Yes on California Senate Bill 840!

September 13, 2008 -- Leading the nation (ahem, ahem) California is poised to make healthcare history. If our Governator doesn't get in the way. Again.

Up for a vote soon in our state legislature will be Senate Bill 840, crafted by State Senator Sheila Kuehl.

It proposes to replace the existing expensive and dysfunctional private health insurance scheme -- what you have if you're well-off in America -- with a State-administered one.

No doubt the powerful insurance lobby and media machine will trot out the tired nostrums about socialism, government inefficiency, and the boogeyman of state-run healthcare.

The truth is that around 25 cents of every dollar we spend on healthcare goes to the insurance company bureaucracy, not for medicines, hospitals or doctors.

If we're concerned about rising costs (and who isn't?) then eliminating this overhead is an obvious strategy for cost control.

Furthermore, the federal Medicare program -- one of the most popular public programs of all time -- has proven that in overseeing the delivery of healthcare, government can be both effective and efficient. Medicare recipients (my parents, for example) are pleased with their care, and the overhead is less than 2%.

Of course, if you're not well-off in America, then what you have for healthcare is zilch.

Yes, emergency rooms are required by law to serve everyone who walks in the door. But it is undeniable that there are two tiers of patients -- I have worked in several hospitals and I've seen it with my own eyes.

Patients without coverage really do get inferior care. The incentive to the hospital to push those patients back out the door is irresistible. If the hospital is lucky, some county money will help cover the cost. More likely, the hospital will eat it itself.

In the end, we all pay because the hospital must charge its paying customers enough to stay in business. And this is the second breakthrough offered by SB 840: universal coverage.

Similar bills have twice before been passed. And twice our Governor has vetoed them.

Why would populist Governor Schwarzenegger oppose such an obviously smart move for the people of the State of California? To save the jobs of his insurance company friends and their powerful lobbies in Sacramento (our state capital).

Let's hope that this time the legislature will override him. And let California lead the country with a healthcare system that is affordable yet leaves no one out.

Postscript: With little fanfare and barely a mention in the press, on 9/30/2008, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed SB 840. He defended this action saying that he could not support "...a bill that places an annual shortfall of over $40 billion on our state's economy."

Chalk up another one for the lobbyists of Anthem (Blue Cross), Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana, Kaiser, Unicare...

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