Democratic state lawmakers are embracing the one solution to spiraling health care costs that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he has ruled out: eliminating private insurance plans in favor of a single-payer system that allows the state government to buy health services for everyone. With three weeks left in the legislative session, a single-payer bill, Senate Bill 840 by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, is heading toward the Assembly floor for a vote. The measure establishes a system that, in theory, would be funded by payroll taxes on businesses of 8 percent and individual income taxes of 3 percent. Those taxes would replace the premiums that individuals and businesses now pay to insurance companies. But SB 840 would not actually allocate funding for the new program, and the single-payer approach could not go into effect until either voters or the Legislature approved the costs separately.
At a rally of several hundred unionized school workers on the Capitol steps Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, proclaimed his support. "I think it's good for business, and I think it's good for consumers," Núñez said after the rally. "My hope is that we can convince the governor that we think this is the right thing to do."
The Senate in June passed SB 840 by a vote of 24-14, before it was amended to contain the payroll and income tax provisions. The Republican governor has criticized the single-payer approach as a "tax increase." Schwarzenegger has said he will release his proposal for making health care more accessible to Californians in January, if he is re-elected in the November general election. He supports streamlining private insurance coverage through the use of new technology and other approaches that make private insurance coverage more affordable. "His concerns are that none of the health care proposals that have been sent to his desk have addressed health care affordability," said Sabrina Demayo Lockhart, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger.
Advocates of SB 840 say their plan will save consumers and businesses about $8 billion a year because the government will be able to negotiate lower prices with health care providers. "The governor just doesn't get it," Kuehl told the members of the California School Employees Association who were rallying at the Capitol on Wednesday.
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Part of the reality behind government hospital statistics
On the day Premier Peter Beattie called an election, this picture is a reminder that one of Queensland's most pressing problems - its health system - is far from fixed. Mr Beattie was pressing the flesh at The Ekka yesterday, and presided over what was probably his last Cabinet meeting before announcing a snap poll today. This while the parents of one-month-old Deisha Magic-Stevens were hoping their gravely ill baby did not become the latest victim of the state's health system.
Baby Deisha needs an urgent operation to repair a hole in her heart, but three times in the past two weeks doctors at Brisbane's Mater Children's Hospital have had to cancel her life-saving operation because of a lack of intensive care beds.
In desperation, her father David Stevens, 42, has written a letter on Deisha's behalf to Mr Beattie expressing dismay at the current state of Queensland public hospitals. In his letter Mr Stevens said another seven babies have "had to have their operations cancelled this week for the same reason". "They now tell me that may be next week, but they just don't know. I have been told I am a priority because I need heart surgery. Priority must have a different meaning in your state," Mr Stevens wrote. "One thing that has been positive is the support and care factor from the nurses and doctors who, I might add, quite often have to work double shifts due to staff shortages. Mr Beattie, this is not a good way to bring a new Queenslander into the world," Mr Stevens said in his letter.
He said he had read about the problems in the state's public hospitals but "it is not until it affects you that you realise how bad it is". "The doctors and staff have bent over backwards. The frustration is in their face each time the surgery is put off."
In March, The Courier-Mail revealed the unnecessary deaths of several infants because of inferior pediatric cardiac services in Queensland. A review identified shortcomings in the intensive care facilities of the three major public hospitals providing the service. In response, Health Minister Stephen Robertson set up a taskforce to assess the review. Queensland Health yesterday confirmed a further eight pediatric cardiac procedures had been postponed in recent weeks.
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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?
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