SACRAMENTO — Calling Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's healthcare plan a giveaway to insurers, Democratic lawmakers and some advocates will renew their effort today to replace the entire industry in California with a government-run health plan.
Commonly called "single-payer," the proposal was approved by the Legislature last year but vetoed by Schwarzenegger. The measure has gained support over the last year as a rallying point against increasing frustration with the existing system and rising concerns about Schwarzenegger's plan. With the governor's opposition still firm, legislative leaders, including the bill's sponsor, admit that pushing the measure is an academic exercise this year, but one that they hope will become concrete down the road.
"Politicians say they're serious about health reform, but most of their solutions are not," Deborah Burger, president of the California Nurses Assn., said in radio ads in support of the single-payer measure. Schwarzenegger's plan is "not health reform, it's a windfall for big insurance companies."
The alternative proposal, offered for the third year in a row by Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), would create a state agency to pay for medical treatment for all Californians. Doctors and hospitals would remain private entities.
Financed by taxes on payroll and income, the plan is presented by proponents as a panacea, providing everyone with more and better care while saving most families money by eliminating much of the administrative cost of the current healthcare bureaucracy.
A 2004 study by the Lewin Group, a consulting group whose other work has been cited by Schwarzenegger's office, estimated that the plan could extend coverage to the 6.5 million Californians without insurance while saving $8 billion, or 4% of healthcare spending in California by individuals and businesses.
Not surprisingly, the insurance industry opposes the measure. So do other key healthcare players, including the California Medical Assn., the state's largest doctors lobby, which has been frustrated by the low payment rates from Medi-Cal, which is essentially a single-payer system for the poor.
Insurers have raised fears of long waiting lines and ballooning tax increases if the plan were implemented. They also have argued that the cost savings are overstated because the government would have to do much of the paperwork now done by private companies.
