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California Single Payer Health Bill—SB 840 (Kuehl)--Moves Again Towards Governor’s Desk

By Chuck Idelson
Communications Director
California Nurses Association
National Nurses Organizing Committee

California moved one step closer to enactment of a single-payer healthcare system Wednesday as Senator Sheila Kuehl's landmark bill SB 840 passed its first legislative hurdle of 2008. To a packed committee hearing room, Kuehl, pictured at right, presented her bill to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

With broad support from a wide spectrum of nurses, doctors, labor, healthcare activist, and consumer groups, the bill advanced in the Assembly Appropriations Committee and now goes into the Assembly's legislative suspense process where other bills are also lodged pending resolution of the state budget.

Main speakers on behalf of the bill were the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, the principle sponsor of the bill, and the California Physicians Alliance.

Many other organizations also lined up in support including the California School Employees Association, League of Women Voters, Health Care for All-California, California Labor Federation, California Church IMPACT, and leading seniors' organizations including the AARP, California Congress of Seniors, and California Association of Retired Americans.

The insurance industry, California Chamber of Commerce, and California Taxpayers Association opposed the bill.

Nurses are confident the bill will again pass the legislature, setting up another showdown with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who vetoed it in 2006. If anything, the need for single-payer reform, the only effective cure for the state and national healthcare crisis, has grown since then.

Wednesday's hearing coincided with the release of a new poll on healthcare and the economy by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health in two national battleground states, Florida and Ohio, reinforcing the extent of the emergency and the convergence of the economic and healthcare disaster.

Nearly one-fourth of Floridians and one-fifth of Ohioans say that they or someone in their household has lost a job in the past year. Concurrently, a quarter of the Ohioans and 28 percent of the Floridians say they or someone in their family has had trouble paying medical bills.

Further, more than half in each state said they or a family member have self-rationed needed medial care in the past year, either postponing dental care, medical treatment, not filling a prescription, cutting pills in half, or skipping dosages.

And, like other Americans, more than half of Florida and Ohio residents say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone, even if their own health insurance costs would increase.

In testimony on Wednesday, CNA/NNOC emphasized the linkage between solving the healthcare emergency and the financial distress faced by Californians and other American families.

The two main components of the healthcare crisis are insurance companies' denials of needed medical care, including dropping people when they are sick or refusing to sell policies to people with preexisting conditions, and the financial plight due to soaring medical bills.

Addressing the committee, CNA/NNOC legislative director Donna Gerber noted that SB 840 is the only reform that will rein in the insurance industry It's an industry "that can not be regulated."

Gerber cited the recent Los Angeles Times report that Anthem Blue Cross is refusing to pay $1 million in fines for illegal rescissions of insurance policies -- dropping coverage for patients when they get sick, and "we will soon see the same story for Blue Shield and Health Net."

“All Californians, insured, under-insured, and uninsured; are waiting. More delay means Californians will die while waiting for help. It also means costs will continue to skyrocket. "There is no greater policy or fiscal decision in the legislature than this one," Gerber said, adding CNA/NNOC's thanks to Sen. Kuehl for her unstinting leadership for real healthcare reform.

Enactment of a single payer system would provide desperately needed relief for families. As CNA/NNOC co-president Malinda Markowitz said this week, "Everyone would have one standard of coverage and not be discouraged from seeking check-ups when well because of high deductibles and co-pays or denied care when they were sick just because it cost their insurer money."

"The result will be a healthier population and workforce in California. For businesses, that would mean higher productivity and less absenteeism, fewer workplace accidents, injuries, and worker’s comp claims.

"It means more Californians earning, putting money back into the economy, able to pay mortgages, and contributing to reducing the state budget deficit. Overall, the impact will be both guaranteed healthcare and a healthier California," Markowitz said.

By Chuck Idelson is the Communications Director for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee which has been a staunch supporter of SB 840 and universal health care legislation.

Posted on July 17, 2008

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