Labor & Medical Industry Give 56% of Prop 93 $$ to Win Concessions in Health Care L...( Nunez Deal Would Force Consumers ...),Health

Nunez Deal Would Force Consumers to Buy Health Insurance With No Limit on Price or Promise of Meaningful Benefits

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Labor unions, hospitals and doctors, health insurers and the drug industry have contributed $3.8 million to Proposition 93, the measure to extend legislative term limits, as they sought and received special benefits in Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez's health care legislation, AB 1x, according to an analysis released today by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR).

Groups with a stake in the health care debate gave 56% of the $5.9 million contributed to Prop 93 to date. View the analysis at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/prop93chart.pdf

"The Speaker has turned the legislature's most pressing work into an ATM for the Prop 93 effort," said Jamie Court, president of FTCR. "A vote to force a family of two making $54,000 per year to pay whatever health insurers want to charge is an outrageous gift to the medical-insurance complex that can only be explained by the potential for even bigger contributions to keep politicians in office longer."

AB 1x now requires families of moderate income to buy expensive health insurance policies without a limit on their price or a requirement that insurers offer meaningful benefits. The bill would force families making $82,600 per year to buy a health insurance policy whose average cost is $12,000 per year - with no limit on premiums that can be charged by the insurance industry. The policies likely to predominate will be high-deductible, low-benefit coverage.

"There are few votes in a legislative career that will forever stain it. Today's is one," wrote FTCR in a floor alert to members of the Assembly this morning. Read FTCR's floor alert at: