Senator Kuehl Tells Press She is Sure Her Universal Health Care Act Will Pass Intact and Be on the Governor's Desk This Year

Questions and Answers at press conference

Would she want the bill to go to conference committee where it might be pulled apart

The bills that go to conference committee, that is generally the decision of the leadership. SB 840 does not play well with the other children. It's friendly, but its not that friendly. I have talked to Senator Perata and Speaker Nunez and my preference, and they have agreed that SB 840 will go through intact. We have a comprehensive plan that has been developed over four years. It has over a 150 pages of statute. It's real It will go through both houses. I have no doubt that it will be placed on the Governor's desk. We will work to convince him, after he looks at everything else that is coming up that this is the best way to go.

At the same time, as the Chair of the Senate Health Committee it is my responsibility to work with all of the authors, especially the leadership… [and the Governor] and those will undoubtedly go to a conference committee to see how much we can do in this session this year--or this year and next year--to expand coverage, to find a way to improve the lives of Californians.
But all of those plans leave the insurance companies intact, so the question is: "How to guarantee affordability?" You're going to make the insurance companies take everybody, and they testified at my hearing that would probably mean doubling or tripling premiums. There are no caps on anything. … As you talk about making plans affordable, it looks like the plan is to just remove benefits. ..That's why I have a sign at every one of my hearings that says "Do no harm."

On what makes her think the Governor will sign her bill

The Governor himself is term limited--just like the rest of us. The Governor could be irrelevant to this conversation if we wait until 2010. But the development of this plan is not irrelevant no matter when it starts.

Wilbur Cohen, who was working on Medicare for FDR cold not get Social Security and Medicare all adopted at the same time. He had to wait for the right President. He had to wait for the right Congress. But I don't think people in America could even imagine what life would be like for people over 65 without Medicare. You know, if you had to go into the market at age 72. That's what happened in Russia when the safety net fell apart in 1991. The life expectation, the average life expectancy of a Russian man twenty years ago was 79. Today it's 59. That has only to do with the fraying health care system.

So what would we be without Medicare? If I can't convince this governor, I'll work with the next governor or we'll make it an initiative.

The ability of a governor to sign a bill in any given year is irrelevant to the development of single payer health now.

On whether the others bills out there are steps along the way to single payer or make it harder

Potentially everything could be considered part of along the way to single payer because if you look at all of the proposals, they all create a pool, some kind of central pool into which money is contributed--either by employers who don't provide health insurance, employees, taxes on hospitals or fees, or dividends or whatever you want to call them, and on health plans.

Whatever you call them, every or proposal has the idea that there is going to be some central pool, money is going to go into it and out of that central pool, and out of that central pool--what? We're not sure. Something will be bought from the insurance companies. It's possible that they're thinking of expanding Mr. Nib where the central pool becomes any insurer. Well, that's a good step on the road to single payer.

But the problem with many of these proposals is that they have no idea of what the governance is going to be for these pools, unless we do assign it to Mr. Nib or CalPERS. I think the discussion is great. But I frankly think that everything is on its way or could be on its way to the enactment of SB 840 and the plan that exists in SB 840.

On financing of the bill which is put off to another day and how it would affect the average person

Because we could not get the bill through with the money in it and put it on the governor's desk, last year what we did was to put in a mechanism for a blue ribbon, very high level panel to make the decision, but it would have to go back for a vote either in the legislature or to the people, because it would be a tax--to make the decision as to how it would be funded.

That doesn't mean that doesn't mean that we didn't know, pretty precisely how it would be funded but only that we couldn't get it through.

Last year we spent $186 billion in California. The plan that we have for SB 840--this comes directly form a study from the Lewin Group--the public money stays in place but perhaps be increased a little bit as the Governor proposed. A little more money into the Medi-Cal system for higher payments, raise the level oat which children or maybe even their families could get Healthy Families insurance. The public money could go up a little bit.

The rest of it, however, we see to be funding in what is really at the moment the traditional way. The Lewin Group, in crunching the numbers, indicated that if individual earners paid about 3 ½ or 4 percent of their earnings and employers paid about 7 ½ percent of their payroll, that wold be about $186 billion in the system. But 30% of that would not go to administrative overhead, only 5% would. So the additional monies cover the uninsured, allow us to raise it to the level of the comprehensive coverage we want to etcetera.
Where employers have agreed to cover the employee's share, they would continue to do that either through, if it's a union plan or as John Hues [an employer present at the press conference] says "I'll continue to cover it," etc. And that fully funds the system.

About the comments she made when the bill was vetoed last year that the Governor didn't understand the bill, and whether she has had a chance to talk to the Governor since then

I have had a chance to talk to him personally although the interest that he did have during our conversation was about how we would have a hearing on his proposals. … I was invited down for that purpose--it wasn't to discuss my bill. I think to some extent I was being generous with the Governor in saying he hadn't read it and didn't understand it. Because now I know that Susan Kennedy and Dan Zingale and Herb Schultz and the people who are working with the Governor about health care--they have read it and they do understand it.

The Governor has said, and it's very interesting and you should go back and look at everything he's said, "Everything's on the table." He did not say to me while I was down there with Senator Perata in the smoking tent (not smoking, I might add) he didn not say to me, "I'm going to veto your bill." He did not say to me "Please don't put this on my desk, I don't ever want to see this again," He did not even say to me "I totally oppose single payer."

I really think my job is to make sure that everybody does understand the bill--what it really does, what it really costs, what it covers. This is not just a faith based initiative. This is a reality based initiative. And you know the right wing accuses my party of being reality based. Guilty. [Applause and lots of laughter]

Assembly Health Committee Hearing Following Press Conference

Later in the afternoon, hundreds of supporters, some organized from unions in support of Kuehl's bill, but many others from different groups who traveled from around the state to Sacramento, attended a hearing of the Assembly Health Committee in the largest room in the Capitol. Through the California Channel, you can watch this hearing. At 5:20 on the feed, you can see Senator Kuehl present the bill to the committee. Starting at 39:24 on the feed, Kuehl answers questions of the committee.

In between, there is the showing of a video by an Emmy Award winning producer that Kuehl showed in lieu of testimony from a number of witnesses. This video, she said, contains the personal stories that witnesses would tell the committee and presents statistics and other information. It also contains a good explanation of how SB 840 will work in operation. The film was prepared for Health Care For All. It can be watched starting at 17:41 of the Cal Channel feed--and is in high quality--probably a lot better and easier to watch than on You Tube.

Overall the committee hearing lasted about 2 hours and you can also hear testimony by a number of witnesses on the bill.