Speaking at a news conference at the state capitol today, both Governor Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez pledged to regroup with organized labor, consumer, hospital and insurance groups to keep pushing a comprehensive plan that would provide universal coverage. Nunez even vowed to give SB 840 the type of scrutiny his plan received in the Senate.
Oh my, how the mighty have fallen. The health care overhaul brokered by the popular Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and power-wielding Speaker Fabian Nunez could only manage one single vote in a Senate health committee. How can a bill that is supported by insurance companies, business chambers and organized labor fail? The politics of backroom deals, that's how. The people never supported it.
(AB 493 is an interesting idea. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
The Clean Car Discount bill -- AB 493 (Ruskin) -- is alive, and will be up for a vote in the State Assembly at the end of this month.
This global warming solutions bill would create an incentive program of clean vehicle rebates and emissions surcharges on the purchase of new vehicles sold in the state. Cleaner vehicles that have fewer emissions of global warming pollution would earn a rebate--the cleaner the car, the higher the rebate. These rebates would be funded by one-time surcharges on new dirtier, gas-guzzler vehicles. The worse the vehicle, the higher the surcharge. A bunch of vehicles--including several mini-vans--would fall roughly in the middle and receive neither a rebate nor a surcharge.
With the Bush Administration continuing to block California's efforts to implement global warming vehicle regulations, this bill becomes that much more important.
Several Legislators who are on the fence need to hear from activists and constituents THIS month!
(Absolutely. Pushing a rushed reform compromise in two weeks would be a travesty, and it speaks to how deeply broken the legislative process is, because it creates all of these bottlenecks that, deliberately IMO, stifle debate. Sen. Kuehl makes a ton of sense here. However, I would be open to a special session to get something done if the process were made more open. - promoted by David Dayen)
Health Reform and the Year of Magical Thinking
The Year of Magical Thinking is the title of a memoir by Joan Didion detailing her state of denial, inexplicable behaviors and, finally, coming to grips with, the death of her husband. It's also an apt description of the Governor's 2007 approach to reforming our broken healthcare system, with the glaring difference that he still hasn't come to grips with the truth. (After all, if a complicated movie plot could be resolved in less than two hours, who not fix healthcare in California in nine months?)
Beginning in January, the Governor ordered his health advisors to sketch the outlines of a plan that would magically "cover" all Californians by simply requiring them to buy health insurance. To this moment, he has refused to negotiate any of his major points with the Legislature. The language for his plan was finally drafted five months later, and shown, under wraps, to a few, select people. Not one legislator agreed with it, and no one would carry the bill as legislation.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez have been sparring in the press over the relative merits of AB8 (the Democratic plan) and Arnold's plan, which has never made it into bill form. Heck, it hasn't even been fully fleshed out to actually be real legislation, rather than a policy paper. Since, Arnold never took the steps to find a legislator to carry it as actual legislation, Nunez announced today that he was going to do it for him. And he is going to put it up to a vote by midweek. SacBee:
"The governor has threatened to veto the Democratic bill and insists there's support for his concepts and we'd like to see if there is," said Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for Núñez. Maviglio said the Assembly would aim for a Thursday or Friday vote next week, with the speaker as a possible author of the legislation.
It should go without saying that there is not a whole lot of support for the governor's plan. First of all, it is incomplete. Secondly, the Democrats rather like their plan and the Republicans don't particularly want to reform health care.
(I love me some liveblogging. Just so everyone is clear: SB 840 is Keuhl's single payer bill and AB 8 is the Nunez/Perata bill that stays within the private insurance model. - promoted by juls)
Things are about to get underway as It's OUR Healthcare! will be liveblogging from the John L. Burton Hearing Room where the Senate Health Committee chaired by SB 840 author, State Senator Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), will meet at 1:30pm.
Senator Kuehl is setting the ground rules for the hearing. (No cheering, clapping or booing.)
Scheduled to speak are the Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland).
