San Francisco Chronicle
April 18, 2002
By Victoria Colliver
Marking an unprecedented increase in health care costs, the board of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System said that its HMO premiums for 2003 will have to increase by an average 25.1 percent and that it will dump its PacifiCare and Health Net plans.
CalPERS officials mentioned several strategies to save money in 2003. They included what’s known as “single-risk pool,” a self-funded model that would put all employees in one pool and require everyone to pay the same amount for similar services.
Peter Lee, President and CEO of the Pacific Business Group on Health, a statewide purchasing coalition for major employers, saying that change needs to come from the state and federal government:
“This is a signal health care has to be at the top of legislative policy agenda.”
And from David Broder’s column in the April 17 edition of The Washington Post:
Dr. Henry Simmons, President of the National Coalition on Health Care (of which CalPERS is a member):
“The message is that the problem is far more serious than anybody in the political process is acknowledging. The incremental strategy is bankrupt. We need a big debate on how to get a grip on this system.”
Comment: The largest (next to the federal government) and most effective purchaser of health plans is on its knees, paying a 25% percent premium increase!
And now the president of the Pacific Group on Health, representing major employers, states that change needs to come from the state and federal government. And the president of a bipartisan coalition on health care states that the incremental strategy is bankrupt.
And the Los Angeles Times, in an editorial on April 16, states that the California Health Care Options Project “tells us there is a way to expand health coverage,” including three (of nine proposals) “that would provide universal coverage under a single payer system.”
Is there a message here?