Proposition	Yes	No	DK
45 – Justify Rates	69	16	15
46 – Drug Testing/Malpractice	58	30	12
47 – Sentencing	57	24	19

Measures draw ire of health insurance companies and doctors

by Brian Leubitz

The Field Poll has been doing a study of health care issues with the California Wellness Foundation, and today they released their numbers on the two health care related measures on the ballot. (Poll summary)

As you can see from the numbers to the right, the health insurance companies aren’t that popular. As you can see if you look a bit higher to the right, they are starting to spend on advertising. Their basic argument is that Prop 45 has some issues with possibly conflicting with Covered California. You can find lots of reports on both sides, and it is still something of an open question. Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones says that his office can easily handle the rate review process in the allotted period of time, and if he is right, then there shouldn’t be a problem. However, expect to see a lot of TV ads, mostly from the NO side.

On Prop 46, the malpractice limit is one of those issues that has split the Democratic party. Now, I have made my thoughts perfectly clear on MICRA, you can go back nearly five years when I wrote my first post on it, and I have further discussed it since. MICRA is great for malpractice insurance companies, because they get to keep hiking rates on doctors while their costs are controlled. But it is bad public policy.

Prop 46, though, has another element meant to curb substance abuse in doctors, and the terrible ramifications that has. That component has angered doctors and civil liberty groups, but has been popular with voters. All in all, the numbers are pretty healthy for the time being.

That being said, the opponents of Prop 46 have a lot of money, and will be using it this fall.

Prop 47, a sentencing reform measure, is good policy. However, it stands a decent shot of passage. There isn’t any big money opposed to this yet, but there is still time, I suppose.