SACRAMENTO — State Senate leader John Burton proposed a sweeping measure Thursday requiring that all California employers offer their workers health insurance or contribute to a fund that would cover the state's approximately 5 million working poor.
Burton said the plan would dramatically expand insurance coverage, ensure that Californians stay healthier and make a significant dent in the state budget deficit.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday February 15, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 19 inches; 679 words Type of Material: Correction
Labor federation official -- In an article in the California section Friday about proposed legislation to establish an employer-paid health-care insurance program for the working poor, the name of Art Pulaski, secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, was incorrectly spelled as Pulanski.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday February 21, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 42 words Type of Material: Correction
Earl Warren -- An article in the California section Feb. 14 about health care insurance legislation for the working poor incorrectly reported that former Gov. Earl Warren proposed a similar program in the 1950s. He proposed it in 1945.
He estimated that employer-paid health insurance would produce $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year in savings to the Medi-Cal health-care program for the poor and to the Healthy Families program for their children.
"We are not looking to drive people out of business, but we are looking to drive people into a health-care system," said the senator, whose plan drew the support of two influential lobbies, organized labor and physicians.
The plan, which Burton said he will introduce as a bill soon, drew immediate opposition from the California Chamber of Commerce, which represents 16,000 employers, two-thirds of which consider themselves small businesses.
Richard Costigan, the chamber's chief of governmental relations, said most of the organization's major members provide health benefits to their workers. But he warned that imposing a new state-mandated cost would be economically hazardous.
"There is not an unlimited pot of money," Costigan said. He said large and small businesses would have to either pay the new insurance costs or "lay people off, delay hiring, not expand the business or look at relocating out of state."
Citing troubled Los Angeles as an example, Burton and his backers warned that California is in a health-care crisis in which costs are increasing, accessibility to assistance is decreasing and fewer people can successfully handle the financial burdens of sickness.
"The health safety net can no longer sustain the current demands being imposed upon" it, said Steve Thompson of the California Medical Assn.
Burton, a liberal Democrat from San Francisco, said it was unknown how much his proposed legislation would cost, but asserted that it could create as much as $2 billion a year in savings to state programs that no longer would have to pay the high costs of emergency room care for uninsured workers and their families.
