SACRAMENTO — State lawmakers pushed forward Wednesday with a $196-million plan to keep nearly 700,000 children from being yanked off a government health insurance program for the working poor.
The state Senate passed a measure to create a new tax on insurance companies and bring in federal money to rescue the decade-old Healthy Families program, which had been cut deeply in recent months as lawmakers scrambled to balance the state budget.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, September 15, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 46 words Type of Material: Correction
Assemblyman Paul Krekorian: Several recent articles -- including one in Monday's Business section on green-power legislation, and one in Saturday's Section A on legislative approval of prison cuts -- said Democratic state Assemblyman Paul Krekorian is from Burbank. Krekorian moved to Los Angeles in the spring.
Assembly officials expressed confidence that they would garner the needed two-thirds vote in the lower house, where the bill is expected to be taken up today. Administration officials said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would sign the measure.
"Sitting on our hands in this situation is not an option for California's children," said state Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks), one of three Republican lawmakers to break ranks with tax-wary GOP colleagues and join with the majority Democrats in approving the measure 27 to 8.
As many as two-thirds of the nearly 1 million children covered by Healthy Families were to be stripped of their coverage under the budget signed by Schwarzenegger in July, and they will lose it if the new funding isn't approved. More than 70,000 applicants have been added since mid-July to a waiting list that grows longer by the day.
"There are 700,000 reasons for supporting" the bill, said state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). "This is a shared solution to a disaster . . .that will occur if we don't intervene."
The insurers -- Kaiser, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield and others -- agreed to the levy. But Republicans have been under pressure from anti-tax forces, such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and conservative blogger Jon Fleischman, to resist it; they view it as a new tax on California business.
"Who pays is the bottom line here," said state Sen. Sam Aanestad (R-Grass Valley), who voted against the bill.
But the plan would actually come at minimal cost to insurers, for whom Healthy Families generates considerable business.
The legislation, by Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), would impose a 2.35% tax on the insurance companies. That tax revenue would be used to acquire about $97 million in federal matching funds.
The federal funds would help sustain Healthy Families, and the insurance firms would recoup most of their levies from the remaining money.
