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

For more information about SB 840 and the problems of health coverge in California, including many of the assertions made by organizations criticizing the Governor's action, tkae a look at previous articles published by the California Progress Report.