Speaker Fabian Nunez went to the LA Times editorial board last week to tell them about the big plans he and Arnold Schwarzenegger are dreaming up: to take their hasty, half-cooked, gift-to-the-insurance-industry-masquerading-as-a-healthcare-reform-plan straight to the voters as a ballot initiative next year.

Not so fast.  A new poll release today by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee finds considerable unease among the California public over the Schwarzenegger-Nunez plan.  Voters don’t want a bad bill just for the sake of having a bill; they don’t want a bill born from a dirty political deal; and they don’t want a bill that simply won’t work.  All of which adds up to trouble for the healthcare deal currently known as AB 8.  It would likely start out under 50% in the polls, and face an uphill struggle that would only get harder as voters learn about the opposition from the state’s nurses and healthcare activists.

The tragedy here is that these politicians are playing games while we have a historic opportunity to rid our healthcare system of the insurance industry that is poisoning it.  Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s SB 840 is based on the very systems that are succeeding in every other industrialized democracy in the world. 

This is a high-stakes issue not just for patients in California, but also for the future direction of the movement for healthcare reform around the country.  Fortunately, voters have smelled the rat.…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner surveyed 700 voters on behalf of the California Nurses Association about the Schwarzenegger-Nunez healthcare plan.  The toplines:

More than two-thirds of California voters – a margin of 68 percent to 25 percent – said they prefer “making sure we pass healthcare reform that gets it right and improves the system, and not take the risk of passing bad legislation.”

More worrisome for the prospects of a ballot initiative:

In the Greenberg Quinlan poll, when provided a favorable description of AB 8, a plurality, but not a majority, of voters said they supported the bill, by a 49-40 percent.
But once voters were told of serious flaws in the bill, opposition rose to 50 percent while support fell to just 35 percent. And, when told it was opposed by nurses, opposition climbed further to 57 percent while support fell to just 25 percent.

Any ballot initiative that starts under 55% support is likely to lose.  But if voters had the option of voting for real reform, things might be different:

By contrast, by a huge margin of 70 percent to 21 percent, voters said they would be willing to pay more for a health plan that covered everyone, had no co-pays or deductibles, wasn’t attached to one’s job, and guaranteed choice of doctor or hospital. That’s the approach reflected in Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s SB 840 single-payer bill.
Further, that approach won support among voters across political lines, by Democrats, 77-13 percent; independents, 72-20 percent; and Republicans 60-32 percent.

And, of course, ethical concerns are key here:

Two-thirds of the voters, 67 percent, said they would have a less favorable opinion of their legislator if they learned he or she was supporting AB 8 “for political reasons” to seek Gov. Schwarzenegger’s backing for the term limits initiative, to 15 percent who said they would have a more favorable opinion.

In case you missed the LA Times story Saturday about the grand Nunez-Scwharzenegger deal here it is:

“I think we’re on the verge of doing something huge,” Nuñez told The Times’ editorial board Friday.

The plan would require all Californians to have insurance and would give subsidies to those unable to afford coverage. It would also address the problems of the private insurance market

In other words, Californians would be driven into the arms of the for-profit insurance industry exposed in Sicko.  And despite the line above, there is no way to make this equation affordable-as the Massachusetts mandate mess made clear.

And don’t miss healthcare hero Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s explanation for why magical thinking won’t fix our healthcare mess.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

I mentioned this in the Quickies, but it deserves some front-page attention.  The San Jose Mercury News has delved deeper (reg. req’d) into the connections between the GOP law firm pushing the dirty trick initiative to steal the 2008 Presidential election, and past ratfucking operations of years past.  At the top of the list is the key financier from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Lawyers behind a California ballot proposal that could benefit the 2008 Republican presidential nominee have ties to a Texas homebuilder who financed attacks on Democrat John Kerry’s Vietnam War record in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Charles H. Bell and Thomas Hiltachk’s (Arnold’s former personal lawyer -ed.) law firm banked nearly $65,000 in fees from a California-based political committee funded almost solely by Bob J. Perry that targeted Democrats in 2006. Perry, a major Republican donor, contributed nearly $4.5 million to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that made unsubstantiated but damaging attacks on Kerry three years ago.

