Nunez Health Reform Bill Establishes Mandatory Purchase Without Linking to Subsidies for Middle Clas...(e. The tax credit that Nunez promised wo...),Health

The special session bill, AB 1X1, is a false promise unless it states clearly that the individual mandate will not go into effect unless the ballot measure providing funding is passed, said FTCR. Even low-income families will not get the subsidized coverage they are promised if the insurance industry mounts a multimillion-dollar campaign to defeat a ballot initiative containing the bill's funding.

"The current compromise bill is so sloppy and lacking in key information that a Legislature under pressure just to do something risks a disastrous mistake," said Jerry Flanagan, health policy director of FTCR. "At this point, lawmakers should take the strong first step of insuring more children, and leave the rest of this dangerously hasty plan for next year."

FTCR's analysis of the bill found numerous significant errors and omissions:

-- Affordability --- no middle-class tax credit. It was widely reported that middle-income individuals forced to buy coverage would receive a tax credit for the portion of premium costs that exceed 5% of their incomes, but the provision of that tax credit appears to be missing from the new bill.

-- Affordability -- Funding contingency. If a middle-class tax credit is to be left to an ensuing ballot measure, and the ballot measure does not pass, it appears the individual mandate could still be put into effect.

-- Guaranteed issue -- but no real guarantee? AB 1X1 calls for guaranteed issue of private insurance to all comers. Yet a related bill, Assemblyman Dymally's AB1X3, appears to allow insurers the option of refusing to offer coverage to whomever they choose. AB 1X3 was reportedly pulled from the schedule for Wednesday's hearing late Tuesday night, but this section of Dymally's measure, or similar exclusions in Nunez's AB
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