Expanded health coverage tops CA governor's list of goals
Speech short of specifics on how to pay for the uninsured

By Laura Mecoy
Sacramento Bee
November 15, 2006

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, expressing confidence this year's bipartisan cooperation will continue next year, said Tuesday the state should "definitely" be able to cut the ranks of the state's 6 million without health coverage by at least half.

The governor said health care would be one of his administration's "main agendas" next year, along with improving school accountability, easing prison overcrowding and political reform.

"We feel we shouldn't have 6 million people uninsured," he said. "We maybe cannot solve the whole problem, but we definitely can cut it in half and do something that really is impressive and show the rest of the nation that it can be done."

Schwarzenegger made the comments during a luncheon speech to a seminar hosted by the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs.

He gave no specifics of how he would finance such a large expansion in health coverage or how extensive the coverage might be.

Adam Mendelsohn, the Republican governor's communications director, said Schwarzenegger hasn't settled on the details of his health care program.

"These are reflections of principles and ideas that are driving the policy discussion inside the administration," Mendelsohn said. "All of these ideas will be worked out in collaboration with Republicans and Democrats."

Robert K. Ross, president of the California Endowment, heard the governor's comments and said he was "certainly energized after 10 years or more of waiting for something to come on health care reform."

"It sounds like his statements today are signaling that while health care reform is at the top of his list, he appears to be taking a stepwise approach," Ross said.

Beth Capell, a spokeswoman for Health Access, a coalition of more than 200 consumer and community groups that lobby for increased health care coverage for Californians, estimates providing coverage for 3 million people would cost about $6 billion.

"We want to see every Californian have affordable, quality health care, and we want to make progress toward that goal," Capell said. "The governor has yet to say affordable for whom."

Anthony Wright, Health Access' executive director, said the governor's no-new-taxes pledge and his opposition to past health care programs make it difficult for Schwarzenegger to extend coverage to the uninsured.

"Whether the goal is covering a million, 3 million or all of the uninsured, the question is: How are you going to do it?" Wright said. "This governor has had a couple of proposals in front of him which he has rejected."

In September, Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have created a universal health care system run by the state.

In addition to health care, the governor said he would seek to increase school accountability next year. He said he wants to make so much information available about schools that parents could shop for their child's education on the Internet, like they "shop for cars or for shoes."

He said parents should then be able to send their children to schools in other districts "rather than being tied to just one school district."

Parents can get information about their schools on the Internet now and can transfer to other districts. But the district must have space and be willing to accept their child.

Schwarzenegger said he's already talking to lawmakers about working together to relieve overcrowding in the state's prisons.

"We are going to go and take care of this problem of our prisons that are bursting," he said.

He said he's "in synch" with state Sen. Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat who's become a legislative prison oversight specialist. He said he's already told the senator that "everything should be on the table, and that I am open-minded about this."

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, addressed the same luncheon as Schwarzenegger and said the governor agreed on the same remedy for the state's ailing finances.

Both said the economic activity generated by the $42 billion in infrastructure bonds California voters approved last week would make up for the downturn in the state's housing market.

"There will be so much construction activity going on that where the private sector will fall off, the public sector will pick up," Schwarzenegger said.

He said the bond-financed construction would create 750,000 new jobs in the state over the next 10 years.

"I have this great vision of the future and total confidence we can solve this problem and lower the structural deficit and eventually wipe it out," he said.

Perata said lawmakers must avoid squabbling over projects that should be financed and move quickly to begin construction to "keep faith" with the voters.

The voters "are feeling much better about California than they are about the country, and what we have to do is validate that," he said. "We can't spend a lot of time figuring out how to carve the turkey up."


Back to Home »