The Perry-financed committee in California, the Economic Freedom Fund, continued to spend money this year, mostly on legal expenses tied to an ongoing legal dispute in Indiana over phone calls made to voters in 2006. It lists the Sacramento law office’s address as its home and its Web site directs contributions to the firm, Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk. In addition, Bell serves as the committee’s treasurer.

I highlighted that other bit because it’s significant that Perry also financed the major dirty trick of the 2006 election: numerous illegal robocalls to voters in swing districts, pretending to be from Democrats.  So the same law firm trying to split California’s electoral votes have taken cash from the major Republican dirty tricks operations over the last several years.

It’s unclear whether Perry has given to this current power grab.  But with his name in the rolodex, it would be absurd to think he won’t.

Here’s a little more on the law firm, Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk:

Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk is one of the most politically involved law firms in the state. According to a news story on its Web site, Bell keeps a life-sized cardboard image of President Bush in his office. Federal records show the firm does legal work for a host of political committees, most with Republican or business ties.

“It comes across as a power grab,” said Republican analyst Allan Hoffenblum, who predicted the proposal would likely fail in the Democratic-leaning state. Even Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger offered a lukewarm assessment of the idea.

Here’s Digby on the power grab.

They really couldn’t be more obvious.

I suspect this is as much mind fuck as anything, and perhaps a simple desire to force Democrats to spend money on something they don’t want to spend it on, but you cannot take that for granted. These people have no compunction about cheating. They’ve shown that. Look what it got us in 2000. And if they succeed again, the press will just laugh and giggle about haircuts and cleavage and tell everyone to get over it. Just like last time. And the time before. And the time before that.

This is about spending money, certainly, but I do think it could backfire by energizing California and national Democrats in a way that they are rarely energized about anything. If we build a broad-based movement around first fighting this dirty trick and then making them pay, they could rue the day they ever put this out. Courage Campaign is raising money to fight this at the grassroots level, with low-dollar, broad-based donations.  They’ve already raised $7,000 from over 250 contributors within less than 24 hours.  Let’s get to 1,000.

This is something that impacts everyone around the country.  A strong people-powered movement in California will resonate everywhere, and this can be the spark that will light that movement.  Let’s not let the type of tactics we saw with the Swifties predominate.  Let’s make these thieves pay.

UPDATE: It was a blogger, our own Frank Russo of the California Progress Report who exposed Bell, McAndrews and HIltachk’s involvement with the Swiftboaters.  If you want to see more digging like this, more people-powered exposure of these dirty tricksters, give to the Courage Campaign fund to stop this power grab in its tracks.

(Great personal story. Health care is such a pervasive issue in this country because the system is so broken. – promoted by David Dayen)

The Senate is expected to vote on a bill in the next few days that could give family child care providers a stronger voice for affordable, quality child care.

I became a family child care provider more than seven years ago because I saw how hard it was for parents to get child care, and I wanted to make a difference in my community. I wanted parents to be able to work their way out of poverty and support their families, and I wanted their children to get a better start on life. But for every child I have cared for, there are many more who aren’t getting the care they need. It’s getting harder and harder for parents to find and afford quality child care, while good providers are closing their doors because they can’t afford to stay in the profession.

Like the 90,000 other providers in California, I have no access to affordable health insurance though my work. After paying for educational materials, nutritious food, and other expenses for my child care, what’s left for my own family amounts to less than minimum wage.

We are often left unpaid for weeks of care we’ve provided to kids on the state’s child care assistance program, because of errors in paperwork or parent eligibility that are out of our control. For many providers, a loss like that means cutting corners to make ends meet. Sometimes, it means closing their doors altogether.

Providers in California have been working together to form a union, to make child care better for kids, more reliable for parents, and a better career for providers. But because we care for children in our own homes, rather than a child care center, we’re left out of labor laws and our voice isn’t heard.

Our bill, AB 1164, would give us the freedom to form our union and negotiate with the state to improve our profession. Please help us win our union and protect child care by asking your senator to vote yes.

Providers know what it takes to deliver affordable, quality child care. With a voice, we can stand up for the services kids and families need.

Rasiene Reece-Carter