Steven Thompson, 62; Helped Shape Healthcare Policy

Steven M. Thompson, among California's most influential healthcare policy analysts and lobbyists, died Tuesday in Sacramento. He was 62.

Thompson was governmental affairs director for the California Medical Assn. for the last 12 years. Before that, he was a close aide to former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, serving as his chief of staff and director of the Assembly Office of Research in the 1980s and early '90s.

"He was central to my operation," Brown said Tuesday. "Steven was probably the most brilliant of all of them. He was the health guy for the state of California."

Thompson was known as "the Health SMIC" -- short for "smartest man in California" -- on healthcare-related issues. During nearly four decades in Sacramento, he helped shaped legislation affecting healthcare for poor people as well as the care of mentally ill and developmentally disabled people.

"Although most Californians didn't know Steve Thompson, he is going to be missed by everybody," said Assemblyman Keith Richman (R-Northridge), a physician who worked on bills with Thompson. "He was passionate every day in trying to improve healthcare for all Californians."

In an unusual display of respect for an unelected Capitol denizen, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered statehouse flags lowered to half-staff. The state Senate interrupted its work, pausing to rename a 2002 program that Thompson helped create to help defray medical school loans for students who agree to work in areas where there is a dearth of medical care. The program will be known as the Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps Loan Repayment Program.

Thompson, ill with cancer, testified at a hearing last month in opposition to the merger of Anthem Inc. and WellPoint Health Systems. Thompson had told The Times recently that he hoped to survive long enough to see the merger significantly modified if not blocked.

Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, John Burton (D-San Francisco), leader of the upper house, said Thompson was instrumental in shaping dozens of laws. One, which Burton carried in the 1960s, requires that public schools educate autistic children. Another, last year's Senate Bill 2 by Burton, would require businesses with 50 or more employees to provide them with health insurance.

In a move that suspends the measure, at least for now, business groups have placed a referendum, Proposition 72, on the November ballot to repeal it.