Assembly, Governor agree on landmark healthcare reform bill
The Democratically controlled California State Assembly approved Republican Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger’s $14.4 billion healthcare reform bill today, over the objections of Republicans in the Legislature. The vote was split down party lines, 46-31. No Republican voted for the bill. North Coast Assemblywoman Patty Berg, a Democrat, spoke on behalf of the bill on the Assembly floor. The bill goes to the state Senate, and if approved there, to voters in November.
Don Perata, President Pro Tem of the state Senate, also controlled by Democrats, was noncommittal in his comments about the bill during the governor’s press conference about an hour ago. Perata has expressed skepticism about the cost of the bill because the state is projected to have a $14 billion budget deficit in the next fiscal year.
The bill has support from some major labor unions and large California corporations. And while Republicans in the Assembly and Senate are firing off press releases charging the governor and the Assembly Democrats with fiscal irresponsibility, the bill does have the backing of some other high-profile members of the California GOP.
Fresno Mayor Alan Autry, an ultraconservative Republican and like the governor a former actor, made a moving speech in favor of the bill during the press conference, recalling how his father died from poor after-surgery care in a hospital because he didn’t have health insurance.
The bill would require everybody in California to have health insurance, through employment, government programs, or private plans.
The system would be financed by a new tax on hospitals, an increase in the tobacco tax, billions of dollars in federal matching funds and a payroll tax on employers.