By Sheila Kuehl — Special to The Bee
Published 12:01 am PDT Sunday, August 20, 2006
I couldn’t agree more with the editorial that health care reform must start on the common ground that our current system is failing everyone involved.
However, the increasing costs of health insurance premiums are bankrupting our state, our businesses and working families. One in five Californians has no health insurance today, and increasing numbers of businesses are planning to drop their health insurance by next year.
Nibbling around the edges with incremental change is not enough. We need courageous and thoughtful reform that provides what all Californians want — affordable access to good-quality health care. This is what SB 840 achieves.
The current health care system and attempts at “reform” fail because they simply bicker about who is going to pay instead of addressing the underlying reasons for out-of-control health care costs. The Sacramento Bee highlights the approach taken in Massachusetts, which, if applied in California, would legally require everyone to purchase private health insurance policies and pay endlessly increasing premiums into the current system that is completely broken. Proponents of the model in Massachusetts even say the reform is not workable in California.
We are spending $186 billion a year on health care right now. With caps on administrative overhead, these monies are more than enough to provide every California resident with excellent health care. We don’t need to spend more on health care; we need to stop wasting our health care dollars on insurance company administration.
Insurance companies do not improve the quality of health care we receive, and they do not provide choices. Instead, insurance companies limit the choices we have. They oppose legislation extending coverage to lifesaving health screenings for infants, hearing aids for children and effective Alzheimer’s medications. Instead of providing simple, straightforward health care coverage, they waste billions of dollars on complicated insurance schemes designed to screen out patients who need health care and to reduce payments to doctors.
Universal health care is the best answer, and it is possible now. SB 840 works by pooling our health care resources so that everyone — state and federal government, income earners and employers — all pay in, and Californians all get quality coverage. SB 840 reduces costs and guarantees your right to choose your own doctor. It saves businesses money and is affordable for families.
Polls show that a majority of Californians support universal health care — there is no more common ground than that.
About the writer: Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, is responding to The Bee’s Aug. 13 editorial “Health reform must start on common ground.” She can be reached at senator.kuehl@sen.ca.gov