California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has promised to veto a government-financed single-payer universal health insurance bill passed by the state legislature claiming “socialized medicine is not the solution to our state's health care problems.” He emphasized that such a measure would “cost the state billions and lead to significant new taxes … without solving the critical issue of affordability.”
Bill SB 840, written by Democratic State Senator Sheila Kuehl, was supported by various health access coalitions and labour groups but was seen by many political analysts and media commentators as a political ploy by the Democrat-controlled legislature to paint the governor into an “anti-health” position in run-up to the November elections.
The bill would have replaced the network of public and private insurance programs that currently cover the great majority of Californians with a state-financed and administered health system. Except for federally funded Medicare (for the elderly) and Medicaid (for the poor), most health insurance in California, as throughout the US, is funded by employer plans. SB 840 would have covered medical, dental, vision, hospital services and prescription drugs, and would have been funded through payroll and individual income taxes and premiums. Currently, approximately 6 million Californians are uninsured for health care.
In explaining his veto, Schwarzenegger said he “must veto” the bill “because I cannot support a government-run health care system.”
“I won't jeopardize the economy of our state for such a purpose,” he added in a statement.
Kuehl countered that, “Where there are no cost controls at all now, and enormous administrative overhead and profit for insurance companies, there would have been a transparent system that actually would succeed in making health care coverage affordable in California.”
Leading the condemnation of Schwarzenegger's veto, Deborah Burger, president of the California Nurses Association, said the governor was “abandoning millions of Californians to health insecurity and potential financial ruin from un-payable medical bills.”
Critics of SB 840 say that the bill itself was fatally flawed because it did not include cost projections or information about who would pay and what premiums would be required.
Another sign of the bill's weakness was that although it was passed handily by the Democratic-controlled State legislature (Schwarzenegger is a Republican), it was not supported by Phil Angelides, the Democratic candidate for governor in the November election. Though Angelides says he favours some form of universal health insurance, he has not backed the current version.
According to a recent Public Policy Institute of California poll, the veto is not likely to seriously hurt the incumbent in November. Less than 4% of respondents to a statewide poll cited health insurance coverage as the main issue in the November election.