Note: The following is a response, written by Jeanine Meyer Rodriguez of SEIU’s California State Council, to Sen. Shiela Kuehl’s 7th essay on healthcare reform posted on the California Progress Report titled “The Speaker’s and Governor’s Healthcare Bill: Part of a Series of Essays by Sheila Kuehl.” I work for It’s Our Healthcare, which is a coalition that includes SEIU.  However this response should not be taken to be representative of any other member of the IOH coalition or the coalition as a whole.  This is SEIU’s position.

Senator Kuehl’s essay is full of criticism but makes no mention of a politically viable solution.  Single payer is not going to happen just because it is good policy: we need a strategy for winning. But single payer can evolve if we start with the right framework and keep working on it.  In the meantime, millions of people without adequate health insurance go without care when they are sick and some die because of it.

Medicare and Social Security are not perfect programs but they are better today than when they were created. AB1x is not a perfect bill but it is far better than the status quo today-and we can make it even better over time.

On the substance, there are lots of problems with how the Senator characterizes the bill.  I’d like to highlight just a couple of the main points.

[More on the flip]

“Provisions of the bill actually harmful to regular, working and middle-class families…”

* The status quo is harmful to regular, working and middle-class families as our healthcare rapidly deteriorates. There are protections in the bill to ensure that the mandate is not “harmful” to working and middle-class families.

* For the first time ever sets a standard for health benefits on the job: today employers can and do drop coverage. Just as the minimum wage sets a standard for wages that helps working families, so will setting a standard for health benefits on the job.

“nothing is provided.”

* Public program coverage is provided to millions of Californians, including 800,000 children and over 2 million adults. Many others would be provided subsidies to get coverage.

“no regulation of the cost of insurance or medical expense, no maximum deductibles, and no floor on how little coverage you can buy…”

* An estimated 3-4 million people would get coverage through a statewide purchasing pool-twice the size of CALPERS–which would be able to negotiate for the best possible price.

* Now, for the first time, this bill gives a state regulator authority to set maximum deductibles and a floor on benefits that insurers can’t go below.  Junk coverage is sold right now and hundreds of thousands of people find only when it is too late that they bought junk.

The Senator’s comments about SEIU are offensive and just plain wrong.  We have been focused on healthcare reform for many years now and have been working hard to make real progress.  SEIU’s change in leadership of the State Council did not change our position on healthcare reform. If we are salivating at anything, it is at the prospect of getting health coverage for 70%-80% of the uninsured.

SEIU locals in California have remained united all year in support of our principles for healthcare reform and we continue to stand together.  We are fighting for our members’ interests and for their families too.  Our families want what all Californians want–affordable, real healthcare when we need it.

It’s time to come together to make something work because the status quo is not acceptable and we can’t afford to wait any longer.

To everybody who said that Arnold Schwarzenegger is no George W Bush, here’s a nice similarity.  They both believe in preemption.  Sure, sure, W’s involve $400 trillion mistakes that kill hundreds of thousands of people and Arnold’s are well, legislative.  But, Arnold has ripped a page out of W’s foreign policy notebook and applied it right here in California.  Yup, Arnold is fighting progressive legislation in the legislature before it comes to him.  You know, you don’t want progressive values following you home, and making you all empathetic, and feeling a tenderness towards your fellow human being. Fight them over there so they don’t come here, right Arnold.  Hey, Maria, what’s going on in your house?

Well, Schwarzenegger has so far announced that he will be vetoing Mark Leno’s marriage equality bill, will be against term limits without Prop 77 Redux, and will veto Shiela Kuehl’s single payer bill.  Last year, Arnold announced, before passage, that he was going to veto Kuehl’s curriculum bill.  Pretty soon, we’ll see the next Arnold action figure just saying “no, I veto that!” Or maybe “Hasta La vista,legislación.” over and over. 

But hey, maybe Ellen Tauscher can give him lessons on caving.  She certainly knows a few things about caving from her experience with the bankruptcy bill.

( – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

The last few weeks have been crazy here in San Francisco and at Calitics. Sex scandals, flame wars, yada, yada.  So, let’s take a breather to talk about a few bills that are pending in the Legislature as we speak.  After all, this is really what this blog is here for: getting good legislators to write good progressive legislation.  I selected these legislators from a somewhat casual look at legistlation, but I wanted to highlight some of what is going on in the Legislature these days. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at what some of our legislators are working on

In Today’s LA Times, George Skelton goes after Arnold Schwarzenegger the tax/fee issue.  SO, before we start, definition wise, here’s what I think the distinction to be.  A fee is charged specific users of specific services that the state provides.  Taxes are just general charges that are not tied to specific services.  Tax increases, under Prop 13, are required to have asupermajority.  Fees can pass with a simple majority (and, of course, a gubernatorial signature).

So, remember how Arnold made lots of “no new taxes” pledges? Well, it turns out that if you call it a fee, they are exempted too.  Yay!!

One of the pleasures of writing a Sacramento column is that politicians read it and occasionally change their minds. I’m thinking that must be what happened to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on taxes.

First, he apparently has bought into my oft-written contention that taxes, as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, “are what we pay for a civilized society.” In order to enhance the quality of life in an increasingly congested state, taxes sometimes have to be raised.

Schwarzenegger, who previously preached the no-tax gospel, seems to have converted. Why else would he have proposed to sock doctors and hospitals with a new tax to help pay for universal healthcare in California? The docs would pay the state 2% of their receipts and the hospitals 4%, raising an estimated $3.5 billion.(LAT 1/15/07)

Follow me over the flip.

