California Groups Prepare For Universal Health Benefits

The California Medical Association, Sacramento, Calif., helped write the bill, and a variety of consumer groups and labor groups support it.

Most California employer groups, the Health Insurance Association of America, Washington, and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors-California, Sacramento, oppose the bill, but CAHU and the California Association of Health Plans, Sacramento, are neutral.

"We support, in general, the concept of universal health care coverage," says CAHP President Steven Tough. But S.B. 2 "is a skeletal construction." The structure of the MRMIB health insurance purchasing pool is particularly unclear, he adds.

Steve Lindsay, CAHUs lobbyist, also criticizes the haziness of the S.B. 2 purchasing pool provisions.

Supporters say S.B. 2 will cost only $1.5 billion and help up to 1 million state residents get health coverage, but the Employment Policies Institute, Washington, a pro-business think tank, says implementing S.B. 2 could lead to layoffs, wage cuts and benefits cuts that would cost California workers $11 billion.

Even if Davis signs S.B. 2, opponents might block implementation by turning to the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a law that forbids states from regulating employee benefits.

Shifts in the political climate also could affect implementation. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the top Republican candidate for governor, opposes the bill. "We simply cant afford to add another tax, another mandate on business," he says.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Life & Health/Financial Services Edition, October 3, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.