Columnist: Legislative Action on Health Care Is Complex

Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters writes that health care "is now California's largest single economic activity, and government regulation and financing are key factors, thereby spawning heavy political activity." However, health care also is "a matter of life and death and as individual as a fingerprint, which convolute its politics even more," he adds. Walters cites two pieces of legislation that help "illustrate the complications." One bill (SB 791) would require health care providers to inform women with high-density breast tissue about the limitations of mammograms to detect cancerous tumors, while another bill (SB 946) would require health plans to cover a certain autism therapy.

• "Dan Walters: California's Health Care Politics Are Convoluted" (Walters, Sacramento Bee, 9/13).