SB 840, the California Universal Healthcare Act, passed the Legislature and went to the governor's desk on September 5, 2008. This is the second time in two years that Senator Sheila Kuehl's single payer bill has made it that far. Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill the first time around, and is expected to do it again. Nonetheless, Kuehl is urging him to carefully consider SB 840 (click here for her letter), and the progressive health care community is mobilizing to send Schwarzenegger the message that if he is serious about health care reform, he should sign the bill.

SB 840 is all the more important given the failure earlier this year of the bipartisan health care overhaul, ABX11, offered by Governor Schwarzenegger and the state Assembly, which was deep-sixed by the Senate Health Committee with only one "aye" vote. The committee members voting against were split between the Republicans, who were opposed to anything that impinges on corporate control over health care, and progressive Democrats, who support reform but felt the Schwarzenegger/Nunez plan wasn't good enough.

The CFT, along with most of the labor movement, didn't like that ABX11 mandated insurance for every individual, but with no guarantee that the coverage would be affordable and adequate. It would have required employers to pay to privately insure their workers, or pay the equivalent into a state fund. But the governor's version of this "pay or play" approach was underfunded. As State Senator Sheila Kuehl pointed out, this would have "at best provided high-cost, low-benefit plans for many Californians; it limits what employers pay but not what individuals must pay or what insurance companies can charge."

There are two things we can work on right now in California to address the need for affordable, universal access to health care. We can educate the public about the best long term solution, a single payer model for health care, like State Senator Sheila Kuehl's SB 840. Since the governor in all likelihood will veto the bill, a single payer approach remains a long term goal. In the meantime, we can deliver as much coverage as possible to as many people as possible by supporting the work of Health Access, the Education Coalition for Health Care Reform, and the California Health Care Coalition.

The Problem

Health care insurance costs are spiraling out of control. Forty seven million Americans are without health care coverage, including seven million Californians. Premium cost increases are affecting the finances of schools (health care costs an average of 14.5% of payroll in California school districts today), and snarling collective bargaining. Corporations are forcing unions out on strike over reductions in or outright elimination of health care coverage.

The CFT believes that ultimately we need a single-payer health care system, like Canada's, to solve the problems created in this country by for-profit health insurance corporations. This would put the United States in the company of every other major industrial nation in the world, each of whom spend less per capita on health care than we do, while delivering universal access.

The solution: Single Payer

The CFT in 2006 endorsed the first version of State Senator Sheila Kuehl's SB 840, "Health Care for All," which would have established a single-payer health care program in California. In an historic advance, SB 840 passed the State Legislature in late August 2006—the first time a single-payer bill has gotten that far toward law. However, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed SB 840, proclaiming at the same time he was for universal health care, even as he refused to sign the only bill he's received that would create it (read Senator Kuehl's critique of the governor's remarks).

Senator Kuehl reintroduced the bill on February 27, 2007, and CFT reiterated its support at its convention in March. See CFT President Marty Hittelman's speech at an SB 840 support rally on May 8, 2007 (3 minute Quicktime video).

Based on the Canadian model, single-payer leaves health care provision in a mix of public and private hands, just as in the U.S., but cuts out the wasteful health insurance industry, which takes between 25 and 30% of every health care dollar spent in the United States for administrative overhead and profit. In Canada, there are no uninsured; everyone has health care coverage. Is it a perfect system? There is no such thing. But is far superior by virtually every measure to the deteriorating system controlled by for-profit greed in the U.S.

Health care reform coalition efforts

Right now the most important thing you can do is to tell Schwarzenegger to sign SB 840, and also to support the legislature's efforts to push through more modest and incremental but still significant health care reform bills. At the federal level, the CFT supports HR 676, which would create a single payer system for the country by expanding Medicare to all Americans and funding it adequately.

Whatever happens this year, the CFT and other education labor groups have joined in long term efforts with administrative and school board organizations in the Education Coalition for Health Care Reform to find a way to stabilize costs while increasing quality. The group is determined to address the systemic reasons for high cost and low quality health care, and committed to shifting from paying higher and higher prices to joint action against industry price gouging and poor quality health care. A similar effort is underway in the California Health Care Coalition, a labor-led group which is seeking to make provider services data more transparent and accessible in order to bring greater accountability to treatment and payment.

You can be a part of the ongoing effort to achieve affordable health care coverage for all. Health care should be a right, not a privilege.

Resources

• Health Care Reform and You, a CFT slide show
• Sheila Kuehl's SB 840
• Sample school board resolution supporting SB 840
• Article on the Education Coalition for Health Care Reform
• Education Coalition for Health Care Reform materials
• California Labor Federation's "It's Our Health Care" campaign
• How would a "single payer" health care system work?
• Watch a single payer animation
• Health Access California, a statewide health care advocacy coalition (CFT is a member organization) has a great deal of information on health care policy in California
• Physicians for a National Health Program, doctors for single payer; information, studies, slideshows

News articles and columns

• California "creeping" along on universal heatlh care, Sacramento Bee, 4/5/08
• An exodus from Medi-Cal, Los Angeles Times, 3/24/08
• California among worst in providing health insurance through jobs, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/2/07
• Nation's health care crisis gets personal, Los Angeles Times, 10/7/07
• State panel told of retirees' concerns, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/28/07
• Taxpayers pick up Bush's bill, San Francisco Chronicle, 7/25/07
• Californians support major change in health care, Sacramento Bee, 6/28/07
• Health care plan veto won't stop lawmaker, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/15/07
• Teachers seethe as school districts reach impasse, San Francisco Chronicle, 4/7/07
• The State of Healthcare, The Nation, 1/23/07
• A second, third, and fourth opinion on healthcare, Los Angeles Times, 1/9/07
• The Canadian system, SF Chronicle, 10/14/04
• States Battle Wal-Mart Over Health Care, New York Times, 11/1/04
• Single payer is a cure for California's ailing health care system, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/7/2006