By Anthony York and Chris Megerian
Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2013
With California’s deficit wiped out and its economy starting to hum, this was to be a year when Gov. Jerry Brown was free of the budget logjams that have paralyzed the Capitol.
But instead, the governor has a fight on his hands ā with his fellow Democrats. He is on a collision course with them over how to reshape the state’s sprawling, complicated healthcare system to conform with President Obama’s national overhaul.
The sticking points in extending public healthcare to more Californians include how many to add to state insurance rolls, how much to pay doctors and hospitals, and how much money to give counties for their care of the indigent.
The Democrats who control the Legislature ā with a veto-proof supermajority ā want to make it easier to obtain public insurance than Brown does and send more money to the doctors, hospitals and counties than the governor wants to part with.
The major bill that would expand public insurance under Medi-Cal is from Assembly Speaker John A. PĆ©rez (D-Los Angeles). The measure would make it easier for Californians to enroll in the program by allowing people to sign up online and eliminating requirements that recipients file semiannual financial reports to prove they are still eligible.
Administration officials have said the governor opposes those changes out of concern that the easier enrollment process could lead to fraud.
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-brown-healthcare-20130511,0,6700749.story
Comment:
By Don McCanne, M.D.
Isn’t the idea of the Affordable Care Act to get as many people covered as is possible, considering the administrative complexities of this highly flawed model of reform? So what does California Governor Jerry Brown recommend? Do not make enrollment easier since it might lead to fraud!
Enrollment fraud could not possibly occur under a single payer system since it automatically enrolls everyone. We need a change in attitude. A single payer system would start us thinking in the right way about how to cover everyone and still pay for it.