The voices of the casino workers were heard within the Capitol today. Hundreds of red-shirted workers gathered on the North steps for a rally and then marched inside in an orderly fashion to do some lobbying. The event culminated as over two hundred UNITE-HERE members chanted from the second story of the rotunda "¡Si, Se Puede!" just steps from the office of Speaker Fabian Nunez. The dome amplified the chants as staffers poked their heads out of their office doors and the CHP scrambled to ensure the direct action did not get out of control.
The events today were the last big push by the workers to ensure that workers rights were included in the Indian gaming compacts that the legislature is about to vote on. At issue are the basic workers rights protections that workers have under California law. In particular, the right to use check cards to indicate the desire of workers to form a union.
It is that exact right that is actually being heard in the U.S. Senate ironically today, as part of the Employee Free Choice Act. The Democratic leadership here in the state legislature has been indicating that they are siding with the tribes on the establishment of right to work colonies in the casinos. Dozens of labor leaders, including Working Californians' co-chairs Marvin Kropke and Brian D'Arcy signed on to a letter to Senator Perata and Speaker Nunez recently. Here is an excerpt from that letter:
The May Revised budget was released by Arnold yesterday. He wants to pay off some bonds early, sell off State assets and make cuts to welfare for children, the blind and elderly. That prompted John Meyers to ask Arnold if that was like "making an extra mortgage payment when you can't pay the utility bills." Naturally, Arnold did not have a good answer, simply saying it was not an ideal situation, but he wanted to pay off more debt.
Yes, the state is facing a revenue slump for the first time in years, but like Fabian Nunez says, this budget it "mean spirited". Its priorities are out of whack.
There is major public support for single payer health care in California, according to the PPIC poll released today. Arnold is in the minority with his opposition to this concept.
Think Californians don't like taxes? Sort of. Sixty-one percent said they would prefer a "universal health care system" where everyone is covered by a government program and "financed by taxpayers," over the current system. Of course, this is a two-option choice. But 63% supported raising taxes to "guarantee health insurance for all citizens." And 54% said they would generally favor higher taxes for more services. This is good news for lawmakers such as state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, who is attempting to do just that, but also gives a little breathing room for Schwarzenegger as he attempts to surcharge doctors, hospitals and employers for his universal plan. And even larger number, 71%, said they favored Schwarzenegger's plan for shared responsibility.
The study shows real viable public support for major health care reform. Californians are willing to pay more taxes to have government run health care. They also support Arnold's plan. That may sound contradictory, but it makes one thing clear, they want something done about our current health care system. It is not working. They live with it on a daily basis and want to see change.
One of the worst parts about our current health care system is the ability of insurance companies to deny people coverage because of preexisting conditions. They are slowly turning it into a system where only healthy people can get insurance. I recently had to sign up for health insurance, luckily I am very healthy, young and do not have major hereditary problems. Others are not so lucky.
(Good piece to start a discussion with. - promoted by bolson)
The California Democratic Party is in trouble. Whereas on the national level grassroots Democrats have done a good job of wresting the DNC out of the hands of the corrupt (and corrupting) corporate donor types, on the state level we haven't been able to do the same yet. The two examples I have of the problems with the state party are the money laundering for Fabian Nunez and the failure of the wealthy elites who run the party to stand behind Angelides. See below the fold for more.
(I disagree, but it's worthy of discussion. - promoted by SFBrianCL)
In a recent diary, I alleged that the Legislature killed phil. Apparently, this isn't such a strech. An article in today's LA Times details the friendship between Fabian Nunez and Arnold, and speculates that this is a pro-Villaraigosa 2008 move.
Not surprisingly, I got a lot of flack, because I dared say that Angelides wasn't rocking the house.
I know a lot of you are passionate about this election, and I respect that. Personally, I have a lot more invested in the federal elections, hoping one chamber gets back, but I think this article above provides some non-blogger support for what I've written.
NOTE: I will be voting for Angelides. I do NOT support Arnold and never have.
California Democrats were faced with the choice of two Pyrrhic victories this year. Play partisan hardball (a la Republican Congress) with the Governor after his 2005 special election defeat and nudge people towards Angelides, or deal with Arnold and destroy motivation for independents to head to the polls in November.
They chose the later, and it's done a lot of good, but it will Kill Phil.
