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STATE FED, TOP CALIF. NURSES UNION HIT SCHWARZENEGGER HEALTH CARE PLAN


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Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)
1/15/2007

OAKLAND, Calif. (PAI)—The California AFL-CIO and the state’s top nurses union—which led the successful drive against GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s anti-union referenda two years ago—blasted the healthcare plan “The Terminator” unveiled Jan. 8.

The governor’s plan has “the same gaping holes” that a Massachusetts plan, enacted last year and signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney ( R ), has, says California Nurses Association President Deborah Burger. She called Schwarzenegger’s plan “little more than a fresh coat of paint on a collapsing house.”

California AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski was even more caustic, calling the governor’s plan one “that Wal-Mart would love and Wal-Mart workers would hate.”

“This will be a boon to insurance companies, but a bust for most workers. This plan requires all Californians to buy health insurance with no guarantee that it will be affordable or that coverage will be adequate,” Pulaski added.

Schwarzenegger’s plan “creates an incentive for employers who currently provide health care to drop coverage and instead pay only a minimal tax. The proposed employer contribution is so low that even Wal-Mart, a corporation known for its minimal employee healthcare coverage, already exceeds the requirements,” he added.

The governor’s plan would require all Californians, including the one-fifth who are uninsured, to buy health care coverage, just as Massachusetts’ new law does. Romney is using his state’s law to launch his bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.

Schwarzenegger also would require all businesses to offer health care coverage and mandate that insurers cover people with pre-existing medical conditions. Health insurers now routinely reject covering people with pre-existing conditions, forcing them into expensive emergency-room care or no care at all.

The California GOP governor’s plan is part of a bipartisan nationwide trend where states, fed up with federal gridlock and inaction on health care, are trying to come up with ways to make sure all of their residents are covered. Illinois, Oregon and Minnesota are also among states working on expanding coverage.

Instead of trying the fix Schwarzenegger proposed, Burger said the state should enact a single-payer government-run health care system, eliminating the private insurers entirely. That would also eliminate their pocketing of premiums and denial of care.

The Democratic-run state legislature approved a single-payer plan last year, but Schwarzenegger vetoed it. Then the insurers poured millions of dollars into their successful campaign against a CNA-backed ballot initiative to enact single-payer.

CNA’s Burger said mandating coverage for all—without discussing costs—isn’t enough. The biggest problem, she said, is that the governor would “criminalize the uninsured by forcing them to buy insurance, a plan that shifts the costs and risk from the insurers to individuals.” Burger said “that won’t work for millions of Californians, and is a huge gift to the insurance industry.

“What we don’t see is any discussion of what type of health coverage people will buy. There are no limits on skyrocketing health premiums, no requirements on what will be included in the required plans, and a new call to deregulate existing public protections,” she warned.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced a similar coverage-for-all plan, working through private insurers but with standards set by states and insurance bought by individuals.

Service Employees President Andy Stern, whose union represents more health care workers than any other union, backs Wyden. But Wyden’s plan has been criticized for no controls on premiums and for keeping the role of the insurers, who deny coverage, thus killing people. Yale professor Jacob Hacker, who studied health care for the Economic Policy Institute, put the annual death toll from denial of coverage at 18,000.

Schwarzenegger’s plan could leave many people in the nation’s largest state—which has one-eighth of the U.S. population—with health coverage that covers little and costs a lot, Burger added. “Many Californians will end up with cut-rate plans that discourage people from using their health coverage, have huge out-of-pocket costs, and expose them to financial ruin in the event of a serious illness or accident,” she concluded.

Press Associate Inc (PAI), a labor news service, distributed this story to all its subscribers in its January 15th weekly packet. PAI can be reached at Press_associates@yahoo.com.