Nunez Health Reform Bill Establishes Mandatory Purchase Without Linking to Subsidies for Middle Clas...(adequate overall number of choices but c...),Health

Date:11/13/2007

adequate overall number of choices, but consumers are allowed to raise their coverage by only one level, once a year. This stranglehold on choice appears to be aimed at propping up low-benefit plans that people will not want to buy if they could afford better.

FTCR LETTER TO NUNEZ Monday, November 12, 2007

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez State Capitol Sacramento, CA 95816

RE: AB 1 X 1 - OPPOSE

We have reviewed your bill and it fails on the key indicators of universal coverage. Health care is not guaranteed to be affordable, not guaranteed to be available, and choices for consumers are reduced, not increased.

We realize that you are running out of time in the special session, and special interests are pushing you to deliver on their demands. Health care is too important, and the risk of making things worse in the ensuing haste is too great, to put getting it done ahead of getting it right.

We have identified several key areas in the bill that are either drafting errors driven by speed, or deliberate gaps in promised protections. These include:

-- Affordability -- where is 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. Where is it?

-- 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 with minimal state funding, a betrayal of your affordability promise.

-- Guaranteed issue -- but no real guarantee? Your bill calls for guaranteed issue of private insurance to all comers. Yet Mr. Dymally's AB1X3 appears to allow insurers the option of refusing to offer coverage to whomever they choose. It seems likely that you anticipate joinin
'/>"/>

SOURCE Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights Copyright©2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

0 GOOD

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Related medicine news :

1. The 7 Key Questions About the Schwarzenegger/Nunez Health Care Compromise
2. Hospitals Agree to Pay Fees in Exchange for More Income, but Consumers in the Dark About What Theyll be Charged Under Nunez Plan
3. Nunez and Legislators Urged to Oppose Mandatory Purchase of Private Health Insurance
4. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Nunez/Perata Health Plan
5. Penn study finds pro-death proteins required to regulate healthy immune function
6. UCLA researchers identify markers that may predict diabetes in still-healthy people
7. Air pollution linked to cardiovascular risk indices in healthy young adults
8. More proof needed of safety and quality of electronic personal health records
9. Health care incentive model offers collaborative approach
10. Loneliness is bad for your health
11. Mailman School of Public Health study examines link between racial discrimination and substance use