Last Wednesday, Senator Sheila Kuehl, Chair of the Senate Health Committee, conducted the first COMPREHENSIVE hearing on the Governor/Nunez "health care reform" bill, ABX1 1. We must thank Senator Kuehl for shining daylight on this monstrously complex legislation that the Governor and Speaker call "health care reform." And, we must thank the state Legislative Analyst, Elizabeth Hill, and her staff for providing the Health Committee with an objective report on the fiscal problems with ABX1 1, a report that was devastating for the supporters of ABX1 1. (for further information go to: www.sen.ca.gov/kuehl) The Senate Health Committee will vote on Monday whether to pass ABX1 1 or not. If it passes the Senate Health Committee on Monday it will be sent to the floor of the Senate for a vote. This gives us 3 days to figure out how to stop the bill in the Health Committee or in the full Senate. We need your help. We urge you to do the following immediately: Contact (by phone, email, in person or all of the above) your Democratic Senator and urge them to vote "no" on ABX1 1. The sole Republican to contact, if you live in his district, is Abel Maldonado. Currently, all other Republican Senators have indicated that they will vote "no" on the floor of the Senate. 1) Call Members, Senate Health Committee Senator Sheila Kuehl (Chair) D- West LA/Valley (Author of SB 840/Speaker at SB 840 Rally in LA) Senator Samuel Aanestad (Vice Chair) R Senator Elaine Alquist D - Santa Clara phone: (408) 286-8318 Senator Gilbert Cedillo D - Central LA (Speaker at SB 840 Rally in LA) phone: (213) 612-9566 Senator Dave Cox R Senator Abel Maldonado R Phone: 805 549-3784 Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod D Montclair /San Bernadino Montclair phone: (909) 621-2783 San Bernardino (909) 381-3832 Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas D West/South LA phone: (213)745-6656 Senator Darrell Steinberg D Sacramento phone: (916) 651-4006 Senator Mark Wyland R Senator Leland Yee D SF/Penisula San Francisco phone:(415) 557-7857 San Mateo phone: (650) 340-8840 If you're not sure who your local Senator is, you can use this link to find out who represents your zip code. 2) Email Send an email to your CA Senator to voice your strong opposition to ABX 1 1 Contact, contact, contact. We must stop this attempt to expand the private insurance market. Instead, we must work for true health care reform, SB 840, a "health care reform" plan that eliminates the private insurance industry and guarantees affordable health care for all Californians. Here's the background: When the Governor/Nunez "health care reform" bill, ABX1 1, is scrutinized some horrible facts emerge. It is not better than the status quo. Instead, ABX 1 1 would "mandate" that nearly 4 million low income Californians would have to purchase health insurance policies, thus, expanding the number of customers that the private insurance industry can rip off. But these policies would be worthless because Californians would not be able to afford using their policies. Besides having to pay approximately $250 per month premiums, if policy holders use their insurance policy they will be hit with yearly high deductibles that will render the policies useless. The yearly deductibles will be at least $5,000 or $7,500 or higher! A person making $40,000 or $50,000 per year doesn't have a spare $5,000, $7,500 or whatever the deductible becomes, to spend on their health care before their policy kicks in? And, on top of the deductible payment there will be "co-pays", an additional financial burden for Californians who are "mandated" to purchase these health policies. By "mandate" the Governor means that the state can garnish wages to collect the premium payments! The Governor says that if a mandated policy is too expensive, a person can petition to opt out of the mandate. If a person opts of the state mandate they opt out to, yes, you guessed it, no coverage! They are returned to being uninsured. Millions of Californians will have to make a choice: pay for a health policy that is too expensive to use or petition the State of California to "opt out" and become uninsured. This is not health care reform. This is forced payment to the private insurance industry to purchase fool's gold. That's not all. The Legislative Analyst concluded that reasonable projections of expenditures for the ABX1 1 plan would outstrip revenues within 5 years. The plan goes bankrupt rather quickly. It is important to note that the Legislative Analyst testified that she did not project a "worst case" scenario in her report. Imagine if economic times became rough; could happen; no? In short, the ABX1 1 plan is too costly for poor people to use and it will go bankrupt. As long as the insurance industry is part of the Governor/Nunez "health care reform," failure to solve the health care crisis is guaranteed.//