Seneca Doane has a great post on Daily Kos from a few days ago about AB52
On Wednesday I wrote, in a diary entitled “CA Health Insurers will win tomorrow” (and then continued in its text “or not — if we can stop them”), about AB-52, the bill that would allow the Insurance Commissioner — currently Dave Jones, the driving force behind the bill — to regulate health insurance premium increases in the same way that he now does automobile and properly/casualty insurance.
I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that the bill passed the Assembly yesterday.
More good news is that only one Democrat voted “no.”
The bad news is that no Republicans voted “no” on the floor.
I’ll advise you to go back to the dKos diary for the intricacies of the vote, but one important note here is that once again the Calderons are being an obstacle to progress.
The bill would allow the Insurance Commissioner to have some real authority over health care premiums for the first time by requiring a reasonableness and actuarial review before an increase could go forward. This seems like a kind of “duh” idea, but it has taken quite a while to move forward. Dave Jones, the current commissioner tried getting this bill passed while in the assembly several times without any real success. It shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise that the insurance lobby has a bit of clout in Sacramento.
And surprise surprise, Charles Calderon and another one of the usual suspects, Asm. Jose Solorio, abstained from the vote along with many Republicans. After attempting to force Asm. Feuer to water down the bill in committee, apparently he just couldn’t bring himself to support even this simplest of regulation on an industry that is clearly out of control.
The bill did pass the assembly, and is headed for the Senate. Lois Wolk, who voted against the bill when Jones brought it forward, is on the committee that will review the bill. You may want to contact her or the other Senators on the Committee, especially if you are in their districts. Full list over the flip.
There’s one other very interesting thing that Charles Calderon did in the end, but I’ll leave that as a surprise for people who want to click through to the diary.
Do any other State Senators besides Wolk have an Assembly voting record on the previous Dave Jones bills? Ron Calderon is one obvious vote to worry about. I had someone tell me the other day that we shouldn’t worry about Lou Correa’s vote on AB-52 because he’s married to a doctor. I decided against expanding that conversation.
i need to go bug her.
Clicked on the link in the post and got a bunch of papers, agenda items, etc. Didn’t see a committee list. Can you post? Thanks, Chris
I read Seneca’s whole post and I thank him/her for so much comprehensive info. One point about Solorio: he’s termed out in 2012 but if the Senate district in which he lives gets an odd number, I think he could run for it in 2012 rather than waiting for 2014.
i think the insurance commissioner has enough data to see what costs are etc. i think a good plan is for the commissioner to mandate that all insurers offer a basic, high deductible plan that is peg to $120 a month (10% of minimum wage). Thats around the cost of cable and should be attractive to students etc that don’t get insurance.
The other idea I wish wasnt killed was tat you can go to home depot or whereever and buy into their insurance plans right off the shelf. I’m annoyed that insurance companies are
1) protected from anti-trust legislation (what the hell for? because thats how insurance works with large pools of people?)
2) do not face normal competition since the bulk of their customers of capitve audiences through the workplace.
I see geico and progressive duke it out over prices every night on TV but never do health insurance companies compete for prices