Guaranteed Healthcare

In a season of wild stories, here’s the next one: Governor Arnold is facing a recall, just as his state is falling apart and some crucial healthcare bills are waiting to be signed.  This new threat to his term opens a window of opportunity to push some of those bills through.

He's got no one to blame but himself.  There’s a ridiculous case of budget gridlock hitting California right now…the budget is historically late, key bills are stalled, the most vulnerable among us are threatened, and there is not a single Republican willing to support the budget proposed by either Republican Governor Schwarzenegger or the legislative Dems. 

Into this tinderbox, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) has just thrown a match.  They’ve started the process to recall Arnold Schwarzenegger, an accidental governor who assumed office when his processor was recalled.

Politicians and pundits forget that we still have a public health infrastructure that still fights to prevent preventable diseases like polio, measles, tuberculosis, HIV, std's and would be called upon in a city-wide disaster to provide care and comfort to traumatized citizens left high and dry by natural events.

We are still the safety net for now 48 million Americans without health insurance and even those with insurance  who cannot afford to pay the rising costs of their own care. We are the "white line" against disaster, communicable diseases and those with no real access to care.  But, because of cuts, especially here in California by Arnold Schwarzenegger, medicare and other state programs which for the Govenator has become the only way to ease our budget woes , this thin white line in the sand,  faces more strains than ever before.  We need to get serious about single-payer sooner rather than later.  The public's health is at risk without it.

The big news in the movement for single-payer healthcare is that they’re busy putting lipstick on the pig…by which I mean that the California legislature, in the aftermath of Arnold's failed plan, is looking on improving the health insurance corporations’ behavior and products.   Let’s turn to our healthcare hero: 

"In the aggregate, it could be pretty significant," said Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), chairwoman of the Senate Health Committee, of the legislation. "I think it's just getting to the point where the opposition has just overreached so badly and the insurance companies' actions have been so egregious that both sides of the aisle are getting fed up with them."

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I hate to be melodramatic, but that’s pretty much what it comes down to.

At least according to today’s report finding that America is last among industrialized democracies in terms of infant mortality.  Because our healthcare system is set up to guarantee billions of dollars of profit to unnecessary insurance corporations, kids born here are more likely to die than they are in countries with guaranteed healthcare through the single-payer model.

The Los Angeles Times reports this morning that one of the nation's largest health insurers paid bonuses to its employees for kicking sick people off the health insurance rolls, including approving chemo therapy for a 51 year-old woman, then cancelling her policy immediately afterward.

The revelation that the health plan had cancellation goals and bonuses comes amid a storm of controversy over the industry-wide but long-hidden practice of rescinding coverage after expensive medical treatments have been authorized.

And these are the people that Mitt Romney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Clinton/Edwards/Obama see as the answer to our healthcare crisis?

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee said today that it will oppose the latest healthcare plan proposed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, which would sentence patients to patients to forced insurance, threats to seize wages to pay the premiums of the very for-profit insurance companies who are speedily wrecking our health care system, and no controls on the costs patients would be legally required to bear.

“As more details continue to emerge, it is apparent that this proposal is riddled with flaws that could exacerbate the healthcare crisis for countless numbers of California families,” said CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.

Amidst the talk of the 2008 Senate races, Senator Barbara Boxer may be the most endangered incumbent in the class of 2010.

Polling came out this week finding that she narrowly trails Arnold Schwarzenegger in a projected matchup.

And now the health insurance industry has come up with a devilish scheme to prop up Arnold, increase their revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars, end the drive for genuine healthcare reform all in one fell swoop…with Boxer’s Senate seat being collateral damage in this scenario.

The movement for guaranteed healthcare remains centered this week in California, as plans based on huge public subsidies for insurance corporations wend their way through a special session of the legislature.  The good news?  In-fighting has broken out between Governor Schwarzenegger and some of the Dems in the legislature, making it harder for them to reach the anti-patient compromise they're shooting for.  RNs and patient advocates, among other groups, continue to monitor the situation and work to ensure that any bills hurting patients are defeated. 

Nationally, the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report looks at the health care angles of the latest Republican Presidential debate.  Seems like they’re more interested in attacking Hillary Clinton than the healthcare crisis.

More than SCHIP, the important action in the movement for guaranteed healthcare is happening in California, where the insurance industry almost pulled off the big scam, getting Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Speaker Fabian Nunez to cooperate on a plan forcing the sale of more expensive, unworkable insurance products—and blocking the guaranteed, single-payer reform this country needs.

Good news!  The Schwarzenegger-Nunez scam is dead!  This is a major victory for progressives, patients, and nurses.  The Dems have figured out how bad a deal Schwarzenegger is offering, and the plan’s main cheerleader Nunez is near-dead politically by revelations that his wife is now on the hospital industry payroll to the tune of six figures, and that he is struggling with a nasty case of luxury shopaholism with donor money.

Nunez Forced to Recuse Himself from ALL Healthcare Votes??

In a stunning turn, it appears that Speaker Fabian Nunez must recuse himself from any votes on healthcare legislations—including any attempts to revive AB 8, the healthcare bill that Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed this month.

The Sacramento Bee reported this morning that Maria Robles, the wife of Fabian Nunez, has accepted a six-figure salary with Californians for Patient Care, a front group for the hospital industry that receives approximately 99% of its funding from the California Hospital Association.