Health insurance reforms bolstered

At a news conference in Los Angeles attended by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Studies released new research that shows a continuing downward slide in the number of Californians who have employer-provided health insurance.

The center's findings show the percentage of California adults under 65 with job-based insurance dropped from 56.4 percent in 2001 to 54.3 percent in 2005. The drop translates into a loss of coverage for 678,000 people.

"What we're seeing is the rapid erosion of our health insurance system," said Richard Brown, director of the research center. "Without substantial reform, the coverage of millions of working families and individuals will be threatened as rising healthcare costs continue to make employment-based insurance unaffordable."

At the same time, researchers at UC Berkeley's Labor Center released a report that says enactment of a law to require employers to either provide insurance or pay a fee to the state would have negligible effect on the state's economy.

The report says the mandate would result in no net job losses and that in a matter of two to three years the increased costs to California businesses would be at most one-tenth of 1 percent of operating costs.

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