Consumer, Labor Coalition Position on Governor's Veto of AB8
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
Contact: Sev Williams |
On Tuesday this week, the Governor said that we have the opportunity to make the most significant progress on healthcare reform in the last 100 years. Today, he vetoed the best chance at taking advantage of that opportunity, AB 8. This isn’t the way to build a legacy.
AB 8 is a substantive, thoughtful, and realistic framework for the most significant healthcare expansion since MediCare was founded in the 1960’s. Unlike the Governor’s plan, AB 8 traveled through a full, deliberative legislative process and grew better as a result, picking up consumer protections, cost control measures, and an affordability standard along the way. It was hard work, but well worth it, and the final version of the bill earned the endorsement of our coalition, representing more than 100 consumer, community, and labor organizations who together have more than 10 million California members.
In other words, the Governor just made history, but not the kind he’s trying to make: he missed an historic opportunity. At every level, the Governor’s plan is not yet “reality-based.” Let’s start with the people most affected – all of us as healthcare consumers: being required to buy insurance, even if we can’t afford it or if we can’t afford to use the skimpy plans we can afford, is not real healthcare.
But the wishful thinking betrayed by this veto goes beyond the policies and their real-life implications. The Governor just vetoed a plan that was crafted as a whole and recognizes the complexity of the healthcare system and its many pieces. His own plan seems to be to advance a framework he knows will go down to defeat, then enter a 2-week negotiation and horse trade. This might work for slot machines. It won’t do for healthcare, where you can’t split the baby without spilling blood.
Then, looking beyond the “deal,” the Governor proposes to sell voters a complex, 200-page plan that is disliked by both the left and the right. Anyone familiar with elections in California knows this is a non-starter. The Governor’s plan can’t win a majority, period, but especially if it faces organized or well-funded opposition.
But there is a way out of the box the Governor and his staff have created for themselves and all of us. They need to press pause, rewind, then get past this mistake. When he sits down with the legislature in the coming weeks, he needs to look at the whole system of change proposed by AB 8 afresh – out of the box of his own proposal, away from the pressures of the special interests, and with consumers’ best interests as his constant guide.
If he does that, we still have a chance to make history this year. And it will look a lot like AB 8. If he doesn’t, he’ll be remembered for his healthcare legacy as the Governor who postponed reform for another generation.
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October 12, 2007 at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Blog Reactions
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