Universal healthcare gains unlikely backer
SACRAMENTO — Abandoning the business lobby's traditional resistance to healthcare reform, a new coalition of 36 major companies plans to launch a political campaign today calling for medical insurance to be expanded to everyone along lines Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing for California.
Founded by Steve Burd, chairman of the Safeway grocery chain and an ally of the governor, the coalition could boost efforts in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to overhaul healthcare laws. It also formalizes a growing division over the issue among businesses.
The coalition includes some of the nation's largest companies: PepsiCo, General Mills, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., The Kroger Co., a number of Safeway vendors and grocery item manufacturers such as Bumble Bee Seafoods LLC.
It also includes insurers and drug firms that probably would benefit from mandated health insurance: Aetna, Blue Shield of California, Cigna HealthCare, Eli Lilly and Co. and PacifiCare.
Such large firms already provide medical coverage to their employees and have become increasingly frustrated as premiums have increased over the years. That has made them more willing to look to the government for solutions.
But small and midsized operations, such as restaurants and retail stores that usually don't provide coverage, have resisted wholesale changes to healthcare laws.
California's Chamber of Commerce and the state's restaurant association led the successful ballot fight in 2004 to repeal a state law requiring companies with more than 50 workers to provide insurance.
The chamber and restaurant group are skeptical of Schwarzenegger's proposal and those offered by Democratic legislative leaders.
Schwarzenegger's plan would require all individuals to obtain health insurance, hospitals and doctors to subsidize insurance for the poor, and companies to spend a set amount on employee healthcare.
The Democrats who dominate California's Legislature have several proposals that include similar requirements for employers but do not insist that everyone get insurance.
Schwarzenegger's proposal to insure everyone in California, unveiled in January, was influenced by Burd's views. The governor was particularly drawn to financial incentives instituted for Safeway workers to encourage them to seek preventive care, stash money for future illnesses and address ailments such as diabetes before they become debilitating. Schwarzenegger has incorporated such ideas into his proposal.