So Arnold decides that taxes are ok now?  Funny thing, Skelton notes, because these same fees that he is proposing are the same ones that Arnold’s campaign cited as a very large chunk of the “massive $18Billion Angelides Tax increases”.

Last year, when Angelides suggested a similar “play or pay” concept – requiring employers to either provide the coverage or pay the state to do it – Schwarzenegger smeared him as a liberal taxer. An absurdly high $7-billion price tag was placed on Angelides’ idea – now essentially Schwarzenegger’s – and that became the biggest piece of the Democrat’s “$18-billion tax increase.”

Angelides’ taxes “would drive California’s economy backward,” the governor repeatedly charged.

The $7-billion and $18-billion figures were distortions shamelessly crafted by Schwarzenegger’s hired-gun political gurus. They quickly left the state after his reelection, scattering to various presidential campaigns.

But they left behind mounds of balderdash for Schwarzenegger to gingerly step through – on top of his own demagogic campaign rhetoric.

Well, actually, I heard that Steve Schmidt is still in town, but I’m not one to quibble over details.  You know, I protested when Westly came up with that $10B, partially because a big chunk was these fees.  But Garry South kept feeding the ammunition to Arnold’s campaign, and off we went trying to come up with a solution.  We want health care, sure, but how do we resolve the fact that Arnold, in campaign mode, said a lot of ridiculous stuff, much of which he had no intention of honoring.

So, we play semantic games.  And I’m not even sure that even approaches my biggest concern for this plan.  My biggest concern: 4%.  4%? WTF? What kind of insurance can you possibly pay for with 4% of say, a $20K cashier at Wal-Mart or Safeway? I’m sorry, but $800 will buy jack squat on the open insurance market, even in a nice state sponsored group.  Safeway, Ralph’s, and perhaps even Wal-mart, likely pay more than 4% now. So what will this end up being? Yup, a big windfall for EVERY employer, with the good citizens of California left holding the bill.  I’m sorry, we don’t need that kind of plan.

So, I return you to what I think I will return to every time the health care issue comes up.  Shiela Kuehl.  SHe has reintroduced her single payer bill that was vetoed last year.  It is the most sensible, pragmatic, and effective plan on the table.  It’s likely the way we will have to get to eventually, even if we pass a form of Arnold’s plan.  Let’s just cut through all the crap and move on down to a real health care plan.  Mr. Schwarzenegger, I’m sure you could find Sen. Kuehl’s number.  Why don’t you give her a call?  You want to really be remembered as the governor who changed California? Sign Sen. Kuehl’s bill.

Dan Walters doesn’t dig on “mandating propaganda.” Alright then, well, I assume Mr. Walters was in an outrage when Sec 51204.5, which mandates the study of various ethnic groups, first became law and was studiously pursuing the revision of the entire law. I’m sure he was also up in arms about the provision of law which requires that, “No teacher shall give instruction nor shall a school district sponsor any activity that reflects adversely upon persons because of their race…”  Well, no you say?  He only began criticizing the law when Sheila Kuehl introduced legislation to include the LGBT community in its provisions?  Well, isn’t that convenient.

Sure, Dan will point out that he was livid, livid I tell you, about the Hindu American Foundation suing the state.  Back in April Dan summarized the case as: “Implicitly, the suit is telling state officials that the textbooks must be altered to reflect the Hindu American Foundation’s version of the ethnic group’s history – regardless of what that history may truly be.”

Well, let’s go look what remedy the complaint actually sought…an educated, balanced perspective rather than an ill-informed and biased one. Amongst other things, some of which are shall we say, a bit more propagandist, the complaint seeks a fair description of Hindu beliefs as Hindus beleive. (The exact language: “description of Hindu theology and its understanding of divinity be consistent with the understanding of practicing Hindus”) gasp!! These people want to descibe their religion accurately! How terrible that would be.

But the more intersting part of Walters’ argument regards Lloyd Levine’s AB 606.  After describing the provisions, Walters goes on to inform the reader of Levine’s thoughts. Wow, who knew the Bee had a columnist with ESP?!

Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Los Angeles, is carrying Assembly Bill 606, which has moved through the Assembly and the Senate Education Committee on party-line votes. Ostensibly, it would require school districts to be more proactive in preventing discrimination and harassment of those with non-heterosexual orientations, building on a 1999 Kuehl-written law that made such discrimination and harassment illegal.

A few passages in the bill, however, are generating political heat from conservative “pro-family” groups. One would give the state schools superintendent enforcement powers, including the ability to withhold state funds for any school district deemed to be insufficiently diligent, and suggests that classroom instruction would be a factor. Another provision, just eight words long, would repeal a provision of Kuehl’s 1999 legislation, added to gain its enactment, that exempted curriculum from scrutiny in harassment and discrimination allegations.

Together, those sections of the Levine bill, opponents say, are a backdoor way of requiring pro-gay instruction similar to what Kuehl’s current bill mandates. They’re calling on Schwarzenegger to reject it as well. The criticism about the bill’s true intent is probably accurate.

Treating all people, regardless of sexual orientation, with absolute equality is one thing. In seeking such equality in marriages and other fields, gay rights advocates, it could be said, are occupying the moral high ground. There’s nothing moral about legally mandating propaganda of any kind in the classroom.  (SacBee 7/14/06)

Levine’s AB 606 seeks to deter “discrimination and harassment.”  The 1999 bill excepted the curriculum.  Why? Well, ask the Right.  But why should we accept harassment and discrimination in the curriculum? AB 606 doesn’t request a whitewashing of say…the AIDS epidemic. It merely empowers the State Superintendent to ensure that students of California are receiving a fair curriculum, not propaganda.  AB 606 helps to ensure a hospitable environment for all of California’s students, and that’s a goal we all should